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I thought it was common knowledge that the USSR and Russia have a long and continuous history of engaging in disinformation campaigns and covert actions of all
by gwright 8y ago
I thought it was common knowledge that the USSR and Russia have a long and continuous history of engaging in disinformation campaigns and covert actions of all kinds. But based on the way the Russian election meddling story has been reported over the last 2+ years apparently I was wrong. Lots of people seem to have been surprised by these activities.
The most disturbing aspect of this ignorance is that apparently our own intelligence agencies were among the ignorant.
- TaylorAlexander 8y agoOur intelligence agencies are not ignorant of these things. They’re just pretending they are and we’ve believed it.
- javagram 8y agoWhat is the source for this? My understanding is the only one claiming the Intelligence agencies were unaware of Russian hacking and disinformation campaigns is the President, since he fears the legitimacy of his election is undermined by recognizing that Russian hackers/propagandists were leaking stolen emails to Wikileaks and posting memes on Facebook. The intelligence agency assessments themselves, as publicly reported, have consistently said there were Russian efforts to interfere with the election campaign.
- A2017U1 8y agoThe idea that this is contained to one election is laughable. This has been going on forever across the world. Wikipedia has an extensive article citing numerous academic studies on the matter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_electoral_intervention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_electoral_intervention > the country intervening in most foreign elections is the United States with 81 interventions, followed by Russia (including the former Soviet Union) with 36 interventions from 1946 to 2000
- micah94 8y agoOr one could read a book on the subject of spying (preferably one written and published before 9/11). I recommend "Inside the Aquarium" by Viktor Suvoruv.
- javagram 8y agoNot sure what this reply has to do with what I wrote? Of course the USA frequently interferes in foreign elections. We spy on other countries too. It’s normal for a country to spy and interfere in others, but not to like when others spy and interfere with them. Such is international politics.
- killjoywashere 8y agoWait, when did we find out that the intelligence community was ignorant? When they launched a formal investigation several months before the election? When, exactly, did the tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of full time employees in the IC collectively forget about Eastern bloc disinformation campaigns?
- gwright 8y agoMaybe "ignorant" was the wrong word choice. To the extent that they were aware why didn't they intervene? Shouldn't have all the campaigns been briefed/warned about Russian actions? Why was a special prosecutor required to investigate what they already knew?