Thailand Eyes UN Human Rights Council Seat with Optimism

[webfact]

Former U.S. Justice Department official warns Europe on election hacking

By Dustin Volz

REUTERS

 

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Carlin addresses a news conference to announce indictments on Iranian computer hackers, in Washington March 24, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

 

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A former Justice Department official who served in the Obama administration said European countries must be willing to respond forcefully to efforts by Russia or others to use cyber attacks to meddle in their elections, saying the U.S. response fell short.

 

Former Assistant Attorney General John Carlin, who ran the national security division at the Justice Department and oversaw the pursuit of cyber criminals, said the United States did not do enough to deter the hacking and leaking of Democratic Party emails during the 2016 presidential campaign.

 

“What we did was too late,” Carlin said during a panel discussion on election hacking at the RSA cybersecurity conference. “We weren’t bringing deterrence at all to the table.”

 

The U.S. intelligence community said hacks were carried out by Russia in order to disrupt the election and eventually help Republican Donald Trump win. Russia has repeatedly denied the hacking charges.

 

Former President Barack Obama, a Democrat, announced in late December he was ordering the expulsion of 35 Russian suspected spies and imposed sanctions on two Russian intelligence agencies. The measures came nearly two months after the election, where Trump won an upset victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

 

Carlin said countries with upcoming elections should be prepared to offer forceful and timely responses to cyber attacks.

 

“Pre-election, it’s vital that not just the United States but partners like Germany, like France make it clear what the red line is, that there’s going to be strong deterrence and that in terms of deterrence, our policy has got to be we are going to take action until the action stops," Carlin said.

 

"So there is no ceiling on the level we will ratchet up the deterrence when you are undermining a core value.”

 

Elections are set this year in European countries including France, Germany and the Netherlands.

 

Several Democrats and former Obama administration officials have criticized the U.S. response to the election hacking as insufficient. The restrained response was due partly to concerns about escalating a cyber war with Russia over an election Clinton was expected to win, U.S. officials have said.

 

Carlin stepped down from his Justice Department post last October and recently took a position as global chair of risk and crisis management at law firm Morrison & Foerster LLP.

 

(Reporting by Dustin Volz; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Peter Cooney)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-02-16

[craigt3365]

Russia has already hacked many European governments servers.  It's well documented and they are aware of the problems.

 

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/12/16/politics/russia-hacking-allegations-mikheil-saakashvili/index.html

Quote

Ex-Soviet states tell US 'I told you so' over Russia hacking allegations

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/12103602/America-to-investigate-Russian-meddling-in-EU.html

 

 

Quote

 

Russia accused of clandestine funding of European parties as US conducts major review of Vladimir Putin's strategy

Exclusive: UK warns of "new Cold War" as Kremlin seeks to divide and rule in Europe

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/19/opinion/russian-meddling-and-europes-elections.html?emc=edit_ae_20161219&nl=todaysheadlines-asia&nlid=58582962&mtrref=undefined&gwh=8CBC004D01AAC6B2B2B4AE7ED50491FC&gwt=pay&assetType=opinion

Quote

Russian Meddling and Europe’s Elections

 

 

[ourmanflint]

This is and always has been a red herring. It is only being perpetuated to keep the story going that somehow the Russians changed the result of the US elections which is frankly impossible, but some muppets are always willing to believe it could have happened so they have someone else to blame.

[craigt3365]

2 minutes ago, ourmanflint said:

This is and always has been a red herring. It is only being perpetuated to keep the story going that somehow the Russians changed the result of the US elections which is frankly impossible, but some muppets are always willing to believe it could have happened so they have someone else to blame.

 

Never say never.  Sometimes comes back to bite you.  It's possible the info released by the Russian hacking did influence the elections.  Especially considering the extremely narrow margin involved.  If the Russians didn't do the hacking and release of info, they wouldn't be blamed.  Easy.  They created the mess.

[mtls2005]

1 hour ago, ourmanflint said:

This is and always has been a red herring. It is only being perpetuated to keep the story going that somehow the Russians changed the result of the US elections which is frankly impossible, but some muppets are always willing to believe it could have happened so they have someone else to blame.

 

"Red" herring. Well done sir, I see what you did there.

 

When the final story is told I suspect even the hard-core will be ashamed.

 

No one is saying that the Russians somehow manipulated the election results on election day, by some sort of direct hacking of electronic voting machines.

 

Their efforts were multi-faceted, subtle and spread out over 18 + months, and were meant to discredit HRC in a more or less classic PsyOps strategy. I suspect Trump's minions were aware of some of the Russian efforts, as was Trump himself. Did they coordinate them? Of course not, but they did welcome them. After all, winning is everything, and they assumed they could "get along" with Russia after gaining the White House..