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US Releases Declassified Report On Russian Hacking, Concludes That Putin 'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has released its unclassified report on Russian hacking operations in the United States. "We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election," according to the report. "Russia's goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump." The report, titled "Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections," details the successful hack of the Democratic National Committee. "The Kremlin's campaign aimed at the U.S. election featured disclosures of data obtained through Russian cyber operations; intrusions into U.S. state and local electoral boards; and overt propaganda," according to the report. The report states that Russian intelligence services made cyber-attacks against "both major U.S. political parties" to influence the 2016 election. The report also publicly names Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks.com, two sources of stolen information released to the public, as Russian operatives working on behalf of the country's military intelligence unit, the GRU. Officials from the organization were recently the target of U.S. sanctions. WikiLeaks is also cited as a recipient of stolen information. The report also notes that the U.S. has determined Russia "accessed elements of multiple state or local electoral boards," though no vote-tallying processes were tampered with. The FBI and CIA have "high confidence" the election tampering was ordered by Putin to help then-candidate Trump, according to the report. NSA has "moderate confidence" in the assessment. bongey writes: The declassified DNI report offers no direct evidence of Russia hacking DNC or Podesta emails. Exactly half of the report (subtract blank and TOC) 9 of 18 is just devoted to going after RT.com by claiming they have close ties to Russia and therefore a propaganda arm, trying to imply that rt.com is related to the hacking. "Many of the key judgments in this assessment rely on a body of reporting from multiple sources that are consistent with our understanding of Russian behavior. Insights into Russian efforts -- including specific cyber operations -- and Russian views of key U.S. players derive from multiple corroborating sources. Some of our judgments about Kremlin preferences and intent are drawn from the behavior of Kremlin loyal political figures, state media, and pro-Kremlin social media actors, all of whom the Kremlin either directly uses to convey messages or who are answerable to the Kremlin." UPDATE 1/6/17: President-elect Donald Trump met with U.S. intelligence officials Friday, calling the meeting "constructive" and offering praise for intel officials. "While Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people are consistently trying to break through the cyber infrastructure of our governmental institutions, businesses and organizations including the Democrat National Committee, there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election, including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines," Trump said in a statement after the meeting.

78 of 734 comments (clear)

  1. 'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump by dohzer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump? Wow, I never thought the US people and Putin could have so much in common.

    1. Re:'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump by MightyMartian · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You mean the US electoral college and Putin, because in popular vote terms, the US people preferred Clinton.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    2. Re:'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump by Sumus+Semper+Una · · Score: 2

      I'm pretty sure the only clear preference shown in this past election by the US people was for none of the available candidates.

    3. Re:'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If we used the popular vote it would be called "United State" not "United States".

      You agreeed to the rules when you played the game.

    4. Re:'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump by roninmagus · · Score: 3, Informative

      You mean the US electoral college and Putin, because in popular vote terms, California preferred Clinton.

      FTFY. And of course those who want citations: http://www.politico.com/2016-e....

      California chose Hillary by 3.4 million cotes. Hillary won nationwide popular vote by 2.9 million votes. The entire difference and then some is the state of California.

    5. Re:'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump by jjo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Counted one way, the US people favored Trump. Counted another way, the US people favored Clinton. Almost without exception, political observers now profess a clear preference for the vote-counting method that would have worked best for their favored candidate: Clinton supporters have discovered a new passion for using the aggregate popular vote, while Trump supporters see great virtue in the Electoral College. Politics as usual.

    6. Re:'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You mean the US electoral college and Putin, because in popular vote terms, California preferred Clinton.

      FTFY. And of course those who want citations: http://www.politico.com/2016-e....

      California chose Hillary by 3.4 million cotes. Hillary won nationwide popular vote by 2.9 million votes. The entire difference and then some is the state of California.

      Aaaaaaaand..... your point being that California is not..... a part of America?

    7. Re:'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump by Pulzar · · Score: 2

      California chose Hillary by 3.4 million cotes. Hillary won nationwide popular vote by 2.9 million votes. The entire difference and then some is the state of California.

      I'm not even sure what's that supposed to mean? Remove the biggest state with the most Hillary supporters, and then they are even? TX, OK, AR, and LA have together about the same number of electoral votes, too, so let's remove the 2+ million that Trump won those by, too. We're back to square one.

      --
      Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CD-ROMs.
    8. Re:'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump by phantomfive · · Score: 5, Informative

      Read the whole document (I wish that were a requirement before any reporter could write a news story on the topic, but whatever).

      The most entertaining part to me is the part where it says, "it was revenge for the Panama papers." Heh. As if Russia had no other reason to hack US computers.

      Another interesting part is where it mentions Assange's ties to the official Russian news channel (RT). I was unaware that he sometimes appeared on TV there.

      Another interesting part is where it analyzes Russian television support for Trump as a candidate. For example, as soon as he won, they say that the Russian TV stopped criticizing the election process as "unfair." So their analysis that Russia wanted Trump to win seems reasonable.

      Their analysis of the hacking is not good though. They say:
      1) Guccifier 2.0 is the Russian government because: he is probably a Russian speaker, not Romanian speaker. That's it? Very not convincing.
      2) The leaks to Wikileaks were from the Russian government because Assange appears on the Russian news channel (RT). Again, that's it? Not very convincing.
      3) They claim "Russia accessed elements of multiple state or local electoral boards." Of this, they give no evidence. Absolutely nothing to support this claim. Seriously, tell us which electoral board, or arrest the members of the board, or something.

      Some things we do know: John Podesta had an extremely insecure password, and that's how his email leaked. We know that Assange claims the email came from a disgruntled DNC operative. That is not unreasonable, if I saw what they were doing in the DNC, I would have been upset about it too.

      Enough Americans are good people, that if you have some surveillance program, or are doing things to mess with our free election process, sooner or later someone is going to leak that.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    9. Re:'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump by fredgiblet · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Which is utterly irrelevant per the rules.

    10. Re:'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump by roninmagus · · Score: 2

      I failed at math? Here's my citation, where's your's? http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/21/...

    11. Re:'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump by roninmagus · · Score: 4, Informative

      The US is a group of 50 states with completely separate governments, ideals, constitutions. My point is that the ideals and size of the state of California account for the entirety of the difference.

      My state, Tennessee, is VASTLY different than California. Everybody is using a popular vote argument like the country is united against Trump, which is not accurate.

    12. Re:'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Headline: most populous state in the country has an opinion on who should lead it.

      Clinton also won New York by 1.5 million votes. You could try to make a story of "without New York, Clinton would have only won by 1.4 million votes!", but that would also be dumb and misleading. In fact, if you skip all states where Clinton won, then Trump would have lead by 8.4 million votes! Of course, the opposite would have Clinton winning by 11.2 million, so you might want to keep that inconvenient fact in your pocket.

      America preferred Clinton. "America, except for..." doesn't matter for shit because it wasn't "America, except for..." who votes on these things.

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    13. Re:'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm not saying Clinton didn't lose fair and square. But the GP made the claim the American people favored Trump, which is, in fact false. No one disputes that the Electors have the ultimate constitutional authority to choose the POTUS, and that constitutionally Trump is the rightful winner of the election. But whatever that may represent, what it does not represent is that Trump is the popular pick.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    14. Re:'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In several obvious ways:

      1) He brings up the popular vote, which is pretty much irrelevant within the current American electoral system (i.e., the one used for the 2016 election). It's a pointless distraction within the context of this submission's discussion.

      2) He disparages the electoral college, presumably because he disagrees with the result in this particular case. Yet the American electoral system is well-established, fair, and well-understood. He's just upset that his candidate lost, although he probably would be completely supportive of the electoral college were the outcome in his preferred candidate's favor.

      3) He suggests that Putin had an impact on the outcome of the election, when the evidence suggests there was no such impact.

      So in summary, his comment doesn't contribute to the discussion here, and in fact it appears to be trying to derail it with irrelevant points, false accusations, an undeserved sense of entitlement, and just a lot of whining in general.

      He's just upset that his candidate lost in a fair election, and now he appears to be trying to disrupt the conversation here with nonsense.

    15. Re:'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump by Freischutz · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Last I checked, California was still part of the United States. Unless you can cite something that proves otherwise.

      A large portion of Trump voters is of the opinion that California's votes should not count in elections. Apparently they are, however, perfectly happy to collect the money California's voters pay into the federal coffers and that gets eaten up by federal aid to red states.

    16. Re:'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump by HornWumpus · · Score: 2

      The Russians were also Hitler's ally and would have continued to be so until Hitler attacked them.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    17. Re:'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump by sexconker · · Score: 3, Informative

      Which is utterly irrelevant per the rules.

      Which rule says we can't consider the popular vote in any way whatsoever, even to make a pointed remark criticizing Donald Trump's inability to get more people to vote for him than anyone else?

      The "Don't be a little bitch." rule. You can QQ all you want, but you should expect others to tell you to STFU when you do because everyone's sick of hearing it.

    18. Re:'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump by Solandri · · Score: 4, Informative
      The U.S. people didn't prefer Clinton - she only got 48% of the popular vote. A plurality, not a majority. If you break down the popular vote by political spectrum:
      • Liberal canddiates (Clinton, Sanders, Stein, Riva) got 49.24% of the vote.
      • Conservative candidates (Trump, Kasich, Johnson, McMullin, Castle) got 49.91% of the vote.
      • The remaining 0.85% was split among other candidates.

      So a more fair assessment of the popular vote tally would be that the U.S. people preferred a conservative candidate.

    19. Re:'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump by sexconker · · Score: 2, Insightful

      As a Californian, I say Californians should have no right to vote in national elections until they prove they are US citizens.
      I'd extend that to any state that has an illegal immigration problem. And I'd support a Constitutional Amendment to require proof of national citizenship to vote in national elections. (I would NOT approve of any federal law other than a Constitutional Amendment to require this nationwide - currently, the Constitution says that States run their elections.)

      Further, California can't even get its ass together with regards to splitting off Northern California and Southern California into 2 states (which is an idea put forth every few years). CA is not leaving the U.S. of A., nor does it have the right to. Even if it did, it would wither and die, literally, because we're in a biiiiiiiiiiit of a drought. And ultimately, there is no fucking way the US Navy would cede that much Pacific coastline to a turkey shit state like CA, there's no way the US would be selling oil/power/water to an annoying brat who ran away from home at prices other than "fuck you", and there's no way Silicon Valley would stay connected to the internet as they know it should CA attempt to pull such a stunt. The last time people left the club, the nation engaged in Civil War, which is still the deadliest war we've ever had, and that was with many states trying to leave. Not even Texas has the balls to actually quit, and Texas would be perfectly fine on its own (plenty of land, food, water, oil, electricity, etc.).

    20. Re:'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Stop with rewriting history. Russia and Hitler had a non-aggression pact, not an alliance. The pact included dividing up Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, and Romania between the two.

      Same as the US Monroe Doctrine back in the 1800s claimed political dominance of the Americas to be US's right. This was seen by the whole "banana republic" US corporatism favorable to US business at the expense of central and south america.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    21. Re:'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump by cecurry · · Score: 5, Informative

      1.) The popular vote may or may not be relevant to the current American political system, but it certainly seems like an appropriate and relevant response to determine what the U.S. population's preference is, which is exactly the subject of the comment he was replying to. 2.) Your presumption about someone's intent is just that. I presume you've never studied political systems and base your opinion on your own inherent biases. The electrical system is well-established, but that means nothing, except that it's difficult to get rid of. It is well-understood, and people who understand it the most (constitutional scholars and such) say it's no longer a good idea. 3.) You suggest that Putin didn't have an impact, and that's clearly a debatable point. We simply don't know. What are almost certain of is that Putin attempted to have an impact on the election, and if a nation-state dedicated resources towards that goal then I'd certainly say it's plausible.

    22. Re:'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump by Bryan+Ischo · · Score: 3

      It is true that there would be a rife of problems were CA to try to secede; but you didn't actually state any of them. Instead you went on a rant full of your own biases and judgements. And who cares what you think? I don't, not enough to even finish reading your crap.

    23. Re:'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump by ClickOnThis · · Score: 4, Insightful

      How is this trolling?

      Clinton didn't win even 50% of the vote. The majority of voters voted ABC - anybody but Clinton.

      You could flip that and claim that an even greater majority of voters voted ABT.

      You can nitpick that MightyMartian's post was inaccurate because a majority of US voters in fact did not prefer Clinton. But a majority did not prefer Trump either. And Clinton did get more votes than any other candidate. And that bugs the hell out of Trump, so much that he created a fiction of 'millions' of illegal aliens voting for Clinton.

      Yes, I know that it's the Electoral College that matters. That doesn't mean the popular vote is not of interest.

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    24. Re:'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump by tsotha · · Score: 3, Informative

      Which is too bad for Clinton, since we don't have a national election for president in the US. We have 50 small elections.

    25. Re: 'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump by dnaumov · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You seem confused. The electoral college is working precisely as intended: to prevent very few states with very high relative population from dominating the politics of the entire country via a simple majority.

    26. Re:'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump by phantomfive · · Score: 2

      You're only seeing the unclassified information. What you're saying about the quality of the evidence is only relevant to the public portion of the report. The intelligence agencies do not like to disclose information that can compromise their methods.

      Yeap, but if they say, "trust us, we have classified information that proves it," I don't trust them, because they've lied too many times before.
      In this case, they didn't even say that.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    27. Re:'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump by Christopher+Fritz · · Score: 2

      If I recall correctly, the IT response was along the lines of "that's legitimate; go here to reset your password" providing an appropriate link. But Podesta (or whoever managed his e-mail) followed the link in the phish e-mail rather than the one IT said to use.

    28. Re: 'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump by dcollins · · Score: 2

      Or, what's actually part of the historical record, a compromise to empower the institution of slavery: http://time.com/4558510/electoral-college-history-slavery/

      --
      We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
    29. Re: 'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump by SuricouRaven · · Score: 2

      If I try to rephase that in simpler and more modern terms:

      "The north has more (white) people than the south, so if we use a popular vote the South wouldn't matter so much - they know this, and there's no way they are buying into this 'United States' thing if they would wield less influence than the north. So we'll use an electoral college. This effectively means a voter in a small state is more important than a voter in a large state, but it's the only solution everyone can agree to."

    30. Re:'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump by Invalidator · · Score: 2

      The reason why Trump became president is quite clear and all you have to do is look up the Electoral College on Wikipedia. The short answer is that during the 19th century, many states converted the Electoral College to a "winner take all" system. Once that was done, the popular vote became rather meaningless. Since then, the loser of the popular vote has nevertheless four times won the electoral college under the "winner take all" system. Coincidentally, all four of those corrupt selections were to the benefit of the republican party.

      The US has a corrupt election system when the will of the majority is ignored to the benefit of one political party.

      --

      ~_~ Not tonight, dear, I have a modem.

    31. Re:'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 2

      Counties don't vote, people do.

      There are more counties in which more people voted red than blue, yes. But this can mean 50%+1 vote voting red; and if you count it all as red, you ignore all those people who voted otherwise.

      That's actually the biggest problem that Democrats have: the demographics that support them are clustered in densely populated areas, where they have huge but completely useless margins, thereby wasting votes (because once your guy got over 50% of the votes, every additional vote is a "wasted" one that doesn't change anything).

    32. Re:'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump by dywolf · · Score: 2
      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
  2. Wow, it's effing nothing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    TL;DR:

    - Russia wanted the candidate who didn't want to start WW3 to win
    - The wikileaks emails were all real
    - Russia didn't hack the election
    - The Russian propaganda network dispensed Russian propaganda

    1. Re: Wow, it's effing nothing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Unfortunately, the real power is with Paul Ryan. Trump was never really a true Republican.

      I an not looking forward to Trump making deals with Ryan to further his agenda by making some concessions with Ryan to further his agenda.

      Say goodbye to Planned Parenthood, in return we get an early start Trump's wall. Trump wants tariffs, is he willing to overturn roe vs wade to sweeten the deal.

  3. Big deal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I seem to remember the Obama administration had a preference against Brexit and Netin-yahoo...

  4. Re:Also in the report by butchersong · · Score: 3, Informative

    Was there ever evidence that Russia was the Wikileaks source? Julian Assange has certainly denied it and implied not too subtly that it may have been a certain murdered DNC staffer named Seth Rich. Regardless if it was him or not Julian Assange has stated unequivocally that the source was a DNC staffer.

  5. Why bother with the machines? by Idou · · Score: 3, Insightful

    . . . there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines. . .

    Why bother with the voting machines when you can tamper with the voters?

    --
    Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
    1. Re:Why bother with the machines? by phantomfive · · Score: 2

      I want to point out that although the document claims that Russia hired internet trolls to spread propaganda, they did not link or show a single instance of the trolling. Come on, just link to one troll somewhere, one comment or one blog.

      Hiring trolls seems like something Russia might do, but to say for sure they did, I want to see the evidence.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  6. Re:Also in the report by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No, Assange has simply claimed it wasn't Russia (why anyone would believe Assange is beyond me, even if he was in a position to know that all the intermedaries weren't Russians). People like you keep trying to make Rich into some sort of victim of the Clinton Crime FAmily. It's a deep irony that you'll reject multiple US security services' claims that Russia was the source, but buy into a completely unevidenced and really quite idiotic conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton had a DNC staffer murdered. And for what? So that voting for Trump doesn't make you a fucking moron? Well, too bad, you're a fucking moron.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  7. Re:A clear preference by phantomfive · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Putin dislikes Clinton for one reason (imo):
    No one in the world has more influence in the Balkans and Ukraine than Bill Clinton. Not only did he win a war there, he has deep understanding of the region (even knowing who some of the crime lords are), and has personal relationships with many people there. Apart from Lewinsky, he was an excellent president and he managed to settle a complex region that could have ended up like Iraq is now, if someone less competent had been in charge.

    However, Putin has a goal to increase his influence in the exact same region. The biggest impediment to reaching that goal would be Bill/Hillary in power again.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  8. Gee, I wonder... by The+Last+Gunslinger · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Let's compare/contrast the historical veracity of information released by Assange/WikiLeaks with that of any US intelligence service, shall we?

    One has an impeccable record of authenticity, while the other is run by documented liars. In fact, both Brennan and Clapper sat before Congress and bald-faced LIED when asked about the existence and activities of the NSA's domestic spying apparatus.

    The better question would be: Why would anyone in their right mind not believe Assange over the Liar McPantsonFires in Washington DC?

  9. An Actual Sentence? by painandgreed · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "While Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people are consistently trying to break through the cyber infrastructure of our governmental institutions, businesses and organizations including the Democrat National Committee, there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election, including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines," Trump said in a statement after the meeting.

    OMG! That seems like an actual, complete sentence with a coherent message from Trump!

    1. Re:An Actual Sentence? by Freischutz · · Score: 2, Funny

      Probably written by a staffer.

      I pity the guy who had to chew that sentence into Trumps ears for hours on end until the Orange Menace finally learned it by heart.

  10. Re:Undermining Faith in the Election by admin7087 · · Score: 2

    I think Donald Trump did the best job, he did a tremendous job downplaying cyber and all this democracy thing, better than anyone else.

  11. Re:Also in the report by johanw · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why would anyone believe Clapper, who has been cought at lying under oath before the congress before?

  12. No evidence here by troll+-1 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Just a reminder that the US government are proven liars. They lied all through the 1950s about the Middle East and Iran, They lied their arses about Vietnam. They lied about not supporting South American dictators. They lied about the Contras. And when came to WMD they even lied to themselves and then fabricated evidence to prove their own BS. Up until 1973, when they were found out, they even paid reporters at the New York Times and Washington Post to print fake news. This is an incredible but true fact. Well documented. It's amazing stuff. And they always get away with it. Heck, go back to the 1800s, the Philippine war or the Spanish-America war. They were even printing fake news back then. It never ends.

    1. Re:No evidence here by HornWumpus · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The Ds were just caught keeping pet reporters on staff at the NYT, CNN etc. Even when caught, the NYTs/CNN didn't fire anybody, hence it still is newspaper/network policy to lie for the democrats.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  13. Re:So problem solved by HornWumpus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    On the one hand: Yes they should have secured their machines and not put morons who would fall for simple phishing tricks in charge.

    On the other hand: Whoever released the DNC/Podesta emails did us all a huge favor. We shouldn't care all that much who did it. We particularly shouldn't care about the fact free allegations being made by the crooks who were exposed and lost.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  14. Re:A clear preference by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Not to mention that Hillary Clinton used the CIA to influence the 2011 Russian elections against Putin's party. This is just payback in kind.

    --
    SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
  15. Hypocrisy? by Feyshtey · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How does what Russia is accused of differ from the Obama administration influencing the Israeli presidential election by giving over $300k to groups acting against Netanyahu?

    --
    "But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
    1. Re:Hypocrisy? by MightyMartian · · Score: 2, Informative

      Well, in strict terms, the State Department sent that money to an Israeli group called OneGroup, which ostensibly was given the money to promote the Two-state solution. Now I'll agree it's likely the intent was that OneGroup use the money to attack Netanyahu, though you're not likely to find anyone on either side saying "That's what the plan was", but even that rather mild conspiracy is still out in the open. It's not like it was sent covertly, or that the Administration covertly passed on emails and documents hacked from Likud servers to OneGroup.

      So no, in fact, it's not at all like Russia using Wikileaks as a conduit to pass on information hacked from DNC servers.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    2. Re:Hypocrisy? by Mistlefoot · · Score: 3, Interesting

      $38,000,000,000 to the Israel government.
                            $300,000 to a group that promotes a two state solution.

      Definitely biased against the Israel government.

    3. Re:Hypocrisy? by bongey · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Report does not state they have any evidence that the Russians hacked nor leaked emails to wikileaks, just basically "we think they did this". Read the god dam report, it absolutely provides no evidence or new information.

  16. Re:What does that statement mean? by guruevi · · Score: 2

    When did Obama or Clinton become tech wizards?

    --
    Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
  17. Re:A clear preference by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Clinton an excellent president? You mean the DINO (Democrat In Name Only) who dismantled the New Deal protections (see Glass-Steagall) that could have prevented the financial meltdown? What f*ing planet are you living on?

    Or the same president who was too chickenshit to allow gay marriage, instead passing the unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act? The same guy who claimed he didn't inhale (what was he smoking to even think anyone would believe that?). And let's not forget Don't Ask Don't Tell.

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  18. Re:A clear preference by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Would be Obama/Clinton, given the number of "red lines" enacted and withdrawn.

    Assad crossed the "red line" when Hillary was no longer SOS. So it was Obama/Kerry not Obama/Clinton. Hillary has said she would have been more aggressive in Syria.

    Personal opinion: Obama made the right choice. Bombing would have accomplished nothing. So instead we demanded that Assad destroy his entire stockpile of chemical weapons, and then we verified that he did it. That was an accomplishment.

    More personal opinion: We are backing the wrong side in Syria. Assad is preferable to the opposition in almost every way. We don't need to oppose him just because the Russians support him.

  19. Re:Well by farble1670 · · Score: 2

    California suffers from numerous problems. 1. Illegal voters 2. Voter intimidation 3. Voter depression

    Also,

    4. Voter suppression
    5. Voter aggression
    6. Vote anticipation
    7. Voter aggravation
    8. Voter illustration
    9. Voter constipation
    10. Voter elaboration
    11. Voter absolution
    12. Voter abstraction
    13. Voter inauguration
    12. Voter incineration
    13. Voter alliteration

    Yes I threw awa my mod points to post this stupid comment.

  20. Who says I believe either? by rsilvergun · · Score: 3, Insightful

    especially without qualification.

    I might believe this report over Assange because he had a very clear motive to make sure Hilary Clinton didn't get elected. Her dislike for him (and Snowden) was well documented).

    And you'd be a fool if you didn't believe Russia preferred Trump over Hilary. Trump has been pro-Russia all along and has millions (billions?) to gain from his business interests by supporting them. The real question is, do American interests align with Russia. If the answer is yes, by all means, believe Trump and his ilk. Otherwise, well, Houston, we have a problem...

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:Who says I believe either? by WaffleMonster · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Given that the Democrats are trying to start WWIII by doing everything from poking Russia with a pointy stick to rolling out tanks on their border, this is a damned good thing.

      Every time I hear "trying to start WWIII" it becomes hard not to tune out. This is such a tired old talking point devoid of any coherent information or useful context to the extent of being virtually non-falsifiable in nature.

      If a training exercise in Norway = WWWIII god can only guess what conducting the same in SK territory means with respect to DPRK, US warships "invading" Chinese territory in South China Sea, Russia annexing land in foreign countries, Russia invading Georgia, Russian invading a country they signed defense treaties with (e.g. Budapest Memorandum), planting flags in Artic and conducting joint training exercises in Cuba.

      Anyone could make reverse argument being a pussy and standing down or otherwise perusing appeasement and capitulation can also lead to war by empowering those with expansionist aims to become blind to consequences.

      None of these statements are worth anything in and of themselves. They are two sides of the same worthless coin.

      If you don't agree with a particular course of action much better simply to support your position by providing falsifiable evidence explaining specifically why a course of action is reckless or dangerous.

  21. Comrade Drumpkov by PopeRatzo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Like it or not, the perception of the incoming president as Putin's lapdog is going to stick. You cannot wipe off the stink at this point. In the history books, Donald J Trump is going to have an asterisk after his name, and the image of #RussianDon cuddling up to Vladimir Putin is forever.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  22. NSA has moderate confidence by bongey · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The NSA said it has moderate confidence or about 50% that it was the Russians. So for nearly the same probability of flipping a coin, 35 diplomats were kicked out and 2 Russian sites that have been open since the 1970s were closed down.

    The NSA opinion holds vastly more weight related to hacking because the NSA are the hacking experts, the FBI/CIA are doing political guessing.

    The FBI changed there opinion on the CIAs information. Considering the former CIA head came out for Clinton and the current head John Brennan spoke out against Trump. Both the CIA/FBI ended with highly confident, sure not political at all, wink, wink.

    I will trust the NSA over the CIA/FBI.

    1. Re:NSA has moderate confidence by Medinole · · Score: 3, Informative

      Your comment incorrectly portrays the information in the report.

      The CIA, FBI, and NSA all have high confidence that it was the Russians.

      The NSA has moderate confidence the Russians did it to help elect Trump.

      Please see page 7 of the report - https://www.dni.gov/files/docu...

      "We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US
      presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process,
      denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess
      Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We
      have high confidence in these judgments.

      - We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s
      election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her
      unfavorably to him. All three agencies agree with this judgment. CIA and FBI have high confidence
      in this judgment; NSA has moderate confidence."

  23. Re:A clear preference by mi · · Score: 2

    No one in the world has more influence in the Balkans and Ukraine than Bill Clinton.

    Can't speak for the Balkans, but that is certainly not true about Ukraine. McCain has influence there — he knows Russians since his youth. Biden does — his son has sizeable investments there. Obama and Trump do — for their own obvious reasons.

    But Clinton?..

    he was an excellent president and he managed to settle a complex region that could have ended up like Iraq is now, if someone less competent had been in charge

    The difference with Iraq may be more due to differences between Iraqis and Yugoslavs — and their respective neighborhoods — than that between Bush and Clinton.

    The biggest impediment to reaching that goal would be Bill/Hillary in power again.

    Really? You mean, the Hillary of the "Reset" fame? The Hillary, that was on his payroll for years? The Hillary, whose e-mails his staff has been accessing more reliably, than weather forecasts? That Hillary?..

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  24. Re:A clear preference by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We want a decades long, bloody stalemate between Sunni/Shia. Keep them busy and out of trouble.

    Wars don't reduce trouble. They create radicalized and desperate people. Syrian refugees are destabilizing the EU, and many of the recent terrorist attacks in France, Germany, and Turkey can be traced back to Syria.

  25. Re: A clear preference by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Fuck you! I'm from the Balkans and US involvement only made things worse. Facts were turned upside down, people were killed and their rapists and torturers were praised and supported by US. You are right about Bill knowing the crime lords there, he and CIA created most of them to benefit from smuggling and other illegal activities. Do die in a ditch you piece of shit, you don't know what you are talking about!

  26. Re:A clear preference by Blaskowicz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That's fucking horrible. Perhaps thinking that makes you feel smart as if you were Sun Tzu or were playing a game of Sid Meier's Civilization, but there are actual people living there. This sounds like ramblings of a jerky hand lunatic Hitler waiting it out in the bunker.
    What would you rather like (assuming in the US) : functioning education, health, Department of Transportation, EPA etc., DoJ, Police and so on, or three decades of protestant vs catholic war? While, far from leaving the rest out of trouble, the situation spills into Canada and Mexico with even a couple bombings in Brazil, and US Jews have to flee wherever they can.

    If that was bitter sarcasm, let us know.

  27. Re:A clear preference by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "Excellent president"

    Sure, if you ignore the fact that:
    1) He dismantled the protections that American consumers had from Wall Street when he signed the repeal of Glass-Steagall.

    2) He destroyed the Democratic Party as a party of the people when he led the "Third Way" into control of the party and made it into the conservative, pro-corporate trash that it is today. (Which is ironically, led to the rise of people like DWS who destroyed Hillary's campaign for president.)

    3) Waco and Ruby Ridge happened under Clinton's DOJ, which led to the further rise of insane right-wing militias. Those incidents also led directly to the Oklahoma City Bombing.

    4) Clinton arguably committed war crimes in Serbia. (Part of his expertise on the Balkans that you cite so favourable?)

    5) Osama Bin Laden attributed Clinton's bombing of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory (which killed tens of thousands of Sudanese as a result of lack of medicine) as one of his motivations for revenge on 9/11.

    6) Don't Ask; Don't Tell. DOMA.

    7) The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act

    8) The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act

    Other than that, great president though.

    Basically, the guy was lucky enough to be president at the time that the economy was booming because the Cold War was over and the Internet happened. And he at least had enough foresight not to fuck those things up. (And most of that foresight was probably attributable to Gore and Clinton's pro-corporate interests.)

  28. Still waiting for evidence by WaffleMonster · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So far US government has utterly failed to provide any compelling evidence to support it's assertions. Yet another worthless mostly off-topic 13 page document crying about success of foreign propaganda rather than supporting any of it's positions with evidence.

    Everyone knows what "RT" is. It's no secret to anyone who isn't living under a rock why they exist and what they do any more than it's no secret why VOA/CNN exist.

    All I've seen on CNN the past few weeks is... Wikileaks is an agent of Russia, Wikileaks stole information, Assange is wanted for rape, Assange rapes little girls and persistently pathetic stories of low morale and despair among TLAs because Trump won't listen to them.... WAHHHHHHH.

    Do I trust US intel to provide truthful and accurate "assessments" to the public? After curveball's mobile production facilities, aluminum tubes and Uranium (dramatic pause) from Africa do you really need to ask?

    1. Re:Still waiting for evidence by shanen · · Score: 2

      If you [WaffleMonster] actually read the released version of the report, then you would have noticed that it repeatedly says that the evidence cannot be released in public. It even explains why.

      Now if the actual conclusions that are reported are different from those in the full version of the report that includes the evidence, then that will be reported by some of the people who are actually going to see the report. We can rely on that because some of those people are politicians who could not possibly keep such a secret. That would be a colossal fiasco, and therefore I believe the conclusions are accurately reported. (It also helps that the conclusions are pretty weak tea.)

      The report also mentions the use of trolls working for Putin. You [WaffleMonster]?

      --
      Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
  29. Re:Twelfth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by ClickOnThis · · Score: 2

    Which rule says we can't consider the popular vote in any way whatsoever, even to make a pointed remark criticizing Donald Trump's inability to get more people to vote for him than anyone else?

    The Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution makes it quite clear that the popular vote is irrelevant when it comes to electing the President.

    And the First Amendment makes it clear that it is perfectly legal to talk about the popular vote.

    --
    If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
  30. Re:Well by tsotha · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The other consideration is Trump may have been able to win the popular vote if it mattered. The Republicans sensibly wrote off California early in the campaign, so it's hard to know things would have turned out if they'd had to compete here.

  31. Re:Well by Nethead · · Score: 2

    Damn Hairy! There's your problem, she should have run for President of Mexico!

    --
    -- I have a private email server in my basement.
  32. Where's the Beef? by PortHaven · · Score: 3, Informative

    Where's the Beef? Here is the Declassified version of the U.S. Intelligence Report regarding Russia.

    https://www.dni.gov/files/docu...

    You know, the one cited for proof of undermining the U.S. election process. Well, I've read it, and I will sum it up with the following:

    TOTAL BUNK...

    Just some highlights...

    "Russian efforts to influence the 2016 US presidential election represent the most recent expression of Moscow’s longstanding desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order"

    This was funny, so they're only focused on undermining the liberal democratic order, conservatives and libertarians - YOU ARE SAFE!

    "We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him."

    The fact that statement is made, shows that this entire intelligence review is utter BS and mere politics. There is NO reason for Russia to be supporting Trump, and the actions could have just as easily benefited Bernie Sanders. If they were to accuse Russia of a motive, it would be to prevent Hillary being elected. Nothing to do with her competitors.

    "When it appeared to Moscow that Secretary Clinton was likely to win the election" Really, cause the appearances and statements across U.S. media was that this was an apparent given that Hillary would win and be our next president. This was de facto for a year or more.

    I saw in another article that they had record of Russian officials celebrating upon Trump's win. And clearly this means they were for Trump. Bogus. I didn't want Trump, but I was happy to not have Hillary. And I believe the Russians simply did NOT want Hillary - for good reason.

    "Russia’s state-run propaganda machine contributed to the influence campaign by serving as a platform for Kremlin messaging to Russian and international audiences."

    Which has zero affect on U.S. populace. Really, so what...we have tons of evidence that the mainstream media was a propaganda machine for Hillary which went so far as to rigged debates and more.

    "Kremlin’s TV Seeks To Influence Politics, Fuel Discontent in US" Really? How many American's were watching Kremlin TV?

    Basically, this report is Russian media outlets denigrated Hillary, while U.S. media outlets denigrated Bernie and Trump. And it's only okay for foreign media to denigrate Trump, not Hillary.

    "Putin publicly pointed to the Panama Papers disclosure and the Olympic doping scandal as US-directed efforts to defame Russia, suggesting he sought to use disclosures to discredit the image of the United States and cast it as hypocritical."

    HE IS RIGHT, IT WAS!!!

    Do I doubt Russia has hacked U.S. systems. Not one bit. Every government is doing it. Though few at the level the U.S. is. We've conducted more hacking and election affecting than every other country in the world has combined. So threatening military action and retaliation is not only hypocritical, it's ludicrously insane.

    Gee, so per the document Russia has had agents involved in monitoring the election process since the Carter days. Of course they do. So do we. Of course they're going to want to have insight into who will be the head of their largest rival. Duh... nothing to see here, go home.

    "Russia Times aired a documentary about the Occupy Wall Street movement on 1, 2, and 4 November. RT framed the movement as a fight against "the ruling class" and described the current US political system as corrupt and dominated by corporations."

    Um, ya...seems like the truth to me.

    So far as I read this, it pretty much appears to be 25 pages going thru decades of Russia and U.S. opposing opinions and expressions. Well duh...we did have a cold war. And even after it's pretty much been lukewarm. So none of this crap is evidence for U.S. claims being made against Russia currently.

    At

  33. Re:A clear preference by h33t+l4x0r · · Score: 2

    Clinton absolutely fucked up the dotcom bubble, Bush took the heat, inheriting the mess.

    You're remembering it wrong. There was nothing to clean up, the market had already corrected by the time GWB took office. The housing bubble mess he left for Obama, on the other hand, took a while.

  34. Re:Too bad there's almost no real news left... by mixed_signal · · Score: 2

    You're only getting the public portion of the report, the part that doesn't compromise methods. Instead of making up your own stories about this, you should be asking people that have sat in the intelligence briefings what their opinion is, and whether the remaining, and valid, questions have been answered.

  35. Re: A clear preference by phantomfive · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Fuck you! I'm from the Balkans and US involvement only made things worse.

    Clearly you're not Albanian.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  36. "Trust us" worked out really well last time! by Xenographic · · Score: 2

    > You're only getting the public portion of the report, the part that doesn't compromise methods.

    I have secret evidence that your secret evidence is completely bogus. This same secret evidence also indicates that you secretly wet the bed last night. And 20 organizations have signed off on it. Secretly. So it must be true! Unnamed high-level sources will gladly confirm this to any credulous media outlets that ask me about it. So you can't dispute it, just trust the experts. We have top men working on it right now. Top men. ~

    See, it doesn't work that way. The burden of proof is on them. You can't be rational and still accept things based on secret, unverifiable evidence. The US public did this already and paid for it with stupid wars. You all were worried about fake news, but it's A-OK to start another lie-based war with secret evidence? Oh, and let's do that with a nuclear power this time. That's *really* good for the environment.... right?

    I've seen the public evidence. The Russian state does not need to use ancient versions of P.A.S. Tor exit nodes are not evidence that Russia did anything. This isn't what nation state level hacking looks like to begin with and we do know that thanks to what we saw from the Belgacom hacks, from the leaks of the NSA's Tao catalog, or even the evaluation of Stuxnet.

    If they were any good, they'd have been the ones to tell us that malware was an old version of P.A.S. All that took was someone googling, so what "sources and methods" would that have compromised? If they miss something that utterly basic, how can we trust the rest of the secret report of secret evidence from known liars? Why didn't they report that most of those IPs were Tor exit nodes?

    It's supposed to be "trust, but verify" anyhow, not just "trust us." And I've done the verification on this one. This is a snow job.

    I'm not dumb enough to fall for it. Are you?