BBO Discussion Forums: Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped? - BBO Discussion Forums

 y66, on 2018-February-17, 18:25, said:

Thank you, Y66 and awm. It's confusing. It's hard to trace hackers. Your best chance is to hire other hackers, who, arguably, are equally guilty. If tracing were easy, then ransomware would be less successful. Several people have confessed to the leaks.

Julian Assange hints that his Wikileaks source was Seth Rich, Sanders supporter and DNC computer voting specialist, killed in a suspected robbery, although nothing appears to have been stolen. A bit unlikely.

But Intelligence sources are also notoriously unreliable.

Specious - rhymes with egregious.

 hrothgar, on 2018-February-17, 19:39, said:

Wikipedia said:

 nige1, on 2018-February-17, 20:09, said:

Nige1, you sound like one of my favorite semi-retired posters in the early days of the bridge cheating scandal who set a very high bar for proof. Apparently, the NY Times does too, understandably in their case, which is why Risen, who is after all an investigative journalist, not a FISA judge, now works for an organization that supports a more aggressive approach while insisting that their writers "be accurate in their reporting; rigorous, comprehensive, and ethical in their methods; and transparent with readers about how they have arrived at their conclusions", which I feel sure you agree is also a pretty high bar.

How much higher does it have to be for you to concede that what is painfully obvious does not require irrefutable proof and that it is painfully obvious to anyone who is paying attention that Trump is a petty tyrant, that the GOP is intellectually and morally bankrupt, that the peace you say you want has never been more at risk than it is now, ditto for the governance and leadership many of us want, and that if reasonable people can't agree on all of this here in the water cooler -- we happy few - all will be lost.

 nige1, on 2018-February-17, 20:09, said:

This will probably be similar to Y66's response, maybe from a slightly different perspective.

I agree that it is difficult to trace hackers. We have a serious problem. Now I move onto "Your best chance is to hire other hackers, who, arguably, are equally guilty.". Well, no. If "your" refers to a private citizen such as myself, surely I have no plans to hire a hacker to do anything. So that's out. But maybe by "your" you mean society's best chance or the nation's best chance. As mentioned earlier, i think Mueller will be judged by history to be one of the most important figures in the early 21st century. We desperately need people who are committed to finding the truth. Hiring Mueller is a lot better than hiring a hacker.

If investigation were to show that the Russians have made no attempts to use Twitter and Facebook to spread false stories and influence our elections, that would be a relief. But it does not seem to be going that way. An indictment of course requires specific evidence of a specific crime, and then there has to be a conviction. The legal standard is innocent until proven guilty. For those not on the jury, it is different. Al Capone was, I think, convicted only of income tax evasion. It does not follow that bootlegging was just fake news.

As citizens, we will not be hiring hackers to investigate claims of hacking. Not most of us anyway. I don't know anything about the killing of Seth Rich, I didn't know it had happened. Back in the 60s I had friends who traveled to Dallas and New Orleans to find "the truth" about who killed Kennedy. They didn't. We need to support serious investigation by people we trust. Agreed that we can be mistaken in our trust, so care is needed. We must hold such people accountable and expect clarity. I don't object to caution in bestowing trust. But the plain fact is I will not be doing my independent investigation of hackings and bots. I don't have the resources, I don't have the training. So my intention is to support those who I believe I can trust, in their ability and in their dedication to getting the facts right, and then to give them the resources and support that they need. Right now that means Mueller. Others also, but Mueller is prime.

I do not regard myself as all that partisan in such matters. I think hackings by individuals pose a danger, hacking by organized groups pose a danger, hacking by government backed organizations pose a danger. I think we need to deal with this. I think there are talented dedicated people who agree that this is a serious danger. Wild ravings would be a mistake, but ignoring it would also be a mistake, a very serious one.

Friday's indictment was certainly interesting, however, in the long run I wonder whether Gates getting flipping will turn out to be the more significant development from last week...

Gates had an awful lot of visibility, both with respect to the Russians as well as issues like the changes that got made to the Republican campaign platform.
If there is clear documentation of a "quid quo pro" is is likely to be something along the following lines

1. The Russians agree to funnel 50 million dollars to the Trump campaign using the NRA as a cut out
2. The Trump campaign agrees to make significant changes to the Republican platform wrt Russia

 hrothgar, on 2018-February-18, 10:17, said:

I think you are missing the immense self-serving nature of this president. I would look along these lines:

1. The president has long wanted to have a tower in Moscow.
2. The sanctions are preventing the financing that is needed.

I do think you are on the right track with the NRA, as since Wayne LaPierre became influential in that organization any position that would have equated to a moral consideration has been abandoned, so acting as a cutout to get their "man" elected would have fit their agenda.

 nige1, on 2018-February-17, 12:30, said:

There's a big difference between developing a rapport and being someone's puppet.

Even before the end of the Cold War we started a rapport with the USSR in the form of detente. We were still suspicious of them, but we started working with them on peaceful projects (e.g. scientific research, cultural exchanges). I like to think that this was instrumental in the eventual dismantling of the Soviet Union and communism there.

I find it hard to imagine anything similar resulting from Trump being Putin's toadie (unless we're talking about the dismantling of our union). Trump goes on and on about how we need to be more protective against trading partners like Mexico, yet he'll let Russia walk all over us in the name of achieving peace?

 kenberg, on 2018-February-18, 09:36, said:

To know who Seth Rich was, you either have to have watched Hannity on Fox News incessantly or have kept up with the efforts to fact-check Hannity's claims.

Seth Rich is the Vince Foster of the Russian investigation, if that helps.

Edit: For the w/c record, part (III) of the Special Counsel directive reads in part:

Quote

The real takeaway from this latest indictment is that the president spent his weekend attacking everyone but Russia.

 Winstonm, on 2018-February-18, 13:34, said:

Or I can just read the water cooler! Thanks for the info. I have trouble keeping up.

 y66, on 2018-February-18, 08:04, said:

I agree with most of that. Countries spy on each other and continuously spew self-serving propaganda. Rival parties, employees, and Individual hackers are also busy.

Nevertheless, I concede that Russia is a likely suspect in the Clinton email hacking.

This may well be the turning point in the investigation.

Quote

 Winstonm, on 2018-February-18, 16:33, said:

Any more turning points and the investigation will end up back where it started...

Quote of the day:

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WaPo:

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I wonder how much influence the algorithms used by social media platforms and search engines have on partisan echo chamber mentality - and how do we find a way to undo the damage we are doing to ourselves by enabling tribal-partisanship that emphasizes exclusion as the sole solution to problems.

Wow the benching of our foreign minister was noticed? Incredible! We didn’t notice we were too worried with our
500 m star crashing in training,leading to a speed skating event with no Dutch medals. Should be rules against that really...

Anyway, Buma gone, Zuma gone, pretty good week! Trump we don’t care about. After all he is only president of less than 5% of “not Netherlands”. Which btw is way behind us in the medal table and according to 538 only wins in circus attractions not real winter sports :-)

What I haven't yet understood about the IRA indictment - what, exactly, is the purpose?

Usually you bring indictments to jail people (or put them on bail) and put them on trial. Everyone acknowledges this won't happen with any of the individuals charges in this indictment. So why? And why now? If this was towards the end of the investigation, I could understand putting down a marker, saying "We were tasked with, among other things, investigating Russian election meddling, and here is what we found. Just put that down for the record." But with an ongoing investigation, what good does it do to publish this now? Is it meant to be a marker for later charges of conspiracy against Americans?

I also found it curious that it did not mention the most influential part of Russia's (sorry Nigel) election meddling - the hacking of Podesta's email account and leaking of his emails.

 cherdano, on 2018-February-19, 16:00, said:

The story around town is that the set of tactics that Mueller is using against Trump is remarkably similar to the ones that Mueller used when he took down the Gambino crime family in New York City.

Mueller also used speaking indictments during that set of prosecutions.
The primary reason is to demonstrate we know X, Y, and Z in order to encourage people who are implicated in those matters to flip.

And yes, the Indictment was directed against a group of Russians, however, the reason for the indictment is to put pressure on Gates, Bannon, and Kushner.

When an indictment places names with the faces inside a foreign intelligence operation, it gives pause to those who might think they can hide behind layers of deceit.