On Thursday, October 8, HCHSAA held a discussion regarding security concerns in relation to the upcoming presidential election. Our speakers, Joshua Geltzer ’01 and Ambassador Karen Kornbluh ’80, joined moderator Rachel Goldbrenner ’97 to examine concerns about the prevalence of political disinformation and its spread on social media, as well as the influence and activities of right wing extremist groups.
Among the topics brought up during the hour included the implementation of the 25th Amendment, the illegality of private militias, and the safety of mail in voting. Midway through the discussion, our Zoom presentation was zoom bombed by hackers. The Zoom bombers disrupted the flow of conversation for several minutes but were ultimately forced out of the meeting, and the event resumed without further incident. We have taken steps to review and tighten the security of all of our online events going forward to ensure that this interference does not reoccur. We appreciate the reassuring messages our speakers typed into the chat during the zoom bomb itself, and apologize again to the participants who were subjected to several minutes of vile hate speech.
