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Putin Hints At US Election Meddling By 'Patriotically Minded' Russians (nytimes.com)
Two anonymous readers share a report: Shifting from his previous blanket denials, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said on Thursday that "patriotically minded" private Russian hackers could have been involved in cyberattacks last year to help the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternative source). While Mr. Putin continued to deny any state role, his comments to reporters in St. Petersburg were a departure from the Kremlin's previous position: that Russia had played no role whatsoever in the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and that, after Mr. Trump's victory, the country had become the victim of anti-Russia hysteria among crestfallen Democrats. Raising the possibility of attacks by what he portrayed as free-spirited Russian patriots, Mr. Putin said that hackers "are like artists" who choose their targets depending how they feel "when they wake up in the morning."
The attacks you say were brought on by "patriotic russians" crestfallen by the disappointed democrats who lost the election, disregards the actual timeline. The hacking occurred prior to the election. Unless more is ongoing of course. And the Democrats though Hillary was going to win by a landslide.
Even though I am a strong fiscal conservative and voted against Hillary, Russian interference in the US election process is the same as any other hacking efforts aimed with malicious intent, and is clearly illegal. You assassinate your political rivals. Neither that nor the hacking are acceptable. Open bad mouthing in the press, sure, but that's political discourse. Informed voters can evaluate the source as well as the content. The current sourceless allegations against Trump, they could just as easily be attributed to "patriotic russians" who might be disappointed about the Presidents support of Ukrainian interests. The acceptance you show for the hackers within the russia just shows that, along with your other actions, in Ukraine for example, that under Putin the russia is a rogue state that needs to be marginalized.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
Oh, come on. Nobody is fooled by this, are you?
Sure people are fooled. They're fooled into thinking it matters.
If one nation (for instance) hacks electronic voting machines and fraudulently alters a vote's outcome, that's one thing. In this case, it's (allegedly) about accessing and releasing "private" communications in order to influence public opinion.
I'm sorry, but if public opinion can be swayed by release of your private communications, you shouldn't be elected into office. I know this sounds an awful lot like the classic "if you've got nothing to hide..." argument, but if a candidate is shown to be shady, HOW that was shown isn't important. It's of no import what Russia did or didn't do in this election. It's of serious import that both major candidates had serious character flaws and neither of them should have been put forward by their parties as "this is the best we have, please elect us."
Disclosure: not an American.
"Oh no... he found the
Not just the US. Brexit too, weakening both the UK and the EU. That might have backfired though, because it looks like the EU will renew itself and become even strong as a result... But then again, the EU is much less of a threat to Russia than the US and it's British poodle.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The phrase election hacking (meddling/w.e) is agenda driven, as it implies there was tampering with the election process or results. If this is election hacking, then so is recording a private conversation and releasing it to affect results. Just because it may have affected voters minds (because it informed them) doesn't mean we need to add negative connotations to them. Let's reserve that for tampering with the actual election process.
Like stacking the deck against popular candidates so that your candidate can win.