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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
I don’t understand the issue?
Is the issue that the DNC conducted themselves in this manner or is it that they got caught by some international bad actors with ulterior motives?
As to the email hacking, monitoring we are not Ok with Wikileaks doing this sort of thing, but cool with our own NSA?
What strikes me as the thing to take seriously is the cavalier attitude toward security Clinton and her Progressive-Democrat Party have, beginning (or maybe not…) with her unsecured State Department official business email server and including (among other things) the DNC’s email servers and how easily they were penetrated, whether by Russia or by Wikileaks’ hackers.
Eric Hines
There’s a vast, right wing conspiracy against Mrs. Clinton. I know because she said so.
To be clear, WikiLeaks is respectable so long as our fellow Americans are the ones utilizing the stolen information?
The ironies here are unlimited.
This is why Clinton’s having her own server in a bathroom in her home in Chappaqua was so dangerous.
It is ironic also because, if there is any truth to the story told in Clinton Cash, Hillary Clinton knowingly gave control over the U.S. uranium supply to Putin! Some days, apparently, Vladimir and Hillary are good friends.
We live in dangerous and strange times.
I do take it seriously.
It is seriously awesome.
For once the endless and bottomless foreign meddling in American internal affairs is helping to produce a result I like.
I recall the untold millions the Chinese government used to help Bill Clinton defeat Bob Dole, the disabling of the address verification software on Obama’s campaign website, illegally allowing foreign contributions, the tidy sums foreign governments spend paying former American officials to lobby on their behalf, the money the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund contributes to leftist groups inside the US, etc, etc, on and on.
Now that shoe is on the other foot- and it sure does pinch, doesn’t it DNC?
I agree. I think it is safe (though not assured) to assume The DNC had some kind of corporate email system with at least a firewall and some kind of enterprise security and it was hacked in a hot minute. I’ve no doubt the measures on Clinton’s server were less robust and probably mirror imaged around the world.
I’m kind of disappointed in the Kremlin and with China. After years of reading John LeCarre novels and Tom Clancy thrillers, Robert Ludlum, etc., I’ve always associated these guys with clever corruption. Or like the Godfather Part II scheme where the Corleones stage a murder in a brothel, just to get the support of a corrupt Nevada senator. That kind of corruption takes cleverness, strategic thinking, and a bold streak.
Little did we know, all they had to do was release emails. Teenaged hackers could have done it. Corruption has become so … pedestrian.
And yes, I find it wonderfully appropriate that when politicians are embarrassed, they conflate their own self-image with the good of the country. This wasn’t a release of troop movements or missile test details … it was simply a set of politicially embarrassing emails that showed how catty and backstabbing political campaigns are. The nation is not at stake.
If this is all the Russians have, I think we can all have a drink and a laugh.
Bear in mind this is not the first time the Ruskies have meddled in our elections. Krushchev bragged openly that he helped get Kennedy elected, after all.
Claire,
Really, don’t you think this is a bit much? The entire Democratic Party sat by as Comey announced that yes Hillary did the business of the United States Government for 4 years on a server less secure than my Gmail account, and that yes she had committed multiple federal felonies by doing so. However, Comey couldn’t prosecute her because he couldn’t prove intent??!!! She has a Yale Law Degree. As a United States Senator, she served on the Armed Services Committee for six years!!! She must have been drilled on classified documents hundreds of times and you would think a Yale Law School graduate would only need to be told once. Yet, Comey couldn’t prove intent. Wow.
There is an old saying very popular in my youth. “What goes round comes round.” To translate it means that the DNC got what it deserved. We’ll all just need to take cyber security a little more seriously next time, won’t we? When Obama tried to throw the Israeli election, I’m sure HRC wasn’t going to lift a finger or raise an objection.
As far as DWS or HRC, I can only say “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
Regards,
Jim
Anne Applebaum writes that Trump is basically Putin’s man. Actively helped by Putin or at the very least preferred by Putin. She mentions precedents in other countries. Read it here.
There wasn’t anything wrong with WikiLeaks when they were releasing information that was damaging to US defense and diplomatic efforts, but now that St. Hillary is feeling the heat, the usual suspects themselves are shocked, shocked!, to find that espionage is going on around here.
Ask yourself – why would Putin be trying to influence the US presidential elections and what good can come from his doing so?
Incredible. Is the Left going to get away with this excrescence again? Did Putin write those Emails–or did ms. Wasserman-Schultz & co?
You our must see, surely, that the Left thinks it can distract us by whipping up fears of another Red Scare?
Rich of the Dems to complain after Omega tried to prevent Netanyahu’s election!
Bernie is a communist, right? Gee, maybe Putin secretly wants the USSR re-constituted, and wanted to help him…?
Americans take everything seriously, that’s the problem.
The cost of college, the temperature in 100 years, Russian hacking, who uses what bathroom… all seriously. Meaning also, all equally.
A little less seriousness would help us all clear and focus our minds.
When the Obama Administration and Mrs. Clinton’s State Department uses tax payer dollars to build a political organization to try to bring down the government of one our closest allies, where’s the outrage? (Nothing to see here, folks, because, see, they didn’t go full anti-Netanyahu until the day after the grant from State expired!)
This is nothing new, except for the fact that governments no longer need access to buildings or turn agents.
The leftist media still denies there were ever Soviet agents in government or even within their own ranks. Suddenly they’re worried about Russian influence?
Maybe it relates to common enemies, like Islam.
I’ve no idea. I speak the language and live here and can’t figure out what good can come from this election.
Very interesting point DocJay, AC/DC vinyl spinning Jedi
Are the Russians behind this? Maybe so, maybe not (I don’t consider any media report dispositive about anything, including anything that appears in Wired who I believe is only too happy to carry water for the Left). WikiLeaks denied this (although of course they would).
And if they are? To quote Hillary Clinton “What difference, at this point, does it make?”
The Russians want to help Trump? Please, remember the Clinton reset? Anyone remember the Clinton State Department giving the OK for a Russian company to acquire a substantial chunk of US uranium mining? Anyone think Clinton would be tougher on Russia than Trump? Anyone think there is any US interest that Clinton wouldn’t sell for the right price if she can profit thereby?
Given what a royal cluster-up the DNC e-mails and Clinton’s e-mail server have been, anyone think a Clinton administration would be any more careful with their data than these people have been so far?
This is just another realistic preview of what a Clinton administration would look like.
The point, I think, is not to excuse what the DNC did, but to point out that there are nefarious and anti-american motives behind this particular leak.
I’d urge folks to read Claire’s link to the Schindler piece (he’s an intelligence analyst who thinks Hillary should have been indicted).
Wikileaks does not do hacks directly. It takes intercepts from other sources and releases them. It is associated with the Putin regime and is a conduit for the Russian intelligence services.
The recent hack of the DNC servers and the release of these emails is just an appetizer. Hillary’s criminal negligence regarding her own emails has left Putin, who most analysts assume has her emails (including the deleted ones and the redacted portions of those already released by State), in a position where he feels he can decide the US election.
On the one hand, he has Hillary who he duped early in her SoS role and, who might be subject to severe “influence” if he waits for her to be elected and does not release the emails, instead keeping them as a potential threat to her (and you can bet the Clinton assume Putin has the emails).
On the other hand, he has Trump, whose campaign manager worked for a Putin stooge in the Ukraine and whose advisor on Russian policy is a Putin supporter who’s done deals with Gazprom, the state owned gas company. So maybe he releases the emails.
I think he figures it’s a win-win for him.
Not unlike our own NSA.
Don’t get me started on the NSA.
I don’t recall where I read it, but didn’t ‘anonymous’ take credit for the original hack?
:)
This is why I am going to vote for a Republican Department of Justice. We’re going to need one. :)
Here was me thinking democracy ran on transparency.
It is definitely a good read.
Vladimir might have blown WikiLeaks as an asset, though. There is some cost to doing this.He must have figured it was worth the risk.
Yes.
a) Is it not conceivable that the narrative that Putin is afraid of Clinton and supportive of Trump only serves to HELP Clinton at the ballot box?
b) Is it not conceivable that the reason the DNC was hacked rather than the Trump campaign is because the Trump campaign has better network security?