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The DNC Attack and Putin
All signs point to Russia being behind the DNC hack, reports Wired:
Not reacting politically to the DNC hack is setting a dangerous precedent. A foreign agency, exploiting Wikileaks and a cutthroat media marketplace, appears to be carefully planning and timing a high-stakes political campaign in the United States that could escalate next week, next fall, or next time. Trump, ironically, is right: the system is actually rigged.
American inaction now risks establishing a de facto norm that all election campaigns in the future, everywhere, are fair game for sabotage—sabotage that could potentially affect the outcome and tarnish the winner’s legitimacy. Inaction also risks squandering the deterrent effects created by the White House’s reaction to North Korea’s role in the infamous Sony Hack, as well as the US Department of Justice indictments of Chinese and Iranian operatives. Remarkably, so far the only countries that have had the confidence to call out aggressive Russian operations are Germanyalong with Switzerland and France in a more limited way.
It is time for the United States (and the United Kingdom) to pull their weight: by publishing more evidence, by signalling political consequences for the perpetrators, by treating Wikileaks as a legitimate counter-intelligence target, and by providing not only physical but also improved digital security to candidates and campaigns in the future.
More from Defense One. How Putin Weaponized Wikileaks to Influence the Election of an American President:
Close your eyes and imagine that a hacking group backed by Russian President Vladimir Putin broke into the email system of a major U.S. political party. The group stole thousands of sensitive messages and then published them through an obliging third party in a way that was strategically timed to influence the United States presidential election. Now open your eyes, because that’s what just happened. …
John Schindler. Wikileaks Dismantling of DNC Is Clear Attack by Putin on Clinton:
By stepping into the middle of our Presidential race, the obvious Russian front has outed themselves …
… Russian hackers working for the Kremlin cyber-pilfered the DNC then passed the purloined data, including thousands of unflattering emails, to Wikileaks, which has shown them to the world.
This, of course, means that Wikileaks is doing Moscow’s bidding and has placed itself in bed with Vladimir Putin. In response to the data-dump, the DNC has said as much and the Clinton campaign has endorsed the view that Moscow prefers Donald Trump in this election, and it’s using Wikileaks to harm Hillary. This view, considered bizarre by most people as late as last week, is being taken seriously by the White House—as it should be. …
I’m anything but a Hillary fan, as my extensive reporting on her crimes and lies in EmailGate can attest. However, I am far more troubled by the naked interference of the Kremlin and its spy agencies in American democracy, which is a threat to our freedoms beyond anything the Clintons might do. …
This isn’t really a surprise, but perhaps having it this close to home will make Americans take this seriously.
Published in General
The last time I checked, the DNC was a private organization. The United States Government has no additional or extra duty to protect its internal e-mail more than any other private enterprise. If the DNC failed to employ adequate cyber-security measures, then let this be a lesson to any other interested parties. If these were poached Microsoft or Apple e-mails, what would the Feds do?
Be that as it may, I doubt the Russian government has any interest in seeing Trump elected. Rather, I would guess this is nothing more than a Rhetorical “shot across the bow” to the presumptive next POTUS. (“What a shame that ‘your majesty’s’ coronation party was inconvenienced a little bit, yes? Good thing that wasn’t any really compromising information…say from an unsecured and illegal private server…that might have come to light?”)
Conducted themselves in what manner? From what I’ve read, the story is that they got hacked at all, not that any of the information which has been released is particularly harmful.
Doesn’t matter really. Putin only wants to let everyone know he sees you when you’re sleeping, knows when you’re awake… so be good for goodness sake.
And yet, for decades he was the Clintons’ man…
I saw mommy kissin’ Putin underneath the TOW missile.
The question is not what any of us think, it’s what Putin thinks.
I think Putin’s already out of champagne.
I was writing about the partiality and bias apparent in the emails.
Rose to the bait I see.
Think what you think, but the evidence that Putin is behind this isn’t from DNC sources but rather sources previously aligned against Clinton. Does that not concern you at all?
I should be shocked and/or appalled by partiality and bias from the internal emails of a political party?
This is intra-party bias where there isn’t supposed to be any.
Exactly!! That’s what’s so hilarious! 60 years of demonizing McCarthy (why, his name is bandied about like Hitler’s!) for doing his appointed task to find out if there were Communists in the State dep’t (yes.) –and suddenly the Left is all anti-Red?
Uh, No, they’re NOT–they’re just counting on a reaction like this from the Right–and Ricochet is happy to oblige.
By contrast, it was “the opposite of good faith” to argue, as I did some months ago, that the Muslim mayor of London had no business criticizing Trump.
So: to the Left and the antiTrump Rump, it’s just the voice of sweet reason when some foreign gov’t wants to promote Mrs. Bill.
There aren’t any reds in Russia anymore. Putin is a consecrated democrat, right?
With respect to fiduciary duty during a presidential primary? I think that is shocking.
Really? She is already in their pocket and you think she’d be rougher? Claire you have a greater ability to ignore history than I do. Hilary’s available to the highest bidder as the Clinton Foundation Pay to Play has shown, and Vlad’s bought her before. To paraphrase Churchill, we know what she is, at this point it’s just wondering about price.
Perceval: Riiiiight!
But the Russians will always be “the Reds”! Rus means red. Red is the colour of holiness and beauty; the icon shrine in the home is known as the “Red Corner”.
Not only is it conceivable it is the reason that suddenly Russian hacks are dangerous. When Russia was just hacking the Trump oppo-file it was just peachy keen, now that it might hurt St. Hillary it is time to start cracking down.
Also anyone who thinks Putin is afraid of Hillary – at all – is deluding themselves.
It’s equally conceivable that the Trump campaign doesn’t have a network to hack.
Something here is not right. Clinton and the DNC have access to some of the highest level Tech donors and their services yet they can’t keep their data secure? Are they just that laid-back or are they hoping to “share” with other actors for a purpose?
Actually, you can come up with reasonable rationales for Putin preferring either Clinton or Trump. The question is whether he can influence the outcome of the election; does he have, as many suspect, The Killer App – Hillary’s SoS emails? If so, that is directly because of her criminal negligence.
So, where do I read them?
Putin isn’t a Red. He’s a fascist. Didn’t you get the memo? Everybody’s a fascist these days.
Hey, it worked for the Galactica…
I really don’t know how to react to this. Hillary is a leftist and the leader of a leftist/Marxist political party. Putin is an unrepentant Marxist with strong yearnings to reconstitute the Soviet Union, a country Hillary and all of her leftist friends believed needed to be accommodated to because it was “obviously not going to go anywhere,” until that damned Reagan messed everything up. She was the top diplomat of an administration that promised Russia “flexibility” after the 2012 elections.
If there is any worry, it’s that Hillary will have to prove that she’s got balls and be tough as any man. That’s more “cowboy” than Reagan or Bush 43 combined.
What you will see under Hillary that you won’t get with Trump is a wholesale exodus of non-coms from the military. The career brass will remain but the experienced guys who execute well and keep their men alive in the field will be gone. And that’s when the Tin Lady will bring us disaster.
Your mistake is assuming Putin is committed to any ideology. He’s the leader of Mob State.
Seriously doubt.
What’s their team name? The Godfathers?
Heck, Ted Kennedy went to them for help in a Presidential election.
Let’s consider an instance from the last time the Clinton Crime Family had it’s hands on the levers of the Executive Branch.
Remember when Clinton designated 1.7 million acres of land in southwest Utah as the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument keeping the coal it contained from being mined? Turned out that the Lippo Group a powerful Indonesian conglomerate, founded and owned by the Riady family, it turned out, had raised and funneled millions of dollars into Democratic campaign coffers was a major player in Indonesian coal, of just the right type to replace the domestic coal.
Easily Internet searched on “Clinton” and “Lippo”
Anyone seriously believe the next time around with a President Clinton would be any different?
Here’s two starter links
http://www.weeklystandard.com/isikoff-on-clinton-and-lippo/article/12272
http://laissez-fairerepublic.com/indocoal.htm
People don’t like Trump, I get it.
But the naiveté about Clinton on display in a couple of places in this thread is (what’s the word?): charming? intriguing? surprising?