6 ms·

This (complaining about the lack of evidence) just seems ludicrous to me. Does the FBI have a history of declassifying stuff like this so that randos on the in

by mundo 10y ago

This (complaining about the lack of evidence) just seems ludicrous to me. Does the FBI have a history of declassifying stuff like this so that randos on the internet can independently verify its conclusions? When high-level intelligence people collude to lie to the American people and discredit a president, do they usually do it via press release clearly written by a PIO? The accusation that people who find this credible are uncritical is unfounded and insulting. The question is not "would someone in a government agency lie for political reasons," it is "would this many people, in a bunch of different agencies that have a history of lying to and competing with and distrusting each other, all sign on to the same lie, publicly, even though it's almost certain to be disproven in a few months." Meanwhile, here's the alternative theory: 1. Some Russian intelligence agency hacked the DNC's email servers 2. They left behind evidence 3. The FBI/NSA//DHS/etc found that evidence 4. They classified it and aren't going to put it in a press release None of those are the least bit hard to believe, and they are collectively WAY easier to swallow than this hypothetical vast, high-level conspiracy to discredit Trump or whatever it's supposed to be for.

wyager 10y ago
The FBI has a history of political activism, to put it lightly. Here's a fun one: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI–King_suicide_letter https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI–King_suicide_letter You're being foolish if you trust a word the FBI says without solid evidence.
- mundo 10y ago
  I don't! Dammit, read the post! No one on god's green earth trusts the FBI at their word, but that doesn't mean you can assume the opposite of what they said is true without evidence!
  - steamer25 10y ago
    I suppose that depends on the expected reaction to either believing or not believing. In this case, from my perspective, I see two intended reactions to the claims of Russian subversion: 1) To delegitimize the President-elect 2) To foment war with Russia I didn't vote for the guy but I don't think he's near so bad as his political opponents try to paint him. I'd like to at least give him a chance and to whatever degree he turns out to suck, I'll still blame the Clinton campaign for promoting controlled opposition 'pied pipers' rather than promoting a robust debate in the interest of the American people. Wrt #2, I will certainly demand very strong evidence before yielding any resistance to that notion.
- wooter 10y ago
  Seriously. Clapper lied directly to congress under oath on TV. The whole "they know whats best for us and our only choice is blind faith" attitude is really disturbing.
  - mundo 10y ago
    > The whole "they know whats best for us and our only choice is blind faith" attitude is really disturbing. This is so, so insulting. There is no way a fair observer could read the comments here and conclude that the people who find Russia hacking the DNC credible do so because they have blind faith in Clapper or the FBI or anyone else.
    - mistermann 10y ago
      > There is no way any a fair observer could read the comments here and conclude that the people who find Russia hacking the DNC credible do so because they have blind faith in Clapper or the FBI or anyone else. Isn't that what you were more or less saying here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13281736 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13281736
      - mundo 10y ago
        No. I believe the official version (that the reason the intelligence agencies are accusing Russia of hacking the DNC is because believe it did) because the alternative is less plausible and there's no evidence for it. That's pure Occam's Razor, no faith involved. The FBI has lied and will lie again, getting me to believe they lied about something is not hard, but they don't generally do it in big, obvious ways that are easy to disprove and involve a lot of co-conspirators and don't accomplish anything.
        mistermann 10y ago
        I don't necessarily disagree, but a guilty charge shouldn't be based on the "most plausible" explanation.
        10y ago
CountSessine 10y ago
Except that this is a sort of exclusion of the middle; you say "here's the alternative theory", but there are other even more likely possibilities. Here's one: 1. The DNC and their members are generally ignorant of good security policy and had an easily hacked system. 2. Some Russian intelligence agency hacked the DNC's email servers. 3. A bunch of other people/hackers/groups hacked the DNC's email servers, as it was "left out in the open", so to speak, and was a trivial target.. 4. One group at least used trivial methods to do so and left behind evidence. 5. The FBI/NSA//DHS/etc found that evidence. 6. One of these hackers passed information to WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks has denied that it was Russians who did this. 7. The FBI/CIA claim that the Russians hacked the DNC servers. 8. The press and political opportunists jump to the conclusion that it was the Russians who released this information to Wikileaks. 9. The FBI/CIA classified what they found and aren't going to put it in a press release.
- mundo 10y ago
  Point 7 is the one you're supposed to be trying to explain. The FBI, CIA, DHS and NSA have all said, in plain language, no anonymous sources, just regular old press releases, that Russia hacked the DNC. The reasons they might say this are a) they believe it due to some evidence they are not releasing, and b) ???. Theory a) seems pretty believable, and I haven't heard a b) that sounds remotely plausible yet. Whether someone else also hacked the DNC would be interesting to know, but it doesn't really impinge on the question of whether there is or is not a vast-but-also-ham-handed-and-kind-of-contradictory conspiracy pushing theory a.
  - CountSessine 10y ago
    Point 7 is the one you're supposed to be trying to explain Except that point 7 isn't at all controversial. EVERYONE hacks EVERYONE ELSE in cyber-espionage; even Canada was probably hacking the lame-ass security DNC email server, if only to fill a dossier. Remember that Clinton was set to be the next president of the United States; it is very much in Russia's (and anyone else's) best interest to know as much about her and her team as they can learn. It's the job of American spooks to prevent this, and they completely fucked it up. Frankly, I find the suggestion that telling voters more about their candidate constitutes 'interference' to be repugnant; but assuming that we are going to engineer a scandal about this, we need to ask whether the Russians released that information to Wikileaks? All of the evidence (ie what Wikileaks says) says otherwise.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
rieter 10y ago
Do the intelligence agencies actually agree on this as unanimously as you're saying? Here's a quote from the testimony of James Clapper on Russia/Wikileaks connection: "The evidence there is not strong" https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4631568/clapper-wikileaks-connection https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4631568/clapper-wikileaks-con...
- mundo 10y ago
  That was from a month and a half ago. It seems more likely that he's changed his mind or seen new information than that the DHS and FBI are putting out joint press releases that contradict the beliefs of the DNI, but who knows, maybe the DHS/FBI leadership is involved in some kind of squabble with Clapper or something....?
Natsu 10y ago
You're assuming this is true and coming up with speculation. Meanwhile, we can look up the names of many of the reporters spreading these rumors and find that they coordinate with the DNC. Also, you think it's a conspiracy theory that the DNC would attack Trump? So... you don't seriously think that the RNC's media allies attacked Clinton? That's, uhh, just not how it works. The DNC has very good reasons to deflect this one. They funneled all the state-level money to Hillary and made their losses worse. They helped promote Trump and the other "pied piper" candidates in the media early on. Their token opponent, Sanders, got far more enthusiasm than Hillary and both candidates under-performed past ones, with Trump edging her out based on smaller losses and working the electoral college to his advantage--a failure reminiscent of how Obama beat Hillary by focusing on delegates. They have to pin the failure on someone else for their own survival. If the average voter saw the actual emails and realized just how much the DNC orchestrated just to shoot itself in the foot here, they'd demand their replacement.

by mundo 10y ago

wyager 10y ago

The FBI has a history of political activism, to put it lightly. Here's a fun one: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI–King_suicide_letter https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI–King_suicide_letter You're being foolish if you trust a word the FBI says without solid evidence.

mundo 10y ago
I don't! Dammit, read the post! No one on god's green earth trusts the FBI at their word, but that doesn't mean you can assume the opposite of what they said is true without evidence!
- steamer25 10y ago
  I suppose that depends on the expected reaction to either believing or not believing. In this case, from my perspective, I see two intended reactions to the claims of Russian subversion: 1) To delegitimize the President-elect 2) To foment war with Russia I didn't vote for the guy but I don't think he's near so bad as his political opponents try to paint him. I'd like to at least give him a chance and to whatever degree he turns out to suck, I'll still blame the Clinton campaign for promoting controlled opposition 'pied pipers' rather than promoting a robust debate in the interest of the American people. Wrt #2, I will certainly demand very strong evidence before yielding any resistance to that notion.
wooter 10y ago
Seriously. Clapper lied directly to congress under oath on TV. The whole "they know whats best for us and our only choice is blind faith" attitude is really disturbing.
- mundo 10y ago
  > The whole "they know whats best for us and our only choice is blind faith" attitude is really disturbing. This is so, so insulting. There is no way a fair observer could read the comments here and conclude that the people who find Russia hacking the DNC credible do so because they have blind faith in Clapper or the FBI or anyone else.
  - mistermann 10y ago
    > There is no way any a fair observer could read the comments here and conclude that the people who find Russia hacking the DNC credible do so because they have blind faith in Clapper or the FBI or anyone else. Isn't that what you were more or less saying here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13281736 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13281736
    - mundo 10y ago
      No. I believe the official version (that the reason the intelligence agencies are accusing Russia of hacking the DNC is because believe it did) because the alternative is less plausible and there's no evidence for it. That's pure Occam's Razor, no faith involved. The FBI has lied and will lie again, getting me to believe they lied about something is not hard, but they don't generally do it in big, obvious ways that are easy to disprove and involve a lot of co-conspirators and don't accomplish anything.
      - mistermann 10y ago
        I don't necessarily disagree, but a guilty charge shouldn't be based on the "most plausible" explanation.
      - 10y ago

CountSessine 10y ago

Except that this is a sort of exclusion of the middle; you say "here's the alternative theory", but there are other even more likely possibilities. Here's one: 1. The DNC and their members are generally ignorant of good security policy and had an easily hacked system. 2. Some Russian intelligence agency hacked the DNC's email servers. 3. A bunch of other people/hackers/groups hacked the DNC's email servers, as it was "left out in the open", so to speak, and was a trivial target.. 4. One group at least used trivial methods to do so and left behind evidence. 5. The FBI/NSA//DHS/etc found that evidence. 6. One of these hackers passed information to WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks has denied that it was Russians who did this. 7. The FBI/CIA claim that the Russians hacked the DNC servers. 8. The press and political opportunists jump to the conclusion that it was the Russians who released this information to Wikileaks. 9. The FBI/CIA classified what they found and aren't going to put it in a press release.

mundo 10y ago
Point 7 is the one you're supposed to be trying to explain. The FBI, CIA, DHS and NSA have all said, in plain language, no anonymous sources, just regular old press releases, that Russia hacked the DNC. The reasons they might say this are a) they believe it due to some evidence they are not releasing, and b) ???. Theory a) seems pretty believable, and I haven't heard a b) that sounds remotely plausible yet. Whether someone else also hacked the DNC would be interesting to know, but it doesn't really impinge on the question of whether there is or is not a vast-but-also-ham-handed-and-kind-of-contradictory conspiracy pushing theory a.
- CountSessine 10y ago
  Point 7 is the one you're supposed to be trying to explain Except that point 7 isn't at all controversial. EVERYONE hacks EVERYONE ELSE in cyber-espionage; even Canada was probably hacking the lame-ass security DNC email server, if only to fill a dossier. Remember that Clinton was set to be the next president of the United States; it is very much in Russia's (and anyone else's) best interest to know as much about her and her team as they can learn. It's the job of American spooks to prevent this, and they completely fucked it up. Frankly, I find the suggestion that telling voters more about their candidate constitutes 'interference' to be repugnant; but assuming that we are going to engineer a scandal about this, we need to ask whether the Russians released that information to Wikileaks? All of the evidence (ie what Wikileaks says) says otherwise.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

rieter 10y ago

Do the intelligence agencies actually agree on this as unanimously as you're saying? Here's a quote from the testimony of James Clapper on Russia/Wikileaks connection: "The evidence there is not strong" https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4631568/clapper-wikileaks-connection https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4631568/clapper-wikileaks-con...

mundo 10y ago
That was from a month and a half ago. It seems more likely that he's changed his mind or seen new information than that the DHS and FBI are putting out joint press releases that contradict the beliefs of the DNI, but who knows, maybe the DHS/FBI leadership is involved in some kind of squabble with Clapper or something....?

Natsu 10y ago

You're assuming this is true and coming up with speculation. Meanwhile, we can look up the names of many of the reporters spreading these rumors and find that they coordinate with the DNC. Also, you think it's a conspiracy theory that the DNC would attack Trump? So... you don't seriously think that the RNC's media allies attacked Clinton? That's, uhh, just not how it works. The DNC has very good reasons to deflect this one. They funneled all the state-level money to Hillary and made their losses worse. They helped promote Trump and the other "pied piper" candidates in the media early on. Their token opponent, Sanders, got far more enthusiasm than Hillary and both candidates under-performed past ones, with Trump edging her out based on smaller losses and working the electoral college to his advantage--a failure reminiscent of how Obama beat Hillary by focusing on delegates. They have to pin the failure on someone else for their own survival. If the average voter saw the actual emails and realized just how much the DNC orchestrated just to shoot itself in the foot here, they'd demand their replacement.