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In Soviet Russia, Election Hacks YOU

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    CantidoCantido Registered User regular
    edited December 2016
    Gaddez wrote: »
    If benghazi and hillary's fucking emails need dozens of investigations and inquiries then the possibility that the democratic process was in any way influenced by Russian agents needs to be priority one for the next four years to determine 2 things:
    1. Did forign agents interefere in 2016 to any degree? Because if the answer is anything other then 100% no you need to go to point 2:
    2. How do you prevent this from occuring ever again?

    1. Nationwide mail voting
    2. Mandatory voting, holding states accountable for suppression, and holding individuals accountable for fraud (which we already do)

    Election reform needs to be the top issue for the 2020 presidential candidates.

    Cantido on
    3DS Friendcode 5413-1311-3767
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    TryCatcherTryCatcher Registered User regular
    Reince Priebus goes full Trump surrogate. "Says who?":
    REINCE PRIEBUS: I don't know who did the hacking, Chuck. The article is based on a lie that the R.N.C. was hacked. So the entire premise of the article is false. The sources are unnamed. And the report was inconclusive. Listen, I don't want anyone hacked, okay? The point is, though, we need to find out more facts about this situation. Then we can make intelligent decisions later, and you and I can have more intelligent conversation about what to do about it.

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    TomantaTomanta Registered User regular
    Anytime a Republican says "unnamed sources" I just want to hand them a stack of Trump "some people say" tweets where literally no one was saying....

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    NobodyNobody Registered User regular
    I think Reagan's up to enough RPMs now that we may be able to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels.

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    HakkekageHakkekage Space Whore Academy summa cum laudeRegistered User regular
    TryCatcher wrote: »
    Reince Priebus goes full Trump surrogate. "Says who?":
    REINCE PRIEBUS: I don't know who did the hacking, Chuck. The article is based on a lie that the R.N.C. was hacked. So the entire premise of the article is false. The sources are unnamed. And the report was inconclusive. Listen, I don't want anyone hacked, okay? The point is, though, we need to find out more facts about this situation. Then we can make intelligent decisions later, and you and I can have more intelligent conversation about what to do about it.

    That's not how premises work, Reince.

    The premises are: 1) The CIA has credible evidence that the Russian government organized cyber attacks on US political parties to steal private information pertinent to the ongoin US election; 2) information exclusively damaging to one side of the election was selectively leaked through known Russian channels and Wikileaks; 3) Russian self-interest aligns with Trump, who has praised Putin relentlessly throughout the campaign, and who has been the recipient of Putin's general approval as well.

    And the conclusion is: The Russian Government interfered with the US election through illegal means of espionage and selective propaganda to influence the outcome and specifically to elect Donald J. Trump.

    The veracity of the claim that the RNC too was hacked is not necessary for this conclusion to be drawn. It strengthens the case, definitely, but the RNC has no incentive to admit a hack if it happened or not. And if the RNC wasn't hacked, it hardly diminishes the strength of the above premises that make the case for concerted, one-sided Russian interference in a US federal election.

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    HakkekageHakkekage Space Whore Academy summa cum laudeRegistered User regular
    It should concern every Republican leader that Russia has all but declared that any private US citizen who works against Putin's singular interests, like for example being John Podesta and working on a national election, is a target for illegal hacking and dissemination of private correspondence.

    But of course, it's not their dirty laundry on the Internet, so transparency is a value that all Americans must honor and respect.

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    Harry DresdenHarry Dresden Registered User regular
    Hakkekage wrote: »
    It should concern every Republican leader that Russia has all but declared that any private US citizen who works against Putin's singular interests, like for example being John Podesta and working on a national election, is a target for illegal hacking and dissemination of private correspondence.

    But of course, it's not their dirty laundry on the Internet, so transparency is a value that all Americans must honor and respect.

    How long will it take Putin to turn on Trump, and vice versa?

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    ViskodViskod Registered User regular
    They obviously just don't want to pull any threads on this because the more that its known, the less credible Trumps win looks and while there's no stated evidence to it yet, there very well could have been hacking meant to sabotage voter registration in key states.

    I do think this got Trump elected though. I think that's obvious. With how ready people are to believe anything about Hillary Clinton, and how gullible most people are in regards to fake news on social media, I have no doubt that a fierce propaganda campaign and selective releases of edited emails swayed people to vote Trump, or just not vote in close battleground states.

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    ThirithThirith Registered User regular
    How long will it take Putin to turn on Trump, and vice versa?
    My first thought on reading this was wondering, "Why does Harry want to know how long it'll take for Putin and Trump to get each other all hot and excited?"

    It took me a while to understand how to parse the sentence, but it'll take me considerably longer to shake the disturbing image of Putin turning on Trump and vice versa.

    webp-net-resizeimage.jpg
    "Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
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    TryCatcherTryCatcher Registered User regular
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    HakkekageHakkekage Space Whore Academy summa cum laudeRegistered User regular
    TryCatcher wrote: »

    Oh yeah, I forgot that the CIA hacked Nigel Farage's emails and leaked the most embarrassing ones, and some fabricated ones, in a selective drip in the weeks leading up to the vote

    Wasn't it hilarious when we learned that Farage is into watersports LOL too bad it didn't work out Obama you did your best

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    zepherinzepherin Russian warship, go fuck yourself Registered User regular
    Thirith wrote: »
    How long will it take Putin to turn on Trump, and vice versa?
    My first thought on reading this was wondering, "Why does Harry want to know how long it'll take for Putin and Trump to get each other all hot and excited?"

    It took me a while to understand how to parse the sentence, but it'll take me considerably longer to shake the disturbing image of Putin turning on Trump and vice versa.
    I prefer your interpretation.

    trump-putin-mural.jpg?w=625

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    OldSlackerOldSlacker Registered User regular
    I'm also sure Obama administration did not hack UKIP's email accounts and then "leak" only the documents the dissemination of which would best serve their interests.

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    Fuzzy Cumulonimbus CloudFuzzy Cumulonimbus Cloud Registered User regular
    I'm not sure if invalidating the election is possible. Could it be? Maybe. Also not sure how much that will help the current situation.

    What I think is really important to NEVER STOP TALKING ABOUT, is the fact that Trump AND many of his cabinet members are Russia-sanctioned. This whole thing is so weird.

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    override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    Invalidating the election is possible, we need like 36 republican electoral college members to do it

    at this point I would happily take kasich as president if that's what their demands were, but this is nuts

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    HakkekageHakkekage Space Whore Academy summa cum laudeRegistered User regular
    I'm not sure if invalidating the election is possible. Could it be? Maybe. Also not sure how much that will help the current situation.

    What I think is really important to NEVER STOP TALKING ABOUT, is the fact that Trump AND many of his cabinet members are Russia-sanctioned. This whole thing is so weird.

    2934.jpg?w=300&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=e981c9c6676b022f541257a7bef5cc6e

    most likely Secretary of State nominee and Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson, recipient of the 2013 Russian Order of Friendship award, and Vladimir Putin, best friends for life, smirking together over their joint plunder of the world's resources and wealth

    But Russia has nothing to do with Trump winning!

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    zepherinzepherin Russian warship, go fuck yourself Registered User regular
    Invalidating the election is possible, we need like 36 republican electoral college members to do it

    at this point I would happily take kasich as president if that's what their demands were, but this is nuts
    As much as I loathe Trump, and as much as my hemorrhoid Mt. Trump is going to be flaring for the next 4 years. I don't want the election invalidated. Having a shit head president is going to be worst than having a massive question on the legitimacy of our democracy.

    Really bad things happen at that point. It's one of the first things that happen before democracy collapses.

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    Fuzzy Cumulonimbus CloudFuzzy Cumulonimbus Cloud Registered User regular
    zepherin wrote: »
    Invalidating the election is possible, we need like 36 republican electoral college members to do it

    at this point I would happily take kasich as president if that's what their demands were, but this is nuts
    As much as I loathe Trump, and as much as my hemorrhoid Mt. Trump is going to be flaring for the next 4 years. I don't want the election invalidated. Having a shit head president is going to be worst than having a massive question on the legitimacy of our democracy.

    Really bad things happen at that point. It's one of the first things that happen before democracy collapses.
    Alternatively, a true democracy would survive such a questioning and also welcome it.

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    lazegamerlazegamer The magnanimous cyberspaceRegistered User regular
    edited December 2016
    Hakkekage wrote: »
    TryCatcher wrote: »

    Oh yeah, I forgot that the CIA hacked Nigel Farage's emails and leaked the most embarrassing ones, and some fabricated ones, in a selective drip in the weeks leading up to the vote

    Wasn't it hilarious when we learned that Farage is into watersports LOL too bad it didn't work out Obama you did your best

    I don't think it was ever established that there were fabricated messages in the wikileaks dump of podesta emails. There was a fake news generating Clinton supporter who was trying to spread that misinformation though, and caught a few Clinton friendly media figures in his net.

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/11/21/i-ve-been-making-viral-fake-news-for-the-last-six-months-it-s-way-too-easy-to-dupe-the-right-on-the-internet.html
    When I tweeted the link and an image of some of the text at Tracey, I did it because I find him to be something of a self-important git and wanted to poke fun at him. I didn’t know at the time that there were Goldman Sachs transcript fragments in the WikiLeaks release.
    The tweet went super-viral. It started an almost trending—but still going today—hashtag #bucketoflosers. A tweet declaring it a bad forgery was picked up by Malcolm Nance, an intelligence analyst for MSNBC among others, who tweeted to be wary of the WikiLeaks release.

    lazegamer on
    I would download a car.
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    Raiden333Raiden333 Registered User regular
    zepherin wrote: »
    Invalidating the election is possible, we need like 36 republican electoral college members to do it

    at this point I would happily take kasich as president if that's what their demands were, but this is nuts
    As much as I loathe Trump, and as much as my hemorrhoid Mt. Trump is going to be flaring for the next 4 years. I don't want the election invalidated. Having a shit head president is going to be worst than having a massive question on the legitimacy of our democracy.

    Really bad things happen at that point. It's one of the first things that happen before democracy collapses.
    Alternatively, a true democracy would survive such a questioning and also welcome it.

    Yeah, I'm not entirely sure establishing a standard that it's a-ok for other nations to manipulate our elections because we won't do jack shit in response is more preferable.

    I'm not saying either option is preferable. I just honestly don't know which is worse, myself.

    There was a steam sig here. It's gone now.
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    override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited December 2016
    zepherin wrote: »
    Invalidating the election is possible, we need like 36 republican electoral college members to do it

    at this point I would happily take kasich as president if that's what their demands were, but this is nuts
    As much as I loathe Trump, and as much as my hemorrhoid Mt. Trump is going to be flaring for the next 4 years. I don't want the election invalidated. Having a shit head president is going to be worst than having a massive question on the legitimacy of our democracy.

    Really bad things happen at that point. It's one of the first things that happen before democracy collapses.

    What legitimacy would Trump have if the EC picked something different?

    Literally his only claim to legitimacy is that the EC can override the popular vote

    override367 on
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    Inkstain82Inkstain82 Registered User regular
    Invalidating the election is possible, we need like 36 republican electoral college members to do it

    at this point I would happily take kasich as president if that's what their demands were, but this is nuts

    Congress could also refuse to certify the EC vote.

    Not that any of that is possible or even desirable

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    Inkstain82Inkstain82 Registered User regular
    I'm also sure Obama administration did not hack UKIP's email accounts and then "leak" only the documents the dissemination of which would best serve their interests.

    So it is OK to interfere in foreign elections. Just making sure I'm clear on where the line is.

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    override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited December 2016
    the EC failing to pick Trump is absolutely desirable, he lost the popular vote by an unprecedented level

    I'd feel differently if he had won the popular vote or even basically tied it like Gore did

    override367 on
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    zepherinzepherin Russian warship, go fuck yourself Registered User regular
    zepherin wrote: »
    Invalidating the election is possible, we need like 36 republican electoral college members to do it

    at this point I would happily take kasich as president if that's what their demands were, but this is nuts
    As much as I loathe Trump, and as much as my hemorrhoid Mt. Trump is going to be flaring for the next 4 years. I don't want the election invalidated. Having a shit head president is going to be worst than having a massive question on the legitimacy of our democracy.

    Really bad things happen at that point. It's one of the first things that happen before democracy collapses.
    Alternatively, a true democracy would survive such a questioning and also welcome it.
    In ideology I agree, but the lesson that is the biggest takeaway from this election, is that it is more important to feel like it is true, than it is to actually be true.

    It is sad, but from a purely selfish standpoint, I kinda need America to not go through a massive transition period where we tear it all down and rebuild.

    The way that happens, is we as a society think we can remove this shit head in 4 years, and work towards that. If as a group we think we will never be able to get rid of Trumputin™, it leads to coup attempts, and riots, these are really bad, worst than having this shithead in charge.

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    BurnageBurnage Registered User regular
    Inkstain82 wrote: »
    I'm also sure Obama administration did not hack UKIP's email accounts and then "leak" only the documents the dissemination of which would best serve their interests.

    So it is OK to interfere in foreign elections. Just making sure I'm clear on where the line is.

    The Brexit vote isn't a good analogy here. It was an advisory referendum, not an election, and considering that an important point of the debate was the post-EU UK's potential trade deals with foreign nations, foreign leaders weighing in was less "interference" and more "highly relevant".

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    Fuzzy Cumulonimbus CloudFuzzy Cumulonimbus Cloud Registered User regular
    zepherin wrote: »
    zepherin wrote: »
    Invalidating the election is possible, we need like 36 republican electoral college members to do it

    at this point I would happily take kasich as president if that's what their demands were, but this is nuts
    As much as I loathe Trump, and as much as my hemorrhoid Mt. Trump is going to be flaring for the next 4 years. I don't want the election invalidated. Having a shit head president is going to be worst than having a massive question on the legitimacy of our democracy.

    Really bad things happen at that point. It's one of the first things that happen before democracy collapses.
    Alternatively, a true democracy would survive such a questioning and also welcome it.
    In ideology I agree, but the lesson that is the biggest takeaway from this election, is that it is more important to feel like it is true, than it is to actually be true.

    It is sad, but from a purely selfish standpoint, I kinda need America to not go through a massive transition period where we tear it all down and rebuild.

    The way that happens, is we as a society think we can remove this shit head in 4 years, and work towards that. If as a group we think we will never be able to get rid of Trumputin™, it leads to coup attempts, and riots, these are really bad, worst than having this shithead in charge.
    I agree but I also am two steps away from pushing the panic button and believing that Trump will 100% be the death of America as we know it.
    Trying to balance rationality with like the sheer gripping hysteria that I am fighting every day with each new cabinet appointment.

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    CelestialBadgerCelestialBadger Registered User regular
    zepherin wrote: »
    zepherin wrote: »
    Invalidating the election is possible, we need like 36 republican electoral college members to do it

    at this point I would happily take kasich as president if that's what their demands were, but this is nuts
    As much as I loathe Trump, and as much as my hemorrhoid Mt. Trump is going to be flaring for the next 4 years. I don't want the election invalidated. Having a shit head president is going to be worst than having a massive question on the legitimacy of our democracy.

    Really bad things happen at that point. It's one of the first things that happen before democracy collapses.
    Alternatively, a true democracy would survive such a questioning and also welcome it.
    In ideology I agree, but the lesson that is the biggest takeaway from this election, is that it is more important to feel like it is true, than it is to actually be true.

    It is sad, but from a purely selfish standpoint, I kinda need America to not go through a massive transition period where we tear it all down and rebuild.

    The way that happens, is we as a society think we can remove this shit head in 4 years, and work towards that. If as a group we think we will never be able to get rid of Trumputin™, it leads to coup attempts, and riots, these are really bad, worst than having this shithead in charge.
    I agree but I also am two steps away from pushing the panic button and believing that Trump will 100% be the death of America as we know it.
    Trying to balance rationality with like the sheer gripping hysteria that I am fighting every day with each new cabinet appointment.

    Just wait until he actually starts doing stuff.

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    zepherinzepherin Russian warship, go fuck yourself Registered User regular
    zepherin wrote: »
    Invalidating the election is possible, we need like 36 republican electoral college members to do it

    at this point I would happily take kasich as president if that's what their demands were, but this is nuts
    As much as I loathe Trump, and as much as my hemorrhoid Mt. Trump is going to be flaring for the next 4 years. I don't want the election invalidated. Having a shit head president is going to be worst than having a massive question on the legitimacy of our democracy.

    Really bad things happen at that point. It's one of the first things that happen before democracy collapses.

    What legitimacy would Trump have if the EC picked something different?

    Literally his only claim to legitimacy is that the EC can override the popular vote
    His only claim to legitimacy is that he legitimately won the election. The terms of the contest were known, well in advance. We even have a mechanism for changing those terms, but our elected officials have chosen not too. If you win the majority of the electors you get to be president. Not getting that even if it is archaic means you don't get to be president.

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    HakkekageHakkekage Space Whore Academy summa cum laudeRegistered User regular
    lazegamer wrote: »
    Hakkekage wrote: »
    TryCatcher wrote: »

    Oh yeah, I forgot that the CIA hacked Nigel Farage's emails and leaked the most embarrassing ones, and some fabricated ones, in a selective drip in the weeks leading up to the vote

    Wasn't it hilarious when we learned that Farage is into watersports LOL too bad it didn't work out Obama you did your best

    I don't think it was ever established that there were fabricated messages in the wikileaks dump of podesta emails. There was a fake news generating Clinton supporter who was trying to spread that misinformation though, and caught a few Clinton friendly media figures in his net.

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/11/21/i-ve-been-making-viral-fake-news-for-the-last-six-months-it-s-way-too-easy-to-dupe-the-right-on-the-internet.html
    When I tweeted the link and an image of some of the text at Tracey, I did it because I find him to be something of a self-important git and wanted to poke fun at him. I didn’t know at the time that there were Goldman Sachs transcript fragments in the WikiLeaks release.
    The tweet went super-viral. It started an almost trending—but still going today—hashtag #bucketoflosers. A tweet declaring it a bad forgery was picked up by Malcolm Nance, an intelligence analyst for MSNBC among others, who tweeted to be wary of the WikiLeaks release.

    That's not what I'm referring to. Unfortunately googling "Russia Wikileaks Edited Emails" is heavily cluttered with much more recent events right now, but there is evidence that emails posted to Wikileaks (not from Podesta leaks, but some prior low-key dumps) were edited prior to posting.

    And of course, there is Kurt Eichenwald's feature prior to the election where Trump parroted fake news from the Russian Government within hours of its fabrication:

    http://www.newsweek.com/vladimir-putin-sidney-blumenthal-hillary-clinton-donald-trump-benghazi-sputnik-508635

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    Raiden333Raiden333 Registered User regular
    zepherin wrote: »
    zepherin wrote: »
    Invalidating the election is possible, we need like 36 republican electoral college members to do it

    at this point I would happily take kasich as president if that's what their demands were, but this is nuts
    As much as I loathe Trump, and as much as my hemorrhoid Mt. Trump is going to be flaring for the next 4 years. I don't want the election invalidated. Having a shit head president is going to be worst than having a massive question on the legitimacy of our democracy.

    Really bad things happen at that point. It's one of the first things that happen before democracy collapses.

    What legitimacy would Trump have if the EC picked something different?

    Literally his only claim to legitimacy is that the EC can override the popular vote
    His only claim to legitimacy is that he legitimately won the election. The terms of the contest were known, well in advance. We even have a mechanism for changing those terms, but our elected officials have chosen not too. If you win the majority of the electors you get to be president. Not getting that even if it is archaic means you don't get to be president.

    I mean, it really comes down to a definition of terms at that point, because it's literally built into the system that the EC can choose to not follow the results.

    Yes, about half the country would see that as wrong, but it's in the fine text.

    There was a steam sig here. It's gone now.
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    spool32spool32 Contrary Library Registered User regular
    Goumindong wrote: »
    Hacksaw wrote: »
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHDASkfrFUg

    Who would've thought Willard "Mitt" Romney was right back in 20-fucking-12 about this. We live on the most bonkers of timelines.

    To be fair to democrats though. What Romney said was that Russia was our number 1 adversary. Which while that might be a proper way to characterize that now was not then. Romney hedged by saying "well they do stuff against us in the UN" and well yea they do. But so does/did China and probably to the same amount(though I will admit that with our European news and cultural focus we notice a lot less of China's international actions).

    This is before Ukraine and Syria and before we properly understood wikileaks.

    So, it was during the time before they showed that they were, but all the same people were involved.

    So, he was right.

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    zepherinzepherin Russian warship, go fuck yourself Registered User regular
    zepherin wrote: »
    zepherin wrote: »
    Invalidating the election is possible, we need like 36 republican electoral college members to do it

    at this point I would happily take kasich as president if that's what their demands were, but this is nuts
    As much as I loathe Trump, and as much as my hemorrhoid Mt. Trump is going to be flaring for the next 4 years. I don't want the election invalidated. Having a shit head president is going to be worst than having a massive question on the legitimacy of our democracy.

    Really bad things happen at that point. It's one of the first things that happen before democracy collapses.
    Alternatively, a true democracy would survive such a questioning and also welcome it.
    In ideology I agree, but the lesson that is the biggest takeaway from this election, is that it is more important to feel like it is true, than it is to actually be true.

    It is sad, but from a purely selfish standpoint, I kinda need America to not go through a massive transition period where we tear it all down and rebuild.

    The way that happens, is we as a society think we can remove this shit head in 4 years, and work towards that. If as a group we think we will never be able to get rid of Trumputin™, it leads to coup attempts, and riots, these are really bad, worst than having this shithead in charge.
    I agree but I also am two steps away from pushing the panic button and believing that Trump will 100% be the death of America as we know it.
    Trying to balance rationality with like the sheer gripping hysteria that I am fighting every day with each new cabinet appointment.
    His cabinet picks are slightly better than W's. Which is sad, that is the victory I can hope for, that his cabinet isn't worst than GWB. 3 or 4 of his picks aren't terrible.
    It's like when the Cleveland Browns have a 6 and 10 season, and Browns fans think they had a pretty decent year. We got the Cleveland Browns of government.

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    Panda4YouPanda4You Registered User regular
    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/12/opinion/the-tainted-election.html
    The C.I.A., according to The Washington Post, has now determined that hackers working for the Russian government worked to tilt the 2016 election to Donald Trump. This has actually been obvious for months, but the agency was reluctant to state that conclusion before the election out of fear that it would be seen as taking a political role.

    Meanwhile, the F.B.I. went public 10 days before the election, dominating headlines and TV coverage across the country with a letter strongly implying that it might be about to find damning new evidence against Hillary Clinton — when it turned out, literally, to have found nothing at all.

    Did the combination of Russian and F.B.I. intervention swing the election? Yes. Mrs. Clinton lost three states – Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania – by less than a percentage point, and Florida by only slightly more. If she had won any three of those states, she would be president-elect. Is there any reasonable doubt that Putin/Comey made the difference?

    /.../ So this was a tainted election. It was not, as far as we can tell, stolen in the sense that votes were counted wrong, and the result won’t be overturned. But the result was nonetheless illegitimate in important ways; the victor was rejected by the public, and won the Electoral College only thanks to foreign intervention and grotesquely inappropriate, partisan behavior on the part of domestic law enforcement.

    The question now is what to do with that horrifying knowledge in the months and years ahead.

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    Inkstain82Inkstain82 Registered User regular
    Burnage wrote: »
    Inkstain82 wrote: »
    I'm also sure Obama administration did not hack UKIP's email accounts and then "leak" only the documents the dissemination of which would best serve their interests.

    So it is OK to interfere in foreign elections. Just making sure I'm clear on where the line is.

    The Brexit vote isn't a good analogy here. It was an advisory referendum, not an election, and considering that an important point of the debate was the post-EU UK's potential trade deals with foreign nations, foreign leaders weighing in was less "interference" and more "highly relevant".

    That feels special pleading to me, but ymmv

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    TL DRTL DR Not at all confident in his reflexive opinions of thingsRegistered User regular
    Election tampering, you say?

    "The third world sends their regards"

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    HakkekageHakkekage Space Whore Academy summa cum laudeRegistered User regular
    edited December 2016
    Inkstain82 wrote: »
    I'm also sure Obama administration did not hack UKIP's email accounts and then "leak" only the documents the dissemination of which would best serve their interests.

    So it is OK to interfere in foreign elections. Just making sure I'm clear on where the line is.

    This is an absurd comparison. A foreign government airing an opinion and clarifying their state's official position on another state's election is interference only insofar as that leader has credibility and standing with decisionmakers within that state. A foreign government directing the illegal theft and dissemination of stolen documents to discredit and intentionally manipulate public opinion on another state's election is something else entirely. It's not just cheeky meddling, its propaganda and covert action.

    As an Iranian, of course, I am ~well aware~ of the US' lack of moral standing when it comes to the deposition of unfriendly but democratically elected state leaders and the installation of autocratic rulers friendlier to its interests. But what Russia has done here is closer to the coup of Mossadegh than to Obama having an opinion on Brexit.

    Hakkekage on
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    BurnageBurnage Registered User regular
    Inkstain82 wrote: »
    Burnage wrote: »
    Inkstain82 wrote: »
    I'm also sure Obama administration did not hack UKIP's email accounts and then "leak" only the documents the dissemination of which would best serve their interests.

    So it is OK to interfere in foreign elections. Just making sure I'm clear on where the line is.

    The Brexit vote isn't a good analogy here. It was an advisory referendum, not an election, and considering that an important point of the debate was the post-EU UK's potential trade deals with foreign nations, foreign leaders weighing in was less "interference" and more "highly relevant".

    That feels special pleading to me, but ymmv

    Look at it this way; nobody, as far as I'm aware, is accusing the Mexican president of interfering in the US election because he said he wasn't going to pay for the wall.

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    Inkstain82Inkstain82 Registered User regular
    Hakkekage wrote: »
    Inkstain82 wrote: »
    I'm also sure Obama administration did not hack UKIP's email accounts and then "leak" only the documents the dissemination of which would best serve their interests.

    So it is OK to interfere in foreign elections. Just making sure I'm clear on where the line is.

    This is an absurd comparison. A foreign government airing an opinion and clarifying their state's official position on another state's election is interference only insofar as that leader has credibility and standing with decisionmakers within that state. A foreign government directing the illegal theft and dissemination of stolen documents to discredit and intentionally manipulate public opinion on another state's election is something else entirely. It's not just cheeky meddling, its propaganda and covert action.

    As an Iranian, of course, I am ~well aware~ of the US' lack of moral standing when it comes to the deposition of unfriendly but democratically elected state leaders and the installation of autocratic rulers friendlier to its interests. But what Russia has done here is closer to the coup of Mossadegh than to Obama having an opinion on Brexit.

    In the Information Age, I don't see how "propaganda=coup" is a workable model, even illegally obtained propoganda.

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    OldSlackerOldSlacker Registered User regular
    Inkstain82 wrote: »
    I'm also sure Obama administration did not hack UKIP's email accounts and then "leak" only the documents the dissemination of which would best serve their interests.

    So it is OK to interfere in foreign elections. Just making sure I'm clear on where the line is.

    What? How did you get that from my post?
    I was not being sarcastic or anything. I really believe that and I also believe that it is not OK to interfere with another's country elections, even when it was CIA who were doing it.
    Like Hakkekage wrote above, having opinions is diferent from actively meddling.

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