I'd say each of your three points are seriously exaggerated, but that's really neither here nor there. Why can't we be worried by the content of the emails and the fact that a foreign government hacked them and leaked them strategically to influence our election?

It strikes me as profoundly foolish to not react here just because you happen to be happy that this particular set of information was released. (As well as, by the way, reams of email with no value to the public whatsoever.)

And of course nobody is suggesting we fight a nuclear war. There's clearly plenty of space between GP's suggestion that we do more than tell them to 'cut it out' and nuclear warfare.

It's called whistleblowing. By definition, you have to step outside of protocol... or hack. Choose whatever verbiage that suits you.

I don't know what country you're from, but our laws in America are supposed to protect whistleblowers––not prosecute them.

A foreign government breaking into a computer system and releasing documents wholesale is not whistleblowing.

Whoever released the emails did the American public a huge service. They pulled back the curtain and we got to see how the sausage is made. It doesn't matter who they are or why they did it. The end result was important whistle blowing. We should hope that information like this is leaked out as it helps balance the power between the public and corrupt politicians/media in a way nothing else can.

How do you feel about the fact that they appear to have hacked the RNC too but deliberately chose not to release those emails, in order to favor one candidate over the other. Still think that's a huge public service?

Not to mention that the emails they kept might be used for blackmail in the future.

If I remember correctly, that was walked back to a claim that they'd hacked "RNC actors" but not the RNC themselves - and we already knew that because e-mails from Republicans were released fairly early on. This is a problem with a lot of the scary claims going around in general; they simply don't actually seem to be true.

Yes they did 1/2 have of the work they could but I'm not complaining about getting more information. Someone else should leak the RNC. Or possibly it didn't contain as many bombshells? Either way, I'm happy to get more information than I had before.

Maybe because RNC emails are mundane and don't have scandalous material?

The majority of the Podesta leaks were extremely mundane. This suggests the RNC leaks were held to a different standard.

The majority, yes. However some were "interesting".

Of course the majority were mundane. The majority of Chapo Guzman's private communications would be mundane too. The contents of the DNC emails suggest nothing about the contents of the RNC emails, though I have no doubt that republicans are equally crooked.

And what does the one-sidedness of the attacks and releases suggest?

The one-sidedness of the attacks? From whom? If you're referring to recent CIA claims that the RNC was hacked as well, then my answer is that I don't trust the CIA. It may have happened, but you have no real proof about Russian involvement at all. Unlike other posters in this thread and Clinton herself, I am not keen on starting a physical war with Russia over conjecture about a virtual attack.

Here's US congressman Pete King, the Chairman of the Sub-Committee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, stating this was all a disinformation campaign by the CIA: https://noagendaplayer.com/listen/886/41-20

Publications like the Washington Post have made some ridiculous claims (clickbait headlines) with zero evidence, and it's been cited heavily for more Fake News.

It doesn't help that the new NDAA bill includes the "Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act" which allows the US government to propogandize the American people. https://noagendaplayer.com/listen/885/1-30-59

The American population is absolutely ignorant.

Assange and another involved with WikiLeaks claim the leak wasn't a government official (they know the person who gave them the data). Either that person is involved with Russian intelligence, and the 'hack' involved infiltrating the Democratic party (if we know this happened why isn't the guy in chains?). Or the CIA is flat out lying to the American people for some unknown purpose/operation. Either way it's clear the CIA is the last person to listen to regarding election 'hacks'.

https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/10/cia-conclude...

the report you've cited references the same Washington Post story I've noted above, which is the source of all this misinformation

>"A secret CIA assessment...the Washington Post reported, citing officials briefed on the matter."

If it's a secret assessment, how did WaPo get a hold of it? How does the CIA not disclose this information to US Congress, who has oversight over the CIA, when they're asked to testify re: this new information?

Please see the first link in my previous post.

Nearly every single one of these "Russia did it!" stories cites the Washington Post article[1]. Interestingly, the article itself says:

>a senior U.S. official said there were minor disagreements among intelligence officials about the agency’s assessment, in part because some questions remain unanswered.

and

>For example, intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin “directing” the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to WikiLeaks, a second senior U.S. official said.

As mentioned elsewhere, there's is zero coverage on the contents of the emails leaked & the blatent corruption that should make people mad. CNN even said it was illegal for anyone other than CNN to look at the Clinton Email leaks.

Why is the media so afraid?

The CIA and mainstream news is clearly lying to American people to trigger war.

They seem to have no control over PEOTUS, who is shutting down Military contracts via Twitter -- how can the military industrial complex survive without endless war!?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama...

There has been no suggestion that Trump is willing to seriously dismantle the MIC, in fact to the contrary, he is calling for expanded capabilities.

> The CIA and mainstream news is clearly lying to American people to trigger war.

These kinds of claims are not appropriate. You have not offered any evidence that this true, yet state it as fact. It is a wild accusation and an irresponsible one.

I'll give you (1), but that's on the DNC, not the Clinton campaign. (2) and (3) seems pretty tough unlikely to be substantiated by the evidence I've seen. Hackers released dirt on only one side -- a clear attempt to influence the election, not expose corruption overall.

>Hackers released dirt on only one side -- a clear attempt to influence the election, not expose corruption overall.

And unsurprisingly, almost everyone who wants to dismiss any thought of retaliation or of even investigating the matter seems to be either a Republican or Trump supporter.

2 for sure happened: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/07/do...

You can view it as not that big of a deal, or unavoidable by the nature of employing biased pundits at a news organization that carries out the debates. Whatever. But it happened.

My larger view is that none of these things were overall that significant of factors to a huge portion of the electorate.

More significant were the economic uncertainties of midwest states who viewed Trump's ideas as appealing... while the Democratic candidate failed to campaign in many of these states (Minnesota (she barely won it), Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania). Hillary Clinton was a terrible candidate. She almost won, and should have. But I don't think she can blame Russia for her failures.

That sounds like (1), not (2). The DNS head leaked a single question to one of the candidates, and it never even did Hillary any good. It's not just not-a-big-deal, it's literally an issue of zero importance that had zero impact on Hillary beating Berney.

Not blaming Russia for Hillary's failures, of course, just pointing out that even intelligent people are super confused by the disinformation that happened this year.

If you're talking about Donna Brazile, she was not the head of the DNC at the time she was giving the Clinton campaign debate questions.

She was employed at CNN. If she acted alone, then maybe you can argue it wasn't "the media" but one person. But how was she able to view the questions ahead of time? She was a known Clinton supporter, no?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/cnn-drops-don...

"From time to time, I get the questions in advance."

"I'll send a few more."

- Donna Brazile to John Podesta

Wikileaks references:

https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/38478

https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/39807

> She was a known Clinton supporter, no?

No, that's part of the problem. She was a mover and shaker behind the scenes but had not formally and publicly declared an allegiance (of course, it was obvious from the way she talked on CNN). She was an ostensibly unaffiliated commentator who had a secret allegiance.

It's an excellent case study of why news agencies and networks should not have paid political operators (hacks) on their payroll and the fact that it went wrong is entirely predictable.

Still seem like non-issues -- Hillary's and Bernie's answers to "should states abolish the death penalty?" and "how will you help people with lead poisoning from municipal water supplies?" were prepared long before anyone at her campaign got them, and it seem unlikely they went anywhere near the candidates.

I'll support Bernie and his policies over Clinton any day of the week, but I have no doubt Hillary would have won the dem primaries without Donna's attempts at illicit support.

Compare that to what's likely in Trump's tax returns (and do you think the Russians really don't have a copy?), and you'll see that these are absolutely non-issues.

Also, care to defend (3) in any way?

Julian Assange has addressed this issue many times.

He also said "Donald Trump will not be allowed to win" the weekend before the election. Pretty sure Julian sees the world not wholly accurately these days :-/

It's a damn shame they only did it for the DNC.

Not only a damn shame, but in fact the reason that it can be claimed to have been a partisan attack and an attempt to sway the election one way or another.

We should have an open government, but it doesn't work properly if only one party's dirty laundry which is aired.

Both the DNC and the RNC are non-profit private organizations (IRS 527).

While I'm also interested in an open government, I think it's reasonable for both of those groups to expect to operate with some degree of privacy and autonomy.

Maybe those organizations should be regulated differently due to the tremendous amount of influence they have over our society.

Everything is an attempt to sway the election. When I say "Shillary Clinton", that's an attempt to sway the election.

Agreed. Maybe next time around they'll get the RNC. Perhaps then we will be ready for a third party, which is sorely needed IMHO.

In case you missed the recent news: they did hack the RNC too, but chose not to release any of that information. Presumably either to influence the election by making one side look worse than the other, or to have leverage over them by threatening blackmail... or both. That's one of the facets of this that is really disturbing.

More details here: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/us/obama-russia-election-h...

I wasn't aware they also hacked the RNC. The article has conflicting information on how far they actually got though, and may not have actually gotten any useful information. The part about them (russians) doing it just to disrupt the confidence of democracy is interesting. The article doesn't actually state anything about blackmail or leverage though.

Hopefully something informative comes out of the investigation Obama ordered to be delivered before he leaves office.

According to your link the CIA thinks the RNC was hacked, but the FBI says they were unsuccessful; Did the FBI ever withdraw that claim?

We need to first lay the groundwork for a third party option to actually work. This means getting something like ranked-choice voting in place. Otherwise you're left with the winner take all system, and even if you had just 30% of the vote go to one candidate, if that was 2% more than all the other candidates, that one would win. It ends up forcing a two party system, b/c nothing else will allow smaller parties to emerge.

So for anyone who wants third party options, start pushing for their states to allow for ranked-choice voting in state wide elections.

Not only that, but both Wikileaks and Russia have hinted that it was a disgruntled insider in the Clinton campaign that did the major email leak. To those that care about the truth, the leak was a service.

The problem is that there's such a thing as lie by omission. Cherry picking which truths to release, and which to keep hidden, can provide an extremely distorted picture of the world.

Indeed, 90% of modern Russian propaganda for internal consumption is exactly that. It's not that they lie all that much, it's that they selectively choose the facts to focus on, and the facts to ignore, to create a very specific view of the world.

That is called charming.

Russia also hinted that MH17 was downed by Ukrainian aircraft.