By Rebecca Solnit
Rebecca Solnit’s Facebook Page (6/6/17)
Yo, people, part of what’s going on with this Intercept thing is that they’re recycling old news that more people–starting with the Intercept–are now ready to listen to. The hilarious thing is that the Intercept fellows kept telling us not to believe things from intelligence agencies but are now building their story on one document from the NSA. I heard this story about hacked voting machines in November but couldn’t get any major media outlet to follow up on it. But the stories go all the way back to AUGUST.
Here’s ABC in SEPTEMBER on Russian hacking of voter rolls: “Hackers working on behalf of the Russian government are suspected in the onslaught against more than 20 state election systems, according to sources with knowledge of the matter.”
Here’s the NYT in early October on something people think the Intercept just broke. NYTimes: Mr. Schiff said he was afraid Russian hackers might attempt to delete or manipulate voter rolls, causing long lines at the polls and delays in counting votes because people would be forced to cast provisional ballots. (Voting machines themselves are not linked to the internet, so it is effectively impossible to hack them in a systematic way and change the outcome, specialists say.)
But as “profound” as that concern is, Mr. Schiff said, he and others see as “the most grave risk” something else: Russia could take emails it has already stolen, manipulate them to create a false impression that a candidate has done something outrageous or illegal, and cause them to be published online shortly before the election.
That, he said, “could have an election-altering effect.”
Federal officials are trying to help states plug holes in their internet defenses for election management systems.
And here’s the Intercept’s Greenwald in February still attacking the basis for such concerns: “the article is largely devoted to what has now become standard — and very profitable — fare among East Coast newsmagazines: feeding Democrats the often xenophobic, hysterical Russophobia for which they have a seemingly insatiable craving. Democratic media outlets have thus predictably cheered this opus for exposing “Russian President Vladimir Putin’s influence on the presidential election.”
The Intercept today: “The report indicates that Russian hacking may have penetrated further into U.S. voting systems than was previously understood.” It was previously understood by a lot of us. See the stories below. #shallowstate .
(Cartoon from Veterans Today.)