SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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: 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!