White House Vows 'Proportional' Response For Russian DNC Hack (go.com)

After the Director of National Intelligence and Department of Homeland Security publicly blamed Russia for stealing and publishing archived emails from the Democratic National Committee on Friday, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said today that President Obama will consider a "proportional" response. ABC News reports: "We obviously will ensure that a U.S. response is proportional. It is unlikely that our response would be announced in advanced. It's certainly possible that the president could choose response options that we never announce," Earnest told reporters aboard Air Force One. "The president has talked before about the significant capabilities that the U.S. government has to both defend our systems in the United States but also carry out offensive operations in other countries," he added. "There are a range of responses that are available to the president and he will consider a response that's proportional." The Wall Street Journal report mentions several different ways to response to Russia. The U.S. could impose economic sanctions against Moscow, punish Russia diplomatically, opt to allow the Justice Department to simply prosecute the hacks as a criminal case, and/or launch a U.S. cyberattack targeting Russia's election process. Of course, each response has its pros and cons. "They could escalate into a more adversarial conflict between both countries," writes Carol E. Lee for the Wall Street Journal. "But the absence of a response could signal that such behavior will be tolerated in the future."

Comments

Yeah, by hardening our defenses you morons

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, hacking Russia back is the dumbest way they could respond to the DNC (a private organization, so they keep stressing every time voter fraud is brought up) hack.

Re:Yeah, by hardening our defenses you morons

[rickb928]

Why is our federal government even retaliating for a breach at a political party?

Oh, yeah. The US government is an agency of the Democratic National Committee.

Pus.

Re:Yeah, by hardening our defenses you morons

[king neckbeard]

First of all, we don't unequivocally know that, and the claim that it could only come from the top of the government is obviously bullshit. Secondly, they can't release 'propaganda' if the DNC wasn't doing shady shit in the first place.

Re:Yeah, by hardening our defenses you morons

[ArmoredDragon]

Something about the government retaliating over a private organizations poor security seems off putting... even if it is about the election. It is sad that showing the truth and what politicians say to moneyed interests behind closed doors is seen as a danger to our democracy.

Nepotism, basically. They might frame it as a national security issue, but I highly doubt they would do the same for any other political party.

We're going to nuke Russia

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Hillary and the DNC was embarrassed when trying to commit crimes.

Hillary for jail!

Re: We're going to nuke Russia

[Anonymous Coward]

We are afraid. Afraid of losing our jobs. Afraid of being found out. Afraid of spending time a pariah - like snowden, manning, assange.

The level of arrogance of the political class, the oligarchs and billionaires is utterly unhinged. They buy media outlets, they collude, they weave stories and narratives the media parrots.

Try and get your "news" from many places and look at PRIMARY sources like the leaked emails for information. Anything "reported" has been changed and lied about.

Re:We're going to nuke Russia

[mark-t]

Explain how and why based on the leaks so far that Hillary does not belong in prison

Two words: due process.

Re:We're going to nuke Russia

[LeftCoastThinker]

OK, let me rephrase that to be more accurate:

Explain how and why based on the leaks so far that Hillary HAS NOT BEEN INDICTED.

Re:We're going to nuke Russia

[mark-t]

So when I do something criminally negligent as long as I make it look like it was not intentional or claim it wasnt and you die I should not go to jail?

If there's not enough evidence to actually convict you in court, then absolutely, yes.

YOU NEVER READ ANY OF THESE GOD DAMNED EMAILS and you are defending Hillary while IGNORING THE FACTS.

Leaving aside the fact that you never read any of those emails either, if these so-called facts were so self-evident, then there would be sufficient basis to convict her, wouldn't there? Just how small a town do you think the entire USA actually is that you could even believe it to be realistically possible that any such incriminating evidence could have been overlooked after this amount of attention has been given to it?

But hey.... if you know of some evidence that all of the other would-be prosecuters have missed, then maybe you should consider trying to pass that along.

Re:We're going to nuke Russia

[rickb928]

I don't. believe the evidence has been overlooked, not by any of the responsible parties.

They just refuse to enforce the law. That's all.

Re:We're going to nuke Russia

[rickb928]

Apparently not.

After all the manning, wikileaks and hack-leaks ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is ANYONE really taking anything ANY politician says about ANYTHING for face value after all these Snowden, Manning, WikiLeaks and hack-leaks it should be utterly clear that the entire political class in the USA is beyond redemption and corrupted to the bone.

There is no rational discussion to have at this point. The whole system and the power players in place today are so corrupted and criminal its PROOF the media is completely in the bag to pain a picture - facebook, google, twitter, the media, the government - they all LIE by default - they lie, omit and change the narrative AT ALL TIMES.

Even secondary sources like slashdot, fark, reddit, this versioning of reality and total disregard of the facts and evidence is quite commonplace.

The reality you see online is YOUR version. You BELIEVE this version and look for snippets to support it.

But the SOURCE for many things, such as the LEAKS and EMAILS, and the like show and PROVE there is a vast concerted effort to propagandize and "PR" the news.

Liberty is dead. Publius is dead. Free speech is on the chopping block and anonymous use of the internet is about to come to a close as it has in China. We will be in mind-prisons.

Best find an Oculus and live in a false reality - the base reality we live in has turned so "1984"-ish its really quite scary.

I bet Putin welcomes any US-cyber-aggression -

[ffkom]

if only to more easily convince his people to use domestic IT products rather than the US-made stuff (which contains backdoors for at least the US government agencies and backdoors for some far-east agencies which were added by the manufacturers who actually produced the hardware).

why is this a national issue?

[Trailer Trash]

The DNC supposedly got hacked, not the US government. The US government has absolutely no reason to offer *any* response. The DNC might get angry about it (and maybe they can use that to continue to try to change the story away from their internal corruption) but they're not the US government.

Re:why is this a national issue?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

The DNC supposedly got hacked, not the US government. The US government has absolutely no reason to offer *any* response.

If a Russian missile shoots down a Delta flight, I expect the US government to react. If a Russian torpedo sinks a US oil tanker, I expect the US government to react. What kind of strange world do you live in where state level actors only respond to threats by other state level actors if the threats are leveled against the state.

In your mind, could the Russian army invade the US without the US government reacting unless they crossed into federal land?

Re:So.......We hack their elections?

[Archangel Michael]

Actually, the only people caught hacking the elections have been the DNC. The Russians just exposed that which many of us already believed to be true, as the truth. The problem is, that the truth is worse than even we understood.

I am not sure how anyone could be a Democrat, let alone vote for Hillary after this.

(NO, I am NOT voting for Trump)

Re:This!

[hairyfeet]

Anyone who doesn't believe that the media and this administration is corrupt after the head of the FBI admitted under oath that Hillary Clinton committed multiple crimes, from storing classified information on an unsecured private server to destroying evidence (both digitally and physically) and lying repeatedly under oath...but the big issue we are supposed to care about is Trump and Billy Bush comparing who gets the most groupies? Well I have a bridge you might be interested in.

Riiiggghhhttttt

[MouseTheLuckyDog]

in order to hide the fact that Hillary is just plain white trailer trash from Arkansas, we are going to take actions which could end with a war with Russia?

And they say Trump will start WW3.

Hey Obama, I though you told us last election the cold war was over.

Re:Stop the planet, I want to get off

[labnet]

Seriously.... this is how wars start. And considering the powers that are involved, this can't possibly end well.... for anybody.

Have you considered that this is EXACTLY what they want.
More war. The manipulation of the media has become so obvious as to make them useless except for local news.
eg.
95% of news stories in Australia on US politics are Trump bashing. (Much of which he deserves)
Hillary gets next to zero news stories. (She must be super unappealing for that to happen)
Putin is portrayed as some evil psychopath, but when you listen to his speeches, he seems like a pretty rational dude that doesn't have that extra layer political fakeness of western politicians.

I would say the military industrial complex is chomping at the bit for more war to line their pockets.

Hillary Clinton means more war.

[jbn-o]

Her long history with Wal-Mart and being the wife of former Arkansas governor Bill Clinton, and the namecalling you brought up notwithstanding, are virtually sideshows compared to war with Russia. This war will probably take the form of her promised "no-fly zone" and "safe zone" in Syria which even she (privately, to her bankster funders) admits will "kill a lot of Syrians" and require ground troops. What is a no-fly zone? Dr. Jill Stein, also running for US president, has clarified what that means:

Hillary Clinton has said she would like to impose a no-fly zone over Syria, which basically means we are going to war with Russia, because that's what you do when you impose a no-fly zone, is you shoot down people that are in that airspace. And remember, we have 2,000 nuclear weapons now, between us and the Russians, on hair-trigger alert. So, this is certainly a very dangerous territory, where Hillary Clinton has continued to beat the drums of war with this idea that we are showing strength and leadership, but leading us in exactly the wrong direction and a very dangerous direction.

Hillary Clinton's hawkishness is bound to cost the US trillions. Continuing Obama's wars (which are all of G.W. Bush's wars plus more wars via drones in a couple countries Bush didn't attack) would do that without adding new wars. But Clinton's belligerency is why the Intercept notes "Robert Kagan and Other Neocons Are Backing Hillary Clinton". A vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for more war, more extrajudicial assassination, and that includes killing women and children whom Clinton is so keen to convince us she cares about. This merely builds on the wars she's voted for or otherwise supported (Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, etc.). She may be more gentle-toned than Trump but she's the more lethal choice than Trump too. Donald Trump's wide ignorance and many bigotries, as ugly and reprehensible as they are, are being pitched loudly to distract one from considering Sec. Clinton's lethal record of injustice. Fortunately, as I'm sure the Democrats will be happy to attest to should Clinton lose again, there's more than 2 choices for US president.