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Did Russians Really Penetrate Florida's Election Systems? Maybe (nbcnews.com)
Anonymous readers share a report: Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, has reaped the political whirlwind in the 10 days since he proclaimed that Russian hackers had "penetrated" some of his state's county voting systems. The governor of Florida, Rick Scott, a Republican who is running against Nelson for his U.S. Senate seat this fall, has blasted his claim as irresponsible. The top Florida elections official, also a Republican, said he had seen no indication it's true. And The Washington Post weighed in Friday with a 2,717-word fact check that all but accused Nelson -- without evidence -- of making it up. However, three people familiar with the intelligence tell NBC News that there is a classified basis for Nelson's assertion, which he made at a public event after being given information from the leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The extent and seriousness of the threat remains unclear, shrouded for reasons of national security.
[...] Through a spokesman, Nelson declined to comment. At a, Aug. 7 campaign event in Florida's capital, Nelson said Intelligence Committee leaders asked that he "let supervisors of elections in Florida know that Russians are inside our records." He added that Russian hackers "have already penetrated certain counties in the state and they now have free rein to move about." "Either Bill Nelson knows of crucial information the federal government is withholding from Florida election officials, or he is simply making things up," said Scott, who is seeking to take Nelson's Senate seat, which the senator has held since 2001. But Scott, who as governor has a security clearance, has not actually disputed Nelson's assertion. His spokesman said the governor had not personally called anyone at the Department of Homeland Security to seek a classified briefing to get to the bottom of the matter.
[...] Through a spokesman, Nelson declined to comment. At a, Aug. 7 campaign event in Florida's capital, Nelson said Intelligence Committee leaders asked that he "let supervisors of elections in Florida know that Russians are inside our records." He added that Russian hackers "have already penetrated certain counties in the state and they now have free rein to move about." "Either Bill Nelson knows of crucial information the federal government is withholding from Florida election officials, or he is simply making things up," said Scott, who is seeking to take Nelson's Senate seat, which the senator has held since 2001. But Scott, who as governor has a security clearance, has not actually disputed Nelson's assertion. His spokesman said the governor had not personally called anyone at the Department of Homeland Security to seek a classified briefing to get to the bottom of the matter.
Anonymous sources said that there's a basis that can't be disclosed or discussed or refuted. Sounds legit.
Makes sense. My sister is dead, which is the only sort of woman would wouldn't be throwing up at the sight of AC's genitals.
This site sucks now. Bring back CmdrTaco and the old OpenSource Tech Slashdot days. Endless political drivel now.
It's the only way to be sure.
Weird that Russians are suddenly the boogie man again after Romney was lambasted for asserting the Russians were a threat.
And there are paid writers on this site blasting with political bullshit.
This isn't reddit - people here just want tech and will move from this site to any other blogging site pretty quickly.
(I will, if someone recommends a good one)
Blue team people (including the news media) will repeat it if it's useful to advance blue team political goals. Red team people will disbelieve it and ridicule it if it's harmful to red team political goals. What really happened is not relevant to the response; this is America.
Agreed. Endless political drivel everywhere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
They openly bragged about it in the Washington Post:
How they funnelled $500 million in campaign money to Yeltsin. The fat alcoholic dancing bear that NOBODY liked. Via the IMF. Versus the opponent's $3 million. Using propaganda like "If Zyuganov comes back, the gulag comes back". And whenever he wanted to go to bed in his hotel, "somebody" had cancelled his hotel room. (Very ... mature. --.--)
Yeltsin later appointed a somebody as the new head of government... What was his name again? ... Aah, yes... VLADIMIR PUTIN!
So if the USA thinks that Putin manipulated their elections, then ... I'll just leave you alone with that thought. :)
The "Russians are in our systems" is a nice misdirect that hides what's really going on.
There's no evidence any votes were changed in the last election, but by making unsubstantiated claims and going from hackers to Russian hackers to state-sponsored Russian hackers they can gin up enough fear and outrage to justify censorship aimed at affecting the midterms.
For example, Facebook recently banned [conservative blogger and political candidate] Avi Yemini for ‘Hate Speech’, won't tell him why he was banned, and denied his appeal. (You can view the banned page here.)
Lots and lots and lots of conservative viewpoints are being purged online in the runup to the midterm elections, and really scary things are coming up in the news every day.
Two terms that frequently come up in discussion are "midterm meddling" and "street fight". The first refers to all the suppression of conservative viewpoints, the second refers to the mob-mentality of striking back at people who don't toe the Liberal line.
(For example, the judge in the Manafort case has received threats, and because the jury hasn't reached a verdict yet the MSM filed a motion to reveal the identities and home addresses of the jury members. Yikes!)
We live in a scary time, reminiscent of the run-up to nazi Germany.
Dissenting opinion is being suppressed, sometimes violently.
It's not as if the electoral system in Florida hasn't ALREADY been hacked by the current administration. But now Gov. Nosferatu has a scapegoat.
mnem
If you presented American Politics as a reality TV show, nobody would watch it.
since the 90s. At a certain point we have to accept that it's on purpose...
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if citizens matter so much Why is is Ok to make it more difficult for them to vote?
Since it's been proven that there is no real problem with illegals voting, why is it Ok to disenfranchise those precious citizens 'just in case'?
No the Russians didn't penetrate Florida's election systems, it's yet more neocon waffle
This has been brought up for decades.
But say there is an issue with registration fraud, voter fraud, polling station security, vote counting systems, etc and suddenly you get some very suspicious push back.
Say you want ID to make sure people aren't running around to different polling stations and pretending to be people they aren't... and you get accused of racism.
Why? Because black people can't get ID cards apparently.
Say you want to secure polling station security, and you'll get the assertion that polling stations where operate under very lax oversight are beyond repute... even though stories of bags full of pre-filled out voter cards exist everywhere.
You say that vote counting systems that often use something like Microsoft Access to tabulate the votes of an entire state are perhaps not the best options... and that the digital security of the records has issues... that the underlying digital voting systems themselves in some states are open to abuse... prove it with an 11 year old busting the system... well, no action.
Frankly, at this point, anyone arguing against this thing can't be doing it in good faith anymore. The overwhelming evidence is that we need reform.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Trump has put more pressure on the Russians than any President
Trump has refused to implement sanctions, has personally praised Russia and just this week recognized Russia's seizure of Crimea despite Congressional instructions to the contrary. Oh, and he met with KGB agents for intelligence on his opponent.
Oh, and Trump has attacked the EU, Japan, and Australia, tariffs on Mexico and Canada and blamed DC for his costly military parade being cancelled. Good show. I think it is obvious. Trump would side with Cobra, Megatron and Emperor Palpatine.
Maybe you should leave your alternate reality.
Everything has been politicized. There is little escaping it these days unfortunately. It's ruining everything.
Except that facebook is a private entity. Just like Free Republic and TreeHouse and lots of other sites.
But someone...ahem...want to control facebook...and say what they can allow on their site and what they can't.
But try that with FreeRepublic or others...and...
Did you just say that blacks in poor areas are violent? What a racist.
Om, nomnomnom...
if citizens matter so much Why is is Ok to make it more difficult for them to vote?
How is it harder for them to vote? No really. EVERY western country besides the US requires ID to vote, some even require national ID cards to vote. Why is it you need ID to get welfare/social assistance, but not to vote. Why do the DNC require ID to vote in their primaries, but claim voter ID is racist.
Since it's been proven that there is no real problem with illegals voting, why is it Ok to disenfranchise those precious citizens 'just in case'?
Considering that some cities and states are now trying to allow illegals to vote in local elections, it seems that we already know that to be false.
Om, nomnomnom...
Closing your eyes, and covering your ears saying "nananananana I cant hear you!" isnt helping you guys look like adults.
Dennis Prager is a Jew who has spoken out against anti-Semitism. In your alternate reality, how does that make him anti-Semitic?
Alternative Right.
Germans initially supported Hitler because he promised to end the rampant Communist violence in Germany.
If Leftists do not want another Hitler, they should avoid becoming violent Communists, a variety of Leftist (the same people who sent whole families to the guillotine).
Alternative Right.
Which ones, and what percentage of the accounts banned were these?
Sounds like a pretext, not a diagnosis/analysis.
Alternative Right.
Clearly not because it was adored by the counterculture, correlates highly to morally disgusting behavior, and that most stoners are totally useless.
Nope, couldn't be.
Alternative Right.
Minorities and single women vote Leftist, as do people in cities.
Those who could survive a night in the forest alone do not.
Alternative Right.
After WW2, everything went Leftist.
Seventy years later, all of it is failing
Our choice is to either be in denial, or to fight it.
There really is no middle ground any longer.
Alternative Right.
Do those countries then remove the polling places in minority areas? Do they close the offices in minority areas to make it harder for them to get the documentation? Do they have a well documented history of trying so stop blacks from voting? Are they governed by an unpopular minority party holding on to power through disenfranchisement? No!
Yes. Yes. "Other races" so yes. And Yes. You're so damned ignorant of the world it's surprising you don't go into culture shock just reading about it on the internet.
Om, nomnomnom...
anything to trigger the libs, eh?
yur so clever!
racist plays dumb when made the butt of a grim joke
news at 11
Progressive discovers they don't like being held to their own standards. Shows that they're not too smart up on the follow up. News at 10, and every 15 minutes.
Om, nomnomnom...
/.'s readership has aged. What's news for nerds and stuff that matters is different when you're 40 instead of 20. Also, there's just plain less tech out there, at least of the sort that makes good fodder for a site like this. There's been a lot of device convergence. e.g. instead of lots of cool gadgets we've all got phones and a laptop. We're also starting to hit physical limits of silicone so fewer big leaps in tech.
/.er isn't going to understand a 50 page paper on how particle physics effects CPU die size and how such and such wavelength of lazer applied in such and such situation may someday lead to shaving off half a micron. There's nothing wrong with that, most folks (myself included) won't get that. But it means the domain of problems that are fun to blather about on a forum is smaller.
There is still cool stuff going on in tech of course, but it's all really, really high level. The average
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from lower income people. It's a defacto poll tax. There's been several studies on it. Anywhere it's been implemented suddenly there are DMV closures and extra fees for the Id. Also extra hoops to jump through for when women get married.
The amount of voter fraud isn't just statistically insignificant it's laughably so. No matter what anyone tells you nobody's busing in illegals to vote for Hilary (that sounds like trolling when I write it, but it was a real conspiracy theory that had to be addressed and debunked on national news).
Yes, there is somebody trying to steal elections. But they're doing it with voter suppression, not fraud. This is also why you will see armed police in body armor outside polling offices in poor, often black, neighborhoods. They're not there to keep the peace.
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they're a political threat. That's the problem with the world, it's complicated. You can't just say "Russia is not a threat". That's not the entire story. But folks want a one word answer for everything. They want to go back to simpler times the never really existed...
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No, the Russians didn't hack the election. such uttereances are part of a neocon plot to distract the American voter from who really rules America. ref ref
We can't fix a problem if we don't talk about it.
We can't talk productively about problems because the people who decide what gets heard only care about their partisan agenda and about sending virtue signals to their tribe. They don't value fact or truth.
Here are people trying to talk productively...
What's the product of all this productive talk?
Citizens have the right to vote - non-citizens do not. Citizens have the right to own firearms; non-citizens do not. The first right is somehow exempt from proof of identification and ANY perception of ANY restriction; the latter is heavily restricted, requires ID, and is constantly under attack. What is good for one right is good for another.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
This site sucks now. Bring back CmdrTaco
, Jon Katz,
and the old OpenSource Tech Slashdot days. Endless political drivel now.
There was a lot of drivel back then too!
Let's keep the discourse useful. That usually means congenial and informative. Your message was neither.
Alternative Right.
Alternative Right.