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US Response 'Hasn't Changed The Calculus' Of Russian Interference, NSA Chief Says (npr.org)

Posted by msmash on from the state-of-things dept.

An anonymous reader shares an NPR report: The admiral in charge of both the nation's top electronic spying agency and the Pentagon's cybersecurity operations would seem a logical point man for countering Russia's digital intrusions in U.S. election campaigns. But National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command chief Adm. Michael Rogers told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday there is only so much he can do. That is because, according to Rogers, President Trump has not ordered him to go after the Russian attacks at their origin. Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the committee's ranking Democrat, asked Rogers, "Have you been directed to do so, given this strategic threat that faces the United States and the significant consequences you recognize already?" "No, I have not," Rogers replied. But the spy chief pushed back on suggestions that he should seek a presidential signoff. "I am not going to tell the president what he should or should not do," Rogers said when Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal pressed him on whether Trump should approve that authority.

"I'm an operational commander, not a policymaker," he added. "That's the challenge for me as a military commander." Rogers agreed with Blumenthal's estimation that Russian cyber operatives continue to attack the U.S. with impunity and that Washington's response has fallen short. "It hasn't changed the calculus, is my sense," the spy chief told Blumenthal. "It certainly hasn't generated the change in behavior that I think we all know we need."

6 of 126 comments (clear)

  1. But You're an SME! by i_ate_god · · Score: 4, Insightful

    > I am not going to tell the president what he should or should not do,

    Yeah, when I feel that my product could use an improvement, I never bring it up to the product manager.

    --
    I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
  2. Re:you pro-war McCarthyites make me sick by sycodon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What, exactly, would he do against people joining Facebook and Twitter, etc?

    There is No HACKING. They are simply using the same tools that Americans use.

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
  3. Going after attacks at origin is risky... by Koreantoast · · Score: 4, Interesting

    But Rogers also made clear that he had not been granted what he called "the day-to-day authority" to disrupt Russian hacking operations at their point of origin.

    To be fair, the range of actions to go after attacks "at their origin" in Russia would probably be a high risk no matter who was president, especially if it turns out the source is a Russian government agency. Admiral Rogers put it best near the end of the article:

    Even if he were granted authority to act, Rogers questioned during the Senate hearing whether his agencies' capabilities would be the best or only response to those attacks.

    "Be mindful of falling in the trap that just because someone comes at us in cyber that we have to default to immediately going back and doing the exact same thing," he warned. "I've always believed we need to step back and think a little bit more broadly about it and just don't default — it's because of that, you know, that I have not done that to date."

    1. Re:Going after attacks at origin is risky... by deathguppie · · Score: 4, Informative

      This is an honest statement and an intelligent one. Look, direct retaliation in the form of "you are a poo head too" isn't always the best action to take. Russia is not the best place for this kind of retaliatory strike anyway, they are too much in control of who has access to government via gunning down opponents in the street. An appropriate response may involve many things, like sanctions and UN, and ally pressure to get them to back off. Direct retaliation would be stupid. You are trying to make it sound like he said that he did not agree with any retaliation, which is not true.

      --
      once more into the breach
  4. Re:you pro-war McCarthyites make me sick by penandpaper · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "dripped out the emails to cause maximum damage despite no real scandals"

    Innocent emails about weddings and yoga cause damage?

    If there was no scandal in the emails how would they have damaged Clinton? You can't have it both ways. Either the emails were damaging because scandal or the emails were innocent and not damaging. Pick one.

  5. Re:you pro-war McCarthyites make me sick by bahwi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There were no scandals but there were plenty of made up scandals to go along with them.

    Remember how outlets got two different versions of what happened re: Sanders during the primary? There was a concerted effort to rig the primaries and also the primaries couldn't be rigged since they were all run by individual state parties, and the emails somehow showed both.

    Remember the pizza place basement slave dungeon (at the pizza place that didn't even have a basement)? Those were from the emails, even though it was a conspiracy theory. People took it and ran, and it damaged the campaign. But there was less than zero evidence.

    So your desire to make everything a straw-man two choice argument is either intentionally misleading, or because of a problem with logical thinking. Pick one.

    Or not, because there's probably another 1000 explanations.