(HUH?): Obama cyber chief confirms 'stand down' order against Russian cyberattacks in summer 2016
Soooooo, what should we think about this? Me personally, I think that maybe these ‘cyber attacks’ were allowed to continue so that in the event a certain candidate lost they would be the perfect excuse to try to either pull a ‘soft coup’ and/or delegitimize Trump if he won. Of course, I have quite the imagination and I’m very cynical and jaded so I would think this. And t would explain the Clinton Dossier and the shits who were footing the bills to pay for it.
First words I thought of were ‘insurance policy’.
Obama cyber chief confirms 'stand down' order against Russian cyberattacks in summer
Michael Isikoff
Yahoo NewsJune 20, 2018WASHINGTON — The Obama White House’s chief cyber official testified Wednesday that proposals he was developing to counter Russia’s attack on the U.S. presidential election were put on a “back burner” after he was ordered to “stand down” his efforts in the summer of 2016.
The comments by Michael Daniel, who served as White House “cyber security coordinator” between 2012 and January of last year, provided his first public confirmation of a much-discussed passage in the book, “Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump,” co-written by this reporter and David Corn, that detailed his thwarted efforts to respond to the Russian attack.
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Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, asked about a “Russian Roulette” passage in which one of Daniel’s staff members, Daniel Prieto, recounted a staff meeting shortly after the cyber coordinator was ordered by Susan Rice, President Obama’s national security adviser, to stop his efforts and “stand down.” This order was in part because Rice feared the options would leak and “box the president in.”
“I was incredulous and in disbelief,” Prieto is quoted as saying in the book. “It took me a moment to process. In my head, I was like, did I hear that correctly?” Prieto told the authors he then spoke up, asking Daniel: “Why the hell are we standing down? Michael, can you help us understand?”
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After the November 2016 election, in which Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, Obama did impose new sanctions on Russia’s intelligence services and expelled diplomats. But Nuland testified that most in the administration saw that as only a beginning of what needed to be done. “It’s fair to say that all of us in the process assumed what was done in December and January would be a starting point for what the incoming administration would then build on.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/obama-cyber-chief-confirms-stand-order-russia...
I don’t think RUSSIA! threw the election to Trump. What I do think is that The Empty Suit saw a way to make the ineffectual attempts by Russia to pull the same crap we do when it comes to messing with foreign elections to provide the perfect excuse (and ‘evidence’) to create the conditions where even if Trump somehow did win they could use it to impeach Trump or to keep his administration tied up for 4 years in investigations.
EDIT: to add author and date
Comments
I'm calling this fake news
Sorry, but Michael R. Isikoff is involved in spreading Russia Gate. Isokoff got duped into writing an article by Fusion GPS which was full of false information that was based off the Steele dossier. Fusion's whole motto is to spread false information to clean up their client's reputation. David Corn and Michael R. Isikoff have also written a book about this crap.
But with so damn much propaganda being thrown at us who knows what is true or not anymore? The only thing I was sure of today was what Barry posted on his FB page. Did he even write it? ?
Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.
I don’t think its fake. I think it is now out
in the open that Obama let it happen.
The RUSSIANS! were messing around trying to see what was what in the Clintom/Trump election. Just like we do every time Russia holds an election. But nothing they did was effective. They didn’t rig or throw the election. And I know who Michael Isikoff is, as well as David Corn. My OP, even though written by Isikoff, is taken from testimony in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee, not their book.
The RUSSIAN! snooping is no surprise. In fact, it’s to be expected. Where this gets really weird is that the Obama Administration knew what was going on and told our cyber experts to let it go. They didn’t tell Congress or the Senate. They didn’t tell the American people. They sat on that information until AFTER the election and then they started spinning it for all it was worth.
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
Hmmmm, none for me, thanks!
You sure it wasn't Obama saying "stand down" 'or else you'll find out THERE WAS NO RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE AND IT'S ACTUALLY OUR OPS?
Sorry to shout, but Jesus Christ. Nothing but corporate media links to substantiate it? Nope! Ain't buying it.
Read it again. Nowhere did i say there
was Russian ‘INTERFERENCE’.
I said, per testimony under oath to the Senate Intelligence Cimmittee by Obama’s own cyber expert that Russian snooping was detected and Obama chose NOT to do anything about it because why waste a good (fake) crisis when it could be used to further an agenda to screw with Trump in the event that he won?
Now if you can show me where I said there was INTERFERENCE, I’d be grateful because that was NOT what I was trying to say.
And please explain how testimony under oath to a Senate panel is ‘fake news’. You mean it 1) didn’t happen; or, 2) the guy is lying?
And do you think that Russia didn’t try trolling for information during the election. If so, why?
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
I did read it again, now you do the same.
Here's what you said,
You said cyber attacks, after you asked what we think of it. Maybe you could qualify the first sentence with a disclaimer stating it's actually a rhetorical question, unless we agree with the content.
And, I never said YOU said INTERFERED. So, you should read it again. Because Obama knew there was no "cyber attack", of course he wouldn't want a legit hound sniffing around, lest DNC's/Obama's own fuckery be discovered. Hence, the stand down order.
I don't trust that anything I see or hear from politicians, CIA, FBI, NSA, etc, etc, etc, including their minions. It's not in any of their interests to tell the truth. Hell, "stand down" might be a complete fabrication. Every single President takes an oath. Cops do too, and we see how that's worked out in keeping things on the up and up.
Still not buying it. There were no "cyber attacks". Ask Assange. That's someone I DO believe.
I agree with snoopy and Deja
and others downthread on this. Without knowledge of whether this is true or not, any RUSSIAN interference is, from my perspective, more likely to be CIA maneuvering in false attribution than Russia.
What was the great surveillance Russia was supposed to be doing, anyway? Spying on the DNC? We're back to revealing truth being an attack on democracy.
Thanks, Linda
It sounds so asinine that the president would know that another country is mucking with our elections and not doing anything about it. This would be the biggest abdication of duty, IMO. I'm also thinking this because what Obama told us right before the election when Trump was saying that he wouldn't accept the election results if he lost. Obama said that our elections were safe from outside interference. Besides it was Hillary and Podesta who came up with the "Russia hacked the DNC computers after she found out that Wikileaks was going to release the DNC information on how they rigged the primary. I think that the biggest head fake on Russia Gate is that silly idea that the FB ads had a big effect on swinging people's votes. The websites here have been pushing Russia Gate, but like I stated, I could be wrong.
Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.
So true,
And coming now, in the midst of the re-living of the oozing disingenuousness of Comey's testimonies before Congress that he felt so passionately that he had to protect the elevated reputation of the honorable FBI by interfering in the election against and for Clinton, so it wouldn't look like he was trying to protect Clinton, it has the same BOGUS human interest story, I didn't want it to look like I was partisan, that we heard from Comey. As if that were legal. As if that were meaningful. As if that were intelligent.
The Party's desperate attempts to explain their behavior in this soap opera just keep getting staler and stupider.
Oh come on.
Of course he would if he knew that it was Rusdian was trolling for info and that they had not been successful in actually penetrating the electoral databases. Obama lied and screwed the American people the entire time he was in office. Like NSA spying. And communicating with TCC on her private server. OR HELPING FINANCE THE STEELE DOSSIER.
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
A likely scenario
Michael Daniel is using the RUSSIA!!! crap to inflate his importance and position himself in a hoped for Corruptocrat administration. (or junta)
Meanwhile Isikoff is supporting the RUSSIA!!! crap for his own agrandisement and position as a "loyal" or "leading" member of the "resistance".
On to Biden since 1973
My personal suspicions would lean more to
this being more BS intended to make the 'Putin hacked the election and cheated Trump in' line seem more plausible - potentially with this Obama cyber chief being thwarted (if he really was) before he or someone else involved in this belated attempt at securing the systems perhaps noticed that, in example, any attacks carrying a 'Russian signature' did so by something along the lines of using CIA Vault 7-type fakery to make it appear so, as it's possible, I suppose, that he was not complicit in this.
But the NSA was determined to get into those state electoral systems - and we know how vulnerable virtually everyone's personal computers, cell phones and other devices have been made, to make hacking, infection and spying on the population, duplicated by however many entities/contractors/random criminals, easy.
The term 'security' is as an Orwellian a label as can be applied to the CIA, NSA and myriad other spy agencies which are typically focused on watching/recording every move every civilian makes around the globe.
Apparently, they have seen their enemy, and their enemy is us. And that theory makes the notion of a 'stand-down' order on any protection of electoral infrastructure make sense, just as does the 'stand-down' order of Cheney on 9/11 regarding not scrambling planes after that incoming plane make sense when everything else is included to conclude that at best, 9/11 was 'allowed' to occur as an excuse for the War On The World which TPTB want to take over - a goal of totalitarian fascist Global Domination which can no longer be plausibly denied.
As far as I recall, multiple 'scanning attempts' of electoral systems had been traced back to the NSA at the time, by various Secretaries of State,
to cover which intrusive oddity, this 'security' institution variously produced mutating stories, one being that this had been done by a single contractor and later changed to the next claim, (a bit vague as to the other stories at the moment, but seem to recll that there were several story changes required in short order,) none of which were plausible, especially with
the NSA waiting a year to announce that 'the Russians did it' - and that the NSA simply didn't bother to advise any Secretaries of State for a whole year following the election that their electoral systems had been purportedly under attack by a foreign State, been left supposedly vulnerable since, with a falsified result successfully elected President.
Wouldn't that, if true, make the NSA complicit in a foreign attack resulting in a successful and unchallenged foreign coup against their own government?
I believe that year-long wait was to give the public time to forget what had actually happened and been reported at the time, while news stories on this were pushed to the background over time, so that the 'Russians hacked the election - must invade/attack/nuke multiple countries!' story-line might seem more plausible.
Some extremely belated claims of breaches having been achieved had to be dropped as only some Secretaries of States, as far as I currently recall, among those who had willingly allowed the NSA access to their State electoral systems, went with the official story while others had long since verified the basic fact of the NSA being responsible - but the NSA took over all US electoral infrastructure anyway, neatly shutting off any hope of publicly-verifiable elections ever occurring, all electoral detail to be now Top Secret between NSA and unspecified 'interested private parties'.
The American public need not apply to know anything about 'Their Betters' political Selections, just shut up and either put out or get out. Because buzzwords: 'RUSSIANS!!!'/'9/11!'/'Exceptionality!! USA!!! We're No 1!!!'
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Please explain what you mean by the
CIA Vault 7. Are you saying that you think they were another fake out or something else? This was what Wikileaks released, but just a very small percentage of what he knew about them. I'll look for the article I read about that.
Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.
Sorry, meant that if he was not involved,
and if his investigation really was thwarted, it would likely be to prevent him or anyone on his team finding out that this sort of fake-'signature' hackery as the CIA had (and which was leaked to the public) was used to make an attack appear to be from a Russian source - but which might be traceable right back to the real perps.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
No sale
Here's the entire problem:
The article is based on this lie:
There was no attack. As soon as you read the claim that there was, you're done. Full stop. It's over. Any and all words following that statement are hogwash. No matter who said what, did what, wrote whatever ... does not matter as the foundation is untrue. Not only that, but at some level the people behind this article know it's a lie.
Sorry, Amanda. I just can't buy it.
A good read of the history of the CIA
and its hatred of all things Russian since WWII.. coupled with the Wikileaks revelations on Vault 7 demonstrating that the CIA can make any computer source appear to be what it is not is just about all we need to know about the incredible nonsense we are being fed about the computer hacking/election hacking "story".
"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin
While they're mostly MSM
sources and I for one will never believe Russia "hacked" our election, it does make me wonder why the PTB are "allowing" this information to come out now? So by doing this, they keep Russia gate going and will somewhat legitimize it by throwing their hero under the bus? That's the angle I don't get but there has got to be some plan for what comes next, lame as this latest attempt at legitimacy is, they always have some kind of plan behind what they do. At least that's what my tin foil hat is telling me today...
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
Speculation
Maybe a few indictments of Obama admin officials are near and this is an ass-covering exercise.
I agree,
Timeliness is a constant in this ping pong game of REVELATIONS. Listening to the Inspector General's testimony to Congress this week, it was clear the IG is looking at the Russia "investigation", if that's what it is, in terms of what kind of search led to what sort of justification for warrants, etc. That's one thing that's timely. Maybe someone's asking, wait, when did our government know of what kind of hacking or trolling or phishing or advertising? Why didn't they do anything about it if it existed and warranted an investigation? Where and when is the actual evidence of any and all foreign interference?
If someone in law enforcement is now, now that suspect lead investigators have been walked out of FBI headquarters, asking those questions, maybe now is the time for some flimsy answers, if there are no good answers.
Sorta like when they let some innocent
low-level worker walk off with something 'classified' which purportedly backed their 'RUSSIA!!!' claims and they threw the book at her in verification of their 'RUSSIA!!!' claims?
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
I did NOT say Russian influenced the
election with planted cyber propaganda. I DID say Russia probably got caught trying to snoop into election databases. Just like WE have people trying to do the exact same thing. Instead of making a federal case out of what was going on at the time Obama and Co. decided that instead of doing something about the snooping the situation could be used as an ‘insurance policy’ to delegitimize Trump’s presidency in the event that he won.
I DID NOT SAY THAT RUSSIA THREW THE ELECTION. I said that Obama and Co. saw that snooping and figured out how to use it to Clinton’s advantage. And that is based on TESTIMONY to the Senate Intelligence Committee. It’s not some puff piece if typical journalistic bullshit cover Obama’s ass, it is testimony given under OATH and it does not benefit either Obama or Clinton. In fact it’s another indication of how they manipulated what is probably standard attempts at spying into a fake meme that Russia threw the election.
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
I see what you mean,
As you said in an earlier response about whether Obama would do nothing about known interference,
That does make sense in terms of accounting for the cyber guy's testimony. But I am such a hard headed believer that everything the CIA says is false that I still figure any suggestion by the CIA that hacking occurred is false and therefore everything that is supposed to add to that premise, like puppy ads, or trolling, or attempting to access voter data, is also false. So whether this cyber guy who testified actually believes the CIA suggestions, I can't say. So I can't know whether he was speaking truthfully or not.
So I think I understand you to mean that Obama and the powers that be knew there was harmless trolling by Russia and allowed it to continue because they could use it as a cover for any number of their own crimes.
My problem, though, is that I think the effort to access voter databases was being done by the DNC, possibly even by Seth Rich. So I still think the accusation that Russia did anything they suggest is baseless, given that there is no evidence of it.
Whups! Turned out it was DHS, NOT NSA.
Shouldn't comment when I'm too tired to try searching, which would save me a lot of comments when I'm that tired, lol.
https://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/08/homeland-security-tied-to-attempted-hack...
Oddly enough, hordes of accounts from several States seem to be harder to find than they were, and accounts of 'Russian hacks' seem to be popular. The internet was nice while it lasted. Although this may be due to my search terms, as well.
And indeed it was!
http://wbaa.org/post/secretary-state-department-homeland-security-hacked...
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3173032/cybercrime-hacking/indiana...
(Emphasis mine, from a yuuuuuge and widely sourced article, and not limited to information that's one-winged, even if the person compiling all this so beautifully may appear to be.)
http://hardnoxandfriends.com/2018/02/08/russia-er-obama-hacked-state-ele...
And the US political parties and electronic voting machines are privately owned - who owns the rest? It can't be the American public, as their concerns are not being addressed by DHS. And neither are those concerns addressed of any politicians such as various Secretaries of State trying to protect the citizens they represent.
So, who exactly are these '...partners in the public and private sectors ...' whose concerns DHS is willing to address?
Too tired to do this properly, but the points and questions should leap out at anyone reading this.
But somehow we have to remember this stuff - I posted about this all over at the time and still somehow had the wrong agency spring to mind, although I did at least specify having rather vague memories at the time. And again, groggy-tired and going to bed, perchance to sleep at some point, lol.
Edit: only noticed I'd cleverly used block-quotes in several cases where I wanted bolding, added some more emphasis (it's like mascara, there is never enough, already! lol) and shifted over a misplaced letter. No idea what else I've messed up, but I'll save that for a surprise over morning coffee. if I live.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Ellen!
Where would we be without you? Thank you! This is a priceless collection of reporting that somehow got lost in the yogurt of media. You rock.
My favorite part is this:
So that explains why I was sweating and trembling leading up to the election. I had a fever caused by fears of foreign interference!
Lol, funny thing is
I don't remember any high fever of public concern about Russian or other foreign electoral cheating except (mainly - Repubs also being traditionally chronic electoral cheaters and this being expected of them) regarding even more exceptionally blatant cheating from/on behalf of the Clinton campaign - but then again, they later said this 'RUSSIA!!! ELECTION HACK!!!' was a sekit back then. (The Clinton campaign still being in the planning stages on it.)
And I suppose that it must have been Putin who cheated the American public and the world out of Bernie and into Clinton in the Dem nomination, funding Hillary's lease of the DNC through the nomination in subverting the DNC to his evil will, to assure his unstable puppet, Trump, a Presidential win, since anyone could see that Hillary was too much of a widely known proven despicable factor to win.
Because, of course, Putin's evil desire is to have US puppets destroy democracy and life on the planet.
Edit: regarding the claims that
DHSEbil RUSSIANS!!! did not alter voter rolls in any way, one little example of what connections you're not supposed to make:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15tSrI2040U&index=99&list=PLXctIVhQimRKz...
But just in case you do, isn't it just like Putin to attack the (actual) left and support the establishment selections in this Ebil Russian Plot to destroy democracy and the world of life?
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Not sure if I sounded like that
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
The gaslighting probably won't work this time.
As I pointed out the other day:
David Corn and Mother Jones outted themselves as agents early on in 2016 during the Russian Hoax. Crowdstrike is also an agent — the co-founder is the former head of cyber-security for the FBI. They were actively planting Russian "evidence" on the DNC servers as early as June 2016. Julian Assange is currently gagged, but when he did have a voice he told us all he received the emails from a DNC insider, not from the Russians. In 2016.
Let us not be gaslighted again.