Slashdot Mirror
Russian Cyber Hacks On US Electoral System Far Wider Than Previously Known (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader shares a Bloomberg article: Russia's cyberattack on the U.S. electoral system before Donald Trump's election was far more widespread than has been publicly revealed, including incursions into voter databases and software systems in almost twice as many states as previously reported. In Illinois, investigators found evidence that cyber intruders tried to delete or alter voter data. The hackers accessed software designed to be used by poll workers on Election Day, and in at least one state accessed a campaign finance database. Details of the wave of attacks, in the summer and fall of 2016, were provided by three people with direct knowledge of the U.S. investigation into the matter. In all, the Russian hackers hit systems in a total of 39 states, one of them said. The scope and sophistication so concerned Obama administration officials that they took an unprecedented step -- complaining directly to Moscow over a modern-day "red phone." In October, two of the people said, the White House contacted the Kremlin on the back channel to offer detailed documents of what it said was Russia's role in election meddling and to warn that the attacks risked setting off a broader conflict.
How can you tell either way without an investigation?
You don't hack the ballot, you use propaganda to influence voters.
Nothing can forgive the horror she inflicted on the american people by running her own personal email server!!!
Bingo. Give the man a f**king cigar.
Every server gets constantly "attacked."
Make the data public and let us examine it.
As of right now it's like Dan Rather saying he has evidence that George Bush's basically did a poor job in the National Guard and it comes out that the evidence was manufactured. (Memos, that were supposed to be from the 1970s, were written in Microsoft Word. OOOPS)
We would never had known that Rather and his crew were lying if they hadn't released the memos.
Now they've smarted up. They save that we have "evidence" but they don't release it. This is something that can be dropped into Github and we would have tens of thousands of people combing through the data.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
And this is only half of the story. Read this, this, and this...and you might begin to understand the breadth and the scope of what Russia is doing online. The Kremlin has built an entire industry manned by thousands, whose sole purpose is to get online and sew chaos, confusion, and doubt. They are why, when you discuss any issue that reflects poorly on Russia on any major website, you get marginalized and bombarded with talking points.
There are conservatives who mirror the Kremlin's message, but these buildings filled with thousands of paid trolls are the originals and the instigators. This is not a game, read the Times story above and you will see the real world consequences; Russia can create fake hysteria in America, made up disasters, and form political causes out of the ether which sway American policy in the direction they like. Russia, right this very second, and since 2014, and into the future--is at war with you, with me, with every Conservative and every Democrat and every Independent--and they don't care at all what you want. They care what 1 man wants, and what he wants is to say fuck you and your country.
You don't hack the ballot, you use propaganda to influence voters.
You mean just like politicians do?
To be fair, Clinton did have an unsecured Exchange server hanging on the public Internet, and her lieutenant John Podesta fell for the world's dumbest phishing scam... I mean, c'mon.
(note: I voted Libertarian and live in the People's Republic of Oregon, so I have no dog in this fight and could not have possibly affected the results. That said...)
As for the dreaded hax0rz TFA details, how come during the election season Obama said, flat-out and public, that there was no interference going on and that everything was fine? Further more, he never warned the alleged affected state election officials. I mean seriously, one would think that if he were concerned about it at the time, he (or rather, his administration) would have at least informed the IT folks over the affected systems so that they could at least try and remediate and harden things?
I'm not saying that the Russians never tried (though nobody is saying if they succeeded or not), but it's damned odd that it only became a concern for the Obama administration after Clinton ended up the loser.
If she had won, would we even be hearing about any of this, or would the response from the MSM be a demand that the complainers remove their tinfoil chapeaus?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
You should read up on classical conditioning, specifically learned helplessness. There's already enough 'bad' when it comes to voting. Electronic voting doesn't work. Hand counting is inaccurate. There's a disillusion about whether or not a person's vote really matters since elections are based on this screwed up electoral college system - where a chosen few (compared to the general public) can decide who leads.
There have been activists and those speaking up, sure... but until our elected officials actually listen and do something about it, we're just going to keep going on this downward sloping status quo. The anarchist in me thinks "good, get rid of these career politicians that only want to pad their own wallets and retire into C-level golden parachute jobs". Then I see things like the uprising in Egypt and worry that the U.S. could go to that extreme.
The Kremlin has built an entire industry manned by thousands, whose sole purpose is to get online and sew chaos, confusion, and doubt.
So what you are saying is Russia has built a Shadow 4-Chan.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
And people keep berating me when I tell them that it doesn't matter which branch of The Party wins.
Seriously, the whole shit in the US smells more and more like the democracy theater they had in the Soviet states. Some countries there allowed you to actually vote for different candidates. Yes, really. They even had some parties to offer a puppet show of democracy (quite literally so). But in the end, they all stood for exactly the same. Maybe you could hear some sort of nuance on this or that topic, but in the end, the socialism had to win at the end, the fight towards communism continues and The Party is always right.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You don't hack the ballot, you use propaganda to influence voters.
You mean just like politicians do?
...and media corporations, and special interest groups, and political parties, and talk radio jocks, and co-workers, and advertisers (to an extent), and even private corporations (again, to an extent), and...
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
It's worth remembering that the US has (or rather had) spies in the Russian FSB and wider Russia:
http://www.newsweek.com/has-putin-just-arrested-two-american-spies-548528
"News broke on January 24 that two Russians—Sergei Mikhailov, the second-highest-ranking officer in the cyber-intelligence unit of the Federal Security Service (FSB), and Ruslan Stoyanov, a private cybersecurity analyst specializing in antivirus programs [side note, he's EX FSB]—were arrested on charges of treason."
And that two of these were arrested a few days after Trump got into power and got hold of an unredacted piss memo naming a current and former FSB agent who had supplied intelligence on the Putin election interference plans.
The obvious implication is, that Trump got hold of the piss memos and passed the names of these spies to the Russians for revenge.
There was a misdirection, a claim that these two WERE BEHIND the US election hacking, but Putin has since suggested Russia might have been framed.... which indicates the bogus nature of that misdirection.
http://nypost.com/2017/02/01/russian-officials-charged-with-passing-secrets-to-us/
"Four Russian security officials were slapped Wednesday with formal charges of treason for passing secrets to the US government, according to published reports."
"Three of the defendants were identified as Federal Security Services (FSB) officials Sergei Mikhailov and Dmitry Dokuchayev, and Ruslan Stoyanov, a higher-up at the cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Labs, CBS News reported."
So you think we should just ignore all of the massive amount of evidence from a dizzying array of sources, many of them independent and professional with no stake in the political world, just because you think it's all a gigantic sour grapes excuse argument? Because Hillary Clinton is just that powerful that all of these people and organizations are busy trying to invent a giant excuse just to, what, make her feel less crappy about herself? Really?
You do realize it's possible to simultaneously think that Clinton lost for unrelated reasons, and that Russian information operations and interference is an extremely serious thing, right? It's also possible to consider that maybe the Russians weren't trying to sway the election for Trump, so much as to cause chaos and sow doubt, with a goal of undermining the USA while strengthening internal divisions?
Or that maybe we should start thinking of this not as some f*cking partisan thing, but about how maybe we should look to protect our elections from outside interference just because outside interference is bad, and that maybe, just maybe, we ought to be able to feel like our elections are secure just because having secure elections is a good thing by itself?
how come during the election season Obama said, flat-out and public, that there was no interference going on and that everything was fine?
Two reasons. A) it would have created confusion and panic in our voting system as to whether votes were being correctly recorded (with electronic voting we don't know, but that's another issue) and B) it would have given another excuse for the con artist to claim the election was being rigged (though you'll note he never said which way it was being rigged).
but it's damned odd that it only became a concern for the Obama administration after Clinton ended up the loser.
No it's not. It was a concern since they called Moscow directly to let them know we knew what they were doing. Similar to above, had Obama said anything about Russia interfering with the election it would have been seen as an excuse and would have given more fire to the con artist's delusions about the election being rigged.
would we even be hearing about any of this, or would the response from the MSM be a demand that the complainers remove their tinfoil chapeaus?
Yes, we would have, because since Hillary would have been president, the same Republican-led House and Senate which are running interference for the con artist over the current Russia investigations, would have spared no expense to get to the bottom of what happened. They would have used it to claim her presidency wasn't legitimate or it was tainted, neither of which they are doing now. They would be digging as deep as possible to find every scrap of information regarding Russia's interference, the exact opposite of what they are doing now where many members are saying it's no big deal and the investigations should be dropped.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Sounds like it's time for better security in the computerized part of the voting system. Even if the Russian government, as opposed to just individual hackers who might even be spoofing a Russian government IP address for reasons, really is behind this so what? It's not any kind of real attack. If you are advocating that we try to hack their own insecure internet-facing computer systems go for it. Would love to see someone other than Putin or a Putin clone get elected next time. I'm not even convinced this sort of thing should be a crime at all. More like relatively harmless play. Or we could move toward nuclear war with Russia if you want. Up to you.
I personally kind of like the Russkies. I have no problem with them. I think we should stick with staying on friendly and good diplomatic terms with them. I lived through the 80s and I find being friends with them a lot better than Duck and Cover drills. OTOH we all know how cool nuclear war would be. It would truly be 'interesting times'. Plus a lot of Beautiful People would die or at least suffer a reduced quality of life. So I'm cool with either option, but for most people I think the first option would be preferable.
I guess we do live in interesting times in a way. Democrats have become so much like Republicans now that they have become war mongers as long as it suits their agenda in other ways. Although I must admit I don't see how getting on a more cold war like footing with Russia again is going to hurt their arch-enemy Trump. Because Democratic presidents were known for chewing gum and kicking ass but running out of gum? I'm not seeing it. I'm just glad Trump himself is not taking the bait and transforming into Dr. Strangelove.
I can remember back in the 80s when most Democrats were supporters of the ACLU and even human rights. It used to be that Republicans wanted financial freedom (even for poor people in many cases) but government control of our personal lives and Democrats wanted personal freedoms (pro ACLU, pro drug etc) put wanted more government control of the economy (Robin Hood economics). Now both parties want government control of everything just in somewhat different ways, but this pro war stance on the part of the Democrats is something new.
But saber rattling over this is just dumb. You want to investigate Trump for being overly friendly with the Russians (not really a crime imo but whatever) fine, but escalating this into any sort of real conflict just because you want to demonize the Russians because Trump gets along with Putin is harmful to world peace and not really going to accomplish anything you want anyway.
Trump is president. I don't like it either but it doesn't really matter that much who is president. It's mostly business as usual no matter who is living in that big white building. So calm the fuck down people and wipe that drool and spittle from your rabid mouths. This could even be something positive if it helps to make our electronic voting systems more secure or if it starts to get people thinking about how stupid and antiquated our electoral college system is. Democracy is mostly about a wolf and some sheep deciding what's for dinner anyway. It's really individual/human rights that distinguishes us from totalitarian dictatorships. Or really the rights that the government doesn't have. Voting is mostly bread and circus to keep the common people believing they can make a difference.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
If you replace "the Russians" with "the Jews" this would all sound like something spouted by some kind of rambling far-right conspiracy nut. Some people are too attached to the idea to let go of it now.
One would think that this would result in a push from both sides for open-sourcing the voting machines so that they can be properly audited, evaluated, and strengthened against attacks, but I don't see either party proposing that. Instead it's just an opportunity for political mud-slinging and grandstanding.
Washington elites were so sure, Hillary would win, they didn't want to publicize the hacking attempts for fear of delegitimizing her.
Now that she lost, they are sabotaging the actual winner with this unending allusions and unstated allegations and innuendo — to slow him down and prevent him from implementing, what the voters voted for.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Russian actions weren't able to modify votes cast.
You seem awfully confident of that. If there is one thing we know, its that e-voting machines are ridiculously insecure. And we've know it for over a decade.
What risk/reward ratio were they looking at?
Putin's singular goal is the elevation of the Russian state with him as its head. Because he's an autocrat that makes western liberalism an existential threat. Anything he can do to discredit western liberalism helps him - if he can convince enough people that american elections are rigged then he can say to his own citizens that real democracy doesn't exist, that the grass is not greener on the other side and so they should be content with his great leadership.
It's called the shy Tory effect.
When you are ostracized because you have a different opinion, it colors your responses to polls.
If there's something we need to know, publish it and stand behind it (with your names and titles) already.
Former FBI Director James Comey came out and testified in public under oath.
The Russians interfered in our election during the 2016 cycle. They did with purpose. They did it with sophistication. They did it with overwhelming technical efforts. It was an active measures campaign driven from the top of that government. There is no fuzz on that. It is a high confidence judgment of the entire intelligence community and the members of this committee have seen the intelligence. It's not a close call. That happened. That's about as unfake as you can possibly get. It is very, very serious, which is why it's so refreshing to see a bipartisan focus on that.
Most of the objections I've seen as to why Russian hacking couldn't work have been along the lines of "It would take a lot of effort" or "it would be too complicated". Given the available resources of Russia and the stakes in play I can't really say those objections hold any water. Without the ability to review the source code of all voting machines and randomized auditing of paper ballots there is simply too much potential for influence in a close race, which seems to be the de facto standard these days.
Seriously how blind is your love for a big serving of Trump that you can even pretend to believe such nonsense. The outside world looks in with complete disbelief at how deluded many Americans were during that whole campaign...
As for the dreaded hax0rz TFA details, how come during the election season Obama said, flat-out and public, that there was no interference going on and that everything was fine?
I don't think that's true. I remember there being talk, even before the election, that the Russians were attempting to hack the election, and that it was very troubling. It was reported at the time that Obama had contacted Putin and had told him to "cut it out". It was so well known to be an issue that Clinton accused Trump, in one of the national debates, of being a Russian puppet. This was no secret.
What the Obama administration had said is that they didn't have evidence that votes were actually changed. That is, they knew there were various attempts to influence the election in different ways, but they didn't know for sure (or at least, weren't prepared to reveal) whether Russia had been able to actually change votes in the computerized voting systems. For that, you'd need to do an extensive recount. Unfortunately, in some of these locations, where isn't necessarily a paper trail to recount.
People in the Obama administration have indicated that Obama didn't want to come out too strongly/directly saying, "Hey everyone, Russia is trying to hack the election in favor of Trump!" because he was concerned that it would seem like a partisan attack, rather than an unbiased statement of fact. Along with everything else, Trump was saying that he wasn't going to accept the results of the election unless he won, so Obama didn't want to throw the validity of the election into doubt. Still, the administration did say that the Russians were trying to influence the election, and they seemed to be doing it in order to help Trump.
Nobody will name the staffer or say what happened to him.
Nobody will name him? So the thousands of articles that have the name "Charles Delevan" don't exist? This interview with the guy doesn't exist? The front page article in the New York Times (complete with a screenshot of the actual email) doesn't exist? Don't confuse your own ignorance with a conspiracy to keep information from you.
Enigma
The voting machines are not internetworked. The attacks described here were not against voting equipment but against voter registration databases which have web interfaces.
I am an election official in Virginia. Every one of these scenarios I've looked at about how easy it is to modify voting equipment have thoroughly improbable -- and in some cases, physically impossible -- scenarios. America is physically a very big place. Virginia has thousands of individual voting precincts. To modify the source code, you'd have to launch a simultaneous, in-person sneak attack at thousands of locations, all without getting caught. That is just not a credible scenario. In some of these scenarios, they have people literally opening up a voting machine on election day, which is really preposterous. Every voting machine is under the constant gaze not only of multiple officers, but also all the voters waiting in line. That in-my-eyesight requirement is one of the reasons I am strongly in favor of in-person voting.
We have been running elections for hundreds of years, now. We do know a thing or two about how to secure them.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
How very partisan of you... Do a bit of critical thinking about this whole mess and you will realize that Obama is the one who gets the blame for this, it happened on HIS watch. As I recall, the Clinton Campaign and the Obama administration were acting all huffy about Trump refusing to accept the election results in advance (remember that?). Remember all the assurances that it would be a fair election then? Oh sure, Clinton was a shoe in right? All this was going on right up to the last debate... About the same time as the "Access Hollywood" tapes that should have done in Trump's campaign... He was going to lose, and lose badly, and everybody knew it so the election was going to be FAIR and the Russians where NOT an issue.
What changed?
Do some critical thinking and think about the history of this, don't just fall for the sound bite news coverage of all this... I know it's hard to ignore the shrill voices on both sides of this at times, but do try..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
And then, it turns out, Trump isn't accepting the validity of the election EVEN THOUGH he won !
He just cannot accept the idea that 3 million more people voted for his opponent, so he keeps trying to claim that their votes were the results of massive and unprecedented fraud !
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Two reasons. A) it would have created confusion and panic in our voting system as to whether votes were being correctly recorded (with electronic voting we don't know, but that's another issue) and B) it would have given another excuse for the con artist to claim the election was being rigged (though you'll note he never said which way it was being rigged).
First up, seriously, ditch the name-calling. I get that you hate the guy (thanks to that), but let's keep it objective.
Trump did say that the election may be rigged, yes... but Obama's response was to totally refute it. I understand the argument of not wanting to cause panic or uncertainty, but Obama's administration specifically said nothing to the state election commissions - that part is the most troubling. Did he think it would be rigged in Clinton's favor and so didn't bother, or (Occam's argument) did he fail to do so out of ...? It's not a case of avoiding panic if you have an underling send word to various elections commissioners - that is, assuming something actually happened (or happened successfully) to imperil said voting machine infrastructures.
No it's not. It was a concern since they called Moscow directly to let them know we knew what they were doing. Similar to above, had Obama said anything about Russia interfering with the election it would have been seen as an excuse and would have given more fire to the con artist's delusions about the election being rigged.
I'm pretty certain that a simple admonition wouldn't deter any spy agency, let alone as old, subtle or as skilled as the Russian ones. And Trump was the only one complaining publicly about it (Clinton joined Obama in telling everyone that he was simply complaining for no reason).
Perhaps they (Obama and Clinton) pooh-poohed the charge due to a misguided notion that the election, if rigged, would put Clinton in the White House (or worse, that perhaps they were assured that the real hacking attempts were occurring via some Russian VPN connection from DNC-paid operatives)? I don't hypothesize that last bit without basis, mind - after all, the Democrat National Committee literally (both publicly and privately) rigged the primaries to prevent Sanders from winning the nomination, so the possibility is certainly there.
I also have a very hard time believing that there was any success in the alleged effort (if it were via Russian attempts), else we would have heard about it loudly, publicly, and with mountains of concrete evidence made public - by every elected Democrat and media source to lay eyes on said evidence.
Yes, we would have, because since Hillary would have been president, the same Republican-led House and Senate which are running interference for the con artist over the current Russia investigations, would have spared no expense to get to the bottom of what happened. They would have used it to claim her presidency wasn't legitimate or it was tainted, neither of which they are doing now. They would be digging as deep as possible to find every scrap of information regarding Russia's interference, the exact opposite of what they are doing now where many members are saying it's no big deal and the investigations should be dropped.
I disagree with part of this, and here's why: Certainly, there would be shouting from certain quarters of the Republican Party, but it would be as effective as the whole 'birther' outcry... in that it would be just a few "nutjobs" speaking about it, and I daresay that the MSM (CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, et al) would have quickly relegated it to the realm of Alex Jones and Jesse Ventura.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
No, he was joking, based on the assumption that the Russians had previously hacked the DNC and several others associated with the Democratic party leadership and thus most likely Hillary's server as well (years before back when she was Sec state and running the unsecure server), and thus they would likely have hoovered up the 30,000 missing emails she had deleted after her term as Sec State ended. Thus he made a Joke (a non-serious statement designed to elicit laughter) about asking the Russians if they had the missing emails. It was a joke, in the context it was clearly a joke, and only an idiot bound an determined to make it something else would consider that off the cuff statement anything but a joke.
but keep trying to claim it was a serious statement.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
So you think we should just ignore all of the massive amount of evidence from a dizzying array of sources
Seriously? What evidence? They haven't shown us any yet. They are just making claims and they don't have a lot of credibility. We're supposed to take them, of all people, on faith? Known liars?
But even if they do have absolute proof that they are willing to show us that the Russian government really did hack our election computers so what? It's not an act of war. No one was hurt by it. It's not a big deal. It just means we have to improve the security of our electronic voting system or fix whatever they showed to be vulnerable.
The one response to this that should not be on the table is saber rattling and unfortunately that is exactly the response I am seeing from a lot of angry Dems at the moment. At least online. I don't want to go back to a cold war with Russia and I don't see how any sane person would. North Korea has fucking concentration camps, is working on nuclear ICBMs and has openly threatened to attack us and we haven't gone to war with them over it. In comparison this is nothing. We should just thank them for helping us improve our weak computer security and leave it at that. What else can we do anyway?
Let's say Putin says, "Yeah we messed with your insecure election computers. It was fun! What are you gonna do about it?" Well what would you have us do about it? Ask them nicely to stop? Go to war? How are you going to stop them? For that matter how will you stop anyone else from doing the same thing? Maybe some kid in Sri Lanka or Argentina will be the next one to break in and have some fun. That's why computer security is a thing. Are we going to declare war against every country that breaks into our computers?
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
How can you tell either way without an investigation?
You do realize that the biggest net gain for the Russians is the PR here right? They may not have changed even one vote cast, but all this consternation about how they "hacked" the election undermines the electorate's confidence in the process.
Putin is sitting back chuckling about how a little bit of hacking has placed his name and image in front of the world and inflated his image which increases his ability to stay in office.... Then, the gift that keeps on giving, pits Americans vrs Americans which only makes the USA weaker. Apart from achieving some military victory of the USA there is nothing better for him...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
The only difference here is that Trump isn't a normal politician and may have some racist or at least anti-Muslim views
According to this CNN link , the six countries on the travel ban were Sudan, Libya, Iran, Yemen, Somalia, and Syria. All of them have either extremely poor security situations with rampant domestic terrorism and active insurgencies, or in Iran's case an extremely antagonistic relationship with the US government and Israel (which has major lobbying power in the US). These countries are 10% of the world Muslim population. They are also some of the most dangerous and active conflict zones in the world today, and possess training environments for the radicalization of second-generation immigrants in Europe to turn into terrorists.
You know what countries AREN'T on Trump's travel ban? Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Nigeria, Turkey, and Egypt. Combined they are home to 56.7% of the world's Muslims, and while some of them have security problems and active jihadi insurgencies, they also have more robust security apparatuses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
So is Trump really anti-Muslim, or simply enacting pre-emptive security measures and risk avoidance?
In comparison, his erstwhile opponent in the Presidential race voted in favor of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The collapse of security in Iraq in 2003 is STILL costing Muslim lives to this day due to ISIS, which even a conservative estimate would place in the high hundreds of thousands of fatalities 2003-2017. This is also the same woman who **LAUGHED** about the overthrow and extra-judicial lynching of a Muslim head of state (Qaddafi). https://youtu.be/UtH7iv4ip1U
So I'm just curious if you also consider Hillary Clinton to be a racist anti-Muslim? Or is it just Trump?
how come during the election season Obama said, flat-out and public, that there was no interference going on and that everything was fine? Two reasons. A) it would have created confusion and panic in our voting system as to whether votes were being correctly recorded (with electronic voting we don't know, but that's another issue)
It's worth pointing out that when the election is very close, it's far more important for democracy that people have confidence in the accuracy of the election result than that it actually be accurate. That may seem like a bizarre thing to say, but think about it. If the election is very close, it's because the electorate does not have a clear preference. This isn't to say that individual voters don't have clear preferences, but the electorate as a whole, under the system we use for determining the will of the people, doesn't have a clear preference.
Since the people don't have a clear will the election can go either way without going against the will of the people. In fact, in very close elections the result can go either way based on various random factors which in an ideal world shouldn't have any effect. Stuff like the weather. This means that the actual result of a close election cannot undermine the legitimacy of the democracy.
What can, and does, undermine democracy is when people say "Not my president", and in a very close race it takes very little to create enough doubt to enable people to say that. Of course, even in a landslide victory it's always possible for the supporters of the loser to take this tack, but in doing so they're demonstrating contempt for the very notion of democratic process. When it's very close, though, it's easy for people to make the argument that their guy/gal lost only because of X, Y or Z inaccuracies in the electoral process, and so the elected officeholder is illegitimate, not because democracy isn't the proper way to choose government.
To be clear, I despise Donald Trump with a purple passion, but he is my president and I will absolutely continue to honor the office and respect his legal and proper actions within that office (while retaining the right to criticize vociferously any I disagree with, and to encourage investigation, impeachment and possibly prosecution in the event of any illegal and/or improper actions). This attitude with regard to the office (and every other elected office) is, IMNSHO, exactly what all Americans need to hold if we're to avoid undermining our nation.
So, IMO, Obama did exactly the right thing in trying to fight Russian interference on the one hand, and keeping it quiet on the other, because fear about the legitimacy of the electoral process would have severely undermined the legitimacy of whoever won... and in a close election legitimacy is distinct from and more important than accuracy. That said, we absolutely do need to investigate any identified weaknesses in the electoral processes, and fix them lest we find ourselves in a situation where the electorate does have a clear preference and the processes deliver a contrary result.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
If you are referring to declaring current voting systems "critical infrastructure" I hardly see that as a major push to nationalize. If you are referring to something else, please be so kind as to provide infor,mation and links.
--- Often in error; never in doubt!
foreign government tried to infiltrate and influence the election process regardless of who they were attempting to influence
You mean like Obama did in French, German and Israeli elections?
It isn't like this is a secret, it is just ignored because it is inconvenient to the narrative that left is trying to portray about how they care about free and fair elections
We know they don't care, because, they were caught, not only internationally, but in our own National Elections conspiring to rig elections and debates, which is .. part of the reason Hillary lost (IMHO).
We do have way more actual evidence of the DNC, Obama, and Hillary actually doing the things Trump is only accused of doing. But that isn't important, because THE RUSSIANS HACKED THE ELECTIONS (no evidence provided)
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Similar to above, had Obama said anything about Russia interfering with the election it would have been seen as an excuse and would have given more fire to the con artist's delusions about the election being rigged.
So, how does that jive with your alternate reality where Trump is a Russian puppet? I mean, wouldn't Russian puppet Trump already know about the rigging and all that since it's rigged in his favor?
Watching you people devolve into the basic equivalent of 9/11 troofers has been fascinating.
Do you have ESP?
Secure elections? Obama's administration did everything possible to stop states from requiring an ID to vote. Let's fix the simple things first and worry about these mythical Russian influences some other day.
What the presumably Russian crackers were after was altering things like voting roles, resulting in voter suppression.
You know, *exactly* like the GOP has been doing with gerrymandering, and having people at the polls challenging voters' registration, and the mass dropping of folks from the voting roles.
One that sticks in my mind was a guy not allowed to vote because he was registered in another state. Note, he was whatisname, jr, and it was his *father* who was registered in another state.
And there is *no* national system to move registrations when you relocate. Who here has ever relocated, and written to their old state or commonwealth to let them know to remove them from the old voter roles?
While those are run by local parties in the US, there is still opportunity for an outside player to influence or interfere with them. When I went to the caucus this year I left knowing the result of my own precinct but nothing beyond that, and many people left without waiting to find out the result of their own precinct. Certainly the Russians knew early in the nomination process that Trump was by far the candidate most favorable to them; why would they not want to interfere at that point?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Comey and Rogers both told the Congressional Committee that there was Russian interference in the elections.
The Republicans on the committee didn't argue.
You won't accept anonymous or 'biased' sources. What evidence would you accept?
I'm tired of the exaggerated propaganda that summaries like the one here uses to categorize Podesta's email breach as Russia's hacking the "electoral system".
Podesta's emails do not comprise the electoral system. It's perhaps a half-truth if given if a much broader, vague definition of "electoral system", but half-truths are often more devious than outright lies.
I'd love to see a solid reliable poll of how many people in the street are actually under the impression that election servers and machines were hacked by Russians to give Trump the edge.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
If you discredit our democracy and generally cause an uproar then you undermine our country as a whole. Keep at it for a while and our country collapses or devolves into some sort of regional / political civil war.
So I'm just curious if you also consider Hillary Clinton to be a racist anti-Muslim? Or is it just Trump?
Those aren't very compelling examples. Neither was at all directly related to religion. Hillary is probably as islamophobic as most Americans are, but not as much as Trump. Trump advocated blocking all Muslims from entering the US during his campaign. I guess it could be worse. He could have advocated putting the ones already in the US into camps or deporting them, but it's a pretty extreme measure that is presumably based on some pretty extreme view along the lines of Muslim = Terrorist.
the six countries on the travel ban were Sudan, Libya, Iran, Yemen, Somalia, and Syria. All of them have either extremely poor security situations with rampant domestic terrorism and active insurgencies, or in Iran's case an extremely antagonistic relationship with the US government and Israel (which has major lobbying power in the US).
Blocking entire countries because of a tiny tiny tiny minority of people living there is in itself tribalist and the sort of simplistic over-generalized thinking that racism is all about. The sheer magnitude of innocent people caught in that ginormous net is extremely unjust by any measure. That some Americans are terrified of a tiny minority of people from those countries wearing towels on their heads does not make it any more rational or just.
Is Trump the man really a racist and islamophobe as he is painted by the left? I don't really know because I don't personally know the guy, but some of the things he has said have justifiably scared people about what he might be capable of. When it comes to that he at least gives me pause. His policies certainly do tend at least toward xenophobia and isolationism. The actual 6 country version of the travel ban is just a small taste of what he might be capable of. After all he did originally advocate blocking everyone who believes in a particular religion from entering the country.
What some people find confusing I think is that while terrorists are usually Muslims or at least Arabs, Muslims are not usually terrorists and actually neither are Arabs. Actual terrorists are almost as rare as aliens. They may as well not exist at all and we should really treat them as if they don't because attention is what they are looking for. All of this fear just encourages them and shows them what cowards we really are.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Well what would you have us do about it? Ask them nicely to stop? Go to war? How are you going to stop them?
This beyond pathetic. You're argument is, it's a hard problem, so don't bother trying?
I hope someone will publish "Anonymous Russian proxy for Dummies"
We accept the election results, as the inevitable incarnation of American narcissism, incompetence, and discourtesy. I've said all along that Trump was going to win because he's the president America deserves. We just want to make sure Russia knows to GTFO and let us elect our own idiots in peace.
Voting systems are constitutionally defined as being under the control of the states who then submit their representatives for voting for legislation and for the electing the President.
Homeland Security wanted to regulate state election systems under the guise of "critical infrastructure." That's a power grab and it starts with them just mandating certain security requirements. Then they need to "inspect" the systems and "check" the records to make sure they're secure. Then you end up with a standardized election system and, of course, Homeland Security can peek at the results at any time they want.
There was a similar call after the 2000 elections as well - part of how we ended up with all these "electronic voting systems" that Diebold made and were all easily hackable. The feds were well on their way to enforcing a standardized election system at the time too until the states balked.
I don't think "con artist" is name calling; it is just shorthand to describe his business habits to date. He convinces people to do things not in their best interest by lying to them. He puts on a good show and gets people to have confidence in him, and then produces zilch. Just look at Trump University, the Taj Mahal debacle, or the Trump Network (vitamins). None of has proven to be illegal (yet), but none of it was ethical. Hopefully he'll do better for we the people than he did for his previous clients and investors.
This is one of the interesting features of most conspiracy features. "How come nobody is talking about XXXXX." The answers are normally, "They are, you just choose to ignore it" or "They aren't talking about it because it represents a worldview held by so few people, that nobody would even understand what they are talking about."
I don't bitch when the local news doesn't cover the installation of a new pipe organ in Polynesia with a rare type of reed stop. My wife doesn't complain when ABC doesn't do an expose on her phone's sudden failure to send emails. On the other hand, my son wants to know why nobody's talking about the fact that some kid traded him fake Pokemon cards. Is it because they are trying to hide something? Maybe they knew that kid had fake cards!
I guess conspiracy theorists just never grew up. A kid thinks, "People are not talking about what I think is important, therefore they must be against me personally." A well-rounded adult thinks, "People are not talking about this thing I think is important. They must have better things to do with their time. Maybe I can talk to some people and get their opinion about what's important to them." A typical American conspiracy theorist proclaims loudly, "The media isn't giving my flat-earth theory the air time it deserves, therefore Obama is a secret Muslim who is going to make me gay marry an illegal immigrant atheist."
Good thing most senior executives and similarly educated intelligent people never fall for spear-phishing. I mean, it's not like spear-phishing is the most common APT attack method, right? /s
But with our first-past-the-post, winner takes all, electoral college system, you wouldn't have to alter very many individual precinct or county vote tallies to help sway a close election, if you chose the right ones.
Did you type this with a straight face?
Trump is sabotaging himself. Also, maybe he should have been a bit more careful with his birther talk and crooked Hillary talk.
The biggest issue with Trump not getting his way is that in reality, not that many voting age Americans actually cast their vote for him. He clearly lost the popular vote (I know it doesn't matter and I'm not complaining about it) but he only received 26% of the registered voter votes. That means nearly 75% of registered voters did not vote for him.
So let's not pretend the guy swept into the Oval Office on a wave of public support and is only flailing around because Democrats are repeatedly bringing up Russia.. it has about as much impact as the birther movement during Obama's entire 8 year tenure. Please remember Republican's only goal was to oppose everything from Obama.. and they said it publicly.
We basically have a bunch of spoiled, entitled brats in Washington.. and most will get reelected.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
The people who died in Bengazi are not laughing.
But the people who killed them are. And they are ISIS - the terrorist crew whom Colonel Qadafi's column was on the way to deal with when the West decided to blow them away and send Libya back to the Stone Age.
Now they are busy killing, torturing and destroying in Syria.
Yay Yay USA! We came, we saw, millions died.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
I don't think "con artist" is name calling; it is just shorthand to describe his business habits to date.
That's an accurate description of virtually all American politicians. Trump, the Clintons, the Bushes, Obama... go back as far as you like. (Lincoln may have been honest).
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
That's an accurate description of virtually all American politicians. Trump, the Clintons, the Bushes, Obama... go back as far as you like. (Lincoln may have been honest).
False equivalency fallacy. Trump is of a different breed altogether than prior politicians - just look at politifact (or any fact-checking organization you choose) and you'll see that he is far and away less honest than any other modern politician, regardless of party.
wouldn't Russian puppet Trump already know about the rigging and all that since it's rigged in his favor?
As a puppeteer: you do not tell the puppet what he is going to do. You just guide him in that direction and make it look as if he did it by him/her/itself. The ultimate goal is to let people believe there is no puppeteer.
The puppet has no say in it.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I think the problem is they're not eating their own dog food. When Clinton was thought to be winning, Obama's administration was even saying we should accept the election results. Then when the DNC lost, turns out they only meant that if they won.
I don't see any calls by the Democratic party, or Obama, or Clinton, or anyone else, to set aside the election results. There is concern that maybe Trump's campaign illegally colluded with the Russians. If that's the case, the lawbreakers should be identified and prosecuted, but I don't think anyone serious would actually call for setting aside the election results. There's nothing in the constitution that allows that or says what to do about it if it's done. In the event that evidence were found to prove that Trump, personally, was involved, then he should be impeached and tried for it, and Pence would step into the presidency. If Pence were also found to be guilty, then Orrin Hatch would be president, and so on down the line until we found a member of the line of succession that wasn't involved in this hypothetical massive conspiracy.
And if it turns out that no one in Trump's campaign colluded with the Russians, but the Russians changed the outcome of the election all on their own, then the obvious response is diplomatic sanctions against the Russians and an overhaul of our election infrastructure to make sure it can't be done again. But the election is done, the results are final, Trump is president until Jan 2021, barring death, resignation or impeachment and subsequent removal by the Senate.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.