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Obama Authorized a Secret Cyber Operation Against Russia, Says Report (engadget.com)
Jessica Conditt reports via Engadget: President Barack Obama learned of Russia's attempts to hack U.S. election systems in early August 2016, and as intelligence mounted over the following months, the White House deployed secrecy protocols it hadn't used since the 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden's compound, according to a report by The Washington Post. Apparently, one of the covert programs Obama, the CIA, NSA and other intelligence groups eventually put together was a new kind of cyber operation that places remotely triggered "implants" in critical Russian networks, ready for the U.S. to deploy in the event of a pre-emptive attack. The downed Russian networks "would cause them pain and discomfort," a former U.S. official told The Post. The report says CIA director John Brennan, Obama and other officials had at least four "blunt" conversations with Russian officials about its cyber intrusions beginning August 4th. Obama confronted Vladimir Putin in person during a meeting of world leaders in China this past September, the report says, and his administration even sent Russia a warning through a secure channel originally designed to help the two countries avoid a nuclear strike. Moscow apparently responded one week later -- after the U.S. election -- denying the accusation.
Seems like Obama tried to start an incident with Russia. Naturally, the Russians aren't too fond of Democrats, so it's entirely possible that this spurred them on to try to ensure Trump won. Seems like Obama may be responsible for the Russians meddling in the election. Obama appears to have sabotaged the Democrats' chances of winning.
our elections could be hacked which is what he said. Was he lying?
Why should I believe any of this crap?
Obama had shown himself to be a lying weasel.
Trump isn't afraid to tell the truth.
...if Russia hacked the election and they knew about it more than 6 months prior...
WHY DID THEY NOT TELL THE PUBLIC?
Think about that. If it was such a threat to our elections, why wouldn't you let us know? If this was Trump, the media would be ripping their hearts out and slapping them on the table while screaming "COLLUSION!" for not telling us.
How many fucking Russian trolls are working this site?! 24 troll posts from anons before anyone gets a word in edgewise has to be a new record.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Hacked how AC?
Lots of new staff drive out all over the USA and apply for election work?
The FBI would have noticed all the new people of interest.
Strangers counting votes next to existing workers and observers?
In the USA AC votes still get added up with some oversight before they get presented all over the USA.
Hacking an election from outside the USA is not going to work AC.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
But that happens every four years, at least according to a portion of the country...
A nice pair of 380cc silicon overfilled. He's so sexy now.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
Well, at least some good will come out of this. People need to know how corrupt the election process actually is.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I don't know if this story is true or if it's fake news, but just because a newspaper prints it doesn't mean it's definitely true. In Comey's testimony under oath, he said "There have been many, many stories purportedly based on classified information about — well, about lots of stuff, but especially about Russia, that are just dead wrong."
Jesus Christ. How many times does the WaPo have to put up some breathless "Anonymous sources say that Trump is secretly Putin's bitch, we got him this time guys really!" story before we stop believing this crap?
Podesta. Works. For. The. WaPo. You know, this Podesta? Hillary's Campaign Chair?
These articles are DNC Cointelpro. The Liberal version of Fox News and Breitbart. Nothing more, nothing less. Stop giving them attention.
"I don't think Putin's goal was the election of a specific candidate "
Why do you think that?
Play Command HQ online
Wait, so are you implying that it's the Russians who hate systemd?
Yea, but this time it's the part that fucking matters.
See, you're not failing at this because the overblown sarcasm is missed on us. It's not the outrageous opinions that give it away either. The real reason it's obvious to all the regulars that you're a paid Russian shill is that backwoods rednecks with these types of outrageously overblown misunderstandings about reality DON'T HANG OUT ON SLASHDOT you pathetic barbarian.
Actually, it did. Whatever the outcome.
I don't think Putin's goal was the election of a specific candidate as it was to destroy confidence in the election process. He's succeeded at that.
1/ Russia is an oil and gas economy with little else as relevant. As an example, the Saudi price war on oil has hit them very hard. A climate change denier in the White House is good for their business.
2/ Putin began his move into politics railing against Bill Clinton and the US military actions in Europe that he ordered. He still brings those up from time to time. He's ranted a lot about Hillary when she was Secretary of State. It's kind of looking personal - he appears to have actively hated Hillary for decades.
3/ Instability - a President that "shakes things up" means that the US government is so distracted that Russia can get away with actions in the surrounding countries that would normally draw US attention. As an extreme example, if Putin invaded Ukraine tomorrow (he going for slow and sure so not going to happen) it's very unlikely that there would be a timely response of any kind, not even sanctions.
4/ Flattery will get you everywhere - as the Saudis showed with turning Trump against our best ally in the Middle East, Qatar, flatter the guy enough and you can play him like a flute. Putin has done that sort of thing before and recognizes someone he can manipulate in Trump.
So Trump was the guy for Putin to back even if you ignore the bank loans and everything else.
Or are Russians being coy? Not responding to a secure channel meant to prevent a nuclear war for months? And then responding with a denial? This is the kind of thing you do if want to do something that no one would believe you did. Reminds me of the episode of "The Practice" where a drug dealer who was certain he'd get caught came up to a cop and said "officer, I have drugs on me, please, arrest me." The judge didn't believe the cop when he used this as a justification for a search without a warrant. Except the drug dealer really did it. This is so absurd, I can't believe it happened and I can't believe WaPo would be dumb enough to make it up.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
(she won the popular vote, so most people agree she deserves it)
As much as I detest Trump this shows a clear lack of understanding of how are government works. We are a union of States, not a people's republic.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Actually, it did. Whatever the outcome.
I don't think Putin's goal was the election of a specific candidate as it was to destroy confidence in the election process. He's succeeded at that.
Well if he did it was a Pyrrhic victory. I don't think this will end up achieving anything other than making people in the US and Europe more defiant and hostile towards Russia. For one thing, If the US public has any kind of sense, it will punish the Republicans in 2018/2020 if they are shown to drag their feet on reacting to this attack on US democracy. Having said that, I expect that finding out (too late as usual) how repealing Obamacare and replacing it with Trumpcare affects them and their sick and ageing relatives who will now be stripped of their healthcare so that rich bastards can get a trillion dollar tax cut, will do more to hurt the Reps. than this attack on America's core constitutional and democratic values will do (I wish they'd call that turd of a bill 'McConnellcare', he deserves it more than Trump) . Secondly, If there was any chance of the sanctions against Russia being relaxed before they meddled in this US election that is now firmly off the table for the foreseeable future. Despite being a pronounced Russophile, even Trump is going to have to be extra tough on Russia simply to distance himself from accusations of having had a hand in the DNC hack. Then there is the question of the permanent long term damage this has done to Russian foreign relations. Russia is painting itself into a corner in all kinds of ways. According to that famous dossier, among other sources, Lavrov and Medvedev were pretty pissed off over this DNC hack and election meddling business because they felt (and they are right) that this is going to poison relations with any future administration other than Trump's, and even there Russia is now in the dog house. Future democratic administrations in particular are going to be especially hostile and will harbour a grudge over this election meddling business for decades. Finally Putin had better start watching his back because if the Dems. and Reps. have dirty secrets, those two are Eagle scouts compared to Putin and his court when it comes to corruption which makes Putin and his mafia very vulnerable. Two can play the game of leaking 'kompromat' and I'm pretty sure US and European intelligence services are going to retaliate if necessary, perhaps by digging up information on the graft and corruption that Putin and his court are mired in up to their chins and releasing it in 'strategically timed' batches. Basically this whole thing has blown up in Putin face in a quite spectacular fashion and in the long run I'm pretty sure he's going to wish he could click the 'Undo' button on the entire election meddling idea. Finally, because somebody is bound to accuse me of hating Russia, I generally agree that it would be good to normalise relations with Russia. However, it takes two to start a fight and so long as Russia is not willing to make concessions I do not see why we should 'give away the home world' to steal a line from Londo and G'Kar just to appease Putin.
Because he isn't engaged in a campaign to de-legitimatize the elected President??
And that's how you know they're liars. The more sensible Russian agenda would be anti-Clinton, not pro-Trump. Trump is an unpredictable element.
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It's a practical duopoly on political power in this country. If you want them to be able to "do whatever they like," that needs to be fixed, most likely through RCV. Otherwise, they need to be kept on a tight leash, and held accountable to the people as if they were a part of the government.
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You think the Ruskies haven't already infiltrated the NSA and the rest of our spies already? How cute.
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Also, flats and tenants aren't really a thing in rural America either. Fails all around
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz
YOU THERE!
Yes, YOU!
Stop with your use of facts and halt your reading of the actual article. This is Slashdot, we have no use for logic and reason and truth when there could be a good Trump-bash going on!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
So Obama did nothing and its the Republican's fault?
Nice... Was the GOP's fault that the DNC did questionable fund-raising taking money from down ticket candidates to give it to Hillary?
Did the GOP force the WaPo and NYT to run stories by Hillary's campaign manager before printing them?
Did the GOP tell Boston Herald what days to run anti-Sanders stories so Hillary had a better chance of winning a primary?
Did the GOP feed Hillary debate questions before the debate?
We have ACTUAL evidence of election fraud, and its all from the DNC. Funny how there was "no evidence" of Russia interfering until AFTER Hillary lost. Just like there was "no evidence" of obstruction of justice until Comey was fired (he even said so under oath before).
I find it AMAZING at how bad Trump is AFTER he does something they don't like. Its almost as if they tell him what he needs to be doing or else, he ignores them, then they refute everything they had been saying before to make him look bad. The only person I see being honest and consistant at this point is Trump. Comey turned 180 degrees after he was fired, Obama went back on everything he said after Trump won, and still you won't admit the ONLY evidence of election rigging we have is from the DNC.
The smart reaction to this would be to go back to paper ballots with standardized incremental backups for voter rolls. So of course this is precisely what isn't going to happen.
And ultimately, the telling point was what did Obama do? "He went to some sort of summit and told Putin to stop it!"
Wow, Obama really give Putin the full bore of American might.
Caution: Contents under pressure
I want to rephrase your comment, so that I'm absolutely sure that I'm understanding your meaning correctly. Are you saying that anyone, be it a state or an individual voter, who voted for Trump doesn't matter? That the only portion of the country that matters is the the part that didn't vote for Trump?
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
3/ Instability - a President that "shakes things up" means that the US government is so distracted that Russia can get away with actions in the surrounding countries that would normally draw US attention. As an extreme example, if Putin invaded Ukraine tomorrow (he going for slow and sure so not going to happen) it's very unlikely that there would be a timely response of any kind, not even sanctions.
Somewhat off-topic, but even if Trump wasn't President I doubt there would be swift action against Russia for invading a Baltic State (far more likely than the Ukraine right now). The international community doesn't seem to move swiftly about anything anymore except posturing.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
The US had two choices for President. One of those with the D in front of their name was propped up by a corrupt Democratic party, and media outlets like the biased gossip rag sourced in TFA. WaPo, as with NYT, NBC, CNN, and countless other media outlets (sorry, I refuse to call them "news" since they aren't) stated flat out that they were going to "destroy Trump". That campaign started right after he was announced as the R candidate. Now source all of the "leaks", media coverage, and talking points of the DNC and it becomes clear that those same media outlets are simply a mouthpiece for the entrenched elitists in the D party.
The candidate that the D party put up was a corrupt politician, and we have known about their corruption since the 90s (if not sooner). Unless you want to say that she was a puppet for Russia since then, any claim of Russian meddling in her loss fails basic scrutiny.
That said, the R party has some similar problems with entrenched and questionable office holders. Trumps biggest selling points are A) he's not a well known connected (re. corrupted) politician. B) he talked about some well known problems and said he would fix them. One of which is exactly political corruption. (so did Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush, but they _were_ politicians and demonstrated dishonesty).
Enough people in enough areas voted Trump for him to win. Look at the map for pity sake! I have yet to see anything that demonstrates Trump as a bad President, I hear hyperbole and fabricated narratives by the same corrupt media I mentioned at the start. I see biased opinion polls about his approval ratings, which amazingly seem to match the "Hillary is gonna win" polls which showed how great she was and how bad he was.
Long story short, I don't believe the majority of media any longer. WaPo has less credibility than CNN who has less credibility than the Pravda at this point.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Those do not seem strong points to me.
1] Defence and aerospace industry are very relevant in Russia, as well as mining and other sectors. The Saudi oil price war is on shale oil, not on Russian oil, and it is a lost war. At this point a climate change denier could be quite good for coal miners, but nothing more: we are decades away from being oil independent.
2] The Clintons had economic ties with Russians. The fact is that the reckless political positions of H Clinton (Arab Spring, eastern Europe) were obviously frowned upon by Russia (and even by other European countries). However Trump always looked too irrational and impulsive to be a good alternative to her in that regard.
3] See point 2. Instability is never good, especially when instability is all around you. H Clinton fomented instability with her support to the Arab Spring and the Euromaidan movement, both costed a lot to Russia.
4] I do not think that Trump is that stupid. The Saudi vs Qatar row is going to damage Saudi Arabia, Qatar and all the fundamentalists much more than they realize. That row is going to damage OPEC and that is a plus for the US.
I suppose this means what we all have known or at least suspected already - all parties do it.
It also means that instead of trying to prevent further damage by technical and organisational measures we invest in revenge. The fact that leaks for instance would not be so damaging for Clinton if she were honest and less corrupt is just another thing that is being missed.
This is OT but if main powers have not been engaged in acts of sabotage or at least espionage yet then the current authorization to do so against Russia combined with the hostile atmosphere will ensure the conflict in interwebs will continue and possibly escalate. I wonder where does that ends. It may be that we come to the point that not pressing big red button by Trump will be considered a treason.
I think the reason the Democrats are blaming Putin is to destroy confidence in the election process.
Fixed that for you.
"His name was James Damore."
Not just that, given that Obama did nothing other than impose sanctions that were actually driven by the EU, the Russians had more to gain had Hilary won. Just as Obama did nothing about Russia annexing Crimea or invading Donbass, Clinton would have done nothing had Russia gone in full force and annexed Donbass
On dbillIII's point #1 above, if having a Climate Denier is what they want, why would Russia itself be a signatory to the Paris accord? Right now, only Syria refused to sign it, while Nicaragua was dissatisfied w/ the scope of the accord. But Russia too could have bailed if they didn't agree w/ it. It hardly makes sense for Russia to root for a leader opposed to being a part of a global treaty that they themselves are a part of.
On the 4th point, flattery doesn't seem to have gotten Putin far w/ Trump regarding Syria. While the Trump administration - unlike Obama, is not opposed to Assad remaining in power, they have done things that Obama never did - bomb the Syrian base that launched chemical weapons, shoot down a Syrian jet that tried bombing US backed forces attacking Raqqa, down an Iranian drone, have that get together w/ the Arab states against Iran and Syria. The only thing that Putin's flattery of Trump did was to get Trump to praise him back, which provided useless fodder for Trump's GOP rivals. The Dems have been working on the theory that just b'cos of that, Putin did what he could to manipulate the US elections against Clinton. Unfortunately, there has been no evidence provided to that effect, much less that of a collusion b/w the Trump campaign and the Russians
Precisely! Qatar, like Pakistan, is notorious for playing double games. They have in their country citizens who are members of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hizbullah et al, and who fund those organizations as well. During the Bush years, there was an occasion when they could have hunted down Osama, except that a member of the al Thani royal family was w/ him, and would have gotten killed as collateral damage. Bush was a cretin to have made Qatar the Centcom headquarters in the region: he should have gone for Kuwait instead.
I do agree that Saudi Arabia is no better either, and I don't trust the new crown prince who was just appointed over the weekend. I do think that Obama's & Trump's policies, while different, synergistically combined to bring Riyadh to where it is now. Obama punished them for their past dealings w/ al Qaeda, and his perceived preference of Iran to Saudi Arabia did send them a strong message, and completely isolated them, while they faced not just an insurrection in neighboring Yemen, but also close to a Shi'ite revolt. So that when Trump decided to go there, they did everything they could to make him think that they're fully on his side: allowing a direct flight to Jerusalem, forcing Mahmoud Abbas to the table, cracking down on some Jihadist groups that the US had a problem w/, and so on.
The U.S. war on Serbia was sold on lies, one of it's top generals wanted to attack Russian forces approaching an airfield, and Clinton spent much of the 90's expanding NATO right after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, a naked move of aggression.
So what you call "ranting" could more appropriately be described as "not having his head up his ass".
The Hillary that repeated her Iraq "mistake" with Syria and Libya? The female Dick Cheney with less intelligence? The warmonger who wanted to start WWIII last year by shooting down Russian jets in Syria? See above about "ranting", again.
By doing something that would get the media and political establishment talking about little but Russia for months if not years? How much time do you guys spend thinking up these talking points before posting them?
Manipulate how, exactly. See above on talking points. Speaking of, this is the point where skeptics are accused of being Putin lovers, same as anyone who questioned the rush to invade Iraq was called a Saddam lover.
They like the Paris Accord because they don't have to reduce emissions at all. They see this as a way to limit other nations but themselves. Check the last episode of Vice where they go to Russia and see Russian motives.
Yes, opposition to Clinton ultimately leads to Trump winning because of the structure of our elections, but it's a much more convenient narrative to claim Trump is basically a Manchurian candidate than to claim that Russia hates Clinton, as so did about 2/3 of Americans.
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It's probably because being an imbecile (or pretending to be one) is the most profitable career path.
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You red sob's are screwed because its been going on since 1996! Just try alaunch, 60 of your cities will go up in smoke!
Oh come on now - be serious.
It's getting very easy to spot people who have Putin in their backchannel now.
The fun thing will be watching them do a sudden shift from hate of solar electricity generation to cheering because Trump made a comment about a solar wall.
That base was running the same afternoon - Trump made a "gesture", which recent events has shown has been ignored.
Put him down as uninformed about the most important US base in the Middle East then.
It's what you get when you cut the military out of your decision loop and one of your "allies" Saudi Arabia, is already undermining you, but you are lapping up their flattery and going along with them.
The consequence is an incredibly stupid action even if somehow Trump is not that stupid.
Do tell - what did she do there?
Funny how the guy Reagan had a good reason to attack is cast as a good guy now just because it's a chance to make a Democrat look bad.
This tribalism is ridiculous.
The Manning leaks showed Hillary was unfit to be President but that does not somehow make The Manchurian Candidate (with Putin in his backchannel) a win for the country.
Seriously?
Then why didn't it happen when she was Secretary of State?
If you're that ignorant of current events, why do you comment on current events?
The Reagan who had thousands of people murdered in South America with CIA-backed death squads? Reagan who sold weapons to Iran to support those death squads? Why would you bring up Reagan wanting to attack someone as evidence of anything?
So you're going to use the "if you question the Pentagon you're a Saddam lover" reasoning with Gaddafi in the place of Saddam, immediately after it was called out. Your elevator doesn't go to the top floor, does it?
Well she certainly represents a segment of the large US population.
Or largely represents a segment of the US population.
Or a segment of the US population at large.
How?
A time machine?
Try to keep up. In every election, the swing states are the only ones that matter.