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Obama Strikes Back at Russia for Election Hacking
- vessenes 10y agoThis is an interesting internal play for US politicians as well -- it strikes me it's probably harder to remove sanctions and reinstate booted intelligence personnel than it is to choose not to act. I'm curious how the Trump presidency will approach this. Also in the news today is more strident messaging from Kerry about Israeli settlers -- I wonder if we'll have other moves from the Obama administration before end of term.
- dragonwriter 10y agoIt's technically no more difficult since they are executive actions dependent on determinations that the executive is free to make. It's perhaps politically costly, though, and even if that was equal, only one of the actors has to worry about maintaining political capital.
- vkazanov 10y agoSo, Clinton was corrupted, and somebody noticed it, and it is Russians who are to blame? Huh.
- timbuckley 10y agoThe non sequitur here is dizzying.
- etchalon 10y agoI think that's missing the point. Russia, a state-actor, coordinated an cyber-attack on an American political party. The results of that attack (which weren't particular interesting) are secondary to the attack itself. The Russians are "to blame" because they're the ones who committed the action.
- chroem- 10y ago>The results of that attack (which weren't particular interesting) are secondary to the attack itself One could argue that the documented effort to override public opinion in the primary election is quite interesting by itself. I suppose you could also claim that it's uninteresting, but that doesn't change the fact that it happened.
- etchalon 10y agoThat documentation does not exist. You could argue it is "hinted at" in the emails made public, but cannot argue it is documented or proven.
- chroem- 10y agoWell, it was apparently convincing enough for the former DNC chair to lose her job, and for the subsequent DNC chair to be fired from her position at CNN. If you choose to ignore what happened, then that's your own perogative.
- etchalon 10y agoFirst, the former DNC chairwoman was going to lose her job anyway. The DNC chair position alternates every four years. She was "fired" early to make peace with Sanders, who believed (correctly) that DWS favored Clinton. It was a move to give unity to the party, and possibly to get Sanders endorsement. It's hard to say for certain what would have happened if they hadn't. Donna Brazile forwarded a single question to Podesto. The optics looked bad, but, as the email chain showed, it was a question they already had an answer to. Believing this "proves!" anything is ignoring the facts.
- ZenoArrow 10y agoDo you believe the DNC tried to slow down the momentum of Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries?
- naturally2014 10y ago1) I'm not sure the corruption to which you're referring. Does it exist? Probably not. 2) I can't help but notice all your posts sympathize with Russia. You literally don't comment otherwise.
- vkazanov 10y ago1) I think you know what I mean. If everything was all right, and there was nothing to hide - how could anybody influence anything? 2) That's probably because I am an ethnic Russian on a mostly American site.
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- empath75 10y agoWhat do you think would have been in RNC and Trump emails if they had been released? I'm sure they'd all have been talking about puppies and unicorns.
- tracker1 10y agoTBH, I'd just assume see more stuff come to light... however, in this case, the Russians didn't want Clinton in office (for whatever reasosn) and allowed, encouraged or outright paid for as much negative information as possible to come to light... the timing was a bit odd though, as it's likely this could have happened during the primaries and brought in a Sanders win. The Obama (big D) administration doesn't like the outcome, or interference, so are stepping in now that they have some evidence of the origins of said attacks. Of course they didn't step in when it was one of several large corporations which have heavy economic ties with the US... Boeing, Google, Yahoo, Amazon, etc... but hey, they messed with their political party and the elections this time. I'm a bit cynical about the whole thing to be honest. If the news media had done their job instead of pumping Trump's visibility we wouldn't have had to worry about Hillary or Trump being their respective party's nominees in the first place.
- dv_dt 10y agoThe closer we come to the end of the Obama Administration, the more disappointed I have become (and this after having voted for him twice).
- legohead 10y agoAre you upset that he is accusing Russia of cyberattacks, or that he's doing something about it?
- vetinari 10y agoA good start would be to provide some evidence. For now, it's the same 'trust us, the Iraqis have WMDs' again.
- empath75 10y agoThat report is due in january.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- dv_dt 10y agoI am disappointed that as a nation our intelligence and security agencies keep trying to undercut good security practices by asking for backdoor spying exceptions on it's own citizens, and when 'security' is breached for people in the ruling class - only then is action taken, but only then as a big flag-waving saber-rattling distraction instead of any sort of fundamental addressing of the flaws in national security strategy.
- cglouch 10y agoMaybe I'm splitting hairs here, but it does bother anyone that the NYT title calls it "election hacking"? To me that sort of slyly suggests that the actual election / voting process was hacked, which as far as I know did not happen. Perhaps "election-related hacking" would be more accurate. I don't mean to say the DNC and other such hacks weren't a big deal, but I worry that people who just read titles are getting the wrong impression.
- serf 10y agoNYT is a media outlet that requires additional personal scrutiny, espescially with regards to any active U.S. government talking points. I'm not the biggest Chomsky fan, but I feel a lot of his opinion about NYT [0] are probably right on. [0]: http://www.salon.com/2015/05/25/noam_chomsky_the_new_york_times_is_pure_proganda_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2015/05/25/noam_chomsky_the_new_york_ti...
- colordrops 10y agoYou don't need to read Chomsky to have seen the numerous and obvious slanted articles and puff pieces that the NY Times has published over the years. The fact that all these media outlets even explicitly endorse candidates is crazy and the antithesis of ethical journalism.
- dmoy 10y agoSimilar to that Chomsky criticism is Robert Fisk's constant railing on LA Times (and others') constant use of "US government sources say". Anything that comes after such a phrase needs to be taken with a giant grain of salt.
- rqebmm 10y agoRight. Decrying the NYT for peddling government lies is the definition of shooting the messenger. We have to think critically about all our sources of information, whether it's the NYT, Fox, RT, Breitbart, or our facebook friends.
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- toehead2000 10y agoSo is this how US politics will be from now on? Every president spends their lame duck period doing everything possible to sabotage the next guy (if they're the other party)? I seem to recall GWB having a bit more decorum than Obama here but maybe I'm wrong. Is the political climate really more poisonous than ever or does it just seem that way?
- buckbova 10y agoSome people have no class. Remember this? http://articles.latimes.com/2002/jun/12/nation/na-clinton12 http://articles.latimes.com/2002/jun/12/nation/na-clinton12 "The GAO concluded that ''damage, theft, vandalism, and pranks did occur in the White House during the 2001 presidential transition.'' The report stated that some incidents, such as removing keyboard keys, placing glue on desk drawers and leaving obscene voicemail messages ''clearly were intentional,'' and intentional damage would constitute a criminal act under federal law. No prosecutions are planned, though."
- hehheh 10y agoUnless I'm mistaken GWB didn't have to deal with a foreign government interfering with our elections. Besides, this sort of thing will only be relevant a few times in the President's career and the odds are pretty good that if it were to happen it would happen in their "lame duck" phase. So what?
- toehead2000 10y agoWell there's this and the UN Israel resolution, both of which are things Trump would have been unlikely to do. Then there's the raft of executive orders..
- heurist 10y agoIt's almost like Trump's win was entirely unexpected and the outgoing administration is playing catch-up on things they thought Clinton would take care of...
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- mattbgates 10y agoDemocrats and Republicans. Republicans and Democrats. It will never work.
- finid 10y agoSo 35 Russian diplomats have been given 72 hours to leave the country, and 2 of their properties will be closed - one in DC and the other in San Francisco. Well, if history is any guide, expect Russia to return the favor. Question is, how long will they wait before announcing that 35 American diplomats have 72 hours to leave Russia?
- chokolad 10y ago> Question is, how long will they wait before announcing that 35 American diplomats have 72 hours to leave Russia? I've read somewhere that it will happen on Dec 30.
- chokolad 10y agoCan anyone explain why this reasonably benign statement was downvoted ?
- golergka 10y agoWhy would americans bother with such big diplomatic presence in Russia to begin with?
- cmdrfred 10y agoThey are the 2nd most powerful military in the world by some accounts and have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the planet, I think that justifies 35 full time employees. Do you have something better for them to do? http://www.businessinsider.com/11-most-powerful-militaries-in-the-world-2014-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/11-most-powerful-militaries-i...
- golergka 10y agoOh please. So far Russian military have proved to be marginally better than Georgia and on par with Ukraine. Speaking as someone with a lot of friends and acquaintances working in Russian military industry, it's much more talented in building potemkin villages and giving an impression of power than doing anything real. Everything, from tech to mentality of the military is rotten and just painted over.
- cornchips 10y agoGuccifer2 is not in the report as an alias?? Hmm...
- usaphp 10y agoSome interesting articles on 1996 Boris Eltsin election, where Americans claimed their role in his win: 1 - http://articles.latimes.com/1996-07-09/news/mn-22423_1_boris-yeltsin http://articles.latimes.com/1996-07-09/news/mn-22423_1_boris... 2- http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/printout/0,8816,984833,00.html http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/printout/0,8816,9848...
- rqebmm 10y agoAmerican political consultants != American intelligence agencies. When Trump retained a campaign manager with ties to Russian officials[0], it was a minor scandal, not something requiring over government response. [0] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/15/us/politics/paul-manafort-ukraine-donald-trump.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/15/us/politics/paul-manafort-...
- dogma1138 10y agoOh please the US buys and poisons elections world wide including those of allies. This is a very common thing to do this is what the diplomatic and intelligence services of most nations do all the time.
- usaphp 10y agoAmerican intelligence agencies were definitely involved in Russian election in 1996. Also the link you posted shows the campaign manager connection to Yanukovich - since when is ex-president of Ukraine considered as "Russian officials"? Do you call ex-president of Canada or France - US Officials too?
- swalsh 10y agoI hope that some day in the future we learn the truth about this year. Some people believe that the leaks were a few rogue CIA members, others blame a dude in eastern Europe, and of course Russia. I have no idea what the truth is, but I think under the covers there's some interesting drama.
- joshuas 10y agoThe Russians hacked the election in the same way that the Ashley Madison hackers hacked all those marriages.
- UweSchmidt 10y agoTrue or not, the idea that Russia could have hacked the US elections is pretty wild, and the way this is nonchalantly discussed, and met with the mild diplomatic gesture of dismissing some diplomats is a little surprising to me. Is it because I have grown up during the end of the cold war? But what would Nixon or Reagan have done in this situation? Messing with a country's political system like that sounds extremely hostile to me and warrants massive investigations, reorganizations and review of the entire voting process to restore trust. Thoughts?
- buffasden 10y agoIt's because there's no proof that Russia did any of this and what was done wasn't "hacking the election". It was a leak of factual information. I think a lot of people (myself included) were happy to have the information made public. I'd also be happy if such details about the RNC were made public, but they weren't. I see this more as whistleblowing than anything else and I definitely wouldn't qualify it as "hacking" especially not of "the election".
- rqebmm 10y ago1) The Obama administration has said that retaliation will be in some part covert, so there's strong reasons to believe the publicized reaction is only the tip of the iceberg 2) If Russia hacked US elections in a material way (i.e. stuffing electronic ballots), we probably wouldn't know anyway. President Trump is much better for the United States than acknowledging that Russia can elect whoever they want.
- chipperyman573 10y agoWhat do you mean by the second point? I am confused about >President Trump is much better for the United States than acknowledging that Russia can elect whoever they want.
- rqebmm 10y agoLet's say Obama has airtight proof that Putin single-handedly elected Trump. What would be more damaging to the US: publicly admitting that foreign states have control of our elections (which could very reasonably start a large-scale revolt), or allowing it to happen while secrectly taking actions to prevent that from happening again?
- mtimjones 10y agoDemocrats want a war with Russia, and they just might get it.
- w8rbt 10y agoWhy does no one cite the original private email server that was poorly secured and ran by the Clintons as part of this?
- rqebmm 10y agoBecause it's been covered extensively and is unrelated to the leaked DNC, DCCC, and Podesta emails that arose at the end of the election season?
- w8rbt 10y agoIt may have been the origin of all of this. They setup a private email server that was insecure and poorly managed so that they would not be subject to FOIA, etc. It contained top-secret emails. No one disputes that. Why could that not have been the catalyst to hacking the DNC? You've got all these important DNC folks sending her emails that reside on that server... right?
- aplomb 10y agoRegardless of political views, it has been disheartening to see so many organizations and leaders throw tantrums on the public stage - it deligitimizes authority and erodes trust.
- peter_retief 10y agoUnprecedented churlish behaviour from the Dems. I for one look forward to having them out of power