Isn’t the whole point of elections to reflect the will of the people?
Suppose the hacking had been done by an American, I dunno, the Koch brothers or something. Clinton was embarrassed and the electorate don’t elect her. Is this election illegitimate? How does the nationality of the hacker change anything?
This is a really weird argument because it’s based on the premise that the American electorate is so stupid that to allow them to learn of something about a candidate that she maybe didn’t really want them to know about is dangerous and will cause them to vote for the “wrong” candidate, and when that happens the election is illegitimate.
If I were a Trump voter my reaction would be “well shit, the corrupt American media lies to me everyday and the libs get all up in arms when Putin dares to do something like reveal the truth, who am I to trust? What else aren’t they telling me? Maybe Estonia is a suburb of St. Petersburg?”
Are Russian elections also illegitimate because the US, a noted hostile power known for engineering putsches all over the world, said some bad things about Putin, some of which was probably turned over to the US via disgruntled Russian informants and might even be true?
In your scenario, I’d be quite pleased to see the American in question arrested and convicted for his hacking. In this case, arresting the Russian intelligence services isn’t a realistic remedy. So yes, the nationality changes something. I think that is, frankly speaking, an incredibly obvious difference.
If I rifled through all your private documents, would I find anything to exploit to make anyone think less of you? Any emails talking about your boss and how awful he is? Any grousing about your mother or significant other? Controversial statements that are better kept to yourself? Is your boss, mother, SO, or anyone else to be considered “so stupid” because their opinion of you could be changed by things you said that you didn’t say to their face?
Probably every person who uses email is subject to this kind of – not sure what to call it really – it isn’t blackmail, it isn’t character assasination, it’s just a very brutal and personal assault on a person.
And even if you didn’t say anything bad, having all your emails out there may allow nutjobs to “connect the dots” to assert that you are really a child sex addict who goes to an particular pizza parlor. You think that is a harmless thing to have thrown at you?
Kept between you and the person(s) you sent the email to? How is this different than private conversations recorded without the consent of one party? I assume DT didn’t want his pussy remarks made known. Anytime you communicate to someone else, you have a risk of that communication being intercepted or even the parties you are communicating with passing along that communication to any number of people.
Given many conversations between A and B, there’s a substantial chance that things will be said that others (C, D, etc… Z) will take poorly. That doesn’t mean that C-Z are stupid, as TM either implied or plainly asserted.
If the emails were modified from their original content, then that is one thing. That they were what was actually said is embarrassing for those who said it. A learning lesson for all involved. Next time you want to subvert the process of candidate selection, don’t leave a paper trail.
I wouldn’t say c-z are stupid. A and B quite possibly. I know there are many things I’ve said over the years that are pretty stupid (many on this board!) that I’d probably like to take back.
I agree. Additionally, the manner “the truth” is gotten should affect how truthful and complete we think the information is that we are getting and the conclusions we and others are drawing from it. I’m not saying that because the information was revealed through hacking that it and the conclusions drawn from it are inherently false, but that we should exercise a lot more caution when approaching information gotten in such a manner and the conclusions derived from it than I personally have perceived in the wake of the leaks.
That’s two separate things. The information is separate from how it was obtained and stands on its own once it is released. The gathering of the information being illegal but once released, the horse is out of the barn.
My first thought was that their email had been hacked and something had been planted. Maybe that was the initial intent, but when they found what was there, they left it as is. Has there been a denial from the DNC that the email contents were false?
It is a little amusing to see America get it’s panties in a twist because some foreign power interfered in it’s election and possibly installed a puppet.
Sounth and Central America must be laughing their asses off, dotcha think?
Karma’s a bitch, no doubt.
(Of course I haven’t heard a single mention of how dirty America’s own hands are in this regard. But then…fake news…y’know!)
The legitimacy of the election isn’t affected by the fact that some hackers are Russian is my point. The Red Army didn’t go to the polling station and force anyone to vote for Trump.
If you think the hackers should be arrested or a court should make the Russian Federation liable for personal damages to Clinton that’s fine. Donald Trump is still your president.
There are published reports that Russia says they were in contact with the Trump campaign. There was a computer in Trump Tower that was communicating only with a computer in Moscow. Trump asked Russia to interfere, by finding HRC’s emails. The financial entanglements clearly reported of Mandefort’s ties to the deposed Ukrainian Moscow backed President, and with investors in Russia, considering the sanctions imposed by much of the world against Russia. Trump’s praise of Putin. Trump’s denial that Russia had anything to do with hacking the DNC. On and on. Treason can be proved, if even one piece of evidence linking Russian intelligence services to Trump’s advisors is found. There are plenty of paths of inquiry clearly shown for the CIA and FBI to investigate. Treason is clearly a potential charge. Hanging follows.
ISTR the “computer in Trump Tower” was found to be a whole lot of nothing.
There are certainly a lot of close ties that Trump, his family, his campaign and his chosen cabinet have to Russia that are disturbing and ought to raise a lot of questions and concerns. But the bar for treason is a lot higher than that, and even though I think Trump is effectively doing Russia’s bidding to the detriment of America in order to enrich himself I’m not seeing anything that comes close to clearing that bar from a legal standpoint. Hanging will certainly not follow even if impeachment eventually does.
As far as I know, Ravenman is correct, so we can’t draw conclusions either way from that. Another point besides authenticity to think about is context, or how the information is presented. The same set of information can lead us to draw very different conclusions based on how it is presented. I don’t trust that information derived from hacking is presented with complete and accurate context. I’m not saying that the information or context presented is necessarily inaccurate or anything to the like, but that they aren’t necessarily presented correctly either.
That’s the inherent issue with information gathered this way: the information and the conclusions we and others draw from it should always be suspect. And the more the hacker(s) and releaser(s) have to gain from the dissemination of this information, the more suspect the information and conclusions should be in people’s minds.
Actually, it pretty much was. The DNC, which is establishment Democrats, picked Hillary, another establishment Democrat, as the heir apparent. Their chair was in the bag for Hillary - that’s why Donna Brazile fed Hillary debate questions while ostensibly serving CNN. And that’s partly why it resonated - the DNC’s cyber-security leaked like cut-rate Depends, which made evident that they were pushing Hillary, who also had a somewhat more than casual approach to cyber-security.
“I can neither confirm or deny that I murdered my wife”…
Yeah, it is pretty clear we can draw conclusions one way or the other. You have a list of people the mail was sent to and the person it was sent from. If this was a company and the boss didn’t ask the people involved whether they sent/received the email then it was because they didn’t want to know the answer.
It’s not only the hacking a private entity but also the hacking a very public process – that’s the rub.
But having said that, candidate Clinton threatened Russia’s national and geopolitical interests. Clinton’s policies would have been the same as Obama’s, which have attempted to impose crippling sanctions – and perhaps might have gone beyond that.
Nobody here seems willing to acknowledge the fact that sanctions are acts of war. It’s just a matter of whether the country that’s being sanctioned can fight back. Iran, Cuba, Libya…maybe they can’t fight back. Russia can. Russia has. Russia will.
