Slashdot Mirror
Hackers Have Targeted Both the Trump Organization And Democrat Election Data (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Two recent news stories give new prominence to politically-motivated data breaches. Friday the Wall Street Journal reported that last year Guccifer 2.0 sent 2.5 gigabytes of Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee election data to a Republican operative in Florida, including their critical voter turnout projections. At the same time ABC News is reporting that the FBI is investigating "an attempted overseas cyberattack against the Trump Organization," adding that such an attack would make his network a high priority for government monitoring.
"In the course of its investigation," they add, "the FBI could get access to the Trump Organization's computer network, meaning FBI agents could possibly find records connected to other investigations." A senior FBI official (now retired) concedes to ABC that "There could be stuff in there that they [the Trump organization] do not want to become part of a separate criminal investigation."
It seems like everyone's talking about the privacy of their communications. Tonight the Washington Post writes that Trump's son-in-law/senior advisor Jared Kushner "discussed the possibility of setting up a secret and secure communications channel between Trump's transition team and the Kremlin, using Russian diplomatic facilities in an apparent move to shield their pre-inauguration discussions from monitoring, according to U.S. officials briefed on intelligence reports." And Friday Hillary Clinton was even quoted as saying, "I would have won had I not been subjected to the unprecedented attacks by Comey and the Russians..."
"In the course of its investigation," they add, "the FBI could get access to the Trump Organization's computer network, meaning FBI agents could possibly find records connected to other investigations." A senior FBI official (now retired) concedes to ABC that "There could be stuff in there that they [the Trump organization] do not want to become part of a separate criminal investigation."
It seems like everyone's talking about the privacy of their communications. Tonight the Washington Post writes that Trump's son-in-law/senior advisor Jared Kushner "discussed the possibility of setting up a secret and secure communications channel between Trump's transition team and the Kremlin, using Russian diplomatic facilities in an apparent move to shield their pre-inauguration discussions from monitoring, according to U.S. officials briefed on intelligence reports." And Friday Hillary Clinton was even quoted as saying, "I would have won had I not been subjected to the unprecedented attacks by Comey and the Russians..."
Will any of you dumbfucks apologize, or are you just going to keep pretending you don't notice the obvious treason taking place in front of your eyes?
You should read carefully the article. It makes two very important points:
1) "It is common for senior advisers of a newly elected president to be in contact with foreign leaders and officials."
2) "Obama administration officials say members of the Trump transition team never approached them about arranging a secure communications channel with their Russian contacts, possibly because of concerns about leaks."
In fact it is understandable the mistrust with American intelligence agencies right now, because, as Bloomberg put it, "the U.S. intelligence ship is too leaky to sail". Besides that, this Kushner-Flynn affair has ostensibly nothing to do with the alleged (and very unlikely IMO) Russian hack of the Democratic party, but it is related to the Syrian war, where American intelligence agencies have been playing dirty since the start and not in the interest of the American people (unless arming al-Qaeda is in the interest of the American people).
They are sworn to defend the US from all enemies.
Illegal leaks to the press are not a "duty" of the CIA.
Yes, but it is not common for senior advisors to be paid by Russia
You mean like when the Clinton family (NOT their money laundering foundation) collected half a million dollars in cash from a Russian bank immediately following then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's ushering through of a huge uranium deal that greatly benefited Putin and his industry cronies? That sort of "paid" is what you're talking about, right? Because that's a matter of record, as opposed to the complete lack of any evidence of Trump being in any sort of analogous relationship. To the point where even senior Democrat legislators are on the record saying there's no evidence of such.
... just, like the article mentions, is common with every presidential transition team. Why might the Trump team want to start conducting early policy back-and-forth over secure channels? Because the Obama administration was using the NSA and FBI surveillance for political purposes. Just this week we see that the Obama administration received a scathing smack-down from the FISA court about the abuses of that system, including the FBI disclosing NSA-collected information (without any warrant) to third parties.
But: "OMG secret communications!"
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Nope, Bill DID collect the huge "speaking fee" and the deal DID go down on Hillary Clinton's watch as the nation's top diplomat. Without approval from the State Department, deals like that do NOT go down. She was running the State Department. And she and her husband collected the cash.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.