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from the putin-his-nose-where-it-doesn't-belong dept.
A new declassified report released by US intelligence officials says Russian President Vladimir Putin "ordered" a campaign to influence the 2016 US presidential election.
The 25-page public version of the report was released on Friday after the officials briefed President-elect Donald Trump and top lawmakers on Capitol Hill on a longer, classified version.
The report said Russian efforts to meddle in vote represent the most recent expression of Moscow's long-standing desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order.
[...] After his briefing, Trump stopped short of embracing the intelligence community's assessment that Russia interfered in the presidential campaign, saying only that any hacking attempts had "absolutely no effect" on the outcome of the election.
Having hours earlier dismissed the hacking controversy as a "political witch hunt," Trump later issued a statement whose main aim appeared to be to deflect questions about the legitimacy of his November 8 victory over Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton.
Full text of report available in many places, including at scribd.
Ironically, Wikileaks, an organization usually in favor of information sharing, was upset about dissemination of this report.
In a Friday tweet, WikiLeaks slammed the CIA for leaking information to NBC.
"The Obama admin/CIA is illegally funneling TOP SECRET//COMINT information to NBC for political reasons before PEOTUS even gets to read it," the tweet read.
An NBC report last night touted "an exclusive, inside look" at the report connecting the Russian government to breaches of the Democratic National Convention and other groups and individuals during election season sourced to two intelligence community sources.
WikiLeaks and Assange have championed the dissemination of sensitive or classified in the past, publishing United States diplomatic cables and military information, emails from the 2014 Sony hack and internal documents from multiple other governments and political parties.
http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/313002-wikileaks-opposed-to-cia-leaking-report-info-to-nbc
Previously on SoylentNews: Reactions to Russian Hacking Activity
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @02:11PM
It's worse than that, there were US forces operating within disparate rebel groups who were attacking each other. The US had no place operating on Syrian soil, it was in flagrant violation of international law. Also, no place attempting to impose a no fly zone on the Syrian government in order to protect Islamic terrorists.
All this over a natural gas pipeline that neither Saudi, Qatar or the west have any lawful power to prevent. So while Russia is busy destroying the Saudi economy by pumping gas, Venezuela's economy and entire society crashes.
Then there's western sponsorship of a neo-nazi coup in the Ukraine and Putins annexation of the Crimea which was the democratic will of the ethnic Russians who lived in the region. Let's not forget the passenger plane brought down with a Russian missile that was obviously not fired by Russian forces. The attempts to blame Assad for a chemical weapons attack when rebels were in control of Syria's only chemical weapons facility. The attempts to blame Russia for attacking a UN aid convoy into Aleppo, the same aid convoys that had been turned around for weeks after refusing to surrender their payloads to the 'rebels'.
Talk about being on the wrong side of history. And yet they still keep on with the bullshit; like a stuck record that fails to notice the operator (ie: electorate) has already lifted the needle from the groove.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @02:49PM
Why do the republicans, the majority of those in the House, keep acting like the swamp draining applies only to the other side?
Their attempt to reward themselves with earmarks not even two weeks after the election (stopped by Paul Ryan), and the ethic oversight panel elimination attempt (which Paul Ryan attempted to stop, but was ignored), leads me to believe that no matter what propaganda you all seem to dish out to defend the republican party -- you have to also admit to the need to remove your own team's alligators before they eat too many taxes building the wall that will replace our partially working healthcare system.
Punishing democrats because they are democrats is not the solution--fix some of the problems first before eliminating healthcare to fund the wall that will keep out mexicans and solve no real problems except for perhaps creating temporary construction jobs with no health insurance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @03:12PM
I have no idea. I am sure more rational and conscientious members of the public have not forgotten that it was Republican neocon warhawks who started the current round of shit in the Middle East. Some individuals will simply never be deceived by the false dichotomy of bi-partisan politics.
I would love to see Trump rescind Nobel Peace Prize winner, Barack Obama's use of executive privilege with regard to drone strikes. [washingtontimes.com] That would be a welcome reminder that regardless of political allegiance, in a democratic society we all have a duty and obligation to prevent the creation of power structures that are only ever a single election away from falling into the wrong hands. I am sure you would agree.
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Saturday January 07 2017, @07:42PM
You fail to see that neocon warhawks are not unique to the republican party. Hill is a neocon hawk, so was Bill. The entire republican leadership. Pelosi and Ried are both neocon warhawks when it comes to intervention and spending on any vote where their vote could have made a difference,
The good ones are folks like the Pauls, Defazio, Wyden. The non-neocon hawk republicans are going to be people like Powell and Rice.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 07 2017, @03:41PM
Beats me. The Republican voters I know certainly don't see it as a problem unique to Democrats.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Saturday January 07 2017, @05:29PM
What do you think #NeverTrump was all about? The Republican leadership most certainly saw Trump as a mortal threat to the gravy train. And their resistance may have ceased in public but we all know war is coming behind the scenes as they join with Democrats to undermine the Trump administration.
Oh yes, we understand that before this is over, before the swamp is drained, there will be me more Republicans in Congress but there will be a lot of fresh faces.
That said, I do think both Ryan and Trump are wrong on the ethics commission thing. It was a recent creation of a Dem Congress and is a monster that needs to die. On both principle and practical grounds I find it wrong and dangerous.
On principle I object to the Progressive ideas that drive it, the idea that elected officials are nice in that they let people vent but the important things will be done at a level above them, the unelected unaccountable experts. No, we elect Representatives and if we don't like them we can unelect them every two years. Splash their scandals in the press and let us judge them.
As a practical matter this thing will always be tilted D because it is staffed from the swamp, and a look at the most recent election shows which way the eternal machinery of Capital City votes. Democrats created it that way, so they would never need to fear it.
Eliminating it first day was bad optics, the idea is still sound. Stuff an amendment in a bill somewhere and put it out of our misery.