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A President Trump thought bubble about the U.S. and Russia collaborating on cybersecurity matters has been dismissed by National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers:
National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers on Saturday rebuffed the prospect for a U.S.-Russia cyber unit, a proposal which has been greeted with incredulity by several senior U.S. lawmakers and which President Donald Trump himself appeared to back down from after initially indicating interest.
U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election by hacking Democrats' emails and distributing online propaganda to help Trump win the election over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
[...] Asked whether it was a good idea to set up a cyber security cell with the Russians, Rogers told the annual Aspen Security Forum: "I'm not a policy guy here. .... I would argue now is probably not the best time to be doing this."
But there's more:
In unusually passionate and stark terms, the head of the nation's top spy agency made clear on Saturday in Colorado that he will stand up to anyone -- even the president of the United States -- who asks him to use the U.S. intelligence community as a political prop. "We are not about particular viewpoints. We are not about particular parties. We just can't work that way," National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers said at the Aspen Security Forum in Aspen, Colorado.
[...] Although Rogers has refused to publicly discuss his private conversations with Trump, he has previously vowed to keep politics out of his agency's work. But his remarks today at the annual gathering of senior officials, reporters and others tied to the U.S. intelligence community were noteworthy in their intensity and passion. Punctuating each word -- one by one -- the U.S. Navy admiral said, "I will not violate the oath that I have taken in the 36 years as a commission officer." Rogers' face hardened and his voice cracked as he added: "I won't do that."
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 23 2017, @03:09PM (19 children)
Reuters generally stays out of overt partisanship, but this reporting is clearly partisan and hopefully not an indicator of things to come. The simple addition of "U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election by hacking Democrats' emails and distributing online propaganda to help Trump win the election over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton." is simple false. The closest to any sort of official assessment was in the 'leaked' intelligence report, but there too Russia's involvement was marked as as unconfirmed (green line vs yellow) information. And what as unconfirmed used the term "probably". And on top of all of that it was also stated that it was unknown if the unknown entities were able to successfully compromise any of the targeted entities. Outside of that it's increasingly deteriorating reporting from organizations like CNN with ever shifting goal posts supported almost in entirety by nothing but anonymous sources appealing to their own credibility which some might say is insufficient to justify said appeals.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 23 2017, @03:23PM
Okay, that's kind of disturbing. I just did some Googling on recent actions from Reuters. More brilliant reporting from them here [twitter.com]. Following Sean Spicers' (White House Press Secretary) announced resignation, Reuters decided to put a livestream up of his house for no apparent reason. That is paparazzi come Gawker come National Enquirer type behavior. Has this sort of behavior already become the new normal for Reuters? Really sad to see our media implode like this.
(Score: 3, Informative) by fustakrakich on Sunday July 23 2017, @03:28PM
Your post should be modded up. It's a very accurate assessment.
And here's a true quote inside a false story [washingtonpost.com] on "...the reliability of what anonymous sources describe in a wholly uncorroborated intelligence intercept that the Washington Post has not seen...". The people squealing the loudest about the Russians are the ones we should investigate. They should be answering some questions about their own activities [politico.com]. The money shot: "Now, it seems that a U.S. election may have been seen as a surrogate battle by those in Kiev and Moscow"...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 23 2017, @03:43PM (7 children)
Like some other members here, I grew up during the Cold War, and later served in that same Cold War. (My elementary school had a huge fallout shelter under it, stocked with plastic drums of water, crackers, and a bunch of other stuff that I never got to investigate.)
It is ironic that today, Russian news is at least as reliable as our own news "services". Every news story, ours and theirs, needs to be evaluated. How much of the story is truth, how much is simple propaganda, and how does it compare to similar stories published in China, India, Israel, and the UK? If you haven't sized the story up, and compared it to at least two or three other sources, you really have no idea how true it is.
And, at the same time, at least one man I know personally (and otherwise respect) openly admits that he gets all of his news from one source - CNN. He simply doesn't believe anything published by anyone else, and declares that NOTHING on the internet can be trusted.
As bad as the McCarthy days were, I'd kinda like to see a modern day McCarthy take our news organizations to task.
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Sunday July 23 2017, @07:29PM (6 children)
It continues to boggle the mind that people don't scrutinize articles now as a matter of course. This is an unprecedented era of spin and it's more important than ever to check sources. Especially the fancy graphs that prove a suspicion in too clean of a way which seem to a real fad right now on twitter to copy and paste. I don't know about you but I can simply not trust the spin in any capacity anymore one way or the other. Nor is it reasonable to me that people can then have a "favorite outlet".
Yet you're going to have people that see what you said about CNN and go "yeah you're right!" but then if you replace it with Fox, MSNBC, BBC and so on and so forth the assumption will immediately be that you favor one. Height of stupidity to associate a news outlet with someone's character or one's own identity. In short, I assume this is also why russian news is "at least" as reliable at this point. Even though to me it's about as reliable as buzzfeed.
I am feeling less guilty for being vastly underexposed to the news outlets themselves during this election and what has ensued all the time. And less embarrassed for getting my presidential statements from goddamned twitter.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 23 2017, @08:15PM (5 children)
I think the fact that you can get your presidential statements from Twitter is, in large part, why the media is starting to go crazy. The media's only real purpose, previously, was to deliver information. Press access to the president, for example, was something that was mutually beneficial. The press needed information to encourage people to buy their newspapers. Politicians needed a way to get their message out to their constituents and encourage support for their other ideas. It was perfectly symbiotic. But now a days the entire world is connected. You can view the president's own words, just seconds after he writes them - from anywhere in the world, for free. Breaking news and events are covered on social media with people giving personal accounts and interactively discussing their experience and what's going on. The media there constantly asking for permission to reprint or reproduce what the first hand accounts are providing is becoming just increasingly quaint - and the market that needs this sort of media 'exposition' is continuing to shrink.
So what is the purpose of the media now a days? This is why I think that interjected opinion, bias, political pandering (or smearing), clickbaiting, and so on are becoming more the rule than the exception. The media, in its traditional form, has become increasingly obsolete. And I don't think people entirely grasp incredibly revolutionary a change this is. The media had, literally for centuries, a rock solid monopoly on information. And this monopoly enabled them to have an effectively endless fountain of money. And in a period of less than 20 years - this was all completely destroyed. There are families that have been profiting off of this system on time scales that start to get into the centuries. For instance the Ochs-Sulzberger has owned the New York Times since 1896 and still own about 88% of the shares that determine operational control (arbitrarily labeled class b in the case of the NYT).
This change to the information space is literally destroying dynasties. I think sometimes people just view things in terms of the worker or corporate employee - without realizing that the real ownership and control goes to the people behind the scenes. And these people are most benefited in times of surplus but also most negatively affected by times like today. And that, I think, is why the media is going down more like a decapitated chicken than with anything resembling grace and dignity. These aren't just regular businesses slowly going under. These businesses represent entire dynasties. And those dynasties are dying.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday July 23 2017, @11:07PM (4 children)
Trump loves to troll. Everytime he releases an inane statement on Twitter or otherwise, it's as if he's saying "jump," and when he does the mainstream media says, "how high?"
Either way, he wins. When he tweets his fans get hyped and admire his bravery and honesty, as well as his spitting in the face of the status-quo. If he stops tweeting, that's less ammo for his detractors to use and they will have to go back to their tired phoney-baloney Muh Russia narrative instead of actually reporting on real news.
Remember, those yellow-journalist snake bastards were all saying that Trump was finished, and that 90% of Americans were going to vote for Hillary. They went all-in betting everything they had and lost spectacularly, and from that point there was nowhere else to go but down. Might as well make as much noise as possible while doing so. And good for them. The more shit they spout, the more they push more and more mainstream news consumers into independent media.
Thanks, fellas!
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Sunday July 23 2017, @11:31PM (3 children)
The way you guys stroke your dicks for Trump makes me think a different Trump besides the one I know got elected. This [pinimg.com] is the Trump I know. Real non-status quo and brave. But keep strokin'
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Sunday July 23 2017, @11:49PM (2 children)
My god I'm tired of this site. I really don't know who's worse now. The cocksuckers who I can practically hear the slurping from, or the ones who think it's less shameful than the people begging for Obama to come back or the ones that call Clinton "madame president" on twitter.. You're all pathetic. And here I thought it was ambivalent trolling.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday July 23 2017, @11:54PM
Humans are stupid, retarded scum. Now that we've established that, I'm afraid there's nowhere better for you to go other than the underground.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday July 24 2017, @01:02AM
Sounds like you need a hug. AKA an "arm wall".
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by turgid on Sunday July 23 2017, @05:51PM (8 children)
Why does Russia always get a free pass on the Intertubes these days? Ever since that nice Mr Putin's selfless and heroic patriotic troops liberated Crimea from Neo-Nazi insurgents while on a foreign holiday in Ukraine in 2014 there are hoards of ACs (as well as non-anonymous assertive types) waiting to sing the praises of the great enlightened democracy that is modern Russia and its magnanimous, humanitarian, egalitarian, progressive president.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 23 2017, @07:22PM (6 children)
Think about what you wrote.
- 'This reporting, from one of the most reputable media organizations in the US, makes a false statement immediately following the lede.'
- 'Why does Russia always get a free pass?'
I think finding the introspection to see why you think what you wrote is a reasonable response, could perhaps also help you simultaneously answer your own question.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday July 23 2017, @08:20PM (5 children)
No. I'm not buying it. There are a lot of really fishy things going on in high places these days. The Trump supporters (and those who went along with Farage too) are going to have an awful lot of egg on their faces one day.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday July 23 2017, @11:15PM
Most of us Americans grew up being taught that McCarthy and his message were among the darkest chapters in modern American government. Those days were taught as being a Reign of Terror lite, with much hysteria but far fewer deaths compared to its French counterpart.
Combine that with the fact that Americans don't think highly of their government, and this is what you get. Who knows, maybe McCarthy was right? Hell, former CIA director John Brennan voted for the Communist Party candidate [freebeacon.com] in '76, a fact he admitted to when undergoing his polygraph examination with the CIA 4 years later.
Now, there is no inherent problem with socialism -- it worked rather well in the example of Nordic countries before their migrant invasions -- when populations are White, not too large, educated, and mostly obey the rule of law. Socialism in America would be a complete disaster, because America is too large and too culturally diverse.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by digitalaudiorock on Sunday July 23 2017, @11:21PM (3 children)
The comments on this one are just bizarre. The heads of the security agencies have talked on camera about Russian involvement, yet everyone here seems to be buying this "there's nothing happening here but leaks" bullshit that Trump's feeding the pubic...especially today. WTF?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 24 2017, @05:59AM (2 children)
Here [dni.gov] is the only relevant nonleaked report. The only assessment it makes is that Putin likely ordered an "influence campaign." The alleged goal was described as, "Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency." The "influence campaign" was primarily relegated to RT (a Russian state news organization) giving negative coverage to Clinton. The report assigns financing (and implicitly control) of so-called "professional trolls" to the Internet Research Agency, which is a private organization within Russia.
The only direct assessment of Russian hacking [anything] was in the 'leaked' report published on The Intercept. This [theintercept.com] is the image that was leaked. Note the legend at the bottom. Only green lines and circles are confirmed information. Yellow is speculation. The entire involvement of Russia is framed within yellow. And as I mentioned what is unconfirmed is labeled was a "probably within." You're looking at the speculative possibility of a possibility.
This is all a complete non issue. Other countries are under no obligation to give favorable, or even fair, coverage to one candidate or another. And why would they in this case? Clinton overtly wanted a war with Russia, or at the minimum a substantial escalation of tension. Trump showed no such interest and instead mostly wanted to focus on America first. Let's flip this around. Imagine there were two candidates in Russia, Mikhail and Boris. Mikhail had a history of supporting Russian war. He rallied support for a previous invasion from Russia, and had recently begun to speak increasingly aggressively about the United States seeking to begin to engage in more direct confrontation with us. Boris on the other hand was mostly a Russian nationalist. He wanted to increase the military strength of Russia but simultaneously stop their militarism come imperialism. He had expressed respect, and some would even say a degree of reverence, towards the United States and its leader. He even began alluding towards a new era of cooperation with the United States against the new enemies of the world including Islamic extremism and terrorism. Who do you think we would support? Do you think our news agencies, all of who do indeed have extremely close ties to our government and intelligence agencies, would be giving fair coverage to Mikhail? Do you think our president would passively stand by if it appeared that Mikhail was increasingly likely to be elected? We've overthrown numerous countries for offenses that were magnitudes less severe than potential war with our nation. We're trying to hold a rather backwards country to a standard that leagues ahead of that to which we hold ourselves. This is absurd.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by turgid on Monday July 24 2017, @09:44AM
Almost believable, but Putin has been trolling the West since long before Hilary was a candidate. Putin only cares about Putin. Trump only cares about Trump but Putin is Trump's intellectual superior by a mile and he's playing him like a fiddle.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 24 2017, @11:21AM
Yeah, imagine ... Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, LOL!
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 24 2017, @08:09AM
And russia is the ONLY one of them that isn't a complete shithole.