Are You Being Hacked?

 

Are you caught up in all the hoopla about Russia hacking the election?  Are you pissed off at those interferin' Russkies?  Are you additionally pissed that the proper candidate wasn't elected President?

It seems clear to me that the time has come for a reality check.  Let's get started.

First, does anyone believe that CIA/NSA knows so much more than Russia about back-tracing an IP chain that revealing what we do and how we do it would seriously compromise our national security?  No?  Good, because we have to get past that before going further.  Russian hackers are no better and no worse than American hackers.  Showing them exactly how we discovered their fingerprints all over our election (if, in fact, they were) will have zero effect on national security.  Zero.

Further, in order to change the outcome of a U.S. election, one would have to crack nearly 4,000 separate county Supervisors of Elections databases, many of which are not online.  Surely somewhere out there some clerk would say "Hey, that's the wrong number!  I recall thinking that the total was my sister's birhday: '71463', and that Trump lost this county.  Hey, what's going on?"  As far as we know, no precinct captain, no county supervisor, no state coordinator for any party has uttered a single word suggesting there was anything untoward going on as far as 'vote totals' were concerned.  The 'hacking' that was done (if 'hacking' is the proper word) was exposing corruption evident in emails swirling around the Democratic National Committee — emails concerning sabotaging the Sanders campaign and rigging polls to guarantee Hillary Clinton would be the nominee.

So, why is there a 'classified' version of the report and an 'unclassified' version?  It's not like we can't afford to lay all our cards on the table for all the world to see.  In fact, I have a grand-nephew who can probably tell you — sight unseen — what's in the classified version.  What is NSA/CIA trying to hide, and from whom?  They're not going to lose anything by being open and above-board, are they?

Realize that our 'intelligence community' works hand-in-glove with the military.  The military has a vested interest in seeing wars, cold or hot, multiply and expand.  Division and contraction are not on their wish-lists.  It is in the best interests of the military-intelligence community to be in conflict with other political entities.  Russia is an easy target;  they have a foreign policy which runs counter to ours, and most Americans are, after the last 70 years or so, inclined to think negatively about the former Soviet Union.

Now, Vladimir Putin may have preferred Trump to Clinton.  Trump is an idiot;  he'll be easy to work with and around.  Clinton is a hard-ball player and unpredictable like Trump wishes he were.  Clinton spells trouble for Putin and Russia.  If Putin needed a reason to muddy our electoral waters, that would have been adequate, but would it have been worth the risk?  Surely Putin would have known that there would be blowback!  If a reason were needed for a 'hands off' policy, that would have been adequate.

But the real issue is that the 'report' comes in a classified version and an unclassified version.  There's something in the classified version that NSA/CIA doesn't want loose in public.  What? 

Perhaps — I'm speculating — revealing the proof of Russia's complicity will also reveal how deeply NSA/CIA tracks everything you and I do on a daily basis.  Perhaps NSA/CIA doesn't want everyone to know that they're under a microscope from the time their alarm goes off until they shut out the lights for the night — and maybe still then.  Perhaps NSA/CIA would prefer you be kept in the dark about just how thoroughly and closely you are watched in their all-seeing Surveillance Society.

You are being manipulated.

Sweet dreams.