In James Clapper We Trust.
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“Hacking” is an often mis-used, poorly understood, highly technical concept - in unadulterated form. It is going on everywhere all the time, done by both good guys and bad guys. Everyone thinks they are the good guys.
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The U.S. “Intelligence Community,” however you choose to define it, is basically a large group of government employees feeling very threatened right now. What we know they know is a drop in the bucket.
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Intelligence and judgments made with it in the context of misappropriated bits and bytes of all types is nothing more than source material for spin. That purpose is necessarily at odds with national interests, depending on which side of the disclosed information you fall.
Not sure to call this an aside…
Read a book called* The Second Oldest Profession*, about spying. The boiled down gist of the book is that historically, intelligence operations are useless, mostly because the rulers or the ruling elite ignore solid intelligence that conflicts with pre-set opinions.
Most dramatic example: the primo Soviet spy evah, Richard Sorge, unearthed intelligence that pinpointed the moment of the German attack on Russia for the next day. He risked, and quite possibly sacrificed his life to convey the information to Stalin, who brushed it aside. At least in part because Sorge was a Jew.
Our spying has gotten smarter, but have we?
You do realize that it’s possible for one to be skeptical of the CIA’s evidence-free assertion without actually swearing allegiance to Russia, right? One could even still dislike Russia / Putin, and choose to not have blind faith in the intelligence community’s every assertion.
Do you think Hillary Clinton should be in jail?
Personally, I’m salivating over the firearms and accessories I hope to be able to purchase soon. I probably won’t be in a position to make a fortune off the privatization of Medicaid / SS / VA / etc. Sad!
Was this a question for me, or someone else?
Yes, HurricaneDitka.
“Evidence-free” is a lie that’s been repeated a ton the past few weeks on Fark.
I don’t know. I certainly haven’t been (and won’t ever be) caught chanting “Lock her up” at a Trump rally (or even attending a Trump rally) if that’s what you had in mind. I wouldn’t have particularly minded if the FBI had recommended charges for her mishandling of classified materials and if she’d been convicted and jailed, but I’d leave it to a judge / jury that got a chance to review all the evidence to determine her guilt and / or appropriate punishment. In this case, the would-be prosecutor, the FBI, chose not to pursue charges against her, and I’m ok with that I guess.
I’m sure one could
However, what is happening is that there are those who are believing everything that Russia says, without having seen the actual evidence or having had a briefing:
For example, Trump this morning before his briefing on Russian involvement:
It is an inelegant phrase. I was trying to communicate the idea that I haven’t seen any evidence to support their assertion. They might / probably have evidence, but they haven’t shared it publicly yet (perhaps on Monday there’ll be something persuasive in their declassified report, who knows?).
Thank you.
I saw that tweet and actually thought it was one of his more reasonable ones. I think he’s spot on that “to some extent, it’s a witch hunt”. The Dems are mad they got beat, and they’re looking for excuses. Their latest focus is that somebody aired John Podesta’s & the DNC’s dirty laundry in public, and that somebody might have been Russia. I don’t find complaints about the nationality of the whistleblower / leaker (and guesses about their motive) particularly moving, even if they were convincing, which they haven’t been yet.
Just to echo, the declassified version of the report was made available today. And despite some posters merely referring to it as a product of the CIA, it was jointly written by the CIA, FBI, and NSA. They did not fully agree as to every detail (for example, the CIA and FBI had high confidence that Putin’s goals overall in not just the hack but in other propaganda and information operations was to boost Trump and weaken/discredit Hillary while the NSA is only moderately confident that this was Putin’s goal).
The report goes beyond the hacks and Wikileaks publishing of stolen emails.
Trump is absolutely correct for keeping the current government muckety-mucks at arm’s length. His methods and reasoning are certainly imperfect, but he is absolutely right to view with skepticism anything anyone in the current administration or other high-ranking government officials are saying.
Thanks for this. I’d heard it wouldn’t be publicly available 'til Monday. Now I’ll have something to read this weekend.
That is the most evidence-free report I have ever seen. :smack:
Lots of vague assessments and detailed probabilities. 6 pages devoted to Russian TV broadcasts?
What a joke. :rolleyes:
This is also not true. Some evidence has been public for weeks, including that the same people that hacked the DNC hacked Ukrainian artillery.
You were hoping they would give names and addresses of the US intelligence assets that they used?