Insisting the U.S. is still under cyber attack from foreign entities, principally Russia, the nation’s leading intel bosses think the latest objective is to influence the 2018 Midterm Elections. Heads of the CIA, FBI, National Intelligence, National Security Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency were all asked by the Senate Intelligence Committee to confirm that the same meddling that went on in the 2016 election continues in 2018. All agency bosses were on the same page when it came to Russian meddling in the 2016 election and continued influence in 2018. “Frankly, the United States is under attack,” said Dan Coats, Director of National Intelligence. “Under attack by entities that are using cyber to penetrate virtually every major action that takes place in the United States,” without giving any specifics. Coats makes sweeping statements but has little evidence to back it up, at least that’s made public.
Saying the U.S. is “under attack” gives the public nothing concrete, other than spewing platitudes about foreign governments using propaganda to advance national agendas in the U.S. Former Director of National Intelligence 76-year-old Gen. James Clapper insisted that Russia influenced the outcome of the 2016 election but could never cite any proof, let alone evidence. To Clapper, the fact that Trump defied the polls and beat former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Nov. 8, 2016 is proof enough of Russian meddling. Clapper likes to cite fake news stories published in Facebook and Google as proof that young people were brainwashed either to not vote for Hillary or vote for Trump. Clapper and others in the intel community can’t explain how Russian influence won Hillary nearly 3 million more popular votes than Trump. Decrying Russian influence must come with proof.
Pressing the Russian “influence” theory, intel bosses do the public a disservice, citing classified information to protect sources and methods. “Influence operations, especially through cyber means, will remain a significant threat to U.S. interests,” Coats told the Senate Intel Committee. Talking a bout influence operations through cyber means says nothing, other than certain foreign operatives use the Intenet and popular Websites like Google, Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat, etc., to make up fake stories to advance either Democrats or Republicans. But Coats doesn’t admit that the U.S. does exactly the same thing in foreign countries to advance a U.S. agenda. Why is it OK for the U.S. to use cyber means to influence foreign governments but it’s not OK for foreign governments to do the same? Putting out propaganda and disinformation on the Intenet does not constitute cyber warfare or influence.
Where’s the cyber war when foreign governments routinely advance their agendas by putting out fake news stories? When the U.S. sends negative radio and TV broadcasts about oppression in Iran, isn’t it designed to influence foreign populations or governments? Whipping up more panic in Congress over alleged foreign influence campaigns misleads the public into thinking there’s something new here. Foreign governments routinely try to influence U.S. elections or any other national agenda that agrees or disagrees with foreign governments. “Russia probably will be the most capable and aggressive source of this threat in 2018,” said Coats, but not saying what’s the threat. It’s not like fake news stories or false advertising brainwashes ordinary citizens into voting for the wrong candidate. If voters in battleground states voted for Trump in 2016, is it attributable to Russian influence?
Given the Special Counsel’s Russian investigation, it’s easy for the public to misread what’s coming out of the Senate Intel Committee. Hillary used the Russian conspiracy theory branding Trump as a “Putin puppet” to help her win the election. When you consider she paid opposition research firm FusionGPS to create a “dossier” on Trump, asking it’s author former MI6 agent Christopher Steele to dig up dirt from his Kremlin contacts, it makes you wonder who colluded with the Russians. Warning the public about the ongoing threat of Russian cyber warfare does nothing to clarify what happened in 2018 or today. Clapper’s Office of National Intelligence in a detailed report to Congress Jan. 6, 2017 insisted Putin “ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election.” Clapper didn’t say Putin ordered influence campaigns, before, during and after the election.
So why are U.S. national intel agencies suddenly so worried about Russia influence, when its been going on since the end of WW II. Putin’s goal, according to Clapper’s Jane 6, 2017 report, was to “undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic prosess, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency”—increasing Trump’s changes. When politics infects the National Intelligence Agency, then whom can you trust? Clapper doesn’t say how Russian propaganda or disinformation “undermines” faith in democratic process when U.S. citizens get to go into the privacy of the voting booth. When Clapper talks of denigrating Sen. Clinton, didn’t she commit some egregious things, including stealing debate questions and sabotaging her rival Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)? Whatever Russia did in 2016 or today, it’s all par-for-the-course.
