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US Announces Response To Russian Election Hacking [Update] (reuters.com)
Dustin Volz and Joel Schectman, reporting for Reuters: The Obama administration plans to announce on Thursday a series of retaliatory measures against Russia for hacking into U.S. political institutions and individuals and leaking information in an effort to help President-elect Donald Trump and other Republican candidates, two U.S. officials said on Wednesday. Both officials declined to specify what actions President Barack Obama has approved, but said targeted economic sanctions, indictments, leaking information to embarrass Russian officials or oligarchs, and restrictions on Russian diplomats in the United States are among steps that have been discussed. One decision that has been made, they said, speaking on the condition of anonymity, is to avoid any moves that exceed the Russian election hacking and risk an escalating cyber conflict that could spiral out of control. One example of an excessive step might be interfering with Russian internet messaging. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central Intelligence Agency and Office of Director of National Intelligence agree that Russia was behind hacks into Democratic Party organizations and operatives ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential election. There is also agreement, according to U.S. officials, that Russia sought to intervene in the election to help Trump, a Republican, defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton.Update: Here's the statement by the President of the United States in response to Russian malicious cyber activity and harassment: All Americans should be alarmed by Russia's actions. In October, my Administration publicized our assessment that Russia took actions intended to interfere with the U.S. election process. These data theft and disclosure activities could only have been directed by the highest levels of the Russian government. Moreover, our diplomats have experienced an unacceptable level of harassment in Moscow by Russian security services and police over the last year. Such activities have consequences. Today, I have ordered a number of actions in response. I have issued an executive order that provides additional authority for responding to certain cyber activity that seeks to interfere with or undermine our election processes and institutions, or those of our allies or partners. Using this new authority, I have sanctioned nine entities and individuals: the GRU and the FSB, two Russian intelligence services; four individual officers of the GRU; and three companies that provided material support to the GRU's cyber operations. In addition, the Secretary of the Treasury is designating two Russian individuals for using cyber-enabled means to cause misappropriation of funds and personal identifying information. The State Department is also shutting down two Russian compounds, in Maryland and New York, used by Russian personnel for intelligence-related purposes, and is declaring "persona non grata" 35 Russian intelligence operatives. Finally, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are releasing declassified technical information on Russian civilian and military intelligence service cyber activity, to help network defenders in the United States and abroad identify, detect, and disrupt Russia's global campaign of malicious cyber activities. Editor's note: the story has been updated to include the statement and has also been moved to the top of the front page.
Sound familiar? Some things never change
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Total slam-dunk case those Russkies were guilty of it, just like Iraq!
One thing that I find amusing: Love or hate Snowden, he 100% leaked large numbers of highly classified government documents and ended up finding asylum in Russia.
Consequences to Russia for that action? None.
So-called "russian" hackers grab private emails from the DNC that were not official U.S. government documents and were never classified at all?
Obama makes Bush look like a hippy peace protester and all of the sudden the good little left wingers start making Patton look like a librarian.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
They found no evidence of actual election systems hacking, the only thing they can even vaguely blame on the Russians is leaking the damaging things that the Democrats actually said in their emails, and most of the good stuff probably came from plain old insider leaks to WikiLeaks.
I wonder what sort of actions they're going to take against Democrat campaign staffers for having such terrible email security practices?
That I leave the back door open isn't an unlimited license to steal
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Before we escalate to all-out cyber and/or nuclear war with Russia, will we be seeing any -actual evidence- of anything other than a very dumb phishing link clicking Podesta, or of "hacking" involving anything requiring more skill than a neighborhood high school computer club, much less a nation-state?
Although I'm sure the Democrats would much prefer the accused not be allowed to speak at all, Putin's question is still pertinent--is he responsible for Democrat losses at -every other governmental level-, as well? Were the Wikileaks e-mails manipulated or untrue, which has still not been asserted?
This red herring is becoming as dangerous as it is ludicrous.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
Our Country was attacked. We cannot let that attack go without consequences.
Why not?
Obama's been calling Islamic terrorism "workplace violence" or otherwise handwaving it away, to the point of painting the Pulse nightclub massacre as "homophobia", or claiming the attack on the Benghazi consulate - on 9/11 of all dates - was because of some stupid video.
So we already know when it suits his purposes, Obama will twist facts to suit his political purposes.
And it likely suits his purposes to paint Hillary's loss on the Russians instead of his own faults. Or did you miss how the Democrats of suffered massive losses across the board in the last 8 years? Republicans now control the House, the Senate, the Presidency, and are in full control of something like 35 states. And that all happened under Obama.
Obama's been a disaster.
When was our country attacked?
The DNC is far from my country. The so-called attack, merely showed that Hillary and the DNC was engaged in election rigging (attacking our country).
This administration has provided zero proof of Russia's involvement nor motive.
The only proof we have is that Hillary, exclaimed this was in retaliation to her mucking about in Russia's election. *facepalm* So let's say ALL of this is true. That means this was retaliation on U.S. for interfering in their election.
WE'RE THE BIGGEST DAMN HYPOCRITES IN THE WORLD!
The problem you have is the person who leaked the "hacked information", WikiLeaks, said it was not the Russians.
If you read Obama's claims, he is not claiming Russians hacked the election, as is reported. He is claiming they hacked DNC and Podesta's emails. It looks like Podesta fell for a phising attack, which EASILY could have not been Russian. And the DNC emails came from an insider according to Assange.
So not only are they not releasing their evidence, there actually is pretty good evidence it isn't Russia. In addition they are claiming personal email accounts being hacked, not government in any way, are hacking the election which is deceptive at best. So the evidence is stacked against Russia being involved and the people claiming it are being deceptive as well.
Sounds like utter BS to me.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This is a fools game. Retaliating by interfering in Russian politics will simply invite more of the same.
Sounds great to me. With the ultimate Red Team aiding you in finding vulnerabilities, our systems should be more than secure against the average script kiddie. As it stands some guy in a yogurt stand in Bulgaria could probably take down half our government working part time.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
avoid any moves that exceed the Russian election hacking and risk an escalating cyber conflict that could spiral out of control.
OMG.... Now the whole world know that you can screw with the US and they will punish you less than what you did to them. Nice.
Even if it's true you don't tell people. That makes Obama not just a pussy but one extremely dumb pussy.
Hey now, just because Clinton "should have known better" and was "extremely careless" doesn't mean... uh. It means she is qualified for a promotion. Yea, that's it. Promote the extremely careless that should have known better to a position to cause more harm! What could possibly go wrong?
Two years ago, Russia invaded a sovereign country, Ukraine, and occupied it.
More recently, Russia (maybe) took part in telling the truth about the DNC.
Which do you think will result in a stronger response from Obama. As a reminder, his response on Ukraine was basically wagging his finger at them, saying "bad Russia, bad boy" - no concrete action.
From "can the adults be in charge now" to "Drumpf" and "Trumplethinskin" in eight short years. Yes, we really need you guys setting the course for our country...
...and they now must be punished.
Is someone going to prosecute and sanction the DNC for stealing the election from Bernie? Or the Clinton Foundation for running a massive pay to play scheme?
Next time Voice of America points out corruption in some foreign election, should we expect to be sanctioned by that foreign nation?
And this is even if you believe that we have 100% proof that Putin leaked Podesta's and the DNC's emails.
Honestly, if Putin *did* do the crime, we should be thanking him for doing a job that the US mainstream media should've been doing.
If only I had mod points.
The Russian hacks only did the press's job for them.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
One decision that has been made, they said, speaking on the conditiopn of anonymity, is to avoid any moves that exceed the Russian election hacking and risk an escalating cyber conflict that could spiral out of control.
Shades of Vietnam! This is how minor conflicts escalate into major wars.
The government may be able to handle bothersome individuals by spanking them once when "they're bad", like a parent disciplining a disobedient child, and expect it to stop there. But try that as foreign policy and it's more like slapping the drunken gangster in front of his cohorts.
By only giving a "proportional response", the leader(s) of the opposite side are put on the spot. They HAVE to retaliate in turn, or be viewed as weak. If it is perceived that you intend to avoid a serious conflict (ESPECIALLY if you have ACTUALLY ANNOUNCED that!), you are a "Paper Tiger" and they have no excuse to back down without losing face. So they retaliate a little harder, and you retaliate in proportion, and it ramps up into war. It goes on for years. If you're not willing to put in the effort and take the risk of trying to win it as a war, you fight on and on until your infrastructure is too damaged and your population is sick of it, and then you lose.
Once you have to go to war, if you want to win, the way to do it is with overwhelming force: "rapid dominance" (coned in 1996 but practiced at least since the Roman Empire), also known as "Shock and Awe." This gives the opponent the opportunity to withdraw and still save face, and minimizes casualties on your side. It may also massively reduces casualties on the other side, in comparison to a dragged-out, escalating, conflict. (But even if it doesn't, "... You [win the war] by getting the other poor bastard to die for HIS country.")
Tit-for-tat, with a little forgiveness to compensate for noise in the system, can lead to stabilization. But never-more-than-tit-for-tat, when confronting a strategy of a-bit-more-than-tit-for-tat, grows without bound. You have to switch to "pound-them-into-the-ground" or "surrender" at some point, or a determined opponent will debilitate you until the latter is the de facto result of your collapse. So if you're going to engage in tit-for-tat on the foreign policy level, you have to be ready to go to all-out war or all-out surrender. (You also have to be enough stronger than your opponent to make it work, or at least strong enough, AND appearing determined (and/or crazy) enough, to take them down with you, "Mutual Assured Destruction" style, if they keep pushing.)
In the Vietnam case, US involvement started in 1950, as a sidelight of the Korean conflict and the Cold War. The proportional response policy was implemented in 1961 by Kennedy and the escalation started. By the time the conflict ended the low-end estimates were about half a million dead and a million and a half wounded. (By contrast, the Iraq War had well under an order of magnitude less casualties.)
So now Obama wants to give Trump a going-away present: A shiny new, Vietnam-style, ever-escalating war with Russia, and a public perception that, if he tries to end it, or even keep it from escalating, it's because he's a Russian puppet.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
In fairness, Obama and the CIA were smack in the middle of the Ukraine situation and is what initiated the Russian response. The same is also true for Syria.
In every instance where Russia has been getting bad press for humanitarian horrors, Obama and Hillary have been in the middle, if not the actual cause.
People need to realize, we, the US, are the modern day, pre-WWII Germany. The parallels between Hillary/Obama and Hitler's pre-WWII Germany are great and very disturbing. Yet the extremely ignorant and uneducated left insist and saying, "literally Hitler" when speaking about Trump. Further validating the pre-WWII comparison between Germany and the US today.
There has never been a particularly easy way to deal with Russian belligerency. Napoleon's Grande Armee found itself in a frozen hell when Napoleon tried to hold Alexander I's feet to the fire for betraying him. Britain had to basically pretend the Katyn Massacre didn't happen and had to classify Finland as an Axis ally just so it could gain an ally on Germany's eastern flank. The US was forced to stand by and watch the Soviets crush the Prague Spring. The only things that have ever really worked, at least in the post-WWII era is to get Russia bound up in some sort of regional proxy disputes like Afghanistan. That is what Syria was supposed to be, I suppose, except ISIS appeared in the middle of the chaos, seized the initiative from whatever passed for legitimate anti-Assad rebels, and created a new player that ended up fucking up Iraq and buggering up relations with Turkey.
Russia certainly didn't create the Syrian situation, but it has used it to its advantage. Between Syria and fucking around with elections, a nation with a GDP smaller than Italy's, whose military has, by and large, degraded over the last two decades to regional power status, has managed to project force in a whole new way. Whether that works for Russia in the longer term is hard thing to predict, but it's pretty astounding to watch.
As to Ukraine, if NATO had rolled in there, it would have meant, in very short order, NATO and ultimately uniformed Russian troops would have been lobbing bullets at each other, and that kind of crisis could likely have escalated very quickly. I don't see how any other President would have handled the situation any differently. Neither Ford or Nixon intervened when the Soviets reimposed control over Czechoslovakia in 1968, and for the same reason Obama would not have intervened militarily in Ukraine. Ukraine is not a NATO member, it is not a EU member, and while it has had growing ties with the West, it's still not a first order ally. Couple that with the unwillingness of Europe, and Germany in particular, to wage economic war on Russia to the extent that the Obama Administration had wanted, how can you fault Obama for the more muted response?
And if you think Obama went easy on the Russians, what do you think Trump with his Secretary of State pick (presuming the Senate doesn't sink Tillerson's nomination) is going to do? Do you think he'd stand up to Russia, considering he's made his admiration for Putin pretty clear, and seems to be leaning heavily towards a Russo-American Detente, if not outright Entente?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
This. I don't understand Democrats these days. This isn't a team sport. This is our lives. How can you be silent when you have learned what your party was up to? They were conspiring to undermine you, the Democrat voter. Where is the outrage?
When I read the stories about the NSA, the five-eyes, the affront to the 4th amendment. I was outraged. I think Edward Snowden is a hero for going against some very very powerful forces and revealing what was happening in our own country against us by the leviathan. Russia did that for the democratic party. You can't be against Russia's hacking, but for Edward Snowden. They play the same character in this one.
> Two years ago, Russia invaded a sovereign country, Ukraine, and occupied it.
In 2003, the United State of American invaded two sovereign countries, Afghanistan and Iraq, and occupied them.
As a reminder, the response of the world was basically wagging their finger at the USA, saying "bad Americans, bad boys" - no concrete action.
The Bush administration set the precedent for the international ambivalence to invasions by Russia of Georgia and the Ukraine.
So the USA may not be in a position to criticize Russia on the military actions taken on behalf of its energy sector.
The Real Crisis is that the DNC and their prized candidate were exposed as corrupt. The DNC invented "superdelegates" to the benefit of Clinton. The DNC chairwoman rigged the primary to favor Clinton (she resigned). A DNC insider at CNN provided debate questions in advance to Clinton (she was fired). Clinton had sought to blame a video on Benghazi (she resigned to minimize the political fallout). After too many shady scandals dating back to Watergate, voters rejected the MSM's sheltering of Clinton and refused to elect a crook to the executive branch.
The DNC did that to themselves and they are outraged that their corruption was exposed, so they sought a scapegoat to create a diversion from the Real Crisis. Russia didn't invent superdelegates, didn't rig the primaries, didn't provide debate questions in advance. The Real Crisis is that the DNC is losing their voter base even to minorities. Obama's weaponizing of federal agencies as tools of intimidation and retaliation date back to his Illinois state government chicanery and has damaged diplomatic relations. Voters saw government going in the direction of "Boss" Tweed corruption and they wanted none of it.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
1. What the DNC 'was up to' pales in comparison to what the NSA was up to.
Actually, the DNC didn't do that much at all. That part of it was and is a tempest in a teapot.
2. Besides that, Russia's hacking is malicious, whereas Snowden's revelations are clearly well-intended. So yes, you can be against Russia's hacking and for Edward Snowden.
Yes, collusion and corruption are not nefarious undertakings. If they are not as bad as you want to paint it, then the Russian hacks don't matter, do they? After all, if what they showed American voters was totally mundane regular office affairs how could they have influenced the election? Sorry, you can't have it both ways.
The Russians apparently tried hacking the RNC but failed because no one clicked on a stupid phishing link.
"Stir up trouble" is informing American voters the extent the DNC colluded and how corrupt Clinton was. Good god man, did the Pentagon Papers stir up trouble too? You bet it did and for good reason. Showing the unadulterated truth to voters is not "stirring up trouble" especially compared to the shit that those leaks exposed.