I have a little more faith in the security community, but then I work with some of those folks and Mandiant is a trusted partner here at my office. One group saying it, you’d have a point. Three independent agencies? The possibility everyone is lying to shore up some sort of spin becomes much less plausible, and pretty damn unlikely. I always find it laughable when I hear folks saying how “incompetent” government is, then they spin these grand conspiracy theories that somehow never get proven because everyone is “in the pocket” of the folks involved.
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What we know for a fact: the emails were Russian-sourced.
What the FBI is reasonably certain of: the Russian source is directly connected to Russian intelligence.
What we don’t know: whether the hackers were just trying to impress Putin by damaging Hillary or if the hack was actually ordered by the Russian government. All of that part is pure speculation at this point.
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Ah, good point. Similarly, there’s a prominent theory that the assassination of Anna Politkovskaya wasn’t ordered by Putin, but done by an autonomous party (mobsters have been suggested) in order to get his good graces.
I agree with you. Some of these DNC email threads end with someone saying “no, we won’t do that.” That’s not damning evidence, that’s people showing they are human, have opinions, feel strongly… and someone else deciding to do the right thing. For example, the new interim DNC chair has already been indicted in the court of public opinion as "involved’ because of one email she sent replying to a question. The email starts with “I won’t do that…” but all anyone noted was the next part where she admits “because I’m PISSED at the Bernie people!” Not only that but she wasn’t working for the DNC at the time. She was a paid commentator at CNN, and she did the job they paid her to do, which was state her opinion. Bernie fans - and I was one who voted for him in the primaries - are angry with her for doing her job, being human, and having an opinion. But the race is over, Hillary is the presumptive nominee, and she’s a fine choice to do a job she held before Debbie Wasserman Schultz turned it into a joke.
The real problem is Debbie Wasserman Schultz. I’d rather see her simply go away completely and am appalled Clinton thought it was OK to bring her on as an honorary member of her campaign. But they have a friendship that goes way back, and when I remove my emotional reaction and think logically about my friends I’d probably do the same thing even though I know they aren’t perfect people. In other words, it won’t keep me from voting for Hillary. But she’s been a poor leader for the DNC and has not acted in the best interests of transparency, openness, and running a party that holds itself to higher ideals than the other. I’m glad she’s leaving the leadership, she’s been a poor steward of the party banner.
Bernie was my guy, and after all of this… he says vote Hillary, she’s the best option remaining. So I will. I admire him too much to do otherwise.
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I’d feel much more confidence in Wikileaks if Assange had said something along the lines of “We do not reveal our sources, but I can assure you it was not the Russian government because it is our policy to refuse material from spy agencies.”
Was the hack Russian?
Almost certainly.
Was it Russian government?
Very likely.
Is the heavy media emphasis on the source rather than the content of the hack driven by Clinton spinners?
Betcha arse it is.
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I’d feel much more confidence in Wikileaks if they hadn’t just come out in support of racist career trolley Milo Yiannopoulos. I lost any remaining respect I had for them at that point, really.
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Did they come out in support of him, or against banning him for what he wrote?
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That is a better analysis than most I have read. I am personally going to wait until there have been full investigations and a general consensus is out. The article seems pretty persuasive, but while I was reading it, I started to wonder exactly what the relationship between Vice Media and the DNC is. I have no reason to believe that there is one, but reading the leaks has made me pretty skeptical of the whole process.
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He wasn’t banned for what he wrote, he was rightfully banned for what he did (i.e. organising mobs of online stalkers). There are still plenty of twits continuing to post crap just as offensive as anything Milo ever did.
(well, actually, he was banned for endangering Twitter’s market value)
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They’ve stated they support his right to speak the way he wants on Twitter, condemn Twitter for banning him, and have stated their support for the #FreeMilo movement, which supports Milo’s right to trolley. So, yes, both of those things.
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I was going to add “Fire their Twitter account manager” and forgot. In addition to that Milo stuff, over the weekend they re-tweeted Ann Coulter, and did some anti-Semitic (since deleted) tweets of their own.
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My point wasn’t that the US is doing “it” too. The US has been doing far worse things, most of which still don’t merit being called “acts of cyber warfare”.
The Russians did NOT commit an act of cyber warfare against the US, and their act of exposing that particular crime did not irreparably affect the US election cycle. The crime itself might have, but then, from the outside, US presidential elections look irreparable anyway.
Exposing a crime like that is, basically, the right thing to do. Only doing it because you hope to gain from it yourself is not a nice thing to do, of course, but still no “act of war”.
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One racist trolley at a time. Milo was simply one of the most-followed and most popular.
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That’s assuming there really IS some kind of damning information they have that will swing the election.
If there is something there then I think Hillary Clinton probably knows, and knows what to do about it.
I don’t disagree with the possibility of what you entail here, it’s just that every Presidential election since 2000 I’ve heard whispering about an “October Surprise” that never materializes.
And finally, it’s weird that Clinton is “a very vulnerable candidate”, when Trump has so much dirt on him right out in the open which doesn’t seem to matter. Or rather, it doesn’t matter to his hardcore supporters, several prominent Republicans have already said they just won’t vote in this election since they can’t support either candidate. Maybe now is the time for liberals to start promoting Johnson/Weld to sap votes from Trump.
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Isn’t Vice one of Murdoch’s many ichor-slimed tentacles these days?
This is truly something I don’t understand. I get why his celebrity, charisma, and bluster have won so much support, and if I was a rich upper-middle-class straight white businessman, sure, he’s speaking directly to me, so I get the fervor. But Trump’s a twice divorced philanderer and accused child rapist who bankrupted his businesses multiple times, who has clear mob ties, who has a history of racism, and who now appears to be collaborating with Russia to support his campaign. Any hint of any one of those things would destroy a Democrat. But somehow none of them seem to matter to his supporters, which is either ignorance or mob mentality.
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I wouldn’t be that sure. I read that as a standard “absolute free speech” position. They (or their Twitter account manager) do seem to support the “right to trolley”, but that does not mean that they will support the trolley.
Additionally, they make important points about feudal justice. I’m happy with reasonable limitations on free speech being imposed by democratic consensus (I’m obviously European…), but I’m not that happy with delegating that authority to the feudal lords of the Internet.
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Twitter isn’t a cork-board out on a street corner that a bully has taken charge of, refusing to let some people post messages. They’re a for-profit company who have been repeatedly criticized for their poor moderation of death threats and bullying. I very much support their right to ban someone who asked their many followers to attack someone based on the color of their skin.
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Is between amazing and frightening how everybody jumps into absolute tinfoil-hat conspiracy mode.
“Putin has supersecret info to blackmail Hillary!” … evidence, null.
“The whole thing is because Trump is in the pocket of Putin”… evidence, null
It is very, very plausible that this has something to do with Putin’s government. That doesnt need any big Manchurian candidate scenarios to be true; the Russians hackers target everything they can, get some dirt here, officials (maybe even Putin) sees it, and think hey, this fool Trump, isnt he saying stupid shit about NATO? Throw this shit there, I like the chaos and confusion it will generate, I can at the bare minimum put some fear into some of our neighbourghs.
Thats it, just the plausible explanation, no need for Le Carré shenanigans. They see an idiot loudmouth that gives them a bit of an advantage even if it is just by making stupid noise, they throw this shit out because is absolutely cost-free for them to just do it, and chaos and mistrust and their border countries fearing they will lose US support is enough of a gain for a negligible cost.
Same with the whole content of the thing. Surprise! Sanders was not well liked by the establishment! They wanted to see stuff to stop him!.. does any of that actually looks like electoral fraud, or a conspiracy to rob him of his votes? No, it just looks like dirty politics as usual. But there is a gulf from “they were mean to us” to “they robbed our election so she should step down and I should have my candidate!”. Use it to demand reforms, yes. Use it to sabotage the party just before the election while the other side has FUCKING TRUMP waiting to destroy everything? Are you fucking nuts?
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