Has the NSA ever offered evidence for these allegations? The WSJ article linked says "this action originated from servers operated by a Russian company". That's rather weak evidence to offer up.
Further, why is there no backlash against the DNC or the government themselves for failing to secure their systems.
This entire election cycle just seems like everyone has been acting irrationally.
What evidence would you accept? Short of an admission of guilt signed using the SVR's public key, everything will be circumstantial. And if the NSA has any assets that can give a more direct confirmation, do you really want the NSA to give them up just so that the people who disbelieve the NSA can say "well they're lying anyway"?
As it stands, the public evidence I've seen is
1) The attacks originating from servers owned by Russian companies
2) Pseudo-admission/gloating by low-level officials
3) Wikileaks and Assange's increasingly close relationship with Russia
4) The behavior of the Trump campaign, taking an exceptionally pro-Russian tack. Indeed, the only change they demanded be made to the Republican platform was to take out some anti-Russian commitments.
True, this is all circumstantial. The NSA certainly has more. If the NSA released it, the people who disbelieve the NSA would rightly point out that any really hard evidence could have been planted by the NSA anyway, so it can't be taken as certain that the NSA didn't plant it.
So why should the NSA sacrifice any assets to satisfy them?
> Has the NSA ever offered evidence for these allegations?
I'm not sure why it would matter. The perception of the world and a relative place in it, affects voting. That's inherent. China warned against electing Trump, early on, iirc. That's not an issue because it was anti-trump. Transparent political attacks against an ideology, is not news.
If the DNC & the Clinton campaign weren't so dirty, the leaks wouldn't have made a difference. Sure, the messenger had an agenda, but they're still just a messenger.
I certainly agree with you to a certain extent, but if we're honest there were just as many things to leak about Trump if they had wanted to do so. If you smear one side to put the other side in power and undermine American democracy on the world stage, then you are influencing the election for the benefit of other countries.
> If the DNC & the Clinton campaign weren't so dirty ...
I don't think they were dirty, and the fact that even their private emails didn't reveal anything serious is a strong indicator. I think Trump is much dirtier, for example.
Also, we assume the emails were authentic, as if Russian intelligence wouldn't conduct a sophisticated disinformation campaign.
I don't understand this critique. Though "influence election" sounds ominous, in this case it really refers to "influencing" voters by revealing true things, does it not?
One can argue that the means of obtaining the information (hacking) is relevant, but I'm not sure if that's something I'd accept without examination.
Something can be true and be misrepresented at the same time.
For example, the DNC email leaks showed that the DNC was working with Clinton. However, when those emails were sent, it was mathematically impossible for Sanders to overtake Clinton when only counting primary/caucus-assigned delegates (not counting super-delegates at all). The emails were in response to Sanders (mostly his supporters) pushing super-delegates to change their pledged vote.
The emails were accurate, in that they showed the DNC supporting Clinton directly. But they were from a time where Clinton had just become the presumptive nominee, and it is reasonable to expect the party to offer support to the presumptive nominee in preparation for the general election. They were misrepresented as showing the DNC supporting Clinton while Sanders was still a viable candidate with a reasonable chance of winning the nomination.
I say all of this as a disappointed Sanders supporter who knew that he was running a tough race in a party he had just joined without much support from the party's rank-and-file members.
The irony is that NSA's mandate stems from the same problem of revealing true things by unorthodox methods: it often takes a dirty and ugly tool to perform the tasks necessary to obtain information of interest to national security.
Speaking of dirty tools, it's disheartening that the NSA was adept at gathering data from randos, but not at following Putin's plans.
It is in the interest of every state to discredit Wikileaks, hence Russia "letting slip," they were behind the DNC leaks right after the election.
The intelligence community doesn't get an opinion. Arguably, any comment from them about domestic elections only reduces the legitimacy of their mandate.
For those that downvoted the parent, the NSA denied doing many of the activities that Snowden exposed. The US misled the public building their case to invade Iraq. Just two recent examples of where the government lied for their own interests. So, I think the OP makes a fair point.
Further, the gov. hasn't exactly offered substantial evidence to show that it was Russian government as opposed to hackers working alone. Maybe they don't need to provide the general public with all the details, but showing the evidence to a third party would go a long way to building trust.
What evidence exists to suggest that this was a deliberate attempt by Russia to influence the results of the US election in a way that would benefit them?
It was clearly intended to weaken Clinton's public standing whether or not she was elected; it's also arguable that it wasn't really designed to be hard to trace, so it may well have been designed to do the same thing to Trump.
The timeline suggests that Wikileaks was about to try to dump something damaging to Russia and/or Putin (is there a difference at this point?) and then was threatened, backed off, and now may have been folded into Russian intelligence as some kind of asset.
I wouldn't be surprised. It's naive to believe that a small volunteer outfit can take on an entire world of pro intelligence agencies. The USA is not the only country that does these things, and many countries such as Russia do so with a much more "gloves off" approach than we do... especially when dealing with civilians.
In any case I now see stuff about Trump and Putin communicating prior to Trump taking office, etc., and Putin's politics certainly aligns to some extent with elements of the 'alt-right.' Of course the Bushes have their Saudi "investors" and the Clintons have their Chinese pals, so overseas enmeshment with nations of questionable allegiance to the US is not out of the ordinary in US politics. One of the consequences of empire is that an empire's national politics become everyone else's business too. DC is a world capital, and our elections are world elections.
"We have [compromising materials] about Russia, about your government and businessmen," Mr. Assange told the pro-government daily Izvestia. "But not as much as we'd like... We will publish these materials soon."
He then dropped a hint that's likely to be nervously parsed in Russia's corridors of power: "We are helped by the Americans, who pass on a lot of material about Russia," to WikiLeaks, he said.
Really? Is it likely that Americans would pass dirt on Russian government to Assange and let him disclose the source? If they wanted to be so open they could as well announce it themselves, I think.
who could discount such pressing corroboration as "There are Phillip Agee vibes from Assange/Wikileaks/Snowden"? maybe make extremely serious and specific allegations when there's actual evidence for it
And by far, the biggest source of that division has been internal.
If some "nation state" (the catchphrase of the month, apparently) found a crack and applied a bit of leverage -- well, look to yourselves for blame -- and for the solution.
Democrats as well as Republicans. The high side of both parties outsourced, and basically told the dispossessed to "get over it".
>since we have (I may say) all the naval Stores of the Nation in our hands, it will be easy to obtain the mastery of the seas, and then the united force of all Europe, will not be able to subdue us. The only way to keep us from setting up for ourselves, is to disunite Us. Divide et impera. Keep us in distinct Colonies, and then, some great men, in each Colony, desiring the Monarchy of the Whole, they will destroy each others influence and keep the Country in Equilibrio.
No kidding; this was obvious from way back. I'd be very interested to learn the back alley reasons why this was treated as significantly less important a drum to bang in the bulk of the media than the Clinton emails.
It also needs to be brought out in painful clarity: disinformation campaigns are real; they are not always lies; sometimes they are carefully pruning the truth to ensure the chosen outcome comes out to play.
It also needs to be brought out: the cypherpunk model (anonymous hackers sourcing anonymous data) has exploded messily under the presence of coordinated group of actors come out to subvert the hackers.
Makes me wonder how to get involved with public policy, to be honest.
> I'd be very interested to learn the back alley reasons why this was treated as significantly less important a drum to bang in the bulk of the media than the Clinton emails.
IMHO, a large segment of the media is not really journalism, but ideological promotion. This includes Fox properties (Fox News, the WSJ - at least their editorial page, NY Post, various UK publications, etc.), Rush Limbaugh and most talk radio, right-wing blogs, and many others. Therefore a large segment of the news media doesn't cover scandals on the right, while everyone covers them on the left:
* An unsubstantiated hint of scandal on the left gets blanket coverage from the ideological sources. Consider the fake Planned Parenthood emails, or the fake investigation of the Clinton Foundation.
* A substantiated scandal on the left is covered by everyone, the ideological right as well as the real journalists. For example, the NY Times broke the Clinton email server story and covered the Russian/Wikileaks emails extensively. Of course, Fox et al. covered and promoted these stories to maximum extent.
* A substantiated scandal on the right is covered only by real journalists, and ignored (or used as fodder for spin and attacks against accusers) by the ideological right.
* An unsubstantiated scandal on the right is ignored by everyone.
I have [potentially unfounded] assumptions that groups within the NSA/CIA had a hand in the leaks. I'm sure the corruption of selling government positions and influence of foreign money/bribes happens in both establishment parties. Bringing this kind of corruption to the public's eye rings of the 'patriotic' motives of Snowden, etc.
Is there any practicality to claiming the hack originated from a "nation-state"?
Any time news worthy hacks are ambiguously attributed to massive geographical regions (i.e. CN, RU) which can easily be proxied through from anywhere in the world, how is it any different from saying "we're certain the hack originated from somewhere on this planet, trust us."?
I believe that a nation state did use wikileaks to influence the election. I just think it was the U.S. Also, Assange hasn't been seen publicly in ~42 days. You can see the timeline on assange.net (not Julians personal site). It doesn't speculate, just provides facts. Very concerning.
Um... he's just completed a two day interview over rape allegations and issued statements about it. I doubt that the Ecuadorean embassy, Swedish prosecutors, Assange's legal team and the @Wikileaks Twitter account are working together on this one...
The "Democrats" didn't "steal" the nomination from Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders got crushed in the Democratic primaries, by a margin almost ten times that of what Obama achieved over Hillary Clinton in 2008. Even if leaked emails had shown material support for Clinton over Sanders, let alone before the nomination had become a foregone conclusion, there's nothing the DNC could do to explain the extent to which Sanders lost. He lost decisively, both by the same pledged delegate count margin Obama achieved and for which his team was praised as delegate counting geniuses, and by a massive gulf in the popular vote.
no idea why this is downvoted. The emails provide this evidence. It can be searched literally right now on wikileaks. If the emails are real, these FACTS are included in emails:
- Campaign used influence to influence RNC via Pied Piper technique of promoting the weakest candidates...it worked.
- Campaign planned to oust DWS. They influenced the DNC to promote HRC over Sanders.
- Coordinated with DOJ.
- Coordinated with reporters both in feeding questions to RNC candidates and getting leaked questions in debates HRC was participating in.
- Stage protests at DJT rallies.
TO BE CLEAR, whether you believe the emails are genuine or not they DO contain this content and that is nearly indisputable.
[+] [-] josho|9 years ago|reply
Further, why is there no backlash against the DNC or the government themselves for failing to secure their systems.
This entire election cycle just seems like everyone has been acting irrationally.
[+] [-] sigmar|9 years ago|reply
Cloudstrike https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democ...
Security firm Mandiant https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cyber...
Fidelis Cybersecurity http://www.computerworld.com/article/3086314/security/russia...
SecureWorks Evidence https://www.secureworks.com/research/threat-group-4127-targe...
Threatconnect https://www.threatconnect.com/blog/guccifer-2-all-roads-lead...
FireEye https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2014/10/apt28-a...
[+] [-] scarmig|9 years ago|reply
As it stands, the public evidence I've seen is
1) The attacks originating from servers owned by Russian companies
2) Pseudo-admission/gloating by low-level officials
3) Wikileaks and Assange's increasingly close relationship with Russia
4) The behavior of the Trump campaign, taking an exceptionally pro-Russian tack. Indeed, the only change they demanded be made to the Republican platform was to take out some anti-Russian commitments.
True, this is all circumstantial. The NSA certainly has more. If the NSA released it, the people who disbelieve the NSA would rightly point out that any really hard evidence could have been planted by the NSA anyway, so it can't be taken as certain that the NSA didn't plant it.
So why should the NSA sacrifice any assets to satisfy them?
[+] [-] jack9|9 years ago|reply
I'm not sure why it would matter. The perception of the world and a relative place in it, affects voting. That's inherent. China warned against electing Trump, early on, iirc. That's not an issue because it was anti-trump. Transparent political attacks against an ideology, is not news.
[+] [-] hackuser|9 years ago|reply
Generally, intelligence agencies do not provide evidence or any other indication of their sources or tools. Law enforcement is different.
[+] [-] mi100hael|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrgordon|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hackuser|9 years ago|reply
I don't think they were dirty, and the fact that even their private emails didn't reveal anything serious is a strong indicator. I think Trump is much dirtier, for example.
Also, we assume the emails were authentic, as if Russian intelligence wouldn't conduct a sophisticated disinformation campaign.
[+] [-] empath75|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alexandercrohde|9 years ago|reply
One can argue that the means of obtaining the information (hacking) is relevant, but I'm not sure if that's something I'd accept without examination.
[+] [-] ascagnel_|9 years ago|reply
For example, the DNC email leaks showed that the DNC was working with Clinton. However, when those emails were sent, it was mathematically impossible for Sanders to overtake Clinton when only counting primary/caucus-assigned delegates (not counting super-delegates at all). The emails were in response to Sanders (mostly his supporters) pushing super-delegates to change their pledged vote.
The emails were accurate, in that they showed the DNC supporting Clinton directly. But they were from a time where Clinton had just become the presumptive nominee, and it is reasonable to expect the party to offer support to the presumptive nominee in preparation for the general election. They were misrepresented as showing the DNC supporting Clinton while Sanders was still a viable candidate with a reasonable chance of winning the nomination.
I say all of this as a disappointed Sanders supporter who knew that he was running a tough race in a party he had just joined without much support from the party's rank-and-file members.
[+] [-] AnimalMuppet|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dictum|9 years ago|reply
Speaking of dirty tools, it's disheartening that the NSA was adept at gathering data from randos, but not at following Putin's plans.
[+] [-] TazeTSchnitzel|9 years ago|reply
(I don't know if him having said that means anything, but it's interesting nonetheless.)
[+] [-] fatdog|9 years ago|reply
The intelligence community doesn't get an opinion. Arguably, any comment from them about domestic elections only reduces the legitimacy of their mandate.
[+] [-] mladenkovacevic|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] josho|9 years ago|reply
Further, the gov. hasn't exactly offered substantial evidence to show that it was Russian government as opposed to hackers working alone. Maybe they don't need to provide the general public with all the details, but showing the evidence to a third party would go a long way to building trust.
[+] [-] fixxer|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] philk10|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leeleelee|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TwoNineA|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dragonwriter|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TycusNycton|9 years ago|reply
Do they have any evidence for this or should a sane person really take them at their word?
[+] [-] api|9 years ago|reply
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5c8u9l/we_are_the_wik...
The timeline suggests that Wikileaks was about to try to dump something damaging to Russia and/or Putin (is there a difference at this point?) and then was threatened, backed off, and now may have been folded into Russian intelligence as some kind of asset.
I wouldn't be surprised. It's naive to believe that a small volunteer outfit can take on an entire world of pro intelligence agencies. The USA is not the only country that does these things, and many countries such as Russia do so with a much more "gloves off" approach than we do... especially when dealing with civilians.
In any case I now see stuff about Trump and Putin communicating prior to Trump taking office, etc., and Putin's politics certainly aligns to some extent with elements of the 'alt-right.' Of course the Bushes have their Saudi "investors" and the Clintons have their Chinese pals, so overseas enmeshment with nations of questionable allegiance to the US is not out of the ordinary in US politics. One of the consequences of empire is that an empire's national politics become everyone else's business too. DC is a world capital, and our elections are world elections.
[+] [-] qb45|9 years ago|reply
He then dropped a hint that's likely to be nervously parsed in Russia's corridors of power: "We are helped by the Americans, who pass on a lot of material about Russia," to WikiLeaks, he said.
Really? Is it likely that Americans would pass dirt on Russian government to Assange and let him disclose the source? If they wanted to be so open they could as well announce it themselves, I think.
[+] [-] nyolfen|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mywittyname|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pasbesoin|9 years ago|reply
And by far, the biggest source of that division has been internal.
If some "nation state" (the catchphrase of the month, apparently) found a crack and applied a bit of leverage -- well, look to yourselves for blame -- and for the solution.
Democrats as well as Republicans. The high side of both parties outsourced, and basically told the dispossessed to "get over it".
Divided we fall.
[+] [-] wu-ikkyu|9 years ago|reply
-John Adams
http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-01-02-0003#P...
[+] [-] pnathan|9 years ago|reply
It also needs to be brought out in painful clarity: disinformation campaigns are real; they are not always lies; sometimes they are carefully pruning the truth to ensure the chosen outcome comes out to play.
It also needs to be brought out: the cypherpunk model (anonymous hackers sourcing anonymous data) has exploded messily under the presence of coordinated group of actors come out to subvert the hackers.
Makes me wonder how to get involved with public policy, to be honest.
[+] [-] hackuser|9 years ago|reply
IMHO, a large segment of the media is not really journalism, but ideological promotion. This includes Fox properties (Fox News, the WSJ - at least their editorial page, NY Post, various UK publications, etc.), Rush Limbaugh and most talk radio, right-wing blogs, and many others. Therefore a large segment of the news media doesn't cover scandals on the right, while everyone covers them on the left:
* An unsubstantiated hint of scandal on the left gets blanket coverage from the ideological sources. Consider the fake Planned Parenthood emails, or the fake investigation of the Clinton Foundation.
* A substantiated scandal on the left is covered by everyone, the ideological right as well as the real journalists. For example, the NY Times broke the Clinton email server story and covered the Russian/Wikileaks emails extensively. Of course, Fox et al. covered and promoted these stories to maximum extent.
* A substantiated scandal on the right is covered only by real journalists, and ignored (or used as fodder for spin and attacks against accusers) by the ideological right.
* An unsubstantiated scandal on the right is ignored by everyone.
[+] [-] vaadu|9 years ago|reply
Are the emails legitimate and do the American people have a right to know what's in them?
[+] [-] phy6|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mtgx|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] wu-ikkyu|9 years ago|reply
Any time news worthy hacks are ambiguously attributed to massive geographical regions (i.e. CN, RU) which can easily be proxied through from anywhere in the world, how is it any different from saying "we're certain the hack originated from somewhere on this planet, trust us."?
[+] [-] vonklaus|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] notahacker|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryanx435|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tptacek|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vonklaus|9 years ago|reply
- Campaign used influence to influence RNC via Pied Piper technique of promoting the weakest candidates...it worked.
- Campaign planned to oust DWS. They influenced the DNC to promote HRC over Sanders.
- Coordinated with DOJ.
- Coordinated with reporters both in feeding questions to RNC candidates and getting leaked questions in debates HRC was participating in.
- Stage protests at DJT rallies.
TO BE CLEAR, whether you believe the emails are genuine or not they DO contain this content and that is nearly indisputable.
[+] [-] TorKlingberg|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rurban|9 years ago|reply
High members of the USA will for sure like to prove everybody of corrupt and criminal actions by members in government offices.