Slashdot Mirror
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.
Fake Headlines normally end with ? Tim S.
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.
Trump is preparing to veto his first bill in defence of privacy!
I stole this Sig
What a load of slashdot this one has. The headlines are pure bullshit and the article does NOT show any proof of ANYTHING.
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.
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?
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
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
Well, he DID insult gays. Implying Trump is a gay insults gays the same way that implying Trump is a weasel insults weasels.
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...
-]Phreak Out[-
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?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
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.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
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.
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.
"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.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
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
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..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
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?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
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."
Caution: Contents under pressure
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.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
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.
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
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.
Om, nomnomnom...
Your posts seem to indicate you only read the title. Try reading the article.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
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."
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
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.
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.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
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...
Ken
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.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
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?
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
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.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.