Expiring Section 702 of FISA Helped US Conclude Russia Hacked Election To Help Trump, NSA Chief Says (reuters.com)

Dustin Volz, reporting for Reuters: A top U.S. intelligence official said Thursday a controversial surveillance law that allows the broad electronic spying of foreigners played a major role in understanding Russia's alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election. The statement from Admiral Mike Rogers, the director of the U.S. National Security Agency, may bolster efforts by intelligence agencies to fully preserve the authority, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, before it expires at the end of the year. Privacy advocates have for years said Section 702 allows for excessively broad surveillance, including warrantless access to some American communications, and should be reformed to include new curbs. "I would highlight much, not all, much of what was in the intelligence community's assessment, for example, on the Russian efforts against the U.S. election process in 2016, was informed by knowledge we gained through (Section) 702 authority," Rogers said. Rogers said allowing the statute to expire on Dec. 31, unless Congress votes to reauthorize it, would degrade U.S. intelligence agencies' ability to provide "timely warning and insight" on a variety of criminal and national security threats.

Comments

Fake Headlines normally end with ?

[TimSSG]

Fake Headlines normally end with ? Tim S.

Re:Fake Headlines normally end with ?

[Aighearach]

Fake Headlines normally end with ?

It isn't fake, it turns out it really is a headline after all!

Re:Fake Headlines normally end with ?

[Anonymous Coward]

The truth hurts. The cyber is very hard. My 10-year-old son has computers. He's so good with them, you wouldn't believe. Maybe he can figure out the cyber. I don't know, maybe it's too hard. Now I'm gonna go rest, because I'm tired of winning.

Re:Fake Headlines normally end with ?

[DaHat]

Anyone can write a headline, it doesn't mean that what it says, or the content it is the title for is real... hence the whole #FakeNews narrative in many a place.

Re:Fake Headlines normally end with ?

[Imrik]

It isn't fake, the NSA chief really did say that...

Re:Fake Headlines normally end with ?

[Anonymous Coward]

What it should say is, "Loophole that allowed Obama Administration to spy on Americans is about to expire"

Everything else is spin.

Re:Fake Headlines normally end with ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now it is a depiction of reality.

Re:Fake Headlines normally end with ?

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet... months later and no evidence has been shown at all. Nobody "hacked" the election. For him to use this terminology shows how clueless he really is.

Re:Fake Headlines normally end with ?

[Tough Love]

What it should say is, "Loophole that allowed Obama Administration to spy on Americans is about to expire"

Everything else is spin.

That sounds like spin.

Re:Fake Headlines normally end with ?

[Anonymous Coward]

But not just anyone can photoshop a picture of Putin in a St. Petersburg cafe sipping from his 500mL glass of Putinia vodka, casually hacking into each and every voter's brains, silvered aviators over his visage and that smug grin as he hacks at his Macbook Air. And on the screen was this big ASCII text all in green on black called "US ELECTION SYSTEM" and whenever he hits return or clicks his pointing device, a new neat-o futuristic sound loudly comes from the computer, bolstering his and the audience's confidence. Yes, indeed. That Russian Putin literally *hacked* into the elections. Next, he's going to hack into the great USA's rivers and lakes and make them all drain where the US populace will inevitably either die of thirst or have to buy overly inflated water sold by Gazprom and piped in over the pole via the Keystone XL pipeline which is why he hacked America to change all the votes from the other thing to Trump.

Re:Fake Headlines normally end with ?

[MightyMartian]

Let the red herrings swim

Re:Fake Headlines normally end with ?

[Aighearach]

OK smartypants, you're going all "vocabulary" on us with your terminology analysis, and that's nice but I'm wondering...

How many definitions of "hacked" are there, and do any apply?

OK, so they probably didn't hit it with a large bladed weapon.

They probably didn't break into a computer to do it.

What about finding an unusual but creative solution using whatever tools were at hand? Are you really sure that doesn't fit? It seems to me that even if no crime occurred for there to be "evidence" of, this one still might be true.

What about social engineering, also known as social hacking? It seems like that one fits the worst of the accusations. And with that type of thing you don't expect there to be strong evidence until late in an investigation. And indeed, intelligence officials and members of congress with security clearance have said that there is significant circumstantial evidence of this already. That doesn't mean that there was automatically a crime, but it seems rather specious at this point to deny that there is any evidence at all. It seems more accurate to say that the specific details of evidence uncovered so far has not yet been made public because the investigation is still ongoing.

Your accusation is false in multiple demonstrable ways, and your vocabulary sucks.

Re:Fake Headlines normally end with ?

[Anonymous Coward]

And the next person Trump fires is....

Re:Fake Headlines normally end with ?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're as vile as spent douche fluid. Did you know that? How can you live with yourself?

Re: Fake Headlines normally end with ?

[mSparks43]

i love how all the trumptons sucked up everything we put out to make sure hillary didn't get elected. everything from impending dementia to coloscopy bags to google hiding the massive number of stories we put out about trump.

But its even more fun watching the post rationalisation.

Re:Fake Headlines normally end with ?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're thinking about us way more than we're thinking about you ;)

Re: Fake Headlines normally end with ?

[Anonymous Coward]

We were fed up with the government so we elected Trump to fire everyone.

Re:Fake Headlines normally end with ?

[BlueStrat]

What it should say is, "Loophole that allowed Obama Administration to spy on Americans is about to expire"

Everything else is spin.

That sounds like spin.

Truth has been known to have a strong 3/5ths-integer spin. :)

Strat

Re: Fake Headlines normally end with ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Regardless of your political beliefs, given the timing, anyone not suspicious of this announcement is a fool.

Re: Fake Headlines normally end with ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I elected him to put smug, condescending, elitist assholes like you into a meltdown.

Mission already accomplished. The rest is gravy.

Re: Fake Headlines normally end with ?

[Anonymous Coward]

The trouble with voting is that politicians keep getting elected.

Re: Fake Headlines normally end with ?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/james-clapper-still-no-evidence-of-any-russian-collusion-with-trump-campaign/article/2622452

Re: Fake Headlines normally end with ?

[Anonymous Coward]

One would think with trump being so powerful to eliminate the most politically connected person in the US, and Russia being so powerful that they can change US voters minds, Ed be shut scared of them. Instead the narrative is they're so powerful they changed the election result by making 60+million people vote for trump, but they too weak to defeat the US in syria/iran/wherever else. Like if we bomb Russia won't they make congress tax us to pay them or something? Co's like they can change elections and shit

Re: Fake Headlines normally end with ?

[Anonymous Coward]

We were fed up with the government so we elected Trump to fire everyone.

Well that was your fault for not understanding that presidents are not kings then... Your goal is unattainable via those means.

Or were you just saying that in an ironic hipster way? I suspect you actually did it because it was fashionable to say "the government is broken and just sucks; I'm going to vote to bring it all down!"

Re:Fake Headlines normally end with ?

[sycodon]

Wait...did I miss where they released proof that the election was hacked and votes changed?

Because anything other than that is mere PsyOps, which American intelligence services routinely engage in.

Re:Fake Headlines normally end with ?

[Anonymous Coward]

it seems rather specious at this point to deny that there is any evidence at all. It seems more accurate to say that the specific details of evidence uncovered so far has not yet been made public because the investigation is still ongoing.

And God has been proven to exist. The Catholic church just so happens to have it an has not yet been made public.

Trust is fact. Everyone knows that.

Re: Fake Headlines normally end with ?

[greythax]

I wish he would have started with himself.

Re: Fake Headlines normally end with ?

[AutodidactLabrat]

Moony Examiner?
What a LAUGH!!

Re: Fake Headlines normally end with ?

[mSparks43]

you elected him because we hacked your brain to make you think the fall of the american empire is a good thing for you.

i'm definately not having a meltdown. Unless you count the morning after the night before on the day he got elected.

So, in other words it was worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

Given that there's been no evidence provided, anywhere, of any sort of election hacking, and that Hillary lost the election not due to Russian interference but due to her own failure to campaign in her "blue firewall" combined with her many scandals, we can conclude that this Section 702 of the FISA provided no actionable intelligence and, in fact, did not help with anything. Sounds like it should be allowed to expire.

Re: So, in other words it was worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, he would say that.

Re: So, in other words it was worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

And those cheering this news and it's source will once again show their cognitive dissonance by ignoring their own anger over 'made up' intelligence ("...but BOOOOOSH!") proving WMDs in Iraq and serving as one of the justifications for Gulf War II.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

Cover what up? There is no evidence of Russian involvement in the US election in any way, shape, or form. It never happened. There's been a lot of speculation and a lot of rumors, but absolutely no evidence has ever been presented. If it existed, it would surely have been shown by now.

A ton of evidence has been presented to show that Hillary's failure to win was due to her own failed campaign strategy. She targeted the wrong states, period. Trump didn't, period.

You can't cover up a thing that never happened.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[rickb928]

Probably shouldn't feed them. It won't help.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[JoshuaZ]

First, of all, elections are won and lost not by single things but by collections. One can have more than one mistake or more than one event leading to an election win or loss. Second, the evidence that serious attempts at hacking Clinton did occur is overwhelming, and saying otherwise is simply ignoring the evidence. We even know the exact phishing attempts that lead to the hacks http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/310234-typo-may-have-caused-podesta-email-hack?. Third of all, if you do want to actually point to other things that had an impact also, the statistical evidence that Comey's actions mattered is an almost complete slamdunk. See https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-comey-letter-probably-cost-clinton-the-election/. Facts matter.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[gumbi west]

Except that the FBI is making good progress on prosecuting Flynn. The current FBI director just said it is, "a highly significant investigation." I think you should get out of your media bubble.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[pedz]

But wait... we need to waterboard the data until it tells us what we know must have really happened!!!

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[gumbi west]

The thing that makes me sad here is how deeply you are in denial. There are facts here. The only way that you could think otherwise is if your world view was guided by your party over country. When did you start hating America?

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

Your politics is blinding you bud....

I'm not here to debate whether Russia' hacking, attempted hacking, whaterver... during the 2016 election swayed the vote one way or another, The fact they they attempted, and might have, or possibly did, alter precinct outcomes, or swayed public opinion immediately up to, and on the day of the election is my real concern. Do you even have a concern on this matter?

Would the NSA have been able to monitor such activity, confirm that the threat is real, and potentially damaging to the US, had Section 702 not been in place? I don't know, but I sure as hell don't like the idea of tying their hands when foreign Government threats are real.

Since you want to play politics, how's this thought experiment: say it was worse that what you think happened. That Donald Trump, ACTUALLY was slated to win the election by way more than he did. And the reason he didn't, was that Russia did indeed tamper with voting machines in precisely targeted districts, where the margins of sway were extremely close.

If such a thing happened, and the NSA new about it, and could indeed confirm it happened, but didn't tell you, would you care? Would you care if your 'side' won? Would you care if your 'side' lost....?

The point isn't that it was for/against, this side or that. It's that it happened once, and will happen again, when the opportunity arises. And given the questionable state of the US and it's intelligence services over the next 3+ years, up until the next election, you don't think we should maybe prepare ourselves for what WILL be thrown at us in 4 years? Sorry friend, but you have a rather myopic view, if you think we should just shrug this off, and expect future interface not to get worse.

I hope you reconsider, cause this crap is going to get a lot worse, before it gets better.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[ichthus]

There are facts here

Provide ONE. Just one fact that proves Russian involvement in "hacking the election" would surely shut him up.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume this is more of an attempt to make the NSA appear less incompetent. I mean, they spy on your grandparents but can't be bothered with foreign governments, or so the news keeps saying. So they put out some PR fake news.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[AmiMoJo]

The investigation is supposed to turn up those facts. At the very least, we need to know who "Gucifer" is and how they got hold of DNC emails to leak at the most damaging possible moment.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

Well you may throw your rock and hide your hand
Workin' in the dark against your fellow man
But as sure as God made black and white
What's done in the dark will be brought to the light
-Johnny Cash

More simply... karma is a bitch.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[DirkDaring]

^ this. You need to understand these people. It's never ending on matter what is or isn't found.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, here are facts that matter. I fully supported Bernie Sanders. I contributed several hundred dollars to his campaign. I voted Obama over Hillary the last time she ran. I knew long ago the Clintons were shady and I couldn't support her in 2008.

I was very upset when the DNC pushed Sanders out. I tried to come to grips on voting for Hillary. I thought it was laughable when Trump kept saying to the media to show the crowd. That was until he came to my state and when he came to my area, I went just to see the guy. The stadium held 35,000 some and there were at least 25,000 still wanting to get in. Then when YouTube video after YouTube video showing the possibility of green screening in crowds at Hillary events, and Hillary doing her best to hide her illness and drunkenness, I finally decided that I would prefer someone that would tell me the hard truth than to blatantly lie to my face.

Plus the fact that Trump was an outsider and didn't care whom he pissed off.

The Russians had nothing to do with my decision, nor did the Russians have any affect on my family or friends decisions. The Russian story was created to explain away why so much money was spent on getting Hillary elected and it still went to waste. There had to be something so overwhelming to her getting the office that money couldn't buy its way past. The Russians had to be it.

Hillary was the reason why Hillary was not elected. It had nothing to do with the Russians.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah... too bad we don't have any. AT ALL. You're citing Fivethirtyeight? There is NO way the Comey letter caused Hillary to lose 4 states including Florida. What an idiot. (And I voted for Gary Johnson... but I will call stupid when I see it.)

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

Flynn lying about his ties to Russian businesses. NOT the Russians "hacking the election."

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

Given that there's been no evidence provided, anywhere, of any sort of election hacking, and that Hillary lost the election not due to Russian interference but due to her own failure to campaign in her "blue firewall" combined with her many scandals, we can conclude that this Section 702 of the FISA provided no actionable intelligence and, in fact, did not help with anything. Sounds like it should be allowed to expire.

Did she have any actual scandals? From what I can tell in retrospect all those "scandals" where just non-issues that the Russia-funded Republican campaign brought up as if they were scandals.
That and extensive voter suppression in red states is more than sufficient to have cost Hillary the election.
Not that it matters. Someone like Trump shouldn't even be close to winning an election so the problem is clearly not with relatively small stuff like that but rather a problem with the education of a population that makes them favor "simple solutions" that doesn't work over pragmatic compromises.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[inhuman_4]

That's going to be difficult considering the DNC has repeatedly refused to let the FBI look at the hacked server. The primary claim of Russian hacking comes from a private contractor (CloudStrike) hired by the DNC, not law enforcement or the intelligence services. Worse the contractor has since retracted some of it's claims. The entire DNC hacking investigation was a dog and pony show right from the start.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

I still find it hilarious that there are people out there that are still bemoaning the fact that the emails were exposed without ever talking about the content of them.

I guess ignorance truly is bliss. However, once you start to see what your prized campaign was actually up to, maybe the shine comes off and you realize it was shit all along.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

Donald, is that you?

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[swillden]

Hillary was part of the reason why Hillary was not elected.

FTFY. HTH. HAND.

Re: So, in other words it was worthless

[guruevi]

Marcel LazÄfr Lehel, known as Guccifer, is a Romanian hacker. Romania is not part of Russia (not for a long time at least). Most people quote the signatures from Ukrainian based hacker groups, Ukraine and Russia are not really great buddies either (Crimea). Cyrillic is used in more than just Russia, it's just the average USian doesn't know geography outside their own city, even the Macron investigation: it could have been Russia, one of our contractors with a Cyrillic character set installed or another hacker we don't have any clue but it's probably Russia.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool anecdotal evidence with n=1 you got there.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[bayankaran]

Hmmm....

https://www.theguardian.com/te...

The report is about Brexit. But it can be easily applied to US...the players are the same, the same agenda (though I have no clue what they want other than some chaos.)

Re: So, in other words it was worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, now cut and paste that anecdote about 22 million times.

It's fine if you don't want to believe it. I'm happy to keep winning in 2020.

Re: So, in other words it was worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhhh the fuck?

You mean besides rigging the primary against Bernie, or getting all the debate questions from news organizations before each debate, or having every news organization run stories by her team before printing, or did you mean one of the other 10+ corrupt things she was doing?

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

Facts do matter.... Like the fact that EVERY statistician was wrong throughout the entire campaign cycle with regard to how things would turn out at every single step... Statistics CAN be wrong when you ask the wrong questions and use improper methods.

Re: So, in other words it was worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

The media will tell u what the evidence is that u need to know. They heard it from Joe who overheard Sam telling Evelyn that her sisters husband who's father works with someone in the NSA, said that his colleague had seen a file that had trumps name on it, sitting next to an article in a magazine about russia. EVIDENCE!

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[cayenne8]

a problem with the education of a population that makes them favor "simple solutions" that doesn't work over pragmatic compromises.

Well, we never saw this with obama...what makes you think we'd see it with hillary if she'd made it into office?

Re: So, in other words it was worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you get angry, in 2008, when the Canadian PM endorsed Obama?

The answer is no, you did not get angry. You have no history of being angry when foreign powers try to influence the election.

Re: So, in other words it was worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

Those were all the fault of Russia, obviously. Sheesh.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[h4ck7h3p14n37]

How about how Hillary's campaign emails being leaked, but not Trump's? I don't buy that argument, but quite a few people do.

If Hillary and friends weren't so rotten there wouldn't have been any emails to leak. I'm just happy they did go public. The argument that it wasn't fair and amounts to "meddling" to me sounds a lot like a little kid crying to his parents that his friend Johnny didn't get in trouble for doing something wrong so he shouldn't either.

Re: So, in other words it was worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

My milk is spoiled. Russia did it.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

I suppose you think its a coincidence HRC's campaign started being attacked days after Manafort to control of the Trump campaign or that both Flynn and Manafort joined the campaign within less than a month of each other? Make no mistake Flynn will lead to collusion with the Russians at the highest levels of his campaign including Trump himself.

Look up Svetlana Lokhova, Miss Crazy Cokehead, she's the reason Flynn lost his job in the military in the first place. Flynn's a traitor and we've known it since Obama fired him from DIA, they just didn't have the evidence to prove it in court at the time.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[SCVonSteroids]

Untrue.

If I keep giving my cat food, eventually it curls up into a ball and sleeps for a very long time.

Re: So, in other words it was worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

Marcel LazÄfr Lehel is not relevant to anything here except that he tried to claim credit for things he didn't do, He's been in custody since Jan 2014 and is now rotting in US federal prison. Guccifer 2.0 is someone else entirely and according to Roger Stone its a SHE not a HE.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[ichthus]

And, still waiting for even one shred of evidence the Russians had anything to do with this. To date, it would be just as valid to suspect the Chinese or the Canadians.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[Tough Love]

Given that there's been no evidence provided, anywhere, of any sort of election hacking, and that Hillary lost the election not due to Russian interference but due to her own failure to campaign in her "blue firewall" combined with her many scandals, we can conclude that this Section 702 of the FISA provided no actionable intelligence and, in fact, did not help with anything. Sounds like it should be allowed to expire.

Sounds like your vote for a cover up. Rot in hell.

Oh, lordy me, I turned over a rock and uncovered a nest of Putin Shitposters[tm] with mod points, hanging on Slashdot no less!

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the chart in your link (fivethirtyeight.com), hillary was already in decline BEFORE the comey letter. His letter may have helped the decline, but we must remember, his letter was in response to HER unlawful actions pertaining to her private server.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[ichthus]

The investigation is supposed to turn up those facts.

You are absolutely correct. But, until it does, Russian involvement is all just conjecture based solely on Hillary's sour grapes assertions. At this point, it's just as reasonable to suspect members of US intelligence that didn't want to be working for Hillary. Or, maybe it was Anonymous, who were very vocal in their opposition to the TPP and Hillary's support thereof.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

I finally decided that I would prefer someone that would tell me the hard truth than to blatantly lie to my face.

And so you voted for Trump. Amazing.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

So, is Obama going to be prosecuted for influencing the French elections?

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[HeckRuler]

ok. Our Intelligence agencies released a report stating they think the Russians made an organized effort to influence the 2016 US presidential elections.

You can read it here. It points out a propaganda campaign using Russian Today to spread fake news. I didn't even know there was a kremlin financed US news channel.

There was certainly a cyber attack using the Gucifer identity. The report points a finger at the Guicifer identity being multiple people and not just Marcel LazÄfr Lehel who was prosecuted as he made contradictory statements. They believe he was accompliced by Russian state actors.

Sadly, they don't include these details in their report, but you can find them elsewhere. There are fingerprints pointing to known Russian groups. Like using the same attack vectors and tools: "The spearphish message was actually sent from hi.mymail@yandex[.]com, an email address from the Moscow-based webmail provider Yandex."

The caveat is that it's pretty trivial to act like you're someone else online, especially if you want to point the blame elsewhere. And we've found out the CIA has tools to help them look like other hackers. Welcome to the cloak and dagger world of reporting on the CIA where nothing is ever conclusively proven.

But from the propoganda campaign, it's obvious that Russia pushed an effort to influence the election and there's some evidence that the hackers behind the DNC leak had ties to Russian state actors.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[Tough Love]

It's never ending on matter what is or isn't found.

Wrong. It ends when Trump leaves the whitehouse in cuffs.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[Tough Love]

If I keep giving my cat food, eventually it curls up into a ball and sleeps for a very long time.

That's because it's dead.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[pipingguy]

The incompetent, drama-seeking, Trump-hating media is simply making shit up, repeating said shit and then insisting that the shit they made up is "reality". It's truly amazing to watch.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

You sir are spreading propaganda. The Russians has NOTHING to do with hacking the election. For one thing the two reports that came out on the hacks were worthless dribble. The first one about Podesta's email was 27 pages of worthless shit copied from the OWASP site and had nothing to really do with getting phished. Second it was found Podesta's password was "password" now that it just setting yourself up to get hacked. This has nothing to do with a typo just a very BAD password. Just plain stupid. Evidence actually points to an inside job on this one.

The second report was 3 pages of "We assess the Russians" WITH NO EVIDENCE TO BACK UP THE ASSESSMENT! I am a security Researcher and pen tester if I wrote a report as bad as this one with no evidence to support my assessments then I would get yelled at and fired. You have to back up your claims or they are worthless.

If you want to talk about election hacking let's talk about the DHS getting caught trying to hack into the Secretary of the State of Georgia and 9 other state offices. This happened but nobody is talking about that. If the elections were hacked it was by our own government not some foreign power. This here is the REAL reason for keeping Section 702 to continue to hack and control the people of this country by its own government not protect us from some unknown boogie man.

No I didn't vote for Trump and I think is he a stupid asshole but still better than Clit-tounge. She is the scum of the Earth. Yes I would have voted for Bernie in a minute. The Dems lost by throwing the primary and running the wrong person. If Bernie had ran they would have most likely won. Or at least got my vote and about everyone I knows vote. Still they ran the crooked bitch and lost. She broke the law and got away with it people saw this and didn't vote for her. Hacking and Comey had nothing to do with her loss.

You say "Fact Matter" and they do but your facts come from the propaganda mill and are not true facts. Question: So who do you work for? Who's paying you to be a shill against your own people? You are either a shill or just to plain stupid and/or blind to see the real truth.

You said:

Second, the evidence that serious attempts at hacking Clinton did occur is overwhelming, and saying otherwise is simply ignoring the evidence.

Again no I read both reports and all the factual evidence I could find and the evidence points to an inside job not an outside hack. Again I am trained in this shit and certified by the DHS to review such evidence and considered an "industry expert" by the government agencies in courts for this kind of shit. So don't say I am just talking out of my ass I'm not.

the statistical evidence that Comey's actions mattered is an almost complete slamdunk.

This too is BS. I know for myself and others that I know The Clinton's crookedness and shady dealing were well known to be way before Comey said a word. This has been known since her husband was the Prez. They have been shady since their time in State government the facts are there. Maybe your too young to remember. I'm not. Comey's actions didn't do shit really.

BTW phishing is not considered a "hack" in the security industry it is "Social Engineering" No systems were actually exploited and compromised just a person too stupid to use a complex password and understand network security.

Funny you didn't bring up the fact that she did violate about 6 federal laws on mis-handling of classified material and the evidence is everywhere to support this thousands of classified emails each a single count. If I screwed up in my job at this level I would be facing 3,000 years in jail. So why isn't she?

Why is she getting off? Oh her "intent" was not to leak. If I brought up intent in a case I would be laughed at and told "the road to hell is paved with good intentions". Which is true. Her only real intent was not to get caught like most criminals.

Well sir you have been busted for spreading lies and propaganda. You could have gotten a good job in the USSR back in the 70's/

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[deadwill69]

This isn't evidence or a lack of it, but this guy has the best explanation: Short of a three letter agency providing something definitive, there is nothing but speculation and a lot of circumstantial evidence. Much of it of questionable origin.
https://theintercept.com/2016/...

I'm still waiting to see anything concrete either way. Generally, where there is smoke there is fire, but in this case I'm starting to wonder. We might find out soon. We might not.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

No what makes makes me sad here is how deeply YOU are in denial.

The real facts point to this being total propaganda bull shit. The DHS hacked or attempted to hack the elections NOT the Russians. They got caught right here in my home state of Georgia yet no charges have been filed and no more talk about this only about Russians.

When did you start hating America?

First the "Americas" is two large land masses on the Earth they are continents NOT a country. We live is the US you know the United States. I have no problem with Canada or Mexico. They too are in America. I don't have a problem with the people in the US except it appears they are lazy blind and stupid like yourself to the take over by their own government.

I starting hating the US government when they threw the Bill of Rights and other Federal laws that protected me as a citizen out the window. When they started spying on me and the rest of the population without a warrant. When the government started going around the world beating up on other small countries to take their resources and spending my money to kill innocent people. I started hating my government when they allowed politicians and people of power to break laws that if it were me I would go to jail for a very long time.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[gumbi west]

DNC says FBI never asked. "In its statement, the FBI agreed with the DNC’s implication that it had instead relied on data from Crowdstrike." https://www.wired.com/2017/01/...

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[gumbi west]

You pick up an investigation with a lie and then you dig and find all the lies around that lie. Then you see who it points to. It takes time but where there is smoke there is usually fire.

Re: So, in other words it was worthless

[Tough Love]

Marcel LazÄfr Lehel, known as Guccifer, is a Romanian hacker. Romania is not part of Russia ...

But Russia is known to recruit spies from there, and other former USSR vassals

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[ichthus]

You're obviously keeping an open mind and not simply jumping to partisan-bolstered conclusions. Kudos to you! I want real evidence before I buy into the narrative that's being aggressively pushed by our media.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

... combined with her many "scandals"

FTFY. Fox News much?

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[Tough Love]

It's never ending on matter what is or isn't found.

Wrong. It ends when Trump leaves the whitehouse in cuffs.

That day is getting closer every day. Trump will make history: the first president to be removed from the white house by the police. Sorry Putin, you backed a loser.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

I love how you liberal extremists keep hoping for high profile failures of our President and country in general. What a sick, divided situation Obama and this awful past election cycle have fomented. When you won against the last two horrible candidates they weren't anywhere near as hostile. Please grow up.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

Hillary, is that you? Another useless post, well done. [ MOD -1 Crybaby. ] The good news is that comfort ponies are available in bulk now.

Re:So, in other words it was worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

I love how you liberal extremists keep hoping for high profile failures of our President and country in general.

Trump's removal from the White House would be the opposite of a failure for the country. It'd be a shining Triumph.

Just like Nixon's removal. Or if Reagan had been removed for selling arms to Iran and encouraging them to keep hostages in order to get elected. Or if Bush the First had been kept from starting a pointless war in the Middle East.

What a sick, divided situation Obama and this awful past election cycle have fomented. When you won against the last two horrible candidates they weren't anywhere near as hostile. Please grow up.

What are you talking about? There has been hostility straight from the Republicans since Bill Clinton's election, at the latest. I could make an argument about Reagan or Nixon too. Or Barry Goldwater. There are folks who say the rot set into the GOP with Goldwater's ascension. But hey, good on you for trying to blame the divisiveness and hostility on Obama. You know, while complete ignoring the divisiveness and hostility of the GOP in Congress that preferred stunts and hypocrisy to the business of governance. That eagerly fed on the Birther nonsense. That did nothing but wave their hands and shout repeal for six years, yet did nothing to resolve any actual problems.

And let's face it, antagonism in politics is nothing new, see Andrew Jackson, Abe Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt.

Grow up and read a history book yourself. Or at least show some semblance of integrity.

Well that settles it

[quantaman]

Trump is preparing to veto his first bill in defence of privacy!

Re:Well that settles it

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, NSA bullshit doesn't matter, as long as Trump is involved. Raagh! Progressivism!!

Re:Well that settles it

[Anonymous Coward]

Time to fire Adm. Mike Rogers.

Re:Well that settles it

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump has earned the consequences of a lifetime being a con artist, scammer, blowhard and fool.

That he's made suckers out of the gullible, CONSERVATIVE, lemming train, is no reason to lambaste the rest of us for being skeptical of his claims and promises.

Really, invented "prime the pump" ?

C'mon, the guy is a buffoon.

Re: Well that settles it

[Anonymous Coward]

If he is such a bafoon why don't you win the next election and show us how smart you are? What's that? You don't have the brain power to form a strategy capable of winning? Then STFU you bafoon because you are dumber than the orange troll that is the current president.

Re: Well that settles it

[Anonymous Coward]

If he is such a bafoon why don't you win the next election and show us how smart you are?

Sorry, I have to take my mother to get her second cataract surgery done. I'll be too busy.

Why don't you? If it is that important to you, do it yourself.

What's that? You don't have the brain power to form a strategy capable of winning?

Hmm? You didn't ask me to form a strategy, you asked me to run. Different questions. But Trump's strategy relied on making choices I'd find repugnant, doesn't mean I can't recognize it. Anybody with a copy of "It Can Happen Here" would be able to do it.

Then STFU you bafoon because you are dumber than the orange troll that is the current president.

The dumb orange troll is only president because a bunch of dumber trolls were suckers enough to vote for him, which they would have for a space alien in a human suit, but good on you for telling somebody else to be silent since you don't want to hear somebody who recognized that the Turnip in the Oval Office is simply to repugnant to want to be associated with.

He's personally such a lump of turd that I'd consider President Buchanan a better choice than him.

Re: Well that settles it

[sjames]

Actually it's because my daddy isn't rich enough.

It's easy to get a run when you're born on 3rd base.

Re: Well that settles it

[quantaman]

If he is such a bafoon why don't you win the next election and show us how smart you are? What's that? You don't have the brain power to form a strategy capable of winning? Then STFU you bafoon because you are dumber than the orange troll that is the current president.

If Trump has shown anything it's that the US is not a meritocracy.

Re: Well that settles it

[MachineShedFred]

It should tell you something about the opposing candidates that a majority are willing to not only vote for a dumb orange troll, but according to you also a space alien in a human suit before the alternatives presented.

Though, if you would have said "space alien in a human pantsuit" you may have been closer to one of the opposing candidates available...

Re: Well that settles it

[MachineShedFred]

Whoever claimed it was?

Re:Well that settles it

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're right, and that's what Trump is, then it's understandable why he beat the entire Dimm party and media machine. He's really, contrary to what most people believe and his successful career of becoming a billionaire by business successes in dozens of countries would suggest, the consummate POLITICIAN !! And being as he's now top pol dog in the country certainly supports your argument. That being the case, why you so bitter, disrespectful, and whining?

Re: Well that settles it

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't have the brain power...

Well, at least he can spell buffoon. While you, on the other hand, should probably be taking some advice from ol' Abe Lincoln.

Re: Well that settles it

[Anonymous Coward]

The same people who set it up to claim that it's not.

Re:Well that settles it

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're right, and that's what Trump is, then it's understandable why he beat the entire Dimm party and media machine.

He didn't. They managed to outperform him, by 3 million voters. But heck, about half of his votes didn't count for anything, thanks to the Electoral College. It's a system of failure. Big whup.

He's really, contrary to what most people believe and his successful career of becoming a billionaire by business successes in dozens of countries would suggest, the consummate POLITICIAN !!

Not really no, he's the consummate con artist, and so what, he's President. Big whup. One of the two running for a major party was going to get elected, and that the GOP was suckered into it, points to their own failings. They've often been vulnerable to such things. See Grant's presidency, James G. Blaine, Rutherford B. Hayes, Charles Guiteau, McKinley, Taft, Hoover, Nixon, Reagan, and GWB.

Ok, so he got the nod. Then by a whisker-thin margin, he got states for the Presidency. But then question becomes from Trump, now what? Oh wait, that's what he is delivering, and so far, it's just fuel for the fire of disgust with him.

And being as he's now top pol dog in the country certainly supports your argument.

The quality of his defenders certainly does.

That being the case, why you so bitter, disrespectful, and whining?

Why can't you stand hearing the truth about Trump? Why are you so bitter, disrespectful, and whining?

Re: Well that settles it

[Anonymous Coward]

It should tell you something about the opposing candidates that a majority are willing to not only vote for a dumb orange troll, but according to you also a space alien in a human suit before the alternatives presented.

Not really, no. It says something about what I think about the voters who simply don't care what they were voting for, because the other side is so anathema.. That's the point of the observation. The quality of the opposing candidates doesn't matter to them. Are you sure you're following the conversation?

They'd have voted for a dumb orange troll, a space alien in a human suit, anything except the other side's candidate, no matter what or who that other candidate was. They just weren't going to vote for any other party. They believed they had always been at war with EastAsia. They listened to the exhortations, and anything to contradict it went right out there ears.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, there were even more people who simply didn't vote, for reasons that remain uncertain.

Could have just been rain in Sheboygan.

Though, if you would have said "space alien in a human pantsuit" you may have been closer to one of the opposing candidates available...

Actually, there are some people who would legitimately believe she was an alien, they did with the previous president.

Re: Well that settles it

[EmptyHead]

Well, unless things improve dramatically, the only way Trump will win in 2020 is if they run Hillary again.

Comey 2

[Anonymous Coward]

Where's Colbert? I need to know if this is a good or bad thing.

Re:Comey 2

[Anonymous Coward]

Right now, probably finishing up another monologue with a homophobic joke that leftists will somehow defend as "not homophobic" because it insults Trump. Keep in mind he records his Friday show on Thursday.

Re:Comey 2

[Anonymous Coward]

faggot

Re:Comey 2

[SpammersAreScum]

Well, he DID insult gays. Implying Trump is a gay insults gays the same way that implying Trump is a weasel insults weasels.

Re:Comey 2

[Tough Love]

probably finishing up another monologue with a homophobic joke that leftists will somehow defend as "not homophobic"

I'm crying a river for you, special republican snowflake.

Re: Comey 2

[Anonymous Coward]

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Oh god you silly leftists think you can call us snowflakes, and you actually think it will work. You should be more creative in your shitposting.

Re:Comey 2

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, that's unfair. Trump couldn't help being Trump, he was born that way.

Re:Comey 2

[Anonymous Coward]

And they called Trump supportors the deplorables. I guess then the Clinton supporters are the intolerables.

Re: Comey 2

[BoogieChile]

Triggered you, didn't it?

Re: Comey 2

[Anonymous Coward]

Impeached shortly, aren't you lol.

Re:Comey 2

[h4ck7h3p14n37]

Oh come on, Colbert didn't imply Trump was gay. He just said Trump's mouth was only good for being Putin's cock holder. People are projecting when they say that's anti-gay. Straight guys can take a dick to the mouth too.

Re:Comey 2

[Chordonblue]

Oh, I wish I had mod points!

For those who don't know what he's referring to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

You can't blame the audience for not being able to keep up with who/what they're supposed to hate...

Re: Comey 2

[AutodidactLabrat]

It worked.
pretty much the standard of performance.

Re:Comey 2

[peawormsworth]

Right. Trump's not gay. The joke is that Trump will go to any length to pleasure his Russian boss.

I have not heard any reports of who complained about Colbert's joke. I would suspect it is most likely Trump supporters, because prudes already don't watch Colbert. This sort of joke is his standard fare and that is what his audience loves.

This is all a moot point

[rsilvergun]

unless the Dems take the House since it's up to the House to bring impeachment charges. And I don't see that happening. I mean, it should. Trump and the Republicans are insanely unpopular. The corporate Dems are weaker than ever and many will lose their primaries. Some Folks like to vote the other party because a lack of Gridlock makes them nervous (e.g. true conservatives as opposed to regressives using conservative rhetoric). The pieces are all there for a land slight victory.

But as the last election proved, if anyone can blow a sure thing it's the Democrats...

Re:This is all a moot point

[Gravis Zero]

unless the Dems take the House since it's up to the House to bring impeachment charges.

What the fuck does that have to do with anything in the article?! Just trying to stir up trouble?

Re:This is all a moot point

[fustakrakich]

The corporate Dems are weaker than ever and many will lose their primaries.

No they won't, and if they do, it will be only to other corporate dems. This entire show is just another rerun, with some role reversal thrown in.

Re:This is all a moot point

[Anonymous Coward]

Once there is some substantial proof of wrongdoing congress will line up and run Trump out on a rail. The about-face will be quite astounding. Right now they're just putting on the appearance of a unified front and trying to stall in hopes of making all this go away - Which really is what politicians are best at.

The wheels of justice are slow and methodical.

Trump so far has proven to have had a dangerous disregard for the institutions he's supposed to represent. Worse, general gross incompetence.
He fired the FBI director without notice, no real justification, no plan for replacement, and at a time that is seriously questionable. The order is hastily written, short, and would get failing grade in a legal writing course. Corey found out he was fired when he watched the news.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/how-it-was-done-problem-not-only-trump-fired-comey-how-he-did-it

Re:This is all a moot point

[phantomfive]

Trump and the Republicans are insanely unpopular.

That's unlikely. Among certain segments, they are certainly wildly unpopular, but among other segments they are popular, to the point that people would defend them with guns if necessary.

Re:This is all a moot point

[Anonymous Coward]

So the Russians hacked, obtained, then published incriminating emails from the servers of key Democrats.

I am not saying this is ok...but....why did the Democrats send incriminating emails in the first place? If they had not been betraying us, then the hacks would not have been harmful to them.

I fully expect that the Republicans are betraying us too. Maybe they are smarter about how they conspire. Or maybe they just haven't been hacked yet.

Re:This is all a moot point

[Dorianny]

But as the last election proved, if anyone can blow a sure thing it's the Democrats...

Actually historically the Incumbent party looses the Presidency when the incumbent is not running. The GOP was also in control of Congress, the Senate as well as a large number of State legislative bodies and even a larger chunk of Governors. By all accounts it should have been a easy win for the GOP until they almost blew it by nominating Trump.

The most interesting part is that it was the Democrats system of Superdelegates, meant to prevent a non-competitive delegate (like Trump) that stopped the more populist Sanders from getting the nomination and some would argue costing them the election

Re:This is all a moot point

[king neckbeard]

More likely, they just aren't using email.

Re:This is all a moot point

[Anonymous Coward]

The reports are that the Republicans were hacked as well. But the Russians are using the information differently - most likely to exert influence. Blackmail, if you will.

Re:This is all a moot point

[Anonymous Coward]

Impeach who? Trotsky-ite Ginsberg, the blojobbing neo-Stalinist SUPREMES hoe ?
Well you got that right - - -

Re:This is all a moot point

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is an idea. Why don't all of the Trump fans all wear brown shirts with red armbands so that they can easily stand out from the rest.

Why?

Re:This is all a moot point

[ClickOnThis]

I fully expect that the Republicans are betraying us too. Maybe they are smarter about how they conspire. Or maybe they just haven't been hacked yet.

Or maybe the Russians wanted Trump, not Hillary, to be elected.

Re:This is all a moot point

[Anonymous Coward]

Current rumor is that they wanted Hillary to win because they already have leverage over her (see: uranium purchases) but they needed to undermine her popular support to weaken her in the US. They never expected Trump to win.

Same thing with Marcon in France. Russia wanted him to win, so they leaked the emails after it was too late to effect the election to ensure that he is politically weakened. Makes them more susceptible to pressure from Russia.

Re:This is all a moot point

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlike the disregard the institution that has has shown total disdain to the the American people? You are correct the political establishment has gone from disrespectful to total apathy to the concerns of the US population. And it was Comey, not Corey, get your facts straight. This is the problem, people commenting on things they now nothing about. The last 3 presidents with varying approval ratings have shown one thing in common, they all failed in keeping this country headed in the right direction and have opposed the people for far too long.

Re:This is all a moot point

[Tough Love]

unless the Dems take the House since it's up to the House to bring impeachment charges.

What do the words "nah nah nah nah, hey hey hey, goo-ood bye" suggest to you?

Re: This is all a moot point

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure comrade.

Re:This is all a moot point

[Anonymous Coward]

"Insanely unpopular" is a bit of a stretch unless you're still clinging to the wildly inaccurate polls.

Re:This is all a moot point

[_Sharp'r_]

No, the "hackers" involved sent the same phishing emails to the GOP as they did to the Dems. The difference was that GOP tech support blocked the emails, while Dem tech support literally told Podesta it was legitimate, so he went ahead and put in "p@ssword" for them so they could dump the contents of his email account.

The only link to Russians is that there is suspicion based on some of the tools used that a Russian-speaker is involved, and since everyone knows there aren't any non-governmental Russian-speaking hackers (sarcasm), an assumption has been made.

Re:This is all a moot point

[Anonymous Coward]

That job was already taken by the antifa thugs dressed all in black.

Re:This is all a moot point

[rickb928]

Ignoring the reality that everyone is trying to hack everything, everywhere, all the time... And masquerading as everyone else.

Re:This is all a moot point

[Anonymous Coward]

It is the entire political establishment (there is no party affiliation). Heard anything on term limits yet? You know they will not agree to this. Unless the swamp is really drained then this country will continue to slide into the abyss that is currently on the precipice. We should fire every single one and ban all currently in office to ever run again.

Re:This is all a moot point

[Aighearach]

That isn't moot at all! If a bunch of evidence comes out that would be grounds for impeachment but it doesn't happen just because the House of Representatives has a majority of Republicans, I don't call that "moot" I call that a "major election issue."

You seem to have strangely-colored glasses. Wave your hands all you like, but issues matter to enough voters to, uh, matter.

Re: This is all a moot point

[Aighearach]

You might want to find a history book.

Re:This is all a moot point

[aardvarkjoe]

But as the last election proved, if anyone can blow a sure thing it's the Democrats...

Actually historically the Incumbent party looses the Presidency when the incumbent is not running. The GOP was also in control of Congress, the Senate as well as a large number of State legislative bodies and even a larger chunk of Governors. By all accounts it should have been a easy win for the GOP until they almost blew it by nominating Trump.

Both parties managed to nominate the absolute worst candidate they possibly could. No matter who won, we would be saying that the other party blew a chance for a "sure thing."

Re:This is all a moot point

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is the law that says Trump couldn't fire Comey?

Re:This is all a moot point

[Anonymous Coward]

You say that Trump and the Republicans are insanely unpopular. Then why do Dems keep losing election after election?

Re:This is all a moot point

[kenh]

What do the words "nah nah nah nah, hey hey hey, goo-ood bye" suggest to you?

That Democrats put politics ahead of the healthcare of working Americans - they literally sat on the sidelines complaining about AHCA, inventing imaginary pre-existing conditions, fantasizing about the resulting body count once the law passes, and sang songs rather than citing specific issues with the bill or putting forth any amendments to either improve PPACA or AHCA...

Re:This is all a moot point

[kenh]

No, the "hackers" involved sent the same phishing emails to the GOP as they did to the Dems. The difference was that GOP tech support blocked the emails, while Dem tech support literally told Podesta it was legitimate, so he went ahead and put in "p@ssword" for them so they could dump the contents of his email account.

The fellow that advised Podesta to enter his password into the phishing email claims his email to Podesta had a typo (a missing word) that completely altered it's meaning - he never meant to tell Podesta to respond to the email.

The only link to Russians is that there is suspicion based on some of the tools used that a Russian-speaker is involved, and since everyone knows there aren't any non-governmental Russian-speaking hackers (sarcasm), an assumption has been made.

The line I heard early on in this story line was "if every piece of evidence points to the Russians, the one thing you can be sure of is that the Russians weren't involved."

Re:This is all a moot point

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, Obamacare is a train wreck. The Republicans don't have to repeal it, they can just sit back and watch it die. The individual mandate is pretty much self-repealing, as the "tax penalty" is a bargain compared to insanely overpriced insurance policies with sky-high deductibles. I don't think the AHCA goes far enough to fix the mathematics of government-mandated unaffordable health care. But it was a start, and the Democrats can't score many points sitting on the sidelines when they created the problem of health insurance mandates in the first place.

Re: This is all a moot point

[goose-incarnated]

You might want to find a history book.

You first - Hitler was hard-left and we all saw how that turned out.

Re:This is all a moot point

[Anonymous Coward]

That the idiot Dems in congress still don't recognize how unpopular and unaffordable the rapidly failing ACA they saddled the US public with really is. They did not learn a single thing from rigging their primaries to run the worst possible candidate (Probably the only person who could not have beat Trump hands down).

The house is more volatile and while their portion may increase they are unlikely to take control of the House and odds are against them gaining in the Senate as only 9 of the 34 seats up in 2018 are Republican seats. The rest are Democrats making any gains very unlikely and most likely leading to an increase in the Republican Majority (though reaching 60 seats is very, very unlikely)

Re: This is all a moot point

[Highdude702]

Thats why they call anybody to the right of them hitler, in their brain "if we scream at them that theyre hitler loud enough they will never know that we actually want to live out hitlers plan!"

Re: This is all a moot point

[goose-incarnated]

You might want to find a history book.

You first - Hitler was hard-left and we all saw how that turned out.

I got modded down for that. I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry - there are way too many people who do not know what the National Socialist German Workers' Party is. After all, it's not like there's a clue in the name, after all.

Re: This is all a moot point

[Hognoxious]

It says green in the name of Greenland.

It's mostly white.

Re: This is all a moot point

[goose-incarnated]

It says green in the name of Greenland.

It's mostly white.

So? It says forest in the name of 'Rainforest Foundation Fund'. Turns out, most things are named after their actual characteristics.

PS, The existence of outliers does not invalidate the existence of the non-outliers.

Re:This is all a moot point

[MachineShedFred]

Childish idiocy?

By the way, they're 'singing' of that wasn't about impeachment, it was about the 'yea' votes having to face the voters in a scant 18 months.

Re: This is all a moot point

[guruevi]

Russia has had their leaks such as the Syria Files. There are plenty of whistleblowers and even Wikileaks concerning Russia. It's just not in our media.

Re:This is all a moot point

[Tough Love]

Childish idiocy?

Says you. Ask the congressmen if it seems childish to lose their seats for taking away voter's health care, even red baseball cap trailer trash voters.

Re:This is all a moot point

[Anonymous Coward]

The Law is whatever Progressives feel it is based on who is the victim and who is the victimizer.

Re: This is all a moot point

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right - the name of the party is much more important than what they actually did.

Re:This is all a moot point

[Anonymous Coward]

What exactly did you expect the democrats to do, given that they were completely shut out of the process by the GOP? They were specifically excluded, and weren't even allowed to see the bill as it was being negotiated by the GOP. All so the GOP can gut medicaid, remove the requirement that insurance actually cover anything, and give a huge tax cut to the rich.

The Democrats did what they could, which was very little.

Re:This is all a moot point

[budsetr]

Yes, they were both bottom of the barrel choices. One was the bottom of the barrel from the Exxon Valdez, the other the bottom of the barrel from Chernobyl. Both are disasters.

Re:This is all a moot point

[MachineShedFred]

Singing during a vote on the house floor that your party is losing through complete obstinance and refusal to work together is pretty childish. Ever have the idea that it's a bad bill because of refusal to work together and govern?

This applies to both parties, and applies to both the current effort, and the previous Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The current effort is just partisan trash that is replacing other partisan trash. The problem will never be fixed until the divisive lunacy is shown the door - we're just going to be having a different political party talking 'repeal and replace' for 3 to 9 years depending on how the Senate takes a meat axe to this piece of legislative detritus, and how long our current Dorito-tinted president continues to be the President.

Re:This is all a moot point

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

The most interesting part is that it was the Democrats system of Superdelegates, meant to prevent a non-competitive delegate (like Trump) that stopped the more populist Sanders from getting the nomination and some would argue costing them the election

Nonsense. Hillary won a larger number of delegates in the primaries than Obama did in 2008. The superdelegates pushed her over the top, as they did Obama in 2008, but you are implying that Sanders clearly won the nomination and the superdelegates basically stole victory from him and that's as false as it can be. It's actually very unlikely that there will ever be a Democratic primary with more than one candidate where the winner is going to clinch without even counting the superdelegates. I get why people don't like the superdelegates idea and I'n not a fan either, but there hasn't been a single presidential election where they clearly overruled the will of the primary voters. Obama's win in 2008 came closest, but he did (barely) have a delegate lead over Hillary. They are there to provide some kind of way to decide things and prevent chaos at the convention. Stopping a candidate who can't win a national selection is more of a possibility of this system than a reason why it was created. Preventing another 1968 Democratic convention is the real reason it exists. Besides, it's still possible for a candidate the superdelegates hate to win the nomination by simply getting enough votes in the primaries. It may be unlikely, but it's not impossible.

Bernie Sanders was a lot more likely to be another Mondale or McGovern than to beat Trump in the general election anyway. My guess is that he would only get 100-150 electoral votes.

Re:This is all a moot point

[Tough Love]

Singing during a vote on the house floor that your party is losing through complete obstinance and refusal to work together is pretty childish

Ahem. It seems you didn't listen to the lyrics. They are about the upcoming repug bloodbath at midterms.

Sheesh, maga trash, need everything spelled out for them.

Re: This is all a moot point

[Anonymous Coward]

"The party name has got 'socialist' in it." Wow, impressively deep knowledge of German history there, Godwin.

Re:This is all a moot point

[MachineShedFred]

Oh, you mean the one that I mentioned in my first post?

Try reading, dipshit... if you can.

Re: This is all a moot point

[Hognoxious]

Turns out, most things are named after their actual characteristics.

And it turns out that there are exceptions. You can name two now I've educated you.

Re: This is all a moot point

[Anonymous Coward]

Hitler was absolutely NOT far left, or left leaning at all. The Nazis were seen as hard right. The use of the word "Socialist" in the party name was actually intentional, designed to appeal to the common worker. But the party was not socialist at all. Hitler was very much against the communist movement. The Weimar Republic (the government Hitler essentially overthrew) WAS a socialist government of the left. I highly recommend reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer. It gives an extremely detailed account of the rise and fall of the Nazis.

Re: This is all a moot point

[Anonymous Coward]

there are way too many people who do not know what the National Socialist German Workers' Party is. After all, it's not like there's a clue in the name, after all.

And you are among them, apparently. Instead of laugh or cry, maybe read a history book? There's more to a party than a name.

Re:This is all a moot point

[Tough Love]

hey, hey, key, goo-ood bye!

Re: This is all a moot point

[Dr_Terminus]

I like how you put a link to an article that completely contradicts your claim that Hitler was hard-left. How do you handle all of the cognitive dissonance?

I guess from your perspective, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is a bastion of democracy as well...

Re: This is all a moot point

[Mr.CRC]

https://mises.org/library/why-...

Re: This is all a moot point

[Aighearach]

It is very confusing for some people, because it says both Democratic and also Republic. So they don't know which team it is. Is that Us, or Them?!

Worse, they even have a red, white, and blue flag! So does Russia. And France. And the Netherlands. So confusing.

Why can't the Reds just be Red, and the Nazis can be the commies too since they're socialists, and then nobody has to learn whose side the Russians were on in that war! Go Team! Whoever my team was. If I'm not sure I'll check cable newsvertainment.

Fake headlines

[Anonymous Coward]

What a load of slashdot this one has. The headlines are pure bullshit and the article does NOT show any proof of ANYTHING.

Re:Fake headlines

[ClickOnThis]

What a load of slashdot this one has. The headlines are pure bullshit and the article does NOT show any proof of ANYTHING.

From TFA:

U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that the Russian government orchestrated the hacks and disclosure of Democratic emails during the election in order to support Republican President Donald Trump and discredit his Democratic foe, Hillary Clinton. Russia has denied the allegations.

Re:Fake headlines

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA:

U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that the Russian government orchestrated the hacks and disclosure of Democratic emails during the election in order to support Republican President Donald Trump and discredit his Democratic foe, Hillary Clinton. Russia has denied the allegations.

If obtaining information through tradecraft and publishing it qualified as "hacking the election," which it doesn't, then it would be equally valid to say the NSA attempted to hack the election and failed, and now they're trying to hack the next election.

Seriously, how stupid do they think we are? Only Hillary partisans are "stupid" enough to "believe" this, or rather pretend to believe it so they can experience the outrage they crave.

The NSA's credibility was already shot, but they're poisoning the well for real worries about hacking the election, which should be dire. Russia probably did not hack this election, nor, probably, did the NSA, but either could have. Our legal structure on recounts should be changed to require an unconditional manual paper count on a statistically valid sampling of the ballots large enough to put the election's outcome above some practical confidence bar. Currently, recount procedures are underspecified or irrational, and definitely not statistically valid. Also, requesting recounts is politicized by the judiciary's partisan interpretation of irrational laws, put beyond practicality the judicial overhead of one-by-one local cases forced by over-federation and impractically tight legal deadlines, and by the pressure on politicians to "concede" immediately, which nasty 'ole Hillary created for herself by inflaming a bunch of FUD around Trump's hypothetically not "accepting" the result of the election. Our protection against electronic tampering urgently needs to be made more robust, and also procedurally mandatory and automatic.

This was the subject of a 33c3 talk.

Re:Fake headlines

[Mashiki]

U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that the Russian government orchestrated the hacks and disclosure of Democratic emails during the election

Care to explain how that happened? The FBI has never forensically audited the DNC email servers, and the DNC has repeatedly refused to hand them over to investigate. And nobody has any idea with her illegal private email server because she scrubbed it.

Bullshit

[sexconker]

If they had any evidence of Russian interference, they should have come forward with it.

Rogers said allowing the statute to expire on Dec. 31, unless Congress votes to reauthorize it, would degrade U.S. intelligence agencies' ability to provide "timely warning and insight" on a variety of criminal and national security threats.

Even if we believe they have info they're not sharing, how timely or insightful could it be? The election was half a year ago.

Re:Bullshit

[Moof123]

This. We gave up privacy so they could sit on their hands? It appears we are only hearing about this so that they can keep their toy.

Show us the intelligence, and then show us proof it actually did some good. We know the answer to the second part already...

Re:Bullshit

[penandpaper]

No no. You don't understand. We have to stop Trump and the Russians By Any Means Necessary. If the NSA need more power to stop Trump and others like him then we need to acquiesce their to their demands for the greater good. Rights be damned. /s

Re:Bullshit

[AHuxley]

The NSA understands a lot of US party political groups keep data on computers that is not encrypted and is on networks that can be accessed by the internet.
With its domestic powers the NSA could see the vast amounts of US plain text party political data been moved along the US internet in real time.
Without such powers US data could move along US networks and no US clandestine service would ever know what party political US plain text data was moving around US networks or in the hands of US media.
US staff in a US political party could pass data to members of the US press and nobody in the US gov would be able to find the origin of the data until its published.
With the domestic spying powers that data could be tracked from US leaker to the US press. No more leaking by US whistelblowers to the US press.
The Most Intriguing Spy Stories From 166 Internal NSA Reports (May 17 2016)
https://theintercept.com/2016/...
".. scanned 350 press items daily for “cryptologic insecurities” and maintained a database called FIRSTFRUIT with “over 5,000 insecurity-related records” ranging from “espionage damage assessments” to “liaison exchanges.”"

Re:Bullshit

[thesupraman]

No, you gave up your privacy so that they could collect everything about you, so that if in the future you step out of line, they can quietly remind you about things you did previously that would be SO embarrassing if they accidentally became public.

THAT is why you gave up your freedom, never forget that.

And that works pretty much all the way up - just look at the 'friendly' foreign governments bending over backwards for the US these days - do you really think its because they think its the best thing for their country? Or perhaps they have been quietly briefed on what the media would accidentally get leaked if they dont tow the line.

After all, the US Is the world police right? And we have been nicvely educated that we have to accept corruption in the police, because, well, dont ask for reasons, its just accepted!

And if you think they will give up their toy just because its no longer officially allowed? Oh dear...

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

If they had any evidence of Russian interference, they should have come forward with it.

Russian interference is not per say the problem. The problem is that outside interference worked, and it worked cheaply and pretty easily from a cost point of view. Donald Trump is a problem. but he is a tempest in a teacup compared to that. He is a symptom and unless the patient develops some antibodies against this malevolent infection, we are in deep trouble.

Our systems must, no matter the cost, defend against this propaganda crap, no matter the source and no matter the reason. There is _nothing_ more important to a democracy than voters voting with accurate information. Without it, we might as well go back to a monarchy, since at least then it wouldn't be whoever was best at manipulation getting their candidate to win.

Blatantly biased sources masquerading as news are not acceptable, no matter the excuse. It is _NOT_ correct to have a far right or far left tilt because you believe it "balances". That is utter crap.

Personally I want a lot more reporters, given long term positions, paid by the government if necessary, but where they publicly police each other. Make it so everyone is gunning for promotions that they only get when you catch another in a lie. Add the judiciary to verify claims, if needed. Whatever it takes, but the truth is above all the one duty we all must uphold.

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't want to admit that their evidence amounts to a bunch of Russian flags on 4chan talking shit about Hillary.

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately truth in its current form is subjective. Actively and rationally debating differences is the answer, not physical or verbal attacks.

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

*yawn* if the NSA etc show their hand every time you feel it necessary because its apparently in the best interest of the average schmo, the game is over very quickly :-)

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a moron. There's an ACTIVE INVESTIGATION GOING ON to impeach the president.

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately truth in its current form is subjective. Actively and rationally debating differences is the answer, not physical or verbal attacks.

Many things are objectively true.
1. The vast majority of scientists agree on climate change.
2. It rained at Trump's Inauguration.
3. Hillary got about 3 million more legitimate votes than Trump.
4. Mexico is never going to pay for the wall, and taxing it out of them is likely a really bad idea.
5. A wall is not going to stop illegal drugs. They are too profitable. It may slow them slightly, but I suspect the effects will be minimal.
6. Immigrants do not commit more crime than native born citizens.
7. Trump had no secret plan to defeat ISIS. (Okay i can't prove that, but I'd bet its true.)
8. Russia and maybe several others are highly likely to attempt to hack our elections every time from now on, and we are not ready, and no I do not mean voting machines. People are too easily misled. Hillary behind a child porn ring at a pizza place? Really? Is that where we are as a society? And the twitter account of his original national security adviser's son used to shovel it?
9. We'd better make dang sure the voting machines are really secure as well, because if there is a way to hack them, it is liable to be done, if not by foreigners, then by Americans.
10. A great big tax cut will never pay for itself. It implies growth that is never going to occur. Have the best put together an accurate model based on as much past data and complexity as you can model. Use a ton of cloud resources, or whatever, then use that to model legislative impacts, or, I don't know just listen to the CBO for a change.
11. If the republicans pass a repeal bill for Obamacare, then it is going to lead to a lot of people dying over time. You can't extract that much funding from the health care system and magically expect better results. It is just not going to happen.
12. There is a weak link between people like Trump and terrorism. Basically his bravado and such provides an easy motivational poster to recruit, and the terrorists horrible actions provide great material for Trump to use to recruit. It is a rather sick form of symbiosis. No, Trump is not a terrorist. He just plays on peoples emotions and baser instints.
13. Hillary was a weak candidate, not because of her qualifications, or really things that she did. That email thing was severely overblown as were various other so called scandals. The Clinton foundation helped a lot of people and had its books open. No, she was a weak candidate for two reasons. First, the republican party has invested a lot of time and effort to destroy her, and lets face it, that takes its toll. Second, she needed more energy and vision.
14. CNN is not fake news.
15. You cannot believe a word our president says. Sure some of it may be true, but at best you have to research everything and see if there is anything there.
16. Putin is not the real problem. Hacks will occur. We failed to defend against them. We failed as citizens to reject the BS. Our reporters failed to shout it out loud enough. Obama even let McConnel cow him into not saying more. Many on the republican side including Trump embraced the hacks and fake news. The president still does. His attempts to destroy objective true are causing extreme harm to our democracy, but again, Trump is a symptom. We must be resistant against that degree of bullcrap.
17. I really should have kept on topic better...

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, if rights be damned, then the first thing that'll happen is you'll be squished. Bye now.

Captcha: warfare

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

If they had any evidence of Russian interference, they should have come forward with it.

No. We all know it's true since so many people are talking about it.

Re:Bullshit

[DirkDaring]

"The problem is that outside interference worked"

Would it still have worked if the info that was dug up and made public wasn't illegal and/or damaging? If the DNC hadn't torpedoed the Sanders campaign, shown that Hillary got debate questions early, etc etc that came up seemingly daily from the email dumps? What if the email dumps came up with... just normal election running processes?

Re:Bullshit

[swillden]

And that works pretty much all the way up - just look at the 'friendly' foreign governments bending over backwards for the US these days

For instance?

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

And we have been nicvely educated that we have to accept corruption in the police, because, well, dont ask for reasons, its just accepted!

I don't mean to undermine your larger point, but this is not a mainstream sentiment in the US.

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't have a government to government example, but for government to business, simply look at Joe Nacchio former CEO of Qwest.

In (I believe) FEBRUARY of 2001 (take special note of the date is before 9/11) the NSA invited Joe to Fort Meade. There, they asked a favor of him. Instead of saying "Sir, yes sir!" like he was supposed to, he dared ask: "Is that constitutional?"

Fast forward a months and all of Qwest's government contracts suddenly dry up. Then Nacchio makes a mistake and tries to calm investors that everything is ok, foolishly believing he can get the contracts back. He is arrested on some insider trading charges, and eventually ends up serving over 4 years in prison. At trial, he was forbidden to mention the fort meade visit in his defense due to "national security". Qwest is bought out by Century Link, and there are no future problems.

The NSA is willing to do this to an American citizen to get what they want. The Snowden slides show they also monitor pornography viewing habits of individuals (including at least 1 American) for the purposes of discrediting them.

What makes you think these strong arm tactics don't happen? Heck - to capture Snowden, they quietly threatened to cripple the economy of Equador by revoking a trade deal, and threatened Germany with withholding intelligence from them if they so much as allow the guy into their country. The US is not exactly subtle in these types of matters.

Re:Bullshit

[swillden]

Thank you for proving my point. supraman implied that a lot of foreign governments were acting oddly submissive to US requests, in ways that could only be explained by hidden leverage, and further implied that this alleged situation is common knowledge. But I can't see any examples, and apparently you can't think of one either... and of course supraman hasn't bothered to reply, which seems to indicate that neither can he.

Re:Bullshit

[Mr.CRC]

"There is _nothing_ more important to a democracy than voters voting with accurate information."

What you think is so important is impossible. Having the government regulate it is even worse.

If people are allowed to vote, they should also be allowed to decide for themselves if the "information" they are getting is legitimate.

Or we can just finally admit that this "democracy" business is a complete sham, because people are not rational and will believe whatever they need to believe in order to fit in to whatever in-group they perceive to be most likely to benefit them. So there is no way democracy can yield optimal leaders.

We would be better off simply having a computer pick the president, the legislators, etc., randomly.

"Whatever it takes, but the truth is above all the one duty we all must uphold." We can't even get agreement on basic facts anymore. The situation is hopeless, and a symptom of a much deeper problem – the scope of government is just too large. If it was less significant, the motive for ordinary citizens to turn on each other would be greatly lessened.

If we were doing it right, politics would matter very little.

Want to live a happier life?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ignore ALL these narrative headlines and articles until they read "HERE IS THE PROOF...".

Re:Want to live a happier life?

[quonset]

Ignore ALL these narrative headlines and articles until they read "HERE IS THE PROOF...".

Like Trump saying he was told three times by Comey he wasn't under investigation yet has not provided anything to back up this claim?

How about Trump claiming voter fraud yet again, providing no proof?

People being bused in to vote?

There's more, but we'll keep ignoring his orangeness until he says, "HERE IS THE PROOF...".

Re:Want to live a happier life?

[king neckbeard]

Trump making bullshit claims without evidence doesn't magically prevent the NSA from making bullshit claims without evidence.

Re:Want to live a happier life?

[DaHat]

Here you go: https://twitter.com/RoguePOTUS...

Re:Want to live a happier life?

[TrancePhreak]

The first video on this page at about 50s in corroborates Trump's statement that he was not under investigation. http://circa.com/politics/acco...

Re:Want to live a happier life?

[sexconker]

Did you even read your own shit?

Of course, only one of those two paragraphs above are true. Namely, the first one is a lie. No such recording exists, but there is a deadly important matter surrounding the sufficiency and value of "evidence" against POTUS we need to discuss now that we have your attention.

Even if they didn't admit to clickbait bullshit lies, why would you believe any of the hundreds of copycat, fake "rogue" Twitter accounts? Are you mentally retarded?

Re:Want to live a happier life?

[Anonymous Coward]

Worked for 8 years of 44, why not give it a try for 45?

Re:Want to live a happier life?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about Trump claiming voter fraud yet again, providing no proof?

How can he? We have a secret ballot, there's no way to prove the most common from of fraud, voting on behalf of someone who doesn't come to the polls. Since IDs aren't checked, there is absolutely no way to verify that all votes cast were cast by the people supposedly voting. It's like being asked to prove a computer wasn't hacked after all the log files were deleted. How can you? There is no record!

People being bused in to vote?

I watched that happen in New Hampshire. People from Massachusetts bused in to interfere with the election. It happens, it's not even really a secret.

Re:Want to live a happier life?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about Trump claiming voter fraud yet again, providing no proof?

How can he?

Perhaps the same way states like North Carolina found voter fraud. A whole two instances that hinged on impersonation. Most of their failings were felons who had not had their rights restored.

Let's see Trump call for those two to be prosecuted though.

We have a secret ballot, there's no way to prove the most common from of fraud, voting on behalf of someone who doesn't come to the polls.

North Carolina did. Twice. Go ahead, demand the prosecution of the North Carolina Two!

Since IDs aren't checked, there is absolutely no way to verify that all votes cast were cast by the people supposedly voting.

ID's are checked in the following states:

Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

Photo ID is not always required, but IDs are checked. Other states may require ID on registration. Details are available.

Feel free to find for us, these rampant cases you want to believe exist. Of course, if they do, then all of the elections are invalid. That'll be interesting.

It's like being asked to prove a computer wasn't hacked after all the log files were deleted. How can you? There is no record!

The voting records across the country are still in existence. Go check them. If you know of any that are deleted, please do let us know. Find some people who claim not to have voted, but are on the records as having voted.

People being bused in to vote?

I watched that happen in New Hampshire. People from Massachusetts bused in to interfere with the election. It happens, it's not even really a secret.

Yet you have no videos, no recordings, no names. Funny that. And New Hampshire takes photos before a vote is allowed, so you're merely claiming interference doesn't hold much weight. Do you have photos of any people from Massachusetts voting in New Hampshire? Any records of people objecting to having their picture taken in great numbers?

Re:Want to live a happier life?

[swillden]

The first video on this page at about 50s in corroborates Trump's statement that he was not under investigation. http://circa.com/politics/acco...

He said Trump and his top aides weren't a target. Perhaps Trump knew that if the investigation continued long enough, they would be.

Re:Want to live a happier life?

[Anonymous Coward]

That quote merely states that an anonymous source (i.e. not Comey) said that Comey said that Trump was not under investigation. It's as valid as Trump saying that Comey said he's not under investigation (i.e. not valid).

Re:Want to live a happier life?

[DaHat]

Of course I read it... it's quite lulz-worthy given the amount of fake belief of the tweet originally based on the headline alone. Some responses later noted the content of the actual article.

Read a few of my previous comments maybe? While I didn't vote for Trump, I fully understand why he won... and why so many are eager to believe the fake news of the "rogue" twitter accounts... which is hilarious.

Re:Want to live a happier life?

[TrancePhreak]

Whereby you equate Senators Chuck Grassley and Dianne Feinstein being briefed by Comey to anonymous sources.

Putin will be sad.

[Anonymous Coward]

They're losing the ability to spy on the government!

"timely warning and insight"

[Anonymous Coward]

soo, 5 months and after the fact?

In the hands of a madman...

[RyanFenton]

This is why, even though it costs more money, independent oversight of our agencies of government are important.

If you can imagine a political group that you wouldn't trust in power, imagine what you'd want in order to provide responsible checks on their worst abuses of power.

Those checks on power is what we've been getting rid of, along with a proportionally reduced healthy media.

So, now that we have a raving lunatic, a living symbol of arrogance and greed as president, and a fully loyal set of henchmen elected under him, we begin to see the unraveling of what everyone should consider important constitutional boundaries.

What's bizarre is how many folks still support both this dangerous process and the people involved. Folks who spoke exactly the opposite for so long. Constitutional limits are always important, to avoid the path to countless forms of corruption and stagnation.

I don't see how anyone other than Trump benefits from any of this either - even if the corruption stands completely unchecked. Few of the benefits would last in the environment it creates.

Ryan Fenton

Re:In the hands of a madman...

[Anonymous Coward]

Up until your last sentence I thought you were talking about Obama.

Re:In the hands of a madman...

[Anonymous Coward]

That isn't some deep thought you posted. It's another canned ham political screed.

I'm not sure how many of the same screed you have posted, but it has been at least 3.

Formula: [guy you don't like] is [insert synonym for mad man] and he is [destroying democracy because ...] insert [slight variation of news du jour]

An AI chat bot could do a better job.

Re:In the hands of a madman...

[Anonymous Coward]

Using the IRS to target political opponent, REFUSING to answer to Congress.
Running guns to Mexico, killing hundreds, REFUSING to answer to Congress.
Letting illegals run free in the country telling ICE not to enforce the law. REFUSING to answer to Congress.
Letting ambassador be killed in Libya and lying about it, REFUSING to answer to Congress.
Deleting 30k emails AFTER being subpoenaed, REFUSING to answer to Congress.
Meeting Lynch on a plane 2 days before your wife is cleared, REFUSING to answer to Congress.

Notice a pattern here? Let me help... None of the above involved Trump. All of the above are FAR worse than anything Trump has done. You didn't have a problem with any of the above either.

As someone else stated. We thought you were talking about Obama before you got to your last sentence, partisan hack.

Re:In the hands of a madman...

[Anonymous Coward]

"So, now that we have a raving lunatic, a living symbol of arrogance and greed as president, and a fully loyal set of henchmen elected under him, we begin to see the unraveling of what everyone should consider important constitutional boundaries."

Oh, completely different than Obama or Bush. Yes, NOW it's a problem.. Hey, Obama just gave a speech for which he was paid about 1.5 million dollars for. But it's not a bribe for a job of well done.

Yep, Hope and Change. I guess the United States was hoping to bomb 7 nations, and get gay marriage legalized. President is a figurehead, if you don't realize it yet. The only possible person that might be able to change that is Trump, and it doesn't look like he will.

Re: In the hands of a madman...

[Anonymous Coward]

Using the IRS to target political opponent, REFUSING to answer to Congress.

Routinely requiring groups seeking tax exempt status to properly fill out their paperwork as even Congress noted in it's reports where they found no particular animus.

Running guns to Mexico, killing hundreds, REFUSING to answer to Congress.

Killing nobody as efforts to ascertain the existing gun smuggling operations along the border reveal that a few tracked guns were among the tens of thousands of firearms acquired by criminals already.

Reporting this to Congress.

Letting illegals run free in the country telling ICE not to enforce the law. REFUSING to answer to Congress.

Actually deporting over two million illegals, telling ICE to prioritizeâ enforcement efforts to best utilize the resources authorized by Congress and making regular reports on the subject.

Even Trump admitted that Obama had made plenty of deportations.

Letting ambassador be killed in Libya and lying about it, REFUSING to answer to Congress.

Deploying an ambassador with a security force, and no more culpable han the dozens of other embassy attacks you are silent about. Even Congress admitted there was nothing found, notice how their report concluded there was no deliberate failure in security or even an attempt to deceive. Which wouldn't be bad, per see, subterfuge happens in intelligence work.

Deleting 30k emails AFTER being subpoenaed, REFUSING to answer to Congress.

Actually testifying before Congress and even the FBI admitting there was nothing of substance to be found.

As Congress reported

Meeting Lynch on a plane 2 days before your wife is cleared, REFUSING to answer to Congress.

Oh no, meeting with somebody, but wait, you have no evidence of anything. Not even stealing a bag of airline peanuts.

Notice a pattern here?

Of hysteria? Yes. Trump did the same. You are following it.

Let me help... None of the above involved Trump. All of the above are FAR worse than anything Trump has done.

Trump University. Birtherism. Trump Steaks. Failures to pay dozens of contractors. Labor disputes. Calling for Revolution. Immigration fraud.

Lots more. All real. Not fake like your crap.

You didn't have a problem with any of the above either.

Well, I can't speak for another, but I do have a problem with your lies.

As someone else stated. We thought you were talking about Obama before you got to your last sentence, partisan hack.

Yeah, you wanted to believe

Re:In the hands of a madman...

[CrimsonAvenger]

If you can imagine a political group that you wouldn't trust in power, imagine what you'd want in order to provide responsible checks on their worst abuses of power.

Qui custodiet ipsos custodes?

For what it's worth, I can imagine a political party I wouldn't trust in power. The Democrats, the Republicans, pretty much all of them. Doesn't mean I trust a bunch of unelected, secretive yahoos to protect me from them.

Note that my solution to the problem is the one New Texas chose (Lone Star Planet, aka Planet for Texans, by H. Beam Piper)....

Re: In the hands of a madman...

[Anonymous Coward]

âoeWe donâ(TM)t oversee the executive,â he added, earning a round of loud boos from the audience. âoeCongress is not the board of directors of the White House.â --Rep. Tom MacArthur, R-NJ

Re:In the hands of a madman...

[Anonymous Coward]

or ya know... only allow government to pursue its' constitutionally mandated duties. Reminder for you fucktards that do not seem to understand. The point of the constitution was NOT to tell the federal government what It could not do. It was to tell it what it could(With some explicit exclusions for things that were seen as absolutes). The 10th amendment was supposed to remind everyone that if it isn't written explicitly as a power of the federal government then it is the State's right to do it(or not) not the federal leviathan's place to say fuck all y'all we will do what we want.

Re:In the hands of a madman...

[Anonymous Coward]

what an utterly stupid comment.

How does one "hack" an election?

[Anonymous Coward]

How exactly? There are hundreds and hundreds of precincts that all have different combinations of systems for receiving, tallying and reporting the votes. How does one perfectly "hack" a near unlimited combination of systems perfectly none of the thousands of operators notice anything amiss at all? What are the technical details of how such a thing is accomplished? I expect better from slashdot.

There has yet to be any shred of evidence released beyond "intelligence officials" and "sources" said so. And then this is repeated by the dishonest whore media over and over again. No actual evidence methods of how it was done or motive. Repeat the same bullshit over and over again and people will actually start to believe it.

Re:How does one "hack" an election?

[Anonymous Coward]

Good question.

Here's another: Why try to bribe a notoriously unpredictable billionaire who doesn't need the money -- in a race he was losing -- when it would be so much easier to write a check to the Clinton Foundation and send a wish list of agenda items to hrod17@clintonemail.com? After all, selling influence is literally the Clinton family business. They have no visible source of income other than accepting ridiculous amounts of cash for speeches and make-believe jobs (like Chelsea's faux "job" at NBC). You would think the Russians would be entitled to some sort of discount after whatever exchange of favors it took to make that uranium deal when Hillary was Secretary of State.

Re:How does one "hack" an election?

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple: you hack the public opinion. That is much easier than hacking all the voting machines.

Re:How does one "hack" an election?

[Anonymous Coward]

How does one perfectly "hack" a near unlimited combination of systems perfectly none of the thousands of operators notice anything amiss at all?

Use Nate Silver's data to identify a small set of counties to flip, the ones that are least auditable.
Phish the contractor that runs the voting machines. Infect them with a worm that spreads laterally onto either all the voting machines, or just the master tallying machine.
Design the malware to flip votes with the minimum probability needed to tip the election your way.

Result: a "close" election, with flipped votes localized to the counties where they're hardest to detect.

Re:How does one "hack" an election?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why bother with hacking the election when the electorate is pre-hacked?

So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hillary gave Russia a crapload of Uranium.
Bill gave Canada and Mexico all our jobs.
George gave us all a migraine.

Who cares.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hillary gave Russia a crapload of Uranium.
Bill gave Canada and Mexico all our jobs.
George gave us all a migraine.
And Barry made it too expensive to get treatment.

Who cares.

NSA chielf never lies

[Anonymous Coward]

Not like there is a track recent record of NSA officials lying about surveillance programs.
http://thehill.com/policy/technology/241508-spy-head-had-absolutely-forgotten-about-nsa-program

Get your heads out your ....

More fake news

[p51d007]

The longer they go on with this, the longer the left looks like the FOOLS they are.

Re:More fake news

[Anonymous Coward]

Please note...
This story came out on /. well after 5PM on the East Coast.
Please also note, nearly no one posting supports the DNC at all (some do but not nearly as many as would have if posted a few hours earlier)

I've caught many a poster on /. that were obvious paid by the DNC to post. I think nearly half of /. posters now are paid by the DNC or their people to post here.

So when you think you are the odd one out because nearly everyone else is posting constantly the opposite, just take a look later evenings/weekends. /. is usually good about not letting political stories be posted during those times as well, but they screwed up on this one I guess.

SO WHAT? Actionable?

[whoever57]

The missing claim here is that Section 702 produced actionable intelligence (and I don't mean of the "blackmail politicians" type).

Otherwise it's just more pointless spying on Americans. More meaningless waste of taxpayers' dollars.

"timely warning and insight"

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't "timely warning and insight" be BEFORE/during the hack attempt in time to stop it? (As opposed to a post mortem many months later)

The Russian efforts against the U.S. election?

[AHuxley]

What did the Russians do?
Have thousands of embassy staff drive out into fly over states without the FBI noticing?
Get deep into the different parts of the USA without people working on the US election reporting strangers asking questions and been in secure areas?
Have US political leaders not give good speeches in parts of the USA that ensured people voted for them?
Ensured US political parties selected unelectable candidates?
Altered the locations speeches got given so one candidate did not fully cover the USA?
The FBI was never able to detect any of the Russian embassy staff movements in the USA?
Reworked speeches so one candidate did not appear electable? A US political party should have found a better candidate that was well liked all over the USA.
Provided Russian advisors to a candidate so the US political party system made mistakes?
Russian has thousands of trusted people pre positioned in the US election staff ready to alter US votes? The FBI is unaware of such massive human efforts?
The US has computerised its entire election process and Russia flipped votes at a city, county, parish and federal level without anyone from any other party or the FBI seeing changes to the tally?
Russian staff walked out to US paper and election computer networks to physically change results before a count?

If a US party wants to win an election find a good candidate that can win in fly over states. Get them out to all parts of the USA and give speeches that win elections. Long speeches, interesting speeches, fun speeches, policy positions that people want to listen to and read about all over the USA.
Ensure the candidate has the ability to talk all over the USA without any other issues over a long election cycle.
Patronizing and boring speeches on the elite East and West coast do not win elections in fly over states.
Did Russia make the speeches boring too?
So with vast domestic spying powers and funding the NSA will hope to uncover what the all the FBI funding and FBI experts could not?

Re:The Russian efforts against the U.S. election?

[Anonymous Coward]

I want to see how the Russians convinced Hillary to set up that private email server -- with no encryption! Brilliant move by the Russians -- persuading a candidate to commit a felony that would effectively keep her on the defensive throughout the entire campaign.

Re:The Russian efforts against the U.S. election?

[Anonymous Coward]

What did the Russians do?

It is a bit early to tell but considering yesterdays FBI raids and "random internet comments" from people tangentially involved in the industry it appears as if Russians were doing money laundering through Republican campaign consultants. FBI raids office of Republican campaign consultant in Annapolis

We also know that US banks refuse to deal with Trump so he gets his money from Russian "investors". Eric Trump Reportedly Bragged About Access to $100 Million in Russian Money

Given that Russia started to kill off "people involved in the US election hack" soon after Trump was elected it isn't very far fetched that Trump, through Flynn, handed over information about US agents.

Re:The Russian efforts against the U.S. election?

[Anonymous Coward]

What did the Russians do?

The allegation is that the Russians dug up and leaked dirt on the candidate they most disliked.

It's basic social engineering.

Re:The Russian efforts against the U.S. election?

[HeckRuler]

What did the Russians do?

They sponsored a propaganda campaign pushing fake news and likely aided or were directly involved with the DNC hack.

The propaganda efforts are... you know... milktoast level of shenanigans, but it shows their intent. The hacking is more serious, but it's hard to conclusively prove anything in that realm.

And if the NSA wants to give itself a little ribbon and give itself a price it damn well better pony up some more evidence. Otherwise they're just whining about a toy being taken away. We agree on that point.

[have] Russian staff walked out to US paper and election computer networks to physically change results before a count? [And other strawmen]

No.

If a US party wants to win an election find a good candidate

Yes.

...that can win in fly over states.

...AND in the cities. Where most of the people live. We're a democracy right? If their policies only appeal to self-sustaining preppers who don't have to deal with other people every day, then that candidate is shit.

Hacked the election? Really?

[Mike Van Pelt]

Come on, show me some evidence of the Godless Rooskies(TM) actually hacking the election, as in changing the count of the ballots, as opposed to accusations (likely correct) that they had some involvement in releasing emails from Her sooper-seekrit mail server in her very secure linen closet.

I mean, seriously, I didn't vote for that SOB either, but this hysteria sounds like Nixon justifying the Watergate break-in because "everybody knows" George McGovern is a commie.

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

her very secure linen closet.

You mean like, with the cloths?

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[jader3rd]

When everyone says "Hacked the election", no one is saying that the Russians changed ballot counts. Think of it like the blog posts like "Hack your life, to get more job interviews". Russia intentionally disseminated false information to change how US registered voters would vote. That's the hacking.

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Russia intentionally disseminated false information to change how US registered voters would vote.

By that measure, so did both the Democratic and Republican parties.

That is not "hacking". That is called campaigning.

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[thesupraman]

You mean true information, right?
Intentionally disseminated true information....

Dont forget that part, its kind of important, even if you didnt like the information much.

But of course, how DARE they!

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

They had like mind control probes or something? I think people who are voting are smart of enough to think for themselves.

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody, and I mean nobody, has claimed that the Russians "changed the count of the ballots".

(Trump has claimed that huge numbers of people voted illegally, and also seems to take it as axiomatic that every last one of them voted against him. But he's the only person claiming wrongdoing in the actual voting or counting.)

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[jader3rd]

You mean true information, right?

No, most of it wasn't true. Some of it may have been true, from a certain point of view. Some of it would have been true, but they made mountains out of mole hills with it. Typical scaremongering.

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[Tough Love]

When everyone says "Hacked the election", no one is saying that the Russians changed ballot counts.

We don't know that they didn't. Florida anyone?

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Russia intentionally disseminated false information to change how US registered voters would vote"
Are you talking about PizzaGate? Is that seriously the claim, that Russia was behind PizzaGate?

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

What, exactly, wasn't true?

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[gumbi west]

Yes, something domestics can do and foreigners can't. That said, I'd love to see the US pass laws preventing itself from attempting to influence foreign elections.

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[gumbi west]

It was asymmetric. Looking in one sides dirty laundry hamper and not the others isn't an unbiased exercise.

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[zippthorne]

Correct. No one is saying it. They're desperately hoping people will draw that conclusion though, otherwise they'd use different language when making allegations of Russian influence.

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, the hard drives were wiped clean so the linen cloths must be the culprits. Book 'em Dano.

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[aardvarkjoe]

It was asymmetric. Looking in one sides dirty laundry hamper and not the others isn't an unbiased exercise.

This is just a dressed-up way of saying "but Trump does bad things too!"

It's not like it was any secret to anyone that Hillary was going to come with a mountain of dirty laundry. The smart thing to do would have been to nominate a better candidate.

You want someone to blame? Try the voters in the primary election. And of course, the DNC, who colluded to get the absolute worst candidate possible nominated.

This whole thing about "Russian hackers" is just a way to deflect attention from how badly Hillary's campaign and the DNC screwed up. And you idiots are letting them get away with it.

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[gumbi west]

OK, so why not just share every Trump campaign email now? Or how about that private server that only sends email to Russia?

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[Orgasmatron]

The parts that he doesn't like. REEEEEE

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[Orgasmatron]

That would be an imaginary server.

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[kenh]

When everyone says "Hacked the election", no one is saying that the Russians changed ballot counts. Think of it like the blog posts like "Hack your life, to get more job interviews".

And of course, when they say "The Election" what they mean is the private computers of a private group, the non-governmental group the DNC and John Podesta's super-secure gmail account.

Russia intentionally disseminated false information to change how US registered voters would vote. That's the hacking.

Neither the DNC nor John Podesta ever claimed a single email was "false", their refusal to do so was a serious miscalculation on their part.

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[kenh]

OK, so why not just share every Trump campaign email now?

As if we've seen "every" Clinton email... She kept every work-related email safely protected from any FOIA requests during her tenure as Secretary of State, and then spent two years deleting half the emails that she, or her hired helpers, determined all on their own what was and was not "work-related" and deleted about half of her emails, handing them over to the government just before being subpoenaed...

Or how about that private server that only sends email to Russia?

You mean the server that had malware that pinged a Russian IP address occasionally?

And of course, by "email" you mean "DNS Ping"...

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[Kiuas]

That is not "hacking". That is called campaigning.

Well, yes, sure. But it should still be alarming to you that foreign powers are 'campaigning' - rather successfully it seems - for one side. You can already see the effects as the Trump administration seems to want to do everything to divert attention and discussions from the Russians. The Russians helped them bring Hillary down with the hacks, but that also means that they probably have the means to bring Trump.

I'm not American, I'm a Finn, and as such I'm acutely aware of the Russian mentality of indirect control. During the cold war we were not a Soviet satellite exactly, but as the threat of soviet invasion was quite real, there was widespread self-censorship. Fearing the reaction of the Soviet leadership, both politicians and the media avoided in public saying anything that could be deemed too critical in Moscow and be used to justify either disrupting trade (of which we did a lot with them) or military action. This was so characteristic of Finnish politics during the cold war that the term is now named after us: finlandization.

As I look at the way the white house behaves currently, it does resemble this to an extent: while there's obviously no need for the US to fear direct Russian invasion so the media can still freely discuss about these issues, there's been a noted change in tone towards Russia already. The 'alternative media' seems to be pushing a narrative according to which this whole investigation is in fact due to 'the mainstream media' disliking Russia purely because Hillary/dems are against Russia and want to drive a wedge between US-Russian relations, I was watching a video yesterday about the joking comment Lavrov made when asked about the firing of Comey (he said: "He was fired? You're kidding?!" barely containing his laughter) and one of the top comments on the video was; "CNN won't be happy until we nuke Russia or they nuke us." Think about what this implies: it implies that by reporting on these events, the media is guilty of provoking the Russians. It implies that Lavrov and the Russians' motives/actions should never be questioned because the mere act of questioning jeopardizes peace and stability and puts you in risk of war. The Trump-base has been effectively sold the idea that this whole deal is in fact not the fault of Russians seeking political influence over the US leadership, but a conspiracy to tarnish the good and friendly, peace-loving Russians,

Think if this has happened in the Bush or Obama eras; how different would the reaction of republicans have been if Obama was under investigation by the FBI over ties to Russia (or any other country) and he'd have sacked the director? You think they'd have been as calm about it as they're now? This is exactly what the Russians are looking for with this trick: they don't care about how they're perceived, they don't care that you guys bombed an airstrip (and warned them in advance), it's trivial for them. They care about positioning themselves in such a way so that the ruling party cannot act unilaterally on any issue important to Moscow without considering first whether or not the Russians will retaliate by leaking evidence (real or fabricated) about their possible collaboration with the administration and hence bringing about significant political damage. Furthermore this allows them to disrupt US domestic politics: the more infighting, confusion and paranoia there exists in Washington over whose side everyone is on and who can be trusted, the better for them, In the end they probably won't bother to even try and 'save' Trump if he's impeached, in fact they may do the opposite and help throw him under the bus, because they can then amp up the above mentioned rhetoric and convince Trump's base that he's been a victim of a massive conspiracy by the establishment and 'mainstream media' and further increase chaos and division in american politics. The more divided a country is int

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[goose-incarnated]

It was asymmetric. Looking in one sides dirty laundry hamper and not the others isn't an unbiased exercise.

That doesn't make the side you're looking at "clean", you know.

Besides, you're claiming that because no evidence has been displayed of the other sides dirty laundry, the other side must have even dirtier laundry than the laundry we're looking at from yours side.

Basically, you're claiming that a lack of evidence is evidence itself. That's a stupid position to take.

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[goose-incarnated]

You mean true information, right?

No, most of it wasn't true. Some of it may have been true, from a certain point of view.

Everything is true from a suitably chosen point of view. If you waffle when asked for evidence, then you don't really have an argument - you're just trying to justify your position in spite of having no evidence.

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[hazardPPP]

That is not "hacking". That is called campaigning.

Well, yes, sure. But it should still be alarming to you that foreign powers are 'campaigning' - rather successfully it seems - for one side.

You are aware I hope that the US government actively "campaigns" in foreign elections routinely, supporting sides in another country's election which it deems friendly to US interests? That US ambassadors act as de-facto viceroys in many countries, with a veto on who can take power and who cannot? Keeping that in mind, the fact that the Russians seemed to have influenced slightly the US election seems like a bit of cosmic justice, no?

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[will_die]

You can already see the effects as the Trump administration seems to want to do everything to divert attention and discussions from the Russians.
Really??
Name one thing they have done to divert attention from Russia. From his actions the only thing he has done is focus things more on them. The talks on Comey always bring up his investigation on russia, like he was actually doing the work. Trump has meetings with other country leaders and the media always brings up russia.

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[nehumanuscrede]

"I'm not American, I'm a Finn, and as such I'm acutely aware of the Russian mentality of indirect control."

In the grand scheme of things, there isn't much difference between a foreign government trying to influence the outcome of an election and a multi-national corporation who can use " campaign contributions " to do the same thing.

"Well, yes, sure. But it should still be alarming to you that foreign powers are 'campaigning' - rather successfully it seems - for one side."

After decades of the same warmongering bullshit coming out of Washington ( regardless of a Red or Blue candidate ), if I were a foreign country that was considered " hostile " to US interests, I would do everything I could to influence the elections as well. Why not ? The US does it to everyone else. Pot meet Kettle.

"As I look at the way the white house behaves currently, it does resemble this to an extent: while there's obviously no need for the US to fear direct Russian invasion so the media can still freely discuss about these issues, there's been a noted change in tone towards Russia already."

There might be a perceived change in tone, but nothing has changed in reality. The same War Drums maintain their cadence with Syria being the current dance floor.

"You guys should know, you've been doing the exact same song and dance in south America for decades, not to even mention middle-east."

This is why I don't really look at it as a " Good Guy " vs " Bad Guy " type of scenario. The US is, without a doubt, the most overt aggressor on the planet. Not even taking into account the shit we pull behind the scenes out of the spotlight.

"While all this is going on they're relatively free to continue their actions in Ukraine and elsewhere in their neighboring regions with next to no real threat from americans/NATO."

The problem here is you really can't spread yourself too thin. We've still got Afghanistan going on, the whole ISIS thing, Syria, Turkey being stupid, Yemen, Iran, North Korea, China and their island building silliness, Philippine leadership being retarded, Venezuela, and probably a few others I can't think of off the top of my head. There IS a limit to what we can juggle without dropping anything.

Besides, you know what a direct confrontation with Russian forces in Ukraine will do.

CNN will get the war they want :D

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[Kiuas]

The problem here is you really can't spread yourself too thin. We've still got Afghanistan going on, the whole ISIS thing, Syria, Turkey being stupid, Yemen, Iran, North Korea, China and their island building silliness, Philippine leadership being retarded, Venezuela, and probably a few others I can't think of off the top of my head. There IS a limit to what we can juggle without dropping anything.

Absolutely, 100 % agreed.

Besides, you know what a direct confrontation with Russian forces in Ukraine will do.

I do yes, and I'm not saying that should be done. I mean hell, we've got the longest land border in Europe with the Russians so I'm by no means a hawkish fan of a direct US-Russia conflict, far from it.

However my point is that the Russians increasing their influence over US administration is bad for the general security of the area because it gives them more space to maneuver. The people in the Baltics are genuinely suspicious over the willingness of Trump and co to actually help them (despite them being in NATO) if something shady does happen. And keep in mind, this being the Russians they won't make it seem like a direct invasion. Much like in Crimea, the doctrine is to make it seem like an internal conflict. The fear is that they will go to Trump and say: "Don't meddle in the internal affairs of Lithuania' and then be able to pretty much do what they want there, even though they won't obviously try to annex these regions in the same way as they did with Crimea.

Putin is trying to turn back the clock to the days of the iron curtain when eastern Europe was his backyard. He doesn't need - nor does he desire - a full-on conflict with the Americans to achieve this.

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[gumbi west]

An imaginary server that made DNS requests? The denial is deep with this one.

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[gumbi west]

Not according to the FBI http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/09/...

Your explanation of the evidence makes no sense.

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[Rakarra]

Making a DNS request is a far cry from sending email to.

If, say, a server gets probed for weaknesses by hackers located in Russia, then that server is going to make DNS requests for those Russian IPs. It doesn't mean that server is sending tons of emails to Russia.

Are you thinking of the Trump Organization / Alfa Bank computer relationship that the FBI found "odd?" Even the CNN article on it didn't report much of interest:

Internet data shows that last summer, a computer server owned by Russia-based Alfa Bank repeatedly looked up the contact information for a computer server being used by the Trump Organization -- far more than other companies did, representing 80% of all lookups to the Trump server.
It's unclear if the Trump Organization server itself did anything in return. No one has produced evidence that the servers actually communicated. [...]
The Times said the FBI had concluded there could be an "innocuous explanation." And cybersecurity experts told CNN this isn't how two entities would communicate if they wanted to keep things secret.

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[gumbi west]

The article you linked to is far from exculpatory.

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[gumbi west]

Who pays any attention to CNN? Who makes a big server that just accepts email from a few people?

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[gumbi west]

Again, I'd like to see the Trump emails. I want the recipes, the visits to pizza shops, all of it.

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

"foreigners can't"

Er, why?

The US has fucked with elections all around the world for over a hundred years. Right now the US is supporting the rebels trying to remove a *democratically elected* leader in Syria. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bashar_al-Assad.

Re:Hacked the election? Really?

[Rakarra]

Who pays any attention to CNN?

If there was anything hard there, you can sure CNN would be a bit less lukewarm about this. They don't really have much of a friendship with the President. Hell, they ran with that unsubstantiated pee-party stuff the moment they heard about it. I'd like to think that they're a little more circumspect and will check out sources and stories better now, but I don't know if they are.

Who makes a big server that just accepts email from a few people?

At my previous dot-com jobs, it was pretty common to totally overbuild on critical infrastructure. They had cash to burn, and they either couldn't afford for it to go down, or else they put a powerful system together in the (usually futile) hope that it would be needed for future expansion.

lies, damn lies

[phantomfive]

"I would highlight much, not all, much of what was in the intelligence community's assessment, for example, on the Russian efforts against the U.S. election process in 2016, was informed by knowledge we gained through (Section) 702 authority,"

I would like to see one piece of evidence they gained from the 702 authority. From the report they released, there was not one piece of evidence they presented that required special authority. There was not one piece of evidence thy presented that was new, or unknown by the security community up to that point. Never trust an NSA spokesperson, or an FBI spokesperson.

That is, trust them, but verify. Which means don't trust.

Re:lies, damn lies

[wickerprints]

Agreed. When the National Security Agency claims they are unwilling or unable to obtain the kind of evidence that JOURNALISTS were able to obtain regarding Russian interference in US elections without resorting to panopticon tactics and pervasive domestic surveillance, that is either an outright lie, or a display of egregious incompetence. Which one is it, then? Is the NSA really saying they are too stupid to figure out how the Russians have infiltrated the US government? Because that's exactly what they're saying with this claim. The conclusion to be made is not that the American public should accept the renewal of authorization of draconian surveillance powers, but rather, that the US intelligence agencies are grossly incompetent.

What about

[Anonymous Coward]

WMD in Iraq that they could not find after they were so sure. Is there any progress on that yet?

They WOULD have come forward with it

[Anonymous Coward]

"If they had any evidence of Russian interference, they should have come forward with it.", if they had any actual evidence, they would have run the guy out on the rail already.

I'll be chuckling in 6 years when there are still people whining on 'TECH Blogs' about the Russian connection in the 2016 election, and how illegitimate the Trump presidency has been. I mean why post anything about the TECH industry.

Re:They WOULD have come forward with it

[Anonymous Coward]

After Trump has been imprisoned for treason and just barely escapes execution you may change your mind.

Re:They WOULD have come forward with it

[Mr.CRC]

"After Trump has been imprisoned for treason"

You're kidding, right? Do you even know what treason is?

Seriously, can we stop this now?

[bobbied]

The Russians *tried* to mess with the election, sure.. But they messed with both sides as I recall... Sure, the exposure of the internal democratic committee's E-mails through WikiLeaks seems to have a bit more effect on the outcome, but only because of how damming they where... Who knew the democrats where the nasty cheating so and so's their E-mail showed? I sure didn't dream they where that kind of folks... In a way, they sank themselves, albeit with Russian help.

There should have been no way Trump could win, she should have toasted him by more than double digits and walked away with nearly every electoral vote out there, But, even though she out spent, out ground gamed, had more experience and had a less contested primary and thus a less fractured party base, she didn't win.

Face it, she gave this election away... SHE lost it all by herself. The Russians didn't take it, Comey didn't take it, The Donald didn't take it (how could he?), she just lost it. The Russians didn't do her any favors, nor in the long run did Comey, but as heavily favored as she was going into this, there is no other place to put the blame.

Until democrats get off this "The Russians Hacked the Election and that's why Trump won" kick, they are never going to get anywhere useful..

Re:Seriously, can we stop this now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Until republicans get of this "Killary lost therefor Russia cannot be involved" they are never going to regain the trust of the majority of the American citizens. To those American's who put Country over Party, it isn't about Hillary, it isn't about Trump, it's about Russia. If you love Russia so much, go there.

Re:Seriously, can we stop this now?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you missed the major point. It's not that Russia interfered with the elections... It's why Trump let them. Trump has lots of shady ties to Russian financing. Selling property way over market value for money laundering. Why do you think he wants to "make peace" now?

Re:Seriously, can we stop this now?

[loonycyborg]

Actual Russians wouldn't ever care about who POTOS is. Maybe a couple Russian nationals contributed to it for the lulz but real troll has no nationality. They act in multi-national teams.

Re:Seriously, can we stop this now?

[AmiMoJo]

Clinton was ahead by double digits and it looked impossible for Trump to win, a few weeks before the vote. Then those emails leaked out, and then the FBI started another investigation a week before the vote... That's when Trump made up the huge gap.

Correlation is not causation, but in this case so much was made of her emails it seems hard to think the leaks and investigation had no effect.

Re:Seriously, can we stop this now?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Russians *tried* to mess with the election, sure.. But they messed with both sides as I recall... Sure, the exposure of the internal democratic committee's E-mails through WikiLeaks seems to have a bit more effect on the outcome, but only because of how damming they where... Who knew the democrats where the nasty cheating so and so's their E-mail showed? I sure didn't dream they where that kind of folks... In a way, they sank themselves, albeit with Russian help.

I'm not American so I've no skin in the game, but I've always thought that as well. The emails were real, then people found out about them and didn't like what they revealed. If that lost them the election, then they only have themselves to blame. If the emails had been fabricated then that's another matter, but they weren't.

Who cares how they got released? If a Clinton staffer had leaked them via Wikileaks because they felt the people needed to know like the next Snowdon, how would that have been any different? Would we instead be holding them up as fine servants of democracy protecting us against two-faced politicians?

Also, just because the Russians only hacked the Democrats' emails doesn't mean you can infer they supported the Republicans. What if they were trying to hack both sides but they only successfully managed to hack the Dems? You can't leak what you don't have.

You may as well blame the police for ruining your life after they worked out you were behind some serious crimes and got you sent to prison. The only person you have to blame is yourself, not the people who found out what you were up to.

Re:Seriously, can we stop this now?

[DirkDaring]

"The Donald didn't take it (how could he?)"

Yeah, all those hundreds of thousands of people going to his speeches, lines for miles to get in, even on short announcements, while Hillary could barely fill a High School gym.... right he didn't take it.

Re:Seriously, can we stop this now?

[bobbied]

I know.. She was THAT BAD of a candidate... Seriously...

Now before you translate the crowd sizes into anything... Remember that Trump BARELY scraped this win out, even with the crowd sizes.

Re:Seriously, can we stop this now?

[bobbied]

I didn't say they had no effect, only that given the odds going into the election she should have won hands down. Trump started his campaign behind, WAY behind.

Now if you think the E-mail exposure caused Hillary to lose a double digit lead, go and ask yourself two questions... 1. Did the Russians do this? Maybe... 2. Doesn't the campaign have SOME responsibility for tolerating such behavior that the E-mail exposed? Absolutely. This was Hillary's fault, at least in part, for allowing such behavior in her campaign.

So.. I conclude that Hillary lost this, her mistakes cost her.... She had a bit of help, but had she not made any number of serious errors, she'd be president right now. Remember the margin of victory was razor thin in the surprise states that Trump won. You can point at the Russians if you want, but in the grand scheme of things, Hillary's mistakes cost her more than the Russians did, which makes her responsible for her loss...

Re:Seriously, can we stop this now?

[HeckRuler]

given the odds going into the election she should have won hands down.

Yes... in part, thanks to the efforts of the DNC hack. Cause and effect. "I should have been able to beat that guy in a fight" "Yes, but then he shot you" "Psha, I'm not saying the bullet wound had no effect, only that I should have won hands down!"

1. Did the Russians do this?

Yeah, maybe. It's hard to say anything conclusively when the CIA might be involved. A couple things point their way but that's also easy to fake. It's also easy to forget about.

2. Doesn't the campaign have SOME responsibility for tolerating such behavior that the E-mail exposed?

For tolerating their own behaviour? Huh? Did you mean to say "have some responsibility for the behaviour the email exposed"? The DNC opposed Bernie because he was only a democrat that year. For the language and banter? No, that's honestly to be expected. They might have run a bit afoul of deciding where some contribution money went. Up to Clinton rather than down to lower candidates, but eh, making those party battle decisions is literally their job.

I don't think it was anything that Hilary did, other than mishandling that classified information. Anyone with that long of a history isn't going to have a perfectly clean record, and while it'd be a fireable offence for you or I, I don't think it was malicious in any way. I thought the blatant lie about the state of her health after she collapsed into the car was worse.

Hilary lost by a razor thin technical margin because of a lot of things. She really was uninspiring, other than simply being a woman. She represented politics as usual. Everyone thought her win was assured. Other people certainly DIDN'T vote for her because she was a woman. Bernie supporters were turned off to her, in part thanks to the DNC hack, which was likely caused by Russia. And don't discount Russia's propaganda campaign.
 

Re:Seriously, can we stop this now?

[Mr.CRC]

"it'd be a fireable offence for you or I"

Are you kidding? It would be a CRIMINAL OFFENCE!!!

And no, don't even consider trying to argue about this. There is almost nothing which offends me. The minimization of Hillary's crime which Democrats engaged in is one of the things which does.

I have to endure training about this topic very frequently. Everyone who works where I work knows without any doubt that they would be criminally charged if they even began to set up a computer system outside of the proper authorized manner, and attempted to put classified on it.

The record is clear on this: https://theintercept.com/2016/...

Re:Seriously, can we stop this now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, all that Trump really needed to do was to stop shoving his foot into his mouth. Pretty much any time he managed to do that, his poll numbers shot up.

Also remember that the it was the content of those emails that made the leaks so damaging, and it was entirely Hilary's decision to run an unauthorized email server that lead to the investigation. I suppose for the former she did have some help from the DNC, but the latter she completely brought onto herself and deserves zero sympathy.

Re:Seriously, can we stop this now?

[Uberbah]

Clinton was ahead by double digits and it looked impossible for Trump to win, a few weeks before the vote. Then those emails leaked out, and then the FBI started another investigation a week before the vote... That's when Trump made up the huge gap.

Uh huh. What about all the other manipulation going the other direction - Comey letting Hillary off the hook for her unauthorized, unsecured email server & destruction of evidence that would have given a non-connected civil servant a few hundred years to serve in prison. The synchronized media freakouts over the stupid crap coming out of Trump's mouth while ignoring equivalent levels of verbal diarrhea from Clinton. The neat timing of the releases on year's old dirty laundry from Trump whenever Hillary stepped in it - like the 'pussy grabbing' tape. Without talking about Hillary's past dirty laundry, like when she spent months lying about being shot at by snipers in Bosnia.

And that's without even talking about the Democratic primary, and the collusion between Hillary's campaign and the DNC to coronate her.

What does it mean "hack elections"?

[mi]

Russia Hacked Election To Help Trump

True or not, what does the statement mean? How would you — or anyone — "hack elections"? What has been done to us in 2016, that did not happen in 2012, for example, and does not happen in any free speech-country in a run-up to elections?

Re:What does it mean "hack elections"?

[Anonymous Coward]

What has been done to us in 2016, that did not happen in 2012, for example

The republicans won. In a lefty's mind the only possible reason for that is foul play. Of course the only possible reason to vote republican (in a liberated mind) is if you're in on the foul play as well...

Re: What does it mean "hack elections"?

[Anonymous Coward]

True or not, what does the statement mean?

What does what statement mean?

How would you â" or anyone â" "hack elections"?

There are several ways, including, but not limited to, corrupting the count, gerrymandering, voter intimidation, blackmail, extortion,fraud, and systemic design flaws in the election process.

What has been done to us in 2016, that did not happen in 2012, for example, and does not happen in any free speech-country in a run-up to elections?

Does that exclusivity matter? But to be honest, I think every other couhtry lacks the abomination of the Electoral College, one of the hacks mentioned earlier. Not in that form anyway.

Re:What does it mean "hack elections"?

[Anonymous Coward]

what does the statement mean?

They're trying to give the impression that Russia changed vote tallies on voting machines. This is impossible over a network, because voting machines aren't connected to the internet, or any network, so they can't just say that. Instead, they talk about Russia "hacking" something and let readers speculate to fill in the details - and the most obvious line of speculation is that this Russian malfeasance had to do with vote tallies.

(Does this propaganda technique has a name?)

Only if Trump goes

[jader3rd]

If we get to kick out Trump from what's gathered here, I'm willing to keep it. If it can't convict Trump, let it expire.

Re:Only if Trump goes

[Anonymous Coward]

No Russians, no hacking, no arrests, no indictments, no impeachment. If the government had ANY evidence, it would have been exposed by the Obama administration after the election and before he left office. Until proven otherwise, I think the entire "Russian" story is just a ruse, to give Democrats something to talk about other than Hillary's epic fail. Will the NSA/CIA/FBI prove me wrong? Every day that they offer no actionable evidence (and no action), my hypothesis becomes more credible. If there was a story to tell, Wiki Leaks would have exposed it by now.

Re:Only if Trump goes

[MightyMartian]

It took over a year for Nixon to fall.

Re:Only if Trump goes

[Anonymous Coward]

You are at stuck at stage three, still hoping that some magic peepee tape or hacking evidence will somehow impeach your "problem." The faster you move on to accepting that he is indeed Your President, the better off you will be:

Denial
Anger
Bargaining <-- you are here
Depression
Acceptance

Sssssoooooo Wwwwwhhhhhaaaaatttttt!!!!!!!

[OYAHHH]

What idiot in their right mind would think Russia would not attempt to impact our elections. Even if it were just for kicks and giggles.

So, of course Russia "hacked" our elections. But, did they change a single solitary vote? Did they hack into any ballot machines and change the totals?

Getting your hair raised over Russians meddling in our elections is a bit much while you do not utter a peep when Hillary Clinton brags about overthrowing Qaddafi, Obama attempts to overthrow Assad, Obama meddles in Israeli elections, Obama spies on Merkel, and Obama spied on journalists and hacked their computers.

The only Russians who actually and truly impacted our elections were those Russians in the United States who actually cast votes.

The reason Donald Trump was elected was because Middle America was fed up. And they directed that anger at Hillary Clinton who was the epitome of "politics as usual."

Re:Sssssoooooo Wwwwwhhhhhaaaaatttttt!!!!!!!

[rhazz]

"Russia hacked the election" is just America's new "think of the children" excuse for pushing invasive laws. It doesn't have to have any foundation in facts or logic, it just has to produce the required emotional response.

Re:Sssssoooooo Wwwwwhhhhhaaaaatttttt!!!!!!!

[micahraleigh]

This idiot.

The FEC hit more voting machines than the Russians did during the election. Where's the outrage about the federal government helping the current administration? Or Susan Rice putting the existing government's opponent under direct survelience of the governent?

The narrative that Trump and Putin like each other is completely contrived or else why would we be threatening each other with war over Iran and Syria?

The Democrats have been promising to give Russia the world since Obama's hot mike incident. That's just what is commonly known. If I were Putin, I would want the Democrats in office.

The Russians never hacked never hacked the DNC. Why do you think all those high profile Democrats died immediately after the leaks under shady circumstances? Because they were the leakers! They leaked because their corrupt party gave Hillary the nomination when Sanders earned it.

Whatever Trumps flaws are (I didn't vote for him in the primary), Russia is not one of them.

Re:Sssssoooooo Wwwwwhhhhhaaaaatttttt!!!!!!!

[EmptyHead]

This idiot. The FEC hit more voting machines than the Russians did during the election. Where's the outrage about the federal government helping the current administration? Or Susan Rice putting the existing government's opponent under direct survelience of the governent? The narrative that Trump and Putin like each other is completely contrived or else why would we be threatening each other with war over Iran and Syria? The Democrats have been promising to give Russia the world since Obama's hot mike incident. That's just what is commonly known. If I were Putin, I would want the Democrats in office. The Russians never hacked never hacked the DNC. Why do you think all those high profile Democrats died immediately after the leaks under shady circumstances? Because they were the leakers! They leaked because their corrupt party gave Hillary the nomination when Sanders earned it. Whatever Trumps flaws are (I didn't vote for him in the primary), Russia is not one of them.

Interesting claims, I've seen variations but nothing concrete resembling proof - just more "coincidences". I'd have bet good money on Sanders winning if he'd been nominated.

Hey, you, Stop Using Logic

[Anonymous Coward]

, you only make those screaming 'the sky is falling' sound more foolish. So you're not helping, stop.

Trump is going down...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you voted for Trump you're a traitor.

So what good does that do?

[HalAtWork]

What good does it do if we know we were hacked if nothing's done about it? I'd rather keep our privacy, the result is the same either way.

Re:So what good does that do?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is funny is that people keep claiming Russa hacked the election, but no one can point to where they hacked it. What state or county did they hack to give Trump extra votes?

This is just the Democrat and the main stream media trying to discredit Trump to block anything he wants to do. They want to block anything Trump wants to do because if any of it get implemented the Democrats will be proven to be wrong and that will hurt the party. The top priority for Democrats is to keep their power, even if it means the American people have to suffer. I'm glad we are a point where majority of the population see the Democrat party for what they are, power hungry scum bags.

Come get some B!tch.

[Anonymous Coward]

I got your traitor right here [picture of Barry Soetoro]

Every Country tries to influence elections.

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember Obama threatening Britain that they would go to the back of the line for trade negotiations if they voted for Brexit?

Remember Obama just a couple of weeks ago Endorsing a candidate for the French elections?

Remember Obama providing $300K to an organization in Israel to influence the election there?

Remember Sec State Clinton attempting to prevent Putin's election in Russia?

Remember that the Voice of America radio network was created to try and influence the people of the Soviet Union to try and get them to change their Government (far more significant a change than merely influencing who wins a particular election)

What in the world makes anyone think that foreign governments have never attempted to influence the US elections in the past, or did anything more significant to the US elections than the US has done to their elections?

Countries operate in their own self interest (or at least they do if they have a halfway competent government), this includes trying to influence other countries to have governments that are better for them (or at least, less bad). This influence can be making statements in support of specific candidates, providing money to favor/oppose specific candidates, or other actions.

There may very well be things that were done that are 'beyond the pale', but to act so self-righteous and say 'how dare they try to influence out elections' is just being hypocritical and stupid.

David Lang

BWAHAHAH! Yeah, Right after Hillary Clinton

[Anonymous Coward]

is tried and convicted for the same.

Re:BWAHAHAH! Yeah, Right after Hillary Clinton

[Anonymous Coward]

retard

Slashdot is...

[Anonymous Coward]

... #FakeNews.

Government credibility.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're all stupid to believe that Russia interfered in the elections.

How many times does the US government and it's intelligence agencies have to lie to you before you realize they are liars? Find those weapons of mass destruction in Iraq yet? Oh, we have proof that Assad gassed his own people - where is that? Remember John Kerry at the UN pulling the same BS that Colin Powell did? Oh, and we bombed Libya for humanitarian reasons, it's a failed state now - mission accomplished, I guess.

Oh and there's proof that Russia somehow flipped the election. Where is it? What's the proof? Well, it's a secret, but Just Trust Us says government goons, and nationwide, unconstitutional surveillance, is good for you.

Fake News

[cpbright]

This is in part fake news.

It's got everything to do with the article

[rsilvergun]

The article is about yet another reveal of links between Trump & Russia, in particular their helping him win the election. My point is it doesn't matter how much evidence you pile on. With the Comey firing the Republican party has show they just plain don't give a shit. They're not expecting to lose anything. And I think they're probably right. Vlad Putin doesn't worry about what people think because he's got a lock on power.

And I'm not trying to stir up trouble. We've already got that. Lots of it.

Re:It's got everything to do with the article

[Mashiki]

The article is about yet another reveal of links between Trump & Russia, in particular their helping him win the election.

No all the article is about is "MUH RUSSIANS" because I said so. Zero evidence, zero facts. But hey, let's run with your narrative. You ready to prosecute Obama for directly funding opposition in Israel, and interfering in the French and UK election? Because that happened.

Re:It's got everything to do with the article

[Gravis Zero]

Your posts seem to indicate you only read the title. Try reading the article.

Re:It's got everything to do with the article

[bayankaran]

Hmmm...

https://www.theguardian.com/te...

Some hankee and pankee did happen.

Re:It's got everything to do with the article

[Anonymous Coward]

My point is it doesn't matter how much evidence you pile on.

Yeah, because the evidence has just been so abundant, right?

Re:It's got everything to do with the article

[greythax]

From literally the least complicated google search ever:
In January 2017, a U.S. intelligence community assessment expressed "high confidence" that Russia favored Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton, and that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally ordered an "influence campaign" to denigrate and harm Clinton's electoral chances and potential presidency.[4] The report concluded that Russia used disinformation, data thefts, and leaks to attempt to advantage Trump over Clinton. These conclusions were reaffirmed by the lead intelligence officials in the Trump administration in May 2017.[5] Intelligence allies of the U.S. in Europe found communications between suspected Russian agents and the Trump campaign as early as 2015.[6]

No offense, but I will take the word of the world's most powerful intelligence agencies, with millions in resources and manpower, over you shouting "ZERO EVIDENCE" fifty times a thread and SOMEHOW getting modded up.

Re:It's got everything to do with the article

[Mr.CRC]

Then you are a fool. Because those same intelligence agencies had both the motive and the means to completely fabricate the alleged 'Russian Connection."

What is truly terrifying here is not that Russians and Trump's people may have talked on the phone about how they might change relations if Trump gets in (I can't say I really think this is a bad thing, nor can you state what law such a thing would violate) but rather, that intelligence has become politicized.

Objective intelligence is essential to the security of the nation. It is now impossible to have any confidence that objectivity exists in the intel. that reaches the Pres.

Did they goad Trump into firing missiles at Syria with fake intel.? Are they willing to precipitate a war with Russia just to spite Trump?

There is no basis to develop any confidence at this point that they wouldn't do such a thing.

Naw, check these out

[rsilvergun]

This one and this one. Also this

Re:Naw, check these out

[fustakrakich]

I sincerely hope you're not serious!

You GO!!! I'd upvote if I was more than A.C. : )

[Anonymous Coward]

Boom.

"Hacked the Election"

[Anonymous Coward]

what does this mean?

702?

[Anonymous Coward]

NSA I don't care what you found, mass unwarranted domestic surveillance is illegal.

Timely?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Timely warning and insight" LOL!

dipshits

[Anonymous Coward]

So let me get this straight. They utterly failed to prevent the manipulation or really do anything about it. They didn't tell us until after the election. And when they did tell us, they failed to provide any more information than the comedian Samantha Bee provided six months earlier with no world-wide spy network, only normal news sources. What the fuck are they claiming they did successfully here?

Fuck FISA, fuck section 702, it gave us jack shit. Burn it.

Specifically

[Anonymous Coward]

What was hacked? Voting machines? Counting systems? I keep hearing fucksticks ranting on and on about how Russia "hacked" our election, but nobody can say exactly what it was that Russia "hacked".

More fake news from the MSM.

[sethstorm]

Since they can't accept that Trump won the election, they employ a convenient yet false scapegoat.

Re:More fake news from the MSM.

[eaglesrule]

Indeed. We're seeing the narrative slowly shift to speaking of the Russians hacking the election to help Trump as a matter-of-fact. Hyperbolic venting about Trump being a racist and nazi wasn't effective, so the 'strategists' must be flipping back the pages to the front of the play book to the venerable 'prove you're not a communist' section.

The intent of course is to delegitimatize Trump, bog him down and give him the opportunity to make a big mistake, which seems to have worked with the firing of Comey.

It didn't help.

[Sir Holo]

FTA: "Rogers said allowing the statute to expire on Dec. 31, unless Congress votes to reauthorize it, would degrade U.S. intelligence agencies' ability to provide "timely warning and insight" on a variety of criminal and national security threats."

But Mike, the statute FAILED to provide any "timely warning and insight". It did not help.

I disagree

[rsilvergun]

Hilary was awful, to be sure. But Trump is a whole order of magnitude worse. Trump to this day won't release his tax returns. The reason you want those isn't to see how rich he really is, it's so you know where all his money comes from and who could buy him off. Trump ran a scary, hate filled campaign with exactly the kinds of tactics dictators have used since the 40s (really trying to avoid Godwining the thread here but...). Trump literally said during his campaign he wanted to curtail freedom of press. He Bragged about sexual assault. I can't even remember all the horrible things he said/did.

Here's a good video of Jimmy Carter explaining why Trump won.

Re:I disagree

[aardvarkjoe]

Trump to this day won't release his tax returns.

Despite how much I despise Trump, I'm with him on this. Presidential candidates have set a very bad precedent by releasing their tax returns. Your personal tax returns aren't anyone's business but your own, and demanding someone else's is wrong. Period. It doesn't matter what their position is, people should still have rights to privacy.

I'm fine with law enforcement doing an audit of their finances, including past tax returns, but it is not reasonable to insist that the records be released publicly.

Re:I disagree

[kenh]

Trump to this day won't release his tax returns.

Swear to god, don't you ever get tired of repeating this "complaint"? So what, who cares? What do you hope to learn...

topicquote>The reason you want those isn't to see how rich he really is, it's so you know where all his money comes from and who could buy him off.

"Who could buy him off"? How exactly do you learn that from his tax returns?

You understand that right now there are a team of IRS auditors reviewing his tax returns, right? That they haven't leaked any *explosive* details despite public interest in the topic tells me one of two things, either there's nothing to reveal OR they are consummate professionals and would never entertain the idea of leaking his returns.

You apparently think the IRS is staffed with principled professionals.

Re:I disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

I expect I'll see Trump's tax returns right after I see Obama's transcripts and thesis.

Re:I disagree

[aquacrayfish]

You want the IRS to leak taxes they're supposedly auditing (not that I buy that there's an audit)? I'm going to need to start my drinking early today it seems...

Re:I disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

Swear to god, didn't you ever get tired of repeatedly demanding a birth certificate? You got a Hawaiian one and still wouldn't shut up! Keep up the hype, hypocrite.

Friendly reminder

[Orgasmatron]

Just a reminder that that the technical term for an unnamed source discussing information obtained through FISA is "Felon".

Also, so far the only crime known to have occurred during this fiasco is the leaking of Flynn's name. That is a felony too.

regime change

[Max_W]

What I do not understand is why the US political elite has always been trying to change a regime here or there, but if someone attempts to do something similar in return, media freaks out.

The teaching of the prophets (Matthew 7:12) is: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you", isn't it?

I do not get a logic of it. If one starts playing say a hokey it is reasonable to expect that the opposing teams would play back.

We actually need this and a mod.

[WindBourne]

We changed ( or are changing ) the laws so that the Intel world can not spy on the internet without a warrent. This is a horrible mistake. Basically, anything that is sent and/or stored in clear text, should be open game just like it is for Russia, China, etc. Think of a postcard, which anybody can read. Otoh, if content and transmission are encrypted, that I'd just like a letter. At that point, it needs a warrent to open.

Re:We actually need this and a mod.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice chosen-strawman attack.

We changed ( or are changing ) the laws so that the Intel world can not spy on the internet without a warrant.

Which part of this do you not understand:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or Affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Please tell me where in the above text it is said that every single unencrypted message should be subject to unwarranted search.

Re:We actually need this and a mod.

[Dread_ed]

Did you just quote the 4th amendment as some kind of authoritative source? You are aware that the Constitution is a "living document" which means that the amendment you are referring to isn't worth the parchment it was written on, right? That was part of the whole "secret interpretations" of the constitution that Obama and his justice department and intelligence agencies operated under.

You gotta keep up man! There are way too many things that our government wants, nay deserves, to know about every single one of its citizens for some silly words written hundreds of years ago to stop them.

Re: We actually need this and a mod.

[WindBourne]

Under the same mechanism that a postcard is able to be read legally, or that if police sees in the car, that it is legit to not have a warrent.

"Timely warning and insight"?

[skaag]

Except where it does not serve their purpose, such as warning about it BEFORE it affects the democratic presidential candidate...

It's a problem of trust

[Anonymous Coward]

Problem is I don't trust a damn word the NSA say.

Not after the whole "collection" debacle, and the endless twisting of the law, and the basic problem that what they're doing is unethical, because they're imposing themselves on hundreds of milllions - billions - of people *without justification*. You can only do such things in self-defence, and 99.9999% of the people having their privacy violated are no threat in any way shape or form.

Didn't stop it, though, did it.

[Anonymous Coward]

So what benefit is it to retire an important citizen protection and limit on the state to be able to point after the fact to someone hacking your election system?

Especially since you didn't need electronic voting.

If it had PREVENTED it, then there'd be a benefit that is tangible and meaningful.

"Oh, look, Billy left the stable door unlocked" doesn't help you catch the horses or get them back into the barn.

Where's the fire?

[reboot246]

All I've seen is a lot of smoke. Every three-letter agency and every news organization have been all over this since last July and nobody has produced any evidence. In a rumor-happy place like Washington D.C., if there were anything to this, we'd have seen something by now. It appears that a lot, if not most, of this is just in the minds of the media and the Democrats.

Either show me the evidence or shut up.

Nice little election system you got there ...

[davide marney]

it'd be a shame if something happened to it. Now, be a good boy and reauthorize the section.

Nobody "hacked" the election

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, there isn't a large government on this planet that does not try to influence the outcome of US elections. France and England did far worse than Putin will ever do during the early 1800s, especially when it came to trying to manage and manipulate US tariffs on imports. So, let's just drop this notion that it is somehow out of the ordinary that Russia is interested in the outcome of US elections.

Second, nobody hacked the election. Period. End of story. The election process was sound, and there is zero credible evidence that a single voting machine was hacked or that a single vote tally was changed. So, again, NOBODY HACKED THE ELECTION.

defenders of the constitution? I don't think so.

[bill.pev]

And when the NSA provides clear evidence that proves Russian wrongdoing, they can make their case for renewed powers under 702. Until then, they can shut the fcc up. Its all just a FUD smokescreen. The NSA undermines the very constitution they are sworn to uphold defend and protect. "Protect" MY ASS!!

Did Putin create Electoral College?

[mi]

There are several ways, including, but not limited to, corrupting the count, gerrymandering, voter intimidation, blackmail, extortion, fraud, and systemic design flaws in the election process.

Well, these are well-known terms indeed, so why invent a new one — "hacking"? Such things happened since the founding of the Republic, but these means are also not particularly effective due to America's highly decentralized voting. A power would need to intimidate and extort a lot of people (including a lot of local election-officials) to make them vote a certain way or miscount the votes, so we would've heard by now from at least some of the victims... Especially, if the power were foreign...

Does that exclusivity matter?

Of course, it matters! If 2016 has seen about the same amount of undue interference as 2012 or 2008, why are the dissenters so loud only now?

I think every other country lacks the abomination of the Electoral College

Whatever you think of Electoral College, you are not accusing Putin of sneaking it upon us, are you?

Re:Did Putin create Electoral College?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are several ways, including, but not limited to, corrupting the count, gerrymandering, voter intimidation, blackmail, extortion, fraud, and systemic design flaws in the election process.

Well, these are well-known terms indeed, so why invent a new one — "hacking"?

I can't say with certainty, perhaps people think it's a more appealing generic term than "undue and inappropriate interference in the elections" or maybe think it just sounds better from what they understand it to mean.

But if you're wringing your hands over "hacking" you're three decades or so late to the party, 2600 had that going on in the 80s.

Really, three decades? Has it been *that* long? Time flies.

Besides, if you want to talk about something, don't forget the other side. Beating the drum over imagined faults that are not supported by evidence, but cause people to nod their heads in support because they know that...illegal voting happens, there's no security, there's no checks, time for a massive campaign to pretend to fix it.

Cuts more than one ways, mi, there's a lot of shit-flinging going on.

Such things happened since the founding of the Republic, but these means are also not particularly effective due to America's highly decentralized voting.

Actually, they've been quite effective, and a reluctance to address this has made them even more so. I understand, you may not be an American by birth, or you may not have had the historical education I have, I don't know, but you should look into the historical record a bit more. A quick source of information would be Baker v. Carr, Reynolds v. Sims, the Election of 1876, and the US Senate Election in New Hampshire in 1976.

There's more, but the very decentralization is what lets it be powerful, since it's ignored as the problem is not perceived as widespread. It happens, it crops up, occasionally a token remediation is made, but then...same old, same old.

Just see how long it took to resolve the Civil War questions. The ones that have been, others...remain. Or the Civil War itself, you'd be surprised how many people haven't the slightest idea of the things that really happened. I could, without much trouble, even find people who claimed entirely false things about that process with the greatest of sincerely held belief.

Sometimes, because they were the victims of a campaign that mislead them, sometimes because of choice.

A power would need to intimidate and extort a lot of people (including a lot of local election-officials) to make them vote a certain way or miscount the votes, so we would've heard by now from at least some of the victims...

Oh we've heard from a number of them. Just nobody cares. Like most offenses. Go ask people if they'd heard Alabama's governor resigned. If you find them, and you're not in Alabama, I'll be surprised. Even in Alabama, I'd doubt you'd hear most of the reasons, just some generic complaints.

Especially, if the power were foreign...

What, another Zimmerman telegram? An XYZ Affair? Good luck. People would just say you watched the Manchurian Candidate too often.

Unless, of course, their OWN prejudices meant they'd favor the claims. Maybe it was all Nazi's. From the Moon!

Does that exclusivity matter?

Of course, it matters! If 2016 has seen about the same amount of undue interference as 2012 or 2008, why are the dissenters so loud only now?

I don't think you quite addressed the subject, we were talking about other countries, not during other elections in the same country.

But, even as to your meaning, that doesn't persuade me, as I heard a LOT of complaints and dissent in 2012 and 2008, not as much as in say, 2000, but I did hear it. And some in 1992 as well. There's a lot of mutterin

Comey Didn't Matter

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/08/upshot/a-2016-review-theres-reason-to-be-skeptical-of-a-comey-effect.html?_r=0

Read the data instead of the propaganda.

Not possible

[RogueWarrior65]

There's a significant difference between national elections in the U.S. and every other country. Here, they aren't centralized. Every state has its own election infrastructure. While you might be able to hack one state, you couldn't hack enough of them to make a difference in the electoral college which is already heavily blue shifted due to California and the northeastern states. You could probably pretty easily hack one voting district but it would be noticed as was likely the case in Philadelphia in 2012.

"Hacked election" = "revealed Clinton's e-mails"

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it strange how the entire media keeps claiming that Russia "hacked the election", when whoever it was (and it wasn't necessarily 'Russia') actually hacked into Hilary Clinton's E-MAIL SERVER and posted up thousands of the e-mails that she had tried to delete?

Hmm...

December?

[GameboyRMH]

Not sure it makes sense to talk to Trump about what's going to happen in December at this rate...

I'll say it ONCE again...

[Anonymous Coward]

You CANNOT hack an election. Podesta got phished (like the liberal dimwit he is) and gave TOTAL access to the DNC to anyone who wanted it. Russians mostly, but was the Russian government behind it? I've yet to see actual proof that, but it is possible. However, the fact remains the Democrats proved themselves to be corrupt, nepotistic, greedy and mafia-like in its desire to hold onto power. (Yes, the GOP is probably the same way. The Democrats proved to be far more corrupt than they let on or even what they accused the GOP of being.) All this did was help INFLUENCE the election not hack it. But hey, if you retarded liberals want to keep thinking Hillary didn't lose, but had it stolen from her, then whatever lets you benighted cretins sleep at night.

Your party is doomed. You've whined, and name called, and bullied, and played the little snowflake victims so much sane America is sick to death of you. Good riddance, you're a cancer. Period.

Hacking of what?

[maz2331]

The "election" didn't get hacked, and it is well established that no voting machines were attacked in any way. Now, the emails of John Podesta and the DNC were hacked and released to the world, due to really bad security practices. These headlines are just how narratives get bent, twisted, spindled, and mangled into something that doesn't resemble reality.

Re:Hacking of what?

[eaglesrule]

I'll agree with that, other than it isn't a given that the DNC emails were a result of a hack, since Assange wouldn't single out his source.

Regardless, now que the paid trolls from the likes of Correct the Record to take this narrative and run with it, to flood forums and comment sections in order to help define reality for everyone not paying attention.

Horse shit

[s.petry]

All campaigns were receiving hacking attempts, well before the party primaries. The DNC was hacked during their national convention. Podesta's Gmaill was well after, and should have been anticipated since attempts were coming for several months against both parties and their candidates.

Keep that tinfoil hat on nice and tight. If there was evidence of collusion it would have already led to criminal charges because the investigations started in JULY_2016. 9 Months later we still have no evidence, and no charges. We have no idea what Flynn is actually guilty of, only speculation. The only thing I have heard any substance to is that he didn't disclose money from RT for an appearance. Other Russian propagandists paid far more money to Bill Clinton, so is he being investigated too?

Re:Horse shit

[Tough Love]

How much does it suck to be you?

Re:Horse shit

[s.petry]

How much does it suck to be you?

Not at all. I'm smarter than people like you and can defend my position without the need to resort to empty ad hominem. You should really ask yourself, a person so intellectually stunted that they lack the capacity for rational dialogue and debate, the same question. I may use an ad hominem on occasion as an exclamation point, but certainly back my positions.

Re:Horse shit

[Tough Love]

I'm smarter than people like you

So you imagine.

Say, I guess you have a lot of time to post because you don't have any steady relationship, because nobody can stand stand you hanging around them, because of being a 24/7 pretentious ass.

Re:Horse shit

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, all of your vapid comments have been modded troll today -- except for this one. You're a real credit to the human race.

Hasn't Russia been involved in US elections since

[Anonymous Coward]

the 1950's?

I keep hearing the US is involved in everyone else's elections, so why not them in ours? Why has it taken so long for people to acknowledge this?

A little too late

[lsllll]

Even if it's true that Russians hacked and changed the outcome of the election, I can't believe the audacity of this fucker for taking credit for having recognized this after "the fact". By that standard, if a bomb went off in "x" city in November, the NSA may come back in January and say "Oh, yeah, our records show it was "y" who did it." The surveillance doesn't do much good if it doesn't preempt events. Even if it does, it's not worth it. Let the stupid law expire.

As another history buff,

[Anonymous Coward]

A fun hobby of mine is to post Hitler quotes, without attribution of course, and watch the upvotes/karma roll in..

The word for this

[Anonymous Coward]

is "astro turfing". A fine green covering spreading across slashdot this morning.

[Edit] Capture : accuracy

Seth Rich

[Anonymous Coward]

It was Seth Rich that "hacked" the election....and he was murdered for it and ZERO MSM outlets have followed the lead that Assange gave them on it.

That makes sense!

[s.petry]

Guccifer 2.0 is someone else entirely and according to Roger Stone its a SHE not a HE.

It's one of the women Trump paid to piss on the bed right?

that is snark for the slow

In other words, a modern inquisition

[s.petry]

The FBI started investigating the alleged Russia conspiracy last July during the RNC. Fabricated narratives about hookers peeing on a bed should ring a bell for you, and those were peddled as "news" by the leftist media and politicians.

9 months later there are still 0 facts presented, yet claims by the same people in the Democratic party and leftist media persist. A perpetual stream of lies pawned off as "worthy of investigation" talking points and "news".

You seem to be supporting the inquisition. Shame on you and every other fool supporting a narrative which has been fabricated and perpetuated by leftists and Statists.

ahh yes

[s.petry]

A leftist owned rag who denounces an actual vote in favor of globalism can be considered proof that it's all a conspiracy. It is the Progressive leftist view that people have no capacity to think for themselves, support nationalism, or wish to control their own politics. If only the peons would shut up, get out of the way, let their progressive Utopia happen "here".

Re:ahh yes

[bayankaran]

Your ugly and silly rant aside, I have not heard a cogent argument Britain staying outside EU will be good for it. Also, I have not heard a persuasive argument what can replace globalism/NAFTA or whatever.

Re:ahh yes

[s.petry]

Rant? Not at all, I present an opinion based in fact. If you have not heard arguments for replacing "globalism" (from the leftist view) you are simply not looking. We have this school called "Philosophy" which covers this extremely well.

wrong

[s.petry]

You posted a comment which was a troll, and were moderated accordingly. Your follow up here should similarly be moderated accordingly. Not just a troll, but a whiny troll with delusions of grandeur. Try, just try, to take away your ego and consider it possible that people can disagree with your position and not be "Putin Shitposters" but people with an intellectual viewpoint. Some of which are far superior to your own stunted mental growth.

Paranoid delusion, you should request an evaluation from a doctor.

Re:wrong

[Tough Love]

You posted a comment which was a troll, and were moderated accordingly. Your follow up here should similarly be moderated accordingly. Not just a troll, but a whiny troll with delusions of grandeur and blahdey balh whiney whine whine whine snif sniff....

Surely you understand how much you sound like the special snowflake that you are...

Re:wrong

[s.petry]

I never claimed to be special, you did. Not only paranoid delusions, but psychopathic tendencies refusing accountability for your own actions. You should seek treatment, and lots of Thorazine.

Re:wrong

[Tough Love]

So you fancy yourself a doctor now. If I recall correctly, giving medical advice when not a licensed medical professional is a criminal offense, but suit yourself, and keep that emo coming, slashdot needs more sewage flowing in from special snowflakes such as you.

Re:wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

The level of stupid in this one...

Re:wrong

[Tough Love]

The lack of post in that one...

Re:wrong

[EmptyHead]

Oh lordy, you're a shrill one. I haven't read such nonsensical hysteria since the day pay-for-play Killary lost and you apply this very special approach to everything, it seems. If it's any comfort, the DNC could have beaten Trump with ANY other candidate than her, including even you. He better work on a lot of issues or it'll be a landslide against him in 2020.

hypocrites gonna hype

[Anonymous Coward]

demanding someone else's is wrong
I'm fine with law enforcement doing an audit

Conservatives are hypocrites. Now I also demand to see your birth certificate, and not the one from Hawaii.

Of Course

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course the Russians hacked the election. All you had to do was listen to the candidates and pay 15 minutes' attention.

Clinton was strongly anti-Putin. Trump kept trying to suck up to Putin. All the information releases were oddly one-sided against Clinton.

Trump supporters keep trying to shush these basic facts up, but there they are. A whole array of techniques are deployed to deny the obvious, but the truth is out there for those willing to see.

As for the NSA Director's statements, it is difficult to see those as anything other than a Day Late and a Dollar Short. Not to mention, blindingly self-serving.

"Hey kids, did you know that grocery stores have these nifty bar-code scanners now?!"