Why does this have a negative twist? Is it not a good thing that voters were more informed of the darker sides of the DNC and the Democratic party before voting?
This was internal tactical and polling information.
Florida GOP consultant admits he worked with Guccifer 2.0, analyzing hacked data
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Re: Florida GOP consultant admits he worked with Guccifer 2.0, analyzing hacked data
#42Why does this have a negative twist? Is it not a good thing that voters were more informed of the darker sides of the DNC and the Democratic party before voting?
it was no longer a level playing field. I never expected that the DNC was full of angels but I also expect that the GOP is also hiding some dark secrets.
Re: Florida GOP consultant admits he worked with Guccifer 2.0, analyzing hacked data
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can I have all of your personal data? It's okay, I just want to be more informed about your darker side before my next vote.
What if the DNC did some really not okay things? Nah, you're right, we shouldn't know about them because the DNC wouldn't want that... Of course I wouldn't like you to have all my personal data. But the point of an election is for the people to make the most informed decision, not for me to feel good.
Having a geopolitical adversary strategically hack political parties in order to change the outcome of an election to suit their interests is a HUGE problem. By selectively disclosing information a hostile nation can change the political landscape in the target nation to weaken alliances, change security posture, change positions on treaties, and/or create general dysfunction.
This is not a case where the public is getting information about everyone, it's a case where an adversary is attempting to illegally manipulate public opinion to our detriment. The goal and the result is not the public making the most informed decision, it's the public making a decision based on incomplete information specifically disseminated to help a foreign agenda.
This can only be described as an attack on our democracy.
Re: Florida GOP consultant admits he worked with Guccifer 2.0, analyzing hacked data
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Has anyone publicly presented any concrete evidence whatsoever that the Russians were involved in any way in influencing the U.S. election as yet? Just asking, for a friend :)
The intelligence agencies looked at the evidence and claim it was the Russians, and somehow tied it back to the Russian government. The NSA leak weeks later that confirmed sophisticated and documented techniques for making hacks appear to come from somewhere else (e.g. by using existing known-Russian C&C servers) is unrelated, and it's apparently unfathomable to think anyone else would be able to use the same techniq…
> They said it was the Russians trying to get Trump elected. Is that not good enough for you?
Only if it made sense. At nearly every angle you look at, it doesn't.
If the Russians wanted someone they could push around, then Clinton was their candidate. She's the one who signed off on the Uranium deal, and had several large donations she received as SCOTUS from the Russians. John Podesta (her campaign chair) had financial interests in a Kremlin funded company, and was also on several of the corporate the boards of said company.
Compared to Trump (some smoke, no hard evidence, lots of "anonymous sources"), the ties between Clinton and the Russians are way stronger and have far more substance to them. If this is the case, then why would the Russians want someone they know to be a wild card and prone to being impulsive compared to someone they already made deals with, and had far deeper, established relationships with?
If they were going to influence the election and wanted a puppet, it makes 110% more sense to discredit Trump and put Hilary in office.
Re: Florida GOP consultant admits he worked with Guccifer 2.0, analyzing hacked data
#45So the GOP is directly admitting to collusion with Russian agents in order to disrupt US elections. Are we OK with this as a country?
The hack was public knowledge in June of 2016, and it's only fairly recently that it's been known (asserted?) that Guccifer 2.0 was acting on behalf of the Russian government. It also says, "GOP campaign consultant." That's a third party contractor--not quite indicative of a high level conspiracy. I think that's a far, far cry from what you're claiming.
“Fairly recently” in this case meaning “within hours of release” – CrowdStrike was already publicly connecting the dots to military intelligence by June 15th:
https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democ...
A number of people find it easier to act as if this was a big post-election surprise but that's just wishful thinking to avoid having to consider the implications of many people knowing but not caring as long as it got the political outcome they desired or, in the case of the media, accepting responsibility for their coverage decisions.
Re: Florida GOP consultant admits he worked with Guccifer 2.0, analyzing hacked data
#46So the GOP is directly admitting to collusion with Russian agents in order to disrupt US elections. Are we OK with this as a country?
> So the GOP is directly admitting
I don't know that I would assign the actions of a GOP consultant to the entire GOP.
Re: Florida GOP consultant admits he worked with Guccifer 2.0, analyzing hacked data
#47So the GOP is directly admitting to collusion with Russian agents in order to disrupt US elections. Are we OK with this as a country?
Has anyone publicly presented any concrete evidence whatsoever that the Russians were involved in any way in influencing the U.S. election as yet? Just asking, for a friend :)
No, no concrete evidence was ever presented. The entire premise of this huge ongoing media sensation has still not been proven and begs for quality, in-depth investigative journalism, but only fringe ultra-right or ultra-left media outlets seem to take any interest in this. The likes of New Yorker or NYT Magazine seem utterly uninterested in digging, or readily assume this as a proven fact, for no apparent reason. Except maybe "what's wrong with blindly trusting CIA and NSA to be truthful?"
The closest to an in-depth critical look at the evidence presented by the government I've seen so far is probably this: http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/01/13/did-the-russians-real...
Re: Florida GOP consultant admits he worked with Guccifer 2.0, analyzing hacked data
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
The hack was public knowledge in June of 2016, and it's only fairly recently that it's been known (asserted?) that Guccifer 2.0 was acting on behalf of the Russian government. It also says, "GOP campaign consultant." That's a third party contractor--not quite indicative of a high level conspiracy. I think that's a far, far cry from what you're claiming.
Not to trot out the "what if this involved the DNC, the GOP would call for blood" meme, but it's certainly justified to feel outrage over a consultant for a party colluding with a foreign entity to influence an election. It's equally possible that the party knew about the actions of their contractor, since they were on their payroll.
Well, the leaks themselves revealed some pretty troubling (although not terribly surprising) friendliness between the mainstream media and the Clinton campaign, so it's not like we have nothing to compare it to.
The article alleges a GOP consultant worked with a hacker of unknown origin claiming to have opposition info.
The leaks (and Podesta's) revealed, though, a frankly disgusting level of cooperation between the mainstream media and the Clinton campaign. [1]
This whole idea that a contractor using hacked opposition info to his advantage in a way that may have unintentionally benefited Russian interests is in any way more scandalous than nearly all the mainstream media verifiably going to bat for Clinton campaign is selective outrage.
Re: Florida GOP consultant admits he worked with Guccifer 2.0, analyzing hacked data
#49So the GOP is directly admitting to collusion with Russian agents in order to disrupt US elections. Are we OK with this as a country?
Has anyone publicly presented any concrete evidence whatsoever that the Russians were involved in any way in influencing the U.S. election as yet? Just asking, for a friend :)
Yes. Multiple times over now. Same group involved with election hackery were also phishing my peers after they caused Moscow trouble regarding MH17 and Syria[1].
This is an on-going prolific attack against civilians in addition to the usual military/political targets. Much as Ru MoD regularly targets civilians in Syria such as medics and emergency responders.
All part of Russia's war on the world.
[1] https://citizenlab.org/2017/05/tainted-leaks-disinformation-...
Re: Florida GOP consultant admits he worked with Guccifer 2.0, analyzing hacked data
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
What if the DNC did some really not okay things? Nah, you're right, we shouldn't know about them because the DNC wouldn't want that... Of course I wouldn't like you to have all my personal data. But the point of an election is for the people to make the most informed decision, not for me to feel good.
Having a geopolitical adversary strategically hack political parties in order to change the outcome of an election to suit their interests is a HUGE problem. By selectively disclosing information a hostile nation can change the political landscape in the target nation to weaken alliances, change security posture, change positions on treaties, and/or create general dysfunction. This is not a case where the public is g…
>> Having a geopolitical adversary strategically hack political parties in order to change the outcome of an election to suit their interests is a HUGE problem
So you were ok with Obama sending a few hundred thousand dollars to try and influence the Israeli elections to oust Netanyahu?
According to the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), the State Department gave $349,276 in U.S. taxpayer-funded grants to a political group in Israel to build a campaign operation, which subsequently was used to try to influence Israelis to vote against conservative Benjamin Netanyahu in the March 2015 election for prime minister.
http://www.cnsnews.com/blog/michael-w-chapman/state-dept-350...