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Former FBI Director Predicts Russian Hackers Will Interfere With More Elections (nytimes.com)
An anonymous reader quotes the New York Times:
James B. Comey, the former director of the F.B.I., testified that the Russians had not only intervened in last year's election, but would try to do it again... Russian hackers did not just breach Democratic email accounts; according to Mr. Comey, they orchestrated a "massive effort" targeting hundreds of -- and possibly more than 1,000 -- American government and private organizations since 2015... As F.B.I. director, he supervised counterintelligence investigations into computer break-ins that harvested emails from the State Department and the White House, and that penetrated deep into the computer systems of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Yet President Barack Obama's administration did not want to publicize those intrusions, choosing to handle them diplomatically -- perhaps because at the time they looked more like classic espionage than an effort to manipulate American politics...
Graham Allison, a longtime Russia scholar at Harvard, said, "Russia's cyberintrusion into the recent presidential election signals the beginning of what is almost sure to be an intensified cyberwar in which both they -- and we -- seek to participate in picking the leaders of an adversary." The difference, he added, is that American elections are generally fair, so "we are much more vulnerable to such manipulation than is Russia," where results are often preordained... Similar warnings have been issued by others in the intelligence community, led by James R. Clapper Jr., who has sounded the alarm since retiring in January as director of national intelligence. "I don't think people have their head around the scope of what the Russians are doing," he said recently.
Daniel Fried, a career diplomat who oversaw sanctions imposed on Russia before retiring this year, told the Times that Comey "was spot-on right that Russia is coming after us, but not just the U.S., but the free world in general. And we need to take this seriously."
Graham Allison, a longtime Russia scholar at Harvard, said, "Russia's cyberintrusion into the recent presidential election signals the beginning of what is almost sure to be an intensified cyberwar in which both they -- and we -- seek to participate in picking the leaders of an adversary." The difference, he added, is that American elections are generally fair, so "we are much more vulnerable to such manipulation than is Russia," where results are often preordained... Similar warnings have been issued by others in the intelligence community, led by James R. Clapper Jr., who has sounded the alarm since retiring in January as director of national intelligence. "I don't think people have their head around the scope of what the Russians are doing," he said recently.
Daniel Fried, a career diplomat who oversaw sanctions imposed on Russia before retiring this year, told the Times that Comey "was spot-on right that Russia is coming after us, but not just the U.S., but the free world in general. And we need to take this seriously."
Of course they will. Did anyone think otherwise?
I guess if you really bought into the "Trump works with Russia" DNC story, then you would expect it to end.
But any rational person would realize that Russia, like the USA, will attempt to interfere in any election where they think they can get away with it and get an advantage.
The Soviet Union used propaganda and dirty tricks to try to interfere with EVERY US election they existed, and Russia just continues the tradition. They didn't call it fake news back then, it was just journalism with an agenda. Walter Duranty wasn't an accident, ya' know.
The only difference is that instead of stealing letters and publishing them, they're hacking email accounts and publishing them. Still no hacking of voting machines, still no manipulation of vote counts. In other words, still no 'hacking the election'.
Yup. Just like Bush had months of daily warnings of an impending attack but chose to do nothing. Which led to the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history. Then Bush lied to the American people about the need to invade and occupy a foreign country which had nothing to do with the attacks, which led to the deaths of thousands of U.S. soldiers, over 250,000 Iraqi civilians and a $3 trillion+ price tag foisted on the American people.
Very Bush.
And the Israeli election also...
The Russians interfered in elections before 2016, so why would they stop after 2016, since (according to Democrats) The Russians masterfully caused "Their Candidate" to win the election?
Ken
So the free world will fall apart if everyone in it knows the truth about their government? I find it interesting how US government justifies spying on their own citizens with "if you're doing nothing wrong you have nothing to hide" and yet calls anyone who informs the people they serve with what the government does an enemy of the state. It's not like they hacked the personal sex videos of the Clinton, or some embarrassing comments made off-the-record; what they allegedly exposed were facts that have to do with her profession and potential corruption. I get that exposing those possibly affected the outcome of the election, but shouldn't the voters be entitled to know what the politicians they vote for actually do?
Dear Globalist elite, I expect Russia, China, Israel, UK, etc to snoop just like we do. If "interference" is their exposing your crimes, so be it. If you can't do the time (or handle the slime), don't do the crime. I do think all the noise today is to ignore the Seth Rich murder case, to marginalize or overthrow a legitimately elected president, and to avoid accountability for many crimes including treason.
If you are alleging vote frauds, very simple. Liberals, Democrats and Rinos have pushed insecure voting and counting methods for years. I would welcome traceable, simple paper based systems with voter ID.
Given any honest efforts, the Russians don't worry me. But you do.
With the massive surveillance in place, if you can't immediately produce hard evidence, SHUT THE F*** UP and go away!
I hear that Israel has some influence in US elections too.
Bush had months of daily warnings of an impending attack but chose to do nothing.
The intelligence provided the president is shared with congressional leaders, and as I recall was not what the intelligence community refers to as 'actionable intelligence' - there was nothing specific to act on.
You want to play the blame game, what about Clinton's siloing of the intelligence bureaus that prevented the field reports of the middle-eastern flight school students that had no interest in learning to take off or land, but only in controlling a plane once airborne from ever being investigated?
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fb...
Ken
He's most pissed that he was being shitcanned while on the other side of the continent. No chance to clean up his office, shred stuff, etc.
I'm OK with him not being able to clean up his office, shred stuff, etc. - when you or I do it it's called 'destroying evidence'.
Ken
As usual the media noise machine has managed to deflect everyone from the real issue. Of course the Russians will interfere if they can. This last time around they probably didn't think when they started that it would work out so well but it did. It was a low cost, low risk enterprise probably intended to a) test the weapons and b) trim Hillary's wings rather than win Trump the White House.
Had Comey not done his political stunt with the Weiner's e-mails it wouldn't have flipped the election and I doubt they expected it to. Yet Nate Silver's numbers are pretty clear: Hillary had 6%+ lead until Comey did that and down 3%+ points after, close enough for the EC to do its thing. Had it not been for Comey the election would not have even been close.
As it turned out if Trump can manage it he will end the Russian sanctions which have been crippling to the Russian economy. Hillary would not have. She would have continued Obama policies. That is not a bad payoff for what this cyber op probably cost.
Back to the point at hand is Trump is most likely innocent in the part about the election. What has him worried is that he knows that if they keep digging on the investigation what will come to light is his deep financial dependents on Russian money interests, all of whom are either pals of Putin if not outright operatives of his office.
A month or so ago Trump had one of his lawyers write up a letter that declared that "nobody in Russia owes Trump money." While the Trump supporters view that (as intended) as some sort of vindication/valdiation the reality-based world realizes nobody ever thought he did. What the real problem is that Trump owes Russians (i.e. Putin money big time.)
For the last two decades no American based bank would loan Trump money due to his shady business practices and so the money he has been using comes from either Russia. Or China (a whole new issue.) So I would bet that a lot of Trump businesses are heavily leveraged in Russian debt and possibly in default. In other words Putin probably has the power to ruin Trump -- the U.S. President! -- and family financially with just a phone call.
That is what Trump doesn't want you to know and why he has been so eager to stop any investigation regarding Russia. It will come up eventually and the only real question is how far Trump will hang on and how far the Republicans in the house will go to protect him. Based on what has gone on so far is pretty damn far.
Comey who Democrat's some how loved after he got fired did same thing many times, intelligence on person looking to commit an attack yet did nothing. Fort hood, Pulse night club, San Bernadine, Boston marathon. All those they had intel on person that committed the attack yet nothing was done.
I think China is a hundred times more of a threat than Russia. Russia grandstands. They want attention. China doesn't want attention. ... Because they're an actual threat. They manipulate information, they manipulate currencies, they have tons of spies and the largest group of hackers on the planet. 27% OF ALL ATTACKS come from China, and as much as 47% can be tracked back to China. This is not a fucking joke. This is the calm before the storm. China has the largest standing military (over a MILLION MORE than the USA). For all the "military-industrial-complex" people harp on the USA (and it's warranted) 99% of the public has no idea how big a threat China is becoming.
And manipulating the election? China does that too in both the US and the UN. Google it.
We've also had tons of ACTUAL state secrets "leaked" and straight up SOLD to China. Not this "war in iraq"/"poor civilians got shot" shit that's just a PR blunder. ACTUAL secrets that represent tens of BILLIONS of dollars and decades of US research that ends up overseas. Like ultra-high resolution modern radar systems. We're paying for it, and they're benefiting from it.
Here's a report from 2017 that China is reaching "near parity with the West's military." That should horrify you. China does not give two shits about your civil liberties or peace among nations. They've been the sole reason North Korea hasn't been bombed into dust. Why? Because it's in their best interests.
http://www.businessinsider.com...
Russia is a freaking distraction. An underdog. China is a resting giant quietly growing a military capable of conquering new territory.
I don't think I've ever seen someone argue the morality of any particular country that they didn't live in. It seems like you may be conflating people's desire to avoid war and the involvement of foreign nations in wars.
I also don't think we should be fighting Russia but we should be defending ourselves from all forces that seek to mislead the public, both foreign and domestic.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Some of you seem like you don't even read the news you comment on. Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats when he found out, closed the embassies they were housed in and accused them of using the premises the conduct espionage.
Nutsign detected: vague non-specific claims with "Google it" instead of providing links to corroborating evidence.
As an outsider i'm quite shocked that this isn't a bigger scandal than it is in the US. I think the only reason is a group of people are in flat-out denial when it comes to anything that might tarnish Trump's image.
This is Cold War shit all over again.
SO far they claimed Russia hacked the 2016 election ...
Really? The only ones I have seen make that claim are pundits on Fox News and Breitbart trying to defend their 'Dear Leader', the greatest negotiator of all time. Most of the rest of the media claims the Russians hacked the DNC and used carefully timed leaks of that information in an attempt to influence the voting behaviour of the US electorate.
I have to say, I used to be all for civil liberties; but now that I'm told that these devious Russians are trying to influence our elections, well then obviously what we need is strict controls in place to shutdown all that FAKE NEWS and ensure that our news sources publish only Real News! Why isn't anybody talking about this!!!!!
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Republicans who were communicating with Russians who were being monitored had their conversations picked up. There was no "active wire tapping and spying on a republic candidate for president". None. Zero. Claiming that is like getting busted at a sweep of a whorehouse and then whining that "they" are out to get you.
On the other hand -- Russia is immune here, as they don't even know the concept of a fair election. They did not have a single one during their whole history -- not by the tsars, not by the soviets, almost had one by Yeltsin, then back to the usual. They don't even bother with any semblance of propriety: Chechnya voted 99.5% for One Russia (Putin's party) with 99.4% turnout; just 11 years after a second war against them led by said Putin.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
it's almost as if times can change, or that hindsight is 20/20. See, this is the trouble with the Right. Zero ability to adapt to change. If Russia was an Ally yesterday they're always gonna be an ally, right? Oh, and no shades of grey. Russia's either balls to the walls evil and needs to be exterminated or our ardent friend.
As for Iran, they were well on their way to modernizing before we put a bunch of religious nuts in power. There's pictures of girls in Iran wearing the sorts of skirts that wouldn't have been out of place in 1960s America before we screwed with 'em. And don't get me started on the shit we do and did in South America so Code can sell cheap sugar water.
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Never said it did; that doesn't mean that the attempt wasn't made. This is interference, not hacking.
I like this site and I really liked it when the byline used to be "News for nerds Stuff that matter". Is there an extension or bookmarklet or something that I can use to filter out stories based on keywords? Keywords like Comey, Trump, Government, Clinton, Democrat, Republican, Brexit, and on and on? I sure would like that. I really would.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
The biggest threat in the world is actually USA, they are the only country that has troops all over the world.
Look at you here making up your own history.
The Left had a problem with US actions during the revolutions in Iran because we overthrew a democraticaly elected government and installed a dictator. When the Iranians found out they went apeshit which is how we got the modern day Iran and all of the problems that come with it.
The Left has had a problem with the vietnam war because of lives lossed and the fact that both the French and Americans knew that the communists would win any election that was put forward so not only were our actions antidemocratic they were doomed to failure.
Finally, the American Left has never been a fan of the South American nations you mention in any real mainstream way. ("Oh but Bernie said something nice about Venezuela once!" Shutup)
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
Some good news about China stealing the information because if they have taken the plans for the F-35 their fighter program will be set back by decades!
I'm not sure whether you're going for "funny" or "insightful"; perhaps you're going for "funny" but getting modded "insightful". So for the benefit of the irony impaired:
SO far they claimed Russia hacked the 2016 election but yet not 1 piece of proof has shown that to be true, only so called "hack" that happened on elections was by the DNC
Gee, how do we know about the so-called DNC "hacking" exactly [note 1]?
as well as in states like California letting people vote that don't even hold US citizenship.
California did no such thing. What California did was pass two separate laws, one of which enabled American citizens to register to vote when they obtain a driver's license, another of which provided a separate registration process that allows undocumented immigrants to obtain licenses. That process does not include voter registration, for obvious reasons.
note 1: the DNC did not "hack" the election. It just worked for HRC and against Sanders, which pissed of some Sanders voters, but in fact was legal both by US law and the party bylaws (you *have* read your party's bylaws, haven't you?)
The DNC, like the RNC, is not an impartial, non-partisan organization. Both national committees are power centers which, by design (those bylaws again) serve the party insiders. The way you deal with people using the national committees in ways you don't like is you put your own people on them.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Jesus, who keeps modding this guy up?
/. that they noticed an increase in pro-Russia/Putin/Russian agenda type posts over the past couple of years. My first thought was, "That's a cute conspiracy theory." But now I'm seriously wondering if it's true.
The other day, someone posted on
I've always wondered, if the Iraqi people had the choice to go back in time and keep Saddam and his progeny instead of what they have now, would they? At the time they seemed very happy when he was removed.
If they had such an option they would probably want to return to a point in time to prevent Bremer from disbanding the Iraqi army and delaying Iraqi's from taking control of the government. These two decisions by Bremer, a career diplomat who served numerous administrations, essentially started the insurgency and created an opportunity for al-Queda in Iraq.
The generals and the White House had originally planned on using the Iraqi army to maintain security and law and order; and getting elections going as soon as possible to create a new constitution and government.
The problem with Iraq wasn't really the invasion, it was the occupation that followed.
And that's all they talk about, to distract from the heart of the matter. It's nothing but a 'shoot the messenger' campaign. The DNC and Clinton were behaving in an unethical manner, and the Russians leaked the evidence of it. The underlying unethical behavior should be the focus. And yes, the retort is that they only leaked information on one party, but a) that doesn't absolve the DNC and HRC of what they did, b) What they did pales in comparison to what Trump openly did anyway, and c) They almost certainly alienated even more voters who realized a) and b) and watched them try to scream about Russians stealing the election anyway.
And no, I'm not a Trump supporter, because Clinton was still the lesser evil by miles. Thinking that anyone who says anyone other than Russia was at fault is automatically a Trump supporter is another thing that's just alienating even more people so that they stay home and cost the Dems the midterms and next presidency too.
Bush had months of daily warnings of an impending attack but chose to do nothing.
The intelligence provided the president is shared with congressional leaders, and as I recall was not what the intelligence community refers to as 'actionable intelligence'
From what I recall McConnel threatened to basically rebuke obama. link That still seems odd and Obama should have spoken more forcefully.
The main problem is garbage in garbage out. CItizens are poorly informed at the best of times, let alone when they are fed raw sewage thanks to the alt right and all the fake crap. For the good of our country, it would be best that if politicians stood together and defended it. The other options are attacking back with cyber weapons to expose truth, or just blindly hoping a more active press and more informed citizenry will protect us. That seems a poor strategy.
Intervened? I missed that, but wikileaks reported on US espionage on the French elections.
However , here is an article "The long history of the U.S. interfering with elections elsewhere". Is Washington Post MSM enough for you?
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
Perhaps it would help if the US admitted past CIA corruption of democracy and apologised.
The Russians have been interfering for decades, hell in Europe the Green parties received huge amounts of funding from the Soviets back in the day. In the 90s the Chinese were working hard to funnel money secretly to the Clinton campaign.
And despite all the interference all the US intelligence agencies agree. There is no evidence that votes were tampered with; nor the outcomes of the election changed.
And even from Hillary, there is no dispute that the damaging emails were fake, merely that they were stolen.
The job of an Intelligence Agency is to gather the data, process it to gain intelligence, and present it to those who need to know. When you gather too much you bury the agencies so they can't process it to generate useful intelligence. America is spending too much effort on spying (data) and not enough on intelligence gathering. You have all the pieces but can't do anything with it.
So where is the actual meat of the proof? Where are the actual technical proofs? Logs, times, IP addresses? Please.
Nutsign detected: vague non-specific claims with "Google it" instead of providing links to corroborating evidence.
No. Some of us are old enough to remember and its only the "kiddies" who need to Google things. Some of the top links for Clinton and Chinese donations.
... According to congressional investigators, Ng laundered the illegal campaign donations through a close Clinton associate in Arkansas named Charlie Trie during the 1996 election."
"The 1996 United States campaign finance controversy was an alleged effort by the People's Republic of China to influence domestic American politics prior to and during the Clinton administration and also involved the fund-raising practices of the administration itself.
While questions regarding the U.S. Democratic Party's fund-raising activities first arose over a Los Angeles Times article published on September 21, 1996, China's alleged role in the affair first gained public attention when Bob Woodward and Brian Duffy of The Washington Post published a story stating that a United States Department of Justice investigation into the fund-raising activities had uncovered evidence that agents of China sought to direct contributions from foreign sources to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) before the 1996 presidential campaign. The journalists wrote that intelligence information had shown the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C. was used for coordinating contributions to the DNC in violation of United States law forbidding non-American citizens or non-permanent residents from giving monetary donations to United States politicians and political parties. A Republican investigator of the controversy stated the Chinese plan targeted both presidential and congressional United States elections, while Democratic Senators said the evidence showed the Chinese targeted only congressional elections. The government of the People's Republic of China denied all accusations."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe invited the Chinese businessman whose donations to him have been named as a focus of Justice Department investigators to a 2013 fundraiser at Hillary Clinton's personal Washington, D.C., residence. Wang Wenliang, a Chinese national with U.S. permanent residency, briefly shook Clinton’s hand at the Sept. 30 event, a representative for Wang told TIME. An American company controlled by Wang made a $60,000 contribution to McAuliffe’s campaign three weeks before the fundraiser. Less than a month later, a separate Wang company pledged $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation, the first of several donations that eventually totaled $2 million."
http://time.com/4348675/terry-...
"Ng, a Macau businessman with ties to the Chinese government, was accused of funneling over $1 million in illegal foreign donations to support Bill Clinton's reelection campaign in 1996. "Ng, a Macau businessman with ties to the Chinese government, was accused of funneling over $1 million in illegal foreign donations to support Bill Clinton's reelection campaign in 1996
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
The point seems more that the current president Donald J Trump only came to power with the assistance of foreign powers that have no regard for the actual wishes of the people of America, and indeed, seek to harm the nation. That's the takeaway - that his recent actions in attempting to stifle the probe into the relationship between members of his campaign team and the Russians is symptomatic that they, or he personally, put ambition ahead of the nation, and there is a strong potential that he (or they) should be impeached, indicted, and then spend time in federal prison.
Countries like the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, much of the EU, and many others, have generally been strong supporters of freedom, democracy, and human rights. Together, they are powerful to defend those values.
Wait, what? When? In this century? That hasn't been true for a long time.
There is no reason to 'push back' against Russia. Whatever they did there is no evidence and even if they really did say buy some electoral votes or something you know what? It doesn't matter. Use that knowledge to improve the system so it isn't so vulnerable to corrupt electors. Although the electoral system does seem inherently vulnerable to bribery it has always been that way. Maybe it's time to dump it, but our insecure outdated election system is no reason to go to war with Russia, something that is always a bad idea. This isn't even worth saber rattling about. It's nothing. Not a big deal. Even if it's true and so far there is zero evidence that it is. At best some Russian hackers hacked some emails and set some information free. If certain people were not tech illiterate their emails would have been strongly encrypted and not stored for any length of time, especially not in an insecure location. But I'm happy with email leaks because it gets the information out there. I'd be just as happy to see Trump's emails. The more information the world has about our leaders the better.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
There is no reason to think his replacement would be better. The US Government has a long history of overthrowing other countries governments, and it never turns out better. Ex. Iran led to islamic extremists ruling Iran, Iraq led to ISIS.
And that's all they talk about, to distract from the heart of the matter. It's nothing but a 'shoot the messenger' campaign. The DNC and Clinton were behaving in an unethical manner, and the Russians leaked the evidence of it. The underlying unethical behavior should be the focus. And yes, the retort is that they only leaked information on one party, but a) that doesn't absolve the DNC and HRC of what they did, b) What they did pales in comparison to what Trump openly did anyway, and c) They almost certainly alienated even more voters who realized a) and b) and watched them try to scream about Russians stealing the election anyway. And no, I'm not a Trump supporter, because Clinton was still the lesser evil by miles. Thinking that anyone who says anyone other than Russia was at fault is automatically a Trump supporter is another thing that's just alienating even more people so that they stay home and cost the Dems the midterms and next presidency too.
I agree, the Democrats behaved unethically but quite frankly, having taken a look at Donald Trump's extensive record of unethical behaviour (excluding the hullabaloo about Russia), the Democrats look like a bunch of Eagle Scouts by comparison.
China is only a scary boogieman if you ignore all of the serious internal issues they have. They're undergoing a socioeconomic change the pace and scale of of which the world has never seen before. That can't continue if they need to divert resources to a war. It's not clear if it can continue anyway, given the serious raw material and energy shortages they have.
A million plus man army is indeed staggering, but china has 1.3 billion people that are increasingly exposed to and embracing the standards of living in the west. Hundreds of thousands, now perhaps millions of young people educated in the west, and who saw the freedom the west has. While I don't discount that China has stolen vast amounts of tech from the west, and is using this to make dramatic leaps forward, their current struggle is to take care of themselves. More and more goods are not being shipped to the west, and are instead kept for their own populace.
The major issue is this rapid pace is slowing down, and a half billion Chinese still live in abject poverty. Large swathes of China still aren't electrified. China's rapid growth is not impacting half of the country, and that's causing a lot of unrest. As China's manufacturing growth slows and exports continue to drop off, that's going to really impact their economy. None of this is conducive to them being a world military power. Regional? Sure. But definitely not one that's going to go out and conquest. That's just a fever dream.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
You're right, the Republicans 'hacked' the election and cost Hillary the Presidency - when will the Democrats start their investigation into those pesky Republicans and their 'better than thou' candidate that WASN'T under an FBI investigation?!?!
Ken
You're right, George W. Bush started Project Echelon in the mid-sixties... oddly, I'm not sure why he did that when LBJ was President?
Ken
Cut down on the number of elected positions
I would say that the number of elected positions is something that is beneficial and relevant. The reason why so many positions are up for election is precisely because we live, in American, in a representative democracy. All of those positions, including clerks (you really don't know what those clerks do, don't you) are very important and powerful positions if you really get into it. A clerk in this case is actually the head figure for a whole office and is a significant executive office. Think of it more like a cabinet secretary on the federal government level rather than a lowly peon bureaucrat.
Where I live, the county clerk is actually the top official in charge of elections and the ultimate arbitrator and decider of election rules and procedures before involving state courts. If anything, keeping that as a separate office directly accountable to the voters of that jurisdiction means that screwups of the election process can be pointed at directly to that person.
There's nothing to run on to be a judge.
On the contrary. What should be happening with judicial elections is that the judicial rulings should be held up and those judges should be made accountable for those rulings on behalf of the citizens they serve. Federal judges aren't elected, only local judges (where relevant I might add too). That means you need to also pay attention to local issues at hand.
I have seen lousy judges removed from their position, something that generally would not happen in a similar situation if the only removal mechanism was merely impeachment by legislators that are mostly lawyers and former judges themselves that have a conflict of interest in removing those judges.
All in all, the point of all of those offices and the huge number of positions you are complaining about is a result of a philosophy that government ought to be as decentralized as possible and accountable to those on the lowest level of organization as possible. Mistakes can and indeed to happen, but your ability to "vote with your feet" is much easier to do in that sort of situation compared to a highly centralized government where all you do is cast a single vote once every few years for a political party alone (as does happen in some countries). This is also something that makes America unique, perhaps, and it is a part of the "Great American Experiment" that is the American form of governance.
Besides, I've seen and even been involved with the process of manually counting ballots without machines from those kind of elections. It is slow, tedious, and boring, but it can be done and the use of all of the ballot machines is mainly because those running the elections are simply lazy and don't want to bother actually doing their jobs. The ability to hack a voting booth is simply unacceptable and the result of piss poor planning on the part of the election officials who set it up, not because of the number of issues or offices that are found on the ballot.
Everything China is doing, Russia tried to do. Russia never managed to build the factories required to rule the information age. China got smart and got other countries to build the factories for them. Little surprise that technology was copied by the Chinese military.
You mean their war-mongering, political manipulation and economic terrorism will be worse than the USA's identical behaviour. Possibly, since the USA also worked to be a good example of governance and capitalism during the 20th century. This century, the dogs called China, USA, Russia and even India are unleashed. No-one wants to be a force for peace.
Why; because they're willing to disrupt the global hegemony benefiting Western nations? I can't imagine the effect that will have on the 'peace' enjoyed by Western nations, however the disruption has begun.
Have a look at Syria: It's not like Korea, Vietnam, Taliban Afghanistan, Russian Afghanistan, Iraq; where one country had to fight several armies, including the world's richest. In Syria, ISIS, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Russia, USA (and allies) are all fighting different sides of the one war. It took much less chaos to start two global conflicts.
What should be horrifying Western nations is the possibility of that war spreading. The refugee problem it created has seen a religious war expand in Africa and be adopted by the settled enclaves of immigrants in Europe. But we call the warring acts of 2nd or 3rd generation immigrants, terrorism. Western nations make the mistake of not identifying the religious solidarity causing that terrorism and not responding to the home-grown nature of terrorism. Well, they are responding with cyber-surveillance and push-button policing but it isn't working against low-tech terrorism. Something needs to change.
Well, if we don't want the Russians to interfere with "elections", then maybe we should stop having them!
That worked out really well for Germany in the 1930's. And then worked out wonderfully for the rest of the world in the 1940's. :)
To be honest, I think that a much better system would be to simply hold a lottery made up of interested citizens that could serve in a legislative capacity and help make the laws rather than holding elections. This is called a Sortion election, something that even dates back to ancient Athens as a governing body selection process. IMHO those who would serve in such legislative bodies would be far more representative of ordinary citizens, hold proportionally similar views of the general public at-large, and such a selection process would be completely free of all of the corruption that comes from the lobbying groups that finance political campaigns. Lobbyists would still exist, but their influence would be substantially diminished and would really only be able to represent their constituency alone. Bribery would need to be blatant... and ineffective so far as their "bought" politicians would be leaving office at the end of the term.
If you feel that you need experienced legislators on a national or federal level, you could have such candidates for a national legislature (aka the U.S. Congress) made up of those who have served for some time on a state or even local level.
There are obviously some problems with such a selection process, but I think that would be far less complicated than the current electoral process.
SO far they claimed Russia hacked the 2016 election ...
Really? The only ones I have seen make that claim are pundits on Fox News and Breitbart trying to defend their 'Dear Leader', the greatest negotiator of all time. Most of the rest of the media claims the Russians hacked the DNC and used carefully timed leaks of that information in an attempt to influence the voting behaviour of the US electorate.
How about Rolling Stone? Are they an alt-right media outlet, too?
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
It's a simple choice really.
Either open source the E-voting systems so exploits and generally bad things can be found, fixed and secured . . .
or
Go with the Russia* solution and revert back to old school methods by dropping E-Voting completely.
*Recall the story where they quit utilizing computers and switched back to typewriters for sensitive documents when spying revelations became apparent.
Paper methods are a PITA for sure, but also impossible to manipulate with a simple keystroke.
In addition, the anti-Obama posts are a related form of propaganda. First, they imply that whatever Trump is doing is OK because Obama was worse. Besides being factually incorrect (i.e. lying) it is nonsensical because two wrongs do not make a right. Imagine a presidential campaign run the on the slogan "Not as terrible as the last time". That would not get anyone elected, so why is it being brought up now?
Attacks on Obama by Trump trolls are also disinformation intended to undermine people's belief in the integrity of the political process. It's another classic propaganda technique that the Russians like to use. Not that they are the only ones who do this, but it is a favorite, just like their use of poison as an assignation technique.
Are there individuals on the internet who are doing this deliberately on behalf of the Russian government. The answer is absolutely yes. Intelligence sources have said so on multiple occasions. Additionally there is a vast amount of home grown propaganda generated by the US right wing. Fox "News" presents slightly less crazy distortions of reality, but online and radio media outlets spew deranged concepts that are a full on propaganda storm. They are now doing a lot of the heavy lifting for Russians without any overt cooperation.
The short version: the US right is a threat to democracy and Putin and his crew are very happy about it.
Why is Snark Required?
Good questions - an investigation could answer those if it isn't shut down.
Getting the point yet?
Russian interference in the affairs of a sovereign nation? Really? Let's compare that to the king of manipulators- the USA. Ask any insider in Latin America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East or Germany or Russia ... The USA is there, with the carrot and the stick, arranging weapons contracts, CIA connections, generous bribes, commercial alliances, and assuring that the 'right' people win elections. Maybe the US has achieved a level of subtlety and control over the press that makes these activities seem less significant, but you can bet that they are well supported with our tax dollars.
...omphaloskepsis often...
I think your post has reached peak partisan stupidity.
This is all just fallout from Trump doing anything he could to win an election and Putin taking advantage of the chaos. Discussing the issue improves the situation and does not "damage" anything other than deservedly damage the election prospects of a few people in a few years time.
Did your earlier discussion of Hillary's email server create damage? No? Then why should this? Why one rule for your party and another for everyone outside it? Do you really want to push that Russian sort of approach?
I just said this here last week: The Russians post comments on Finnish news sites and forums in Finnish. If they have the time and the resources to do propaganda on sites with readerships that are a tiny tiny fraction of /.'s, there's absolutely no doubt that they're actively posting and moderating here as well.
The way they operate in the social media is by having vast amounts of bots/fake accounts, usually with western names. Then they push out articles through their own media corps directly (RT etc,) or via 3rd parties like different conspiracy sites and communities that then share these on FB & al. Then they use the bots to 'moderate' these post for high visibility with likes and shares. In here, probably some of their people just gather mod points and then other write posts which the modders then vote up.
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
While all you are saying is true, China does not show any ambitions of building an empire. It especially lacks any capability to project its military power. Last I checked, they had two aircraft carriers. (for comparison, the USA operates 10, half of the world-wide fleet).
China does understand the power of economics. Their economic activities around the world, especially their long game in Africa and South America, should worry anyone who looks beyond two election periods much, much more. This country is used to thinking in terms of centuries. They plant seeds now (of economic cooperation) that will blossom in 50 or 100 years.
The same is true for hacking. I don't think they care much about elections. In chinese terms, a US president is a temporary event. There'll be another one soon. But military secrets, technological advances, scientific progress - those are things worth stealing.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The thing is - China isn't going to invade America
Neither is Russia.
What, exactly, are you americans all so afraid about? Not being able to be the bully on the playground anymore, that's what?
Nobody is threatening you. Some countries are just tired of being threatened.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
No, it's the cold war again because Russia invades any free and independent country near its boarders that tries to go pro west and territories like Chechnya have impossible elections where 95% of their population votes and 95% vote pro Russia. No populace is so united, particularly in a region known for it resentment towards Russia.
The US couldn't even influence Russian elections the way they do ours because there's aren't anywhere near honest.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
Except that Even Comey stated clearly in response to repeated questions that there was no evidence that they were able to alter a single vote. They did not hack the election. They may have hacked the DNC and DCCC, and penetrated several state election board systems, but there is no evidence they were able to actually change any votes.
In regards to altering the outcome, all they did was publish the dirty laundry of Hillary and the DNC.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
If you want more proof
before you can offer more proof, you need to offer some proof.
"His name was James Damore."
Your thinking is what is so bizarre about today's political climate. A variety of US intelligence services, in the course of monitoring Russian agents who often are part of recruiting US citizens, noticed a high level of contact between high level trump campaign people and these agents. It's become clear that there was an intense effort by the Russians to get trump elected, and that's part of an ongoing effort to influence and ultimately control US elections.
Let that sink in. A hostile foreign power wants to decide who is running the US government. However bad you think the USA is today, it would be a crap ton worse with Putin running it, and elections being utterly meaningless.
And with all that, with the fate of our democracy at stake, people are worried that some of trump's buddies who were busy talking to these Russian had their names revealed... again, NOT because THEY were being monitored, but because the RUSSIAN AGENTS they were talking to were monitored.
Congratulations, you've managed to focus on the mote, and ignore the tidal wave bearing down on you. People like you are why our democracy is in such trouble right now.
I've always wondered, if the Iraqi people had the choice to go back in time and keep Saddam and his progeny instead of what they have now, would they? At the time they seemed very happy when he was removed.
How is this even a question?
“...I am one of the political prisoners who was arrested in 1988, but life was better in Saddam’s days, compared with now.”...
If they had such an option they would probably want to return to a point in time to prevent Bremer from disbanding the Iraqi army and delaying Iraqi's from taking control of the government.
The problem with Iraq wasn't really the invasion, it was the occupation that followed.
No, the biggest problem was the invasion. I'm not saying you're completely wrong. But to pick out one mistake out of so many is misleading. To begin with the war was based on a lie. So if not WMD, what were the real reasons for going to war? If Jack shoots himself with a gun, then doesn't dress the wound properly, the reason Jack died was because he shot himself.
But anyway, after the invasion, Col. Ted Spain was the guy in charge of law & order, he seems like a great resource to list all the mistakes:
If they had such an option they would probably want to return to a point in time to prevent Bremer from disbanding the Iraqi army and delaying Iraqi's from taking control of the government. These two decisions by Bremer, a career diplomat who served numerous administrations, essentially started the insurgency and created an opportunity for al-Queda in Iraq.
Bremer says those weren't his decisions. He says he was ordered to do so, that order came from Rumsfield's office but Rumsfield also says he was ordered to do so but won't say by whom. It seem likely that the order originated from Cheney's office and was made on the recommendation of Chalabi, who wanted to install his own army and government in Iraq. If that's the case, then it wasn't a mistake, as much as it was a deliberate betrayal of America and Iraq's common interests to profit an ally of Dick Cheney.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
In regards to altering the outcome, all they did was publish the dirty laundry of Hillary and the DNC.
No, that was not all they did, they also have been shilling, and spying, among other things. And the neat little insinuation that there was any dirty laundry to expose is not supported by the facts.
Indeed during the election, I was interested in reading some of this supposed "dirty laundry" but time and again the claims were not backed up by actual facts. They relied of extremely tortured interpretations of sentence fragments from emails. For example, there was one about "Hillary hates Catholics", which Trump actually tried to use in his speech at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner. The actual email was between two staffers, Hillary was not involved as either a recipient or a sender and the staffers were gossiping about a pair of trust fund young Republicans. One them said neither attended Catholic churches, and thus were more Evangelical than Catholic but couldn't officially change religion because they'd lose access to their Trust funds. That was heralded as conclusive proof that Hillary Clinton hates all Catholics.
I looked at half dozen other claims and they were all the same, some bit of something from an email twisted beyond the point of recognition into "conclusive proof" of some outlandish claim. After the fact, it seems like there are indications that many of those sites were part of the propaganda efforts put together by the Russian propaganda agencies. The only question is whether the posters who posted links to them on Slashdot were useful idiots or paid propagandists.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Russia under Putin as a bad actor all right, but what I don't get is how can they really be a threat to the West, or at least a semi-unified West.
I think, Militarily, they are not really a threat, except to their immediate neighbours. The larger threat lies in espionage and destabilization. Russia literally operates entire armies of propagandists to maintain order in Russia, and they are starting to see the benefits of directing that propaganda power outside of their country to sow chaos among their enemies. Crimea, for example, was a the result of a several years long propaganda campaign by Russia followed by with a small, clandestine, military action. But I don't know if they will ever be able to pull it off again, but they will likely try, even though it obviously didn't work as well on the Ukrainian border...
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Well if you replaced our whole government with Russia's whole government, yeah it would be a crap ton worse. I'm not convinced that if you simply replaced Trump with Putin that it would be any worse, and in fact would probably be better. Congress and the intelligence agencies would do like they are with Trump, not let him actually do anything that would *really* threaten the country. And at least we wouldn't be led by a man, already in a dead heat with Putin for 'most corrupt major power leader', whose malevolence is matched only by his stupidity and disgraces the country every time he opens his orange baboon megalomaniac mouth or tweets the latest stream-of-(lack of)-consciousness idiocy he's regurgitating from Russia Today's US Fox affiliate.
Not to mention you're really overestimating how meaningful our elections are these days. Is having two parties that are united on 90% of the ways they want to fuck the country, who actually differ only by which particular way they fuck us, and distract and divide us on a few social wedge issues instead of, you know, the 90% of the other ways they're fucking us.. is that really SO much better than just having them join together and drop all pretense? tl;dr covert fucking: better or worse than overt fucking?
Sorry, up all night and a wee bit grumpy.
The thread is a bit stale, but I want to chime in.
With some regularity, Slashdot members have called me a paid Microsoft shill. I am a Linux user and don't actually need money. In all those cases, I posted factual information, to the best of my recollection.
I was away, dealing with some personal stuff, during the election.
Since returning, I've had just one comment that accused me of being a Russian. I've had several that accused me of being a Trump voter. I didn't vote for Trump and don't even like the guy. Hell, I dislike him. I am, however, a fan of facts and honesty.
You may be able to see why I view such accusations with great skepticism. I know, factually, that these accusations aren't accurate, at least sometimes. I know that I am not employed by Russia, a Trump voter, or a shill for Microsoft. Hell, I have met quite a few people who post here. I have had some of you in my home. I am pretty sure that none of that group is engaged in any of those things.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I just said this here last week: The Russians post comments on Finnish news sites and forums in Finnish. If they have the time and the resources to do propaganda on sites with readerships that are a tiny tiny fraction of /.'s, there's absolutely no doubt that they're actively posting and moderating here as well.
There was absolutely no doubt of that during the election. The moderation of politicial stories took a sudden and drastic turn. What was even more obvious was that even more than pro-trump posts, what was getting +5 mods was ridicule of the meer idea that Putin or Russians might be involved. You tell me what group of people would be flooding a US political forum with their #1 priority being promoting Russia and Russian politicians and only their #2 priority being promoting their favorite US politician?
I had to quit posting on the stories, simply because it got to be such a drag reading page after page of upvoted Russian propaganda. They basically removed /. as a useful forum for the last 3 months of the election.
I actually agree with a lot of this, but I don't think it makes sense to downplay the military (specifically naval) threat.
Last I checked, they had two aircraft carriers
That would be more reassuring if it weren't for the fact that last *I* checked, they had only one carrier, and no planes that could land on it. They currently have those two, two more under construction, and another planned. Two to Five operable fleet carriers is actually pretty dang muscular. Sure, they may have to think twice about anything the US will fight over, but would the US fight to protect Vietnam? How about Taiwan? China seems pretty determined to get Taiwan back, and with 5 carriers the only way to stop them would be a full-blown shooting war with the USA (with a very chancy result, given China's logistical advantages in that part of the world).
China has been very aggressive lately with their maritime neighbors. This is making all their neighbors think hard about rearmament. If anyone thinks that will end with some gun-induced peaceful Nirvana in the region, I'd say they've been reading too many John Ringo novels (or perhaps not enough. They're a good way to spend time, and clearly reality-based politics is not this kind of persons' bag).