
U.S. Charges 13 Russians, 3 Companies for Interfering with Election - uptown
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-16/mueller-indicts-13-russians-for-hacking-during-u-s-election-jdq8fyg0
======
Glyptodon
I bothers me no end that influence/propaganda operations continuously get
termed "hacking the election" or "interfering with the election."

I also think the notion that there's a way to prevent external actors from
influencing internal affairs in an ostensibly free and open republic in a
networked world is somewhat... ill conceived: a democracy so fragile it needs
a great firewall of some kind to protect its citizens from "fake" and
"unhealthy" views is probably already on the road to failure.

If we, as a nation, were actually serving our citizens and maintaining the
level of education and sustaining the standard of living required for
democracy to function across most of the population I do not think these
Russian-style campaigns would be very effective.

And of course that's not to mention all the inconsistent double standards.
Where's the outrage over things like Confucius Institutes and other similar
influence operations?

And that's not even getting in to the whole "do as I say, not as I do" aspect,
where we try to pretend that dictatorships and totalitarian states should see
our pro-democracy pro-human rights initiatives and NGOs and VOA and such as
perfectly fine and friendly and obviously different than RT, etc.

The strength of a democracy should be that its citizens can stand in the
battleground of ideas unscathed and our abandonment of that ideal does not
bode well.

~~~
bllguo
This is remarkably disingenuous. The Russians hacked into both political
parties and leaked their information selectively to support their agenda. They
even got access to voting rolls. There is no evidence AFAIK that they changed
anything, but they should rightfully be charged for penetrating the US at all.

EDIT: voter roll != voter systems... edited so I don't spread FUD. Don't want
to distract from the main point. The success of Russia's efforts may be only a
symptom of the problems in the US - you still have to treat the symptoms.

~~~
Glyptodon
1) If the parties acted principled, open, and upfront as befits the democratic
process rather than turning themselves into utterly skeezy Potemkin villages
there would be nothing to selectively leak/embarrass them with. Every leak is
self inflicted damage caused by the notion that they can do, and get away
with, anything as long as they keep the public far enough away.

2) Charging people with crimes for walking through open doors does not
actually keep the doors closed. (And the utter disinterest in actually
securing and auditing our voting systems relative to hunting heads only goes
to show that we don't even care about locking the door, we just want a
scapegoat to appease our rage.)

~~~
avs733
>1) If the parties principled and upfront as befits the democratic process
rather than utterly skeezy there would be nothing to selectively
leak/embarrass them with.

This is incorrect both on a practically every level.

First, the Russians, in other instances where they have 'leaked' emails have
both changed contents and in fact inserted emails. See David Satter[0] Because
the emails were private to begin with, you are taking an enormous leap of
faith to trust them as fully accurate simply because they were 'leaked.' The
absolutely easiest thing to do would be to leverage any potential
misinterpretations or suggestions of impropriety by inserting things to make
that worse.

Second, we see a group of people intentionally, aggressively, and dangerously
taking things out of context and mislead others to drive a narrative. See
Pizza gate.

Third, you entire argument relies on no one ever misunderstanding another
person's communication. Has anyone ever misinterpreted your actions? your
words?

Yes, political parties are sometimes skeezy, so are people. But the broader
point here is that one group is leveraging and digging and amplifying some bad
behavior into not just a believe that it is universal and unfixable (which you
seem to already accept) but an actual undermining of the whole system.

[0]
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2017/05/26/russi...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2017/05/26/russian-
dnc-hackers-planted-leaks-with-fake-data/#55c1752a52ff)

~~~
smsm42
> First, the Russians, in other instances

Those are different "Russians" \- judging from the name (Cyber Berkut) they
most likely not even Russians but Ukrainians, as "Berkut" is the name of the
security force that has been, among others, protecting Yanukovich in Maidan
events in Ukraine in 2014. Russian group would not likely take the name of
Ukrainian security force - there are a lot of nice Russian names available.
But pro-Russian Ukrainians (which there are a bunch of) would. In any case,
the only relation of those to APT*s is that they also leaked emails. So far I
don't think there was a credible claim of any Wikileaks-published DNC mails as
being fake, were there?

> But the broader point here is that one group is leveraging and digging and
> amplifying some bad behavior

Wasn't that like what 90% of past electoral campaigns were doing - digging
dirt on each other (going back to high school and beyond) and blowing it up
into a huge deal? I don't think Russians exactly invented the whole "dig up
some dirt on the opposition and talk about it incessantly" trick.

------
JumpCrisscross
Chuckled at this part of the indictment [1]:

"Defendants and their co-conspirtors thereafter destroyed evidence for the
purpose of impeding the investigation. On or about September 13, 2017,
KAVERZINA wrote in an email to a family member: 'We had a slight crisis here
at work: the FBI busted our activity (not a joke). So, I got preoccupied with
covering tracks together with colleagues.' KAVERZINA further wrote, "I created
all these pictures and posts, and the Americans believed that it was written
by their people."

Guess they skimped on opsec training?

[1] [https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4380463-Internet-
Res...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4380463-Internet-Research-
Agency-Indictment.html#document/p37) _via Axios [a], page 24_

[a] [https://www.axios.com/mueller-indicts-13-russian-
nationals-f...](https://www.axios.com/mueller-indicts-13-russian-nationals-
for-conspiracy-2498f173-ad1a-4609-b233-c40ea0c041dc.html)

------
kyleblarson
'They spent thousands of dollars a month to buy advertisements on social media
groups, while carefully tracking the size of U.S. audiences they reached,
according to the indictment.'

This sounds like an incredibly well funded, sophisticated operation. They
bought some ads and used google analytics.

~~~
herbst
> THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS

Agreed

~~~
Karunamon
That always struck me as weird too. A few thousand a month is barely a drop in
the bucket as far as ad campaigns go.

Either the CPM was so low that practically nobody was seeing the ads or the
CPC was so high that the budget would be exhausted rapidly (and practically
nobody would see the ads).

~~~
rflrob
I'm in no way an expert in social media advertising, but the claims that I've
heard are that the ad buys were hyper-targeted to swing districts.
Incidentally, it's been suggested that this implies that the Russians were in
secret coordination with Cambridge Analytica (the data firm that worked with
the Trump Campaign). On the other hand, I think it's consistent with the
following model:

Assume that Putin has a longstanding grudge against Clinton and wants to
undermine what he assumes will be her presidency [1]. Let's further assume
that the budget for this operation will be low—on the order of tens or
hundreds of thousands (plus salary for operatives), compared to the hundreds
of millions spent by the campaigns [2]. Any reasonably savvy head of this
operation would lean towards a start-up model—i.e. very aggressively targeting
swing districts. Thinking up ways to target the most swing-able people for the
fewest number of dollars is very much worth your time if your time is
relatively inexpensive and you don't have tons and tons of money to spend. Is
it possible that they received targeting data from people associated with the
campaign? Sure, but I don't think that hypertargeting implies that they did.

[1] [http://observer.com/2016/06/she-isnt-president-yet-but-
russi...](http://observer.com/2016/06/she-isnt-president-yet-but-russia-
already-hates-hillary-clinton/) [2]
[https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16](https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16)

~~~
Karunamon
Ah! Duh on me then, I'd not even considered the targeting possibilities. That
makes a lot more sense and would make even a limited budget go a lot further.
Adwords at least will let you go as granular city-by-city, and I'd guess
Facebook will do the same.

------
throwaway5752
This is without a doubt the most important story for the software industry in
the world today. This is going to change regulation and policy in the US for
the rest of the lives of everyone old enough to be posting here.

How it's not on the frontpage is unfathomable. Just because it creates
conflict is not a good reason for this not to be front and center. They
detailed the process the Russian agents used to procure computing resources,
how they stole identities, and their methodology. They somehow have personal
communications.

Facebook is in a very, very precarious place. So will be Google and Twitter.
Anyone involved in selling ads or marketing should have read the whole
indictment. Tens of billions of revenue per quarter have exposure to this
scandal.

There is also enormous opportunity for startups that will inevitably be
needed.

Honestly, as a hacker, the methodologies just on their own are of interest.

edit: lest anyone say it's political, it's not. If this was APT 12 acting on
behalf of the Democratic party (purely hypothetical) then what would the
Republican party reaction be? The tools are out there, and they will be used
again, regardless of party.

------
anigbrowl
This guilty plea of a California man who engaged in helping circumvent payment
security features from 2014-17 in relation to the information warfare effort
just came out as well.

[https://www.justice.gov/file/1035547/download](https://www.justice.gov/file/1035547/download)

------
dbatten
Can someone change hacking in title to interfering with?

~~~
dang
Sure. Thanks for the suggestion.

~~~
heurist
Social hacking is still hacking.

------
jonwachob91
Lots of news reports about this, but none provide a link to the actual
indictment...

Does it usually take awhile to get posted on the DOJ website?

~~~
sandslash
Here you go:
[https://assets.bwbx.io/documents/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/rwUFGxaf...](https://assets.bwbx.io/documents/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/rwUFGxaf6nlA/v0)

And link to DOJ page:
[https://www.justice.gov/file/1035477/](https://www.justice.gov/file/1035477/)

------
fwdpropaganda
As a European, here's a question to our American friends in general, and
American Republicans in particular:

Does it disturb you at all that apparently the Russians plan to mess up with
you is to impersonate accounts to post stuff which is indistinguishable from
what actual Republicans post?

------
HumanDrivenDev
I eagerly await the investigation into Israeli interference of the last 10 US
presidential elections.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _I eagerly await the investigation into Israeli interference of the last 10
> US presidential elections_

From ¶ 1 of the indictment [1]: "U.S. law...bars agents of any foreign entity
from engaging in political activities within the United States without first
registering with the Attorney General."

It's not illegal for foreign entities to lobby our government. It's illegal to
do it dishonestly, _e.g._ by "posing as U.S. persons and creating false U.S.
personas" (¶ 3) or using "without lawful authority, the social security
numbers, home addresses, and birth dates of real U.S. persons to open accounts
at PayPal" (¶ 90).

[1] [https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4380463-Internet-
Res...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4380463-Internet-Research-
Agency-Indictment.html#document/p37) _via Axios [a]_

[a] [https://www.axios.com/mueller-indicts-13-russian-
nationals-f...](https://www.axios.com/mueller-indicts-13-russian-nationals-
for-conspiracy-2498f173-ad1a-4609-b233-c40ea0c041dc.html)

~~~
HumanDrivenDev
I suspect more than lobbying is going on. There's certainly more evidence for
that than there was for Russian interference - and look what that
investigation has brought up.

It will never happen though.

~~~
ivraatiems
Please provide some of this evidence.

~~~
HumanDrivenDev
AIPAC, who have a well documented history of interference, and have
controversially managed to avoid registering themselves under the Foreign
Agents Registration Act.

~~~
ivraatiems
They have a well documented history of _lobbying_ , which is what they exist
to do. I don't know of any evidence that they interfere in our elections like
this Russian government-sponsored org did. Do you have any?

Whether AIPAC should be allowed to lobby without registering as a foreign
agent is a different subject; one worth discussing, but not what I asked
about. Lobbying is not the same thing as the covert behavior undertaken here.

------
jstewartmobile
Question for fellow Americans getting worked-up about this:

Considering that we A) have meddled in elections throughout the world--
especially in the middle east and latin america--for the enitre post-war
period, B) have done it using substantially more resources, and C) have
militarily " _intervened_ " in countries that posed no real threat to us--
resulting in substantial losses of _innocent_ life and property, how do you
manage to still feel indignation instead of some mixture of guilt and karma?

This is not a rhetorical question. I am actually curious about the thought
process here.

~~~
GVIrish
Being an American doesn't mean one agrees with everything the United States
has ever done. The US Gov't has absolutely done mean and nasty things around
the world that has caused suffering for millions of people.

Still doesn't mean Americans should be happy with one our biggest adversaries
subverting our government. Even with all of America's sins, things certainly
would be worse if Putin were free to damage and pervert our democracy to suit
his whims.

~~~
jstewartmobile
Russia is not a particularly wealthy country. If they can pervert our
democracy with a few million dollars, we have much bigger problems that need
to be dealt with structurally and defensively rather than piecemeal and after-
the-fact.

It's like we shoot ourselves in the foot with citizens united, but instead of
tending the wound, we blame Russia for startling us.

edit: and in response to _JumpCrisscross_ , "pervert our democracy" is not my
thesis. It was a conditional in response to parent comment.

My only point on this line is that it is kind of fucked up that money has as
much power in the process as it does.

~~~
GVIrish
> Russia is not a particularly wealthy country. If they can pervert our
> democracy with a few million dollars, we have much bigger problems...

That is the essence of asymmetrical warfare. The 9/11 hijackers didn't even
spend a million dollars in their plan to crash planes into buildings, yet they
killed thousands, destroyed hundreds of millions of dollars of property, and
provoked billions of dollars of spending by the United States.

Cyber warfare is an emerging battlefield where someone can cause enormous
damage with a very modest investment. I do think it requires some changes to
our democracy to protect against it in the future, but in the mean time we
absolutely should push back, __hard __against Russia 's efforts.

Citizens United certainly created more opportunity for foreign actors to
influence our political system, that much is certain. Doesn't mean we should
allow Putin to use Russia intelligence services against our political system.

------
Zigurd
It is appalling that some here consider this a pot-meet-kettle kind of thing.
The US has influenced, to the point of running them as puppets, many
governments. That's bad, and mostly needless and to the US's long term
disadvantage. But there is a reason we have a law named after Sergei
Magnitsky, and there is no mirror image of that in Putin's rump empire. There
is no equivalence here, and no viable claim that "everybody does it."

------
sremani
Is this tactically any different from Obama administration indicting Chinese
Military Intelligence unit for hacking? No one is in custody!

~~~
kevinburke
A lot of people in the US still don't believe Russians interfered in the
election, and/or that they interfered to support Trump's candidacy. I believe
this is mostly designed to show them (1) yes, they were doing a lot, and (2)
it was aimed at disparaging Clinton and supporting Trump.

Similarly, the US government hasn't really taken any steps to prevent future
meddling in US elections. The goal may have also been to serve as a wake up
call to our elected officials to take this issue seriously.

~~~
GVIrish
The indictment is not about PR, it is about punishing Russian nationals who
participated in this op.

The long arm of US law enforcement may not be able to get these folks in
Russia, but it can prevent them from traveling in many countries around the
world, and can result in their assets being frozen.

The other thing is that if any of the individuals involved come to fear for
their safety from Putin's government, these indictments will be a strong
motivator for them to rat other parts of the Russian intelligence apparatus.

------
bb88
Can HN stop promoting sites with autoplay videos? What if I ask pretty please
with sugar on top?

------
kadenshep
How come this is no longer present on the main index, pages 1 - 5?

------
puppetmaster40
Is there anyone with a Science or Engineering background or training who can
put forth data that Russians influenced election for Trump?

I ( [https://www.linkedin.com/in/vic-c/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/vic-c/) )
would love to see something like that. Anyone with a Science or Engineering,
please give me some data - that they believe to be credible. Please show me.

~~~
puppetmaster40
Downvoted for asking what is the evidence?

~~~
codezero
What data do you propose as a convincing argument and how do you expect
someone on hacker news to have a silver bullet? If this data were easily
available and accessible in a transparent way, there wouldn’t need to be a
long ongoing national agency level investigation.

~~~
puppetmaster40
What is the best we have?

~~~
codezero
That didn’t answer my question at all.

Let me be more concrete. It appears you have the very background you are
requesting. What approach or approaches would you take to convince others?

~~~
puppetmaster40
My answer would be: there is no credible or valid evidence. Hence I asked.
Muller cited these specific posts as examples:
[http://archive.is/5sEEo](http://archive.is/5sEEo)

~~~
codezero
Ok. So you asked what can be argued (from your own point of view) to be a
rhetorical question. I’m glad we could get to the bottom of why you got
downvoted.

------
wtf_is_up
"""Hacking"""

------
allthenews
Misleading headline, this was social engineering, not hacking.

~~~
acdha
Hacking has long included social engineering, as with any other lateral
approach.

For example:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Mitnick](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Mitnick)

------
Tech-Noir

        Mueller Accuses Russians of Aiding Trump, Assailing Clinton
    
        U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller announced an
        indictment of 13 Russian nationals and three Russian 
        entities, accusing them of interfering in the 2016
        presidential election and operating fake social media
        accounts.
    
        They used false personas and social media while also 
        staging political rallies and communicating with
        “unwitting individuals” associated with the Trump 
        campaign, it said.
    

Which seems to be the entire story.

~~~
mrkstu
I think the most interesting phrase is "unwitting individuals"\- this implies
that there was no conspiracy on the Trump side of the equation.

~~~
cryptoz
> this implies that there was no conspiracy on the Trump side of the equation.

No it doesn't. Saying that on a certain day there weren't any clouds in the
sky does not mean that for a whole month it didn't rain.

There is absolutely no implication or suggestion of any kind in that statement
that indicates no conspiracy on the Trump side.

~~~
mrkstu
By implication it is positive for the Trump campaign and means there was no
conspiracy with these actors- if there was a broad conspiracy there would have
been no need for these Russians to hide their identities from their Trump
counterparts.

This means that any conspiracy must be limited in scope rather than broad
(i.e. Mantifort)- it doesn't completely clear Trump (and proving a negative
like that is of course impossible anyway) but it is unambiguously more
positive for him.

------
yursadgh
Magically this makes the front page but nothing on the unmasking, 702 scandal.

~~~
seizethecheese
Go on...

~~~
mkhalil
I think he meant section 702.

[https://www.newyorker.com/news/ryan-lizza/the-continuing-
fal...](https://www.newyorker.com/news/ryan-lizza/the-continuing-fallout-from-
trump-and-nuness-fake-scandal)

~~~
jidjidbjf
Go read the 100 page fisa court memo. Go read the numerous text messages, go
reread how unmasking send incidental collection works.

Our intelligence services were weaponized to spy on the opposition party
illegally during an election year.

Senior FBI, DOJ, and Obama white house officials have engaged in a coordinated
attempt to prevent Trump from gaining office and once in office to mire his
presidency in scandal and possibly even impeachment.

All the facts are coming to light, But most commenters here are letting the
media completely filter their information.

Ill be surprised if my comment sees the light of day.

~~~
madamelic
>the opposition party

The fact you believe intelligence services have or should have opposition
parties is terrifying. I can understand why this sentiment translates into
believing intelligence services should or do fall under the President's direct
control.

~~~
smsm42
Intelligence services don't, but people working there certainly do. I.e.
Strzok messages showed pretty clearly where his loyalties lie. Of course,
everybody is entitled to their own opinions, but when one works in a position
with vast coercive powers that can be deployed to tip the scales, having
strong opinions towards one of the sides usually raises the question of
conflict of interest.

~~~
moorhosj
==Strzok messages showed pretty clearly where his loyalties lie.==

They showed that he supported John Kasich. Your comment, however, shows pretty
clearly where your loyalties lie.

~~~
smsm42
My loyalties lie in FBI top brass not playing politics.

> They showed that he supported John Kasich.

Strzok – He asked me who I’d vote for, guessed Kasich. Page – Seriously?!
Would you not D? Strzok – I don’t know. I suppose Hillary. Page – I would D.

Not exactly ringing endorsement of Kasich. Later:

Strzok - Exacty re Kasich. And he has ZERO appeal

Also:

Page - God Trump is loathsome human. Strzok – Yet he many win. Strzok – Good
for Hillary. Page – It is. Strzok – Would he be a worse president than Cruz?
Page –Trump?, yes I think so Strzok – I’m not sure. Strzok – Omg he’s an
idiot. Page – He’s awful Strzok – America will get what the voting public
deserves. Page – That’s what I’m afraid of.

Strzok – God Hillary should win. 100,000,000-0. Page – I know

Strzok – That Texas article is depressing as hell. But answers how we could
end up with President trump Page – Wasn’t it? Seriously, how are people so
incredible ignorant? Strzok – I have no idea, but it depresses me. Same people
who drive more when they get extra daylight from daylight savings, I’m
guessing.

Strzok – They fully deserve to go, and demonstrate the absolute bigoted
nonsense of Trump

Strzok – God that’s a great article. Thanks for sharing. And F TRUMP.

And so on and so forth. I mean, there's nothing wrong with a person thinking
"F TRUMP". Except when the person is also in charge of investigations that may
actually "f Trump" and benefit his opponents. In this case, it might be better
to actually have somebody with more balanced approach.

~~~
moorhosj
==In this case, it might be better to actually have somebody with more
balanced approach.==

Do you have evidence that these texts ever had an impact on this agent's
approach? Or are you just speculating to fog the entire discussion?

Did you have this same concern when Republicans were investigating Benghazi
and later admitted it was explicitly meant to hurt Hillary politically? That
doesn't seem like a "balanced approach" at investigation
([https://www.cnn.com/2015/10/14/politics/hillary-clinton-
beng...](https://www.cnn.com/2015/10/14/politics/hillary-clinton-benghazi-
committee/index.html)).

How about Guiliani talking about a "very big surprise" a few days before the
Comey memo? Did he get that information from FBI agents? Again, doesn't seem
like a "balanced approach" to me ([http://www.businessinsider.com/giuliani-
hinted-fbi-new-inves...](http://www.businessinsider.com/giuliani-hinted-fbi-
new-investigation-clintons-emails-days-before-2016-11)).

I sure hope your outrage crosses the aisle.

------
quantumofmalice
Will AIPAC similarly be charged?

------
vthallam
Forget about whether russia had used the bots to influence elections. I was
really surprised that Hillary with all the Silicon Valley support couldn't
built a team to counter these.

On the election day, the Trump tweet in the morning got a million favs and
Hillary hardly got 200K. When I looked at it, I was shocked about how dismal
Hillary's tech team is.

~~~
codezero
It’s hard to tell what you think Hillary should have done better, can you
elaborate?

~~~
vthallam
Yes. For a start, realizing the impact of the bots on FB and Twitter and
countering them with more bots.

There's some really dark stuff on FB groups and twitter bots which reply with
images to popular accounts. You could counter by bots which could favorite
better tweets and stop the propaganda.

~~~
codezero
You think she wouldn’t have been derided for the use of bots, but the already
effective and operational botnet working against her?

------
neo4sure
Well done finally we are doing something about this. We can't allow other
countries to meddle in our elections and to get away with it. Much stronger
actions may need to be taken once this administration is voted out.

------
dmitrygr
I am curious, how can you charge someone for what amounts to speech -
something that the 1st amendment clearly guarantees freedom of?

~~~
gethoht
There are clear laws regarding how foreign nationals can or cannot interact
with elections in the US. [https://www.fec.gov/updates/foreign-
nationals/](https://www.fec.gov/updates/foreign-nationals/)

~~~
dmitrygr
However, SCOTUS has ruled time and time again that US constitution applies
_not only to citizens_ , but to _everyone in the country_ (and US laws would
not apply to anyone entirely out of the country), so said laws might not hold
up to SCOTUS scrutiny (this might end up changing elections forever, much like
the Citizens United ruling)

~~~
davesque
That doesn't mean anything until SCOTUS sets an actual precedent showing that
such concerns can supersede election laws involving foreign agents.

------
squozzer
It bothers me a little about the Russians "supporting" Trump AND Bernie. It
sounds a little too "on the nose." As if the Russians expected to be caught
one day and wanted to make sure a certain political viewpoint would be
tainted.

~~~
jbattle
You got downvoted, but yeah - I do think that's part of the plan. To sow
confusion and distrust. An article on NPR talked about how russian bots were
playing both sides of the gun control question in the last few days. If the
goal is just to destabilize US politics, then consistency is no virtue.

------
Cknight70
A bit off topic, but generally (not specifically Russian election influence) I
get the impression people in the US are anti Russia. They don't want to
strengthen relationships with Russia. Why is this?

Edit: I didn't mean this to seem like a loaded question, I really am just
curious.

~~~
kevinburke
Gay rights, Olympic doping, Magnitsky, poisoning journalists, invading the
Ukraine, illiberal government and kompromat come to mind...

~~~
fwdpropaganda
If you're American, aren't you supposed to be for democracy? I understand your
point about kompromat... But shoudn't the Russian people be the ones dealing
with gay rights, poisoning journalists, illiberal government, and shouldn't
the Europeans be the ones dealing with Ukraine? Why do you go around giving
your opinion about other people's countries? Mind your business!

~~~
kevinburke
Hard to have a democracy when journalists are poisoned, their companies leaned
on/threated/had their licenses revoked by the state, and the main election
opponent to the Prime Minister thrown in jail.

~~~
fwdpropaganda
Still none of your business. You get upset when someone interferes with you,
but think it's ok interefering? Such hypocrisy.

~~~
kevinburke
I don't get it. The original question asked "why don't Americans like Russia"
and I replied with reasons why I / other Americans don't like Russia. I didn't
say anything about interfering.

If you asked me why I didn't like, say, the movie "Dunkirk", and then I told
you why I didn't like it, it would be really odd to reply that it's not my
business.

------
herbst
The thing is. If one side is allowed to do propaganda why should the other
side be not allowed to.

Obviously hacking into systems and releasing internal data is a step to far.

But I don't see the general problem of propaganda as long all sides are doing
it. Well sure I do see the issue but this is just how a open society works.

~~~
tootie
The FEC says who is allowed to run propaganda. You have to be registered as a
PAC to run political ads. And you're not allowed to use foreign money. Even
groups like Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and Citizen's United were registered
with the IRS and all their communications were clearly attributed.

~~~
herbst
Wait there are central entities that control who is allowed to do propaganda
within their border?

This sounds wrong on all ends

~~~
tootie
Only who is allowed to do it professionally. And it's incredibly easy to
obtain permission. There's very few barriers. It just has to be disclosed.

------
smsm42
> Mueller describes a sweeping, years-long, multimillion-dollar conspiracy by
> hundreds of Russians aimed at criticizing Hillary Clinton and supporting
> Senator Bernie Sanders and Trump

Since when criticizing Hillary Clinton and supporting Senator Bernie Sanders
and Trump is a crime one can be indicted for? I know millions of Americans
engaged in multibillion-dollar conspiracy aimed at criticizing Hillary Clinton
and supporting Senator Bernie Sanders and Trump (the last two probably not at
the same time :).

I can get why hacking into private email is something worth indictment. I
don't see how "criticizing Hillary Clinton" can even appear in indictment as
something that is worth being prosecuted for.

~~~
kharms
I’m not sure when the original law was passed, but it was reaffirmed by SCOTUS
in 2012. Prohibited by the FEC:

>Making any contribution or donation of money or other thing of value, or
making any expenditure, independent expenditure, or disbursement in connection
with any federal, state or local election in the United States;

There’s more, but the above covers a good chunk of it.

[0] [https://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/09/supreme-
court...](https://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/09/supreme-court-
retains-ban-on-foreign-campaign-donations/)

[1] [https://www.fec.gov/updates/foreign-
nationals/](https://www.fec.gov/updates/foreign-nationals/)

~~~
smsm42
And that shows why it is a bad law as written - now criticizing Hillary
Clinton on Facebook while being Russian turns out to be a crime. By using
extremely broad definitions of "thing of value": saying "Hillary is bad,
Sanders is good" is helpful to Sanders, so if you're Russian or Israeli or
Moroccan or Indonesian citizen now it's a crime for you to say it. And using
extremely wide definition of "in connection to ... election" \- we hold
elections every two years, so everything is close to the election and thus can
be said to be in connection - any political expression can be prosecuted this
way.

What would you say if in Putin's Russia somebody would indict an American for
criticizing Putin on Facebook? Probably that Putin is a dictator and hates
freedom of speech and of course he would do things like that. Now US justice
system is doing that. For shame.

------
reaperducer
Man, I wish those pesky Russians would stop interfering with U.S. elections.
Last time, Boris and Natasha were outside the polling place and wouldn't let
me in.

Oh, wait. No, I was perfectly able to vote for the candidates of my choice
based on the research I'd done as an informed voter. I wasn't prevented from
exercising my right to vote at all.

I've never understood this whole Russian voting paranoia. It's not like the
U.S. doesn't try to influence politics in other countries via the media. Radio
Marti, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, etc...

And it's not just the governments. Look at the millions both the Trump and
Clinton campaigns and allied organizations received from overseas donors and
politicians (especially UK). I'm sure American millionaires back foreign
candidates, too.

The whole system is a mess.

~~~
outsidetheparty
> based on the research I'd done as an informed voter.

The problem is that plenty of voters thought they were equally "informed" by
"research," which turns out to have been fraudulent.

> I've never understood this whole Russian voting paranoia.

"The indictment charges that the foreigners falsely posed as American
citizens, stole identities and otherwise engaged in fraud and deceit in an
effort to influence the U.S. political process." Not comparable to Radio
Liberty et al.

> Look at the millions both the Trump and Clinton campaigns and allied
> organizations received from overseas donors and politicians

Where are you getting your well-informed research, exactly?

"Foreign nationals, other than lawful permanent residents, are completely
banned from donating to candidates or parties, or making independent
expenditures in federal, state or local elections."
[https://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/09/supreme-
court...](https://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/09/supreme-court-
retains-ban-on-foreign-campaign-donations/)

(One of the many Trump scandals is that they broke that law, by allegedly
soliciting overseas donations ([https://www.theguardian.com/us-
news/2016/jun/29/trump-campai...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-
news/2016/jun/29/trump-campaign-donations-foreign-politicians)). If there's
evidence that the Clinton campaign did the same, I'd be very interested to see
a source or citation.)

~~~
lawnchair_larry
The US has a long history of actively overthrowing governments, and backing or
installing candidates that they like. It’s a little hard to take complaints of
“meddling” based on people lying about their identity seriously.

Regarding improper foreign donations, there were plenty of reports of foreign
donors to the Clinton foundation while she was SoS.

~~~
hcknwscommenter
"there were plenty of reports of foreign donors to the Clinton foundation
while she was SoS"

I see what you did there. Pure innuendo. The Clinton Foundation is not a
campaign. The Clinton Foundation is a charity. Only in the minds of the
paranoid is the Clinton Foundation some nefarious money laundering influence
peddling deep state org. Keep in mind that Hillary is the most investigated
politician in the history of the US and has never been found guilty of any
crimes.

~~~
vixen99
Given what you say, one wonders why foreign governments who had pledged tens-
of-millions of dollars have now pulled their donations. Why would Clinton's
failure to become President affect the requirement for charitable
distribution?

[https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/05/politics/clinton-
foundati...](https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/05/politics/clinton-foundation-
arkansas-probe/index.html)

"The FBI and federal prosecutors are looking into whether donors to the
foundation were improperly promised policy favors or special access to Hillary
Clinton while she was secretary of state in exchange for donations to the
charity's coffers, as well as whether tax-exempt funds were misused".

------
crb002
The US Supreme Court ruled that fake news is not illegal under the 1st
Amendment, United States v. Alvarez, 567 U.S. 709 (2012).

Muller is attempting to turn the US into a totalitarian state where you can be
prosecuted for saying something that is not truthful in the public sphere.
When Thomas Jefferson ran against Adams they threw all kind of fake news like
calling the other a hermaphrodite.

When the government gets to decide what is true/false, that is the definition
of totalitarianism.

~~~
abvdasker
That Mueller's team would somehow want to erode the First Amendment is a
pretty extreme belief bordering on conspiracy theory.

I think this is less about material truth or lies and more about the fact that
these ads were meant to influence US elections and paid for by foreign
interests. Many US-based organizations can and do produce baseless "fake news"
but it isn't seen as much of a problem because they represent the views of
some kind of voting constituency.

~~~
davesque
_Bordering_ on conspiracy theory?

He just said Mueller want to turn the US into a totalitarian state. That
qualifies as an honest to God conspiracy theory in my book.

