What Happens When Hacks are Hacked?

In quite a surprising turn of events, Wikileaks recently released emails from an unspecified source related to the DNC, some of which contained some very embarrassing statements by the DNC Chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, regarding the once unyielding, now establishment kowtowing, Bernie Sanders. Upon further investigation by a private security firm, CrowdStrike, it was found that Russian hackers were suspected of having infiltrated and having gained access to DNC emails among other information and by the time the DNC was warned of this threat in April, the Russians were believed to have had access for nearly a year.

Despite this, and to no real surprise, the convention has done their best to completely detach the issue from their candidate’s name, despite the fact that such sly tactics are exactly what the public has been decrying for the past twenty-four hours with regards to evidence in the emails that similar tactics were used to slant the nomination toward Hillary and from Bernie. But, being the case that Democrats are already up in arms and divided over such things, despite the news’ declaration of unity and Bernie’s plea for it from his crowd of Hillary-opposed followers, let’s zoom in on a different application of this report of hacking, one that it seems everyone is even more desperate to disassociate from Hillary. Well, let’s go there, shall we?

I would like to go over the CNN report today of the incident a section at a time with you and analyze what’s being said from a different, but no less relevant angle. The first is a statement in the article from the DNC vice chairwoman, Donna Brazile, under the now widely hated, recently resigned (not fired), and hired by the Clinton campaign, Debbie Wasserman Schultz:

“I talked to the general counsel of the DNC today and he assures me that every step along the way when we were notified of these issues that we changed systems, changed procedures. But these hackers are so sophisticated that they changed procedures. So yes, it went on for more than a year, but at no time did we ignore the warning from the FBI or any other federal officials.”

I am sure that when Donna Brazile said this to Wolf Blitzer, she thought she came off as reassuring and un-incriminating. But when you stop to think about it for half a second longer, the vice chairwoman whose scurrilously supported candidate, Hillary Clinton, was recently accused by the FBI of “gross negligence” in every way but the actual use of the term just admitted that the DNC, who supposedly did everything according to protocol by changing “systems” and “procedures” anytime there was a potential threat, still were not able to prevent the “sophisticated hackers” from keeping access to DNC information for nearly a year. Let that sink in for a moment. Now as an exercise, I invite you to imagine how much more capable the same or similar Russian hackers would have needed to be in order to gain access to the insecure email server, illegally in use by Hillary Clinton. (Spoiler Alert: not very)

Think of it less as a shrug and more as though she needs two hands to offer you the full weight of her competence. Yeah. That’s it.

Democrats, including some in Congress, are trying to pressure the White House to publicly name Russia as the perpetrator, in the way the government named North Korea in the Sony hack and China for hacking various US companies. The Obama administration has resisted publicly naming Russia despite evidence gathered by US government investigators showing Russian behind cyber-attacks on U.S. government agencies and even the public release in 2014 of a hacked phone call between US diplomats in Ukraine that caused embarrassment for the US.

It is very interesting that Democratic party fingers start pointing dramatically once the supposed leakers of the infos isn’t their pride and joy candidate. Additionally, this is a very Obama move. Evidence is presented by a private security firm with evidence from several months ago that Russia is directly linked to the incident and Obama gets antsy about taking the next step and stating, much less, seriously investigating Russian involvement because he actually might have to, you know…”foreign policy” if they are involved. Luckily (not to mention conveniently) for Obama, “The answer won’t likely come until well after the election” (CNN). No word yet as to how successful the Obama administration expects Hillary to be regarding tense relations with Russia seeing as she is considered the one who first pointed her finger at them, but sources very close to me suggest it might go as well as her ability to adeptly bridge gaps in race relations.

“The FBI is investigating a cyber intrusion involving the DNC and are working to determine the nature and scope of the matter,” the agency said in a statement. “A compromise of this nature is something we take very seriously, and the FBI will continue to investigate and hold accountable those who pose a threat in cyberspace.”

James Trainor, assistant director for FBI’s cyber division, told CNN in a recent interview that the bureau has been working with political organizations and think tanks to put more resources into the security of their computer networks. He wouldn’t discuss the DNC or the role of Russia, but spoke generally about the increased number of such intrusions.

“There’s been aggressive targeting of that sector, the various campaigns, think tanks in the Washington, DC area,” Trainor said.

It’s possible that other hackers took advantage of the DNC’s vulnerabilities and also stole information, US officials said. But the intrusion so far appears to bear the hallmarks of a Russian intelligence operation.

First of all and most importantly, the fact that the FBI is on the case comforts no one even half-mindful of how the results of their investigation of Hillary panned out. No one is going to take you seriously when you use in one sentence, basically the same wording you used prior to recommending no one prosecute Hillary Clinton, before you reassure us that “A compromise of this nature is something we take very seriously”:

“It’s possible that other hackers took advantage of the DNC’s vulnerabilities and also stole information, US officials said.” (CNN)

VERSUS

FBI Director James Comey’s statement regarding Hillary Clinton’s negligence

Think about it, all Vladmir Putin would have to do is act like he had no idea it was going on, maybe blame some government hackers for going rogue, and he could be as free of all possible intent as Hillary was declared as being. I do not put too much stock in a system where such a thing could theoretically work. Finally, the assistant director of the FBI just said that “There’s been aggressive targeting of [political organizations], the various campaigns, think tanks in the Washington, DC area” and that we currently do not “understand the nature and scope of the [DNC hack],” but the potential repercussions of Hillary Clinton’s email server sitting open-season for years are dropped as being noteworthy because the FBI director doesn’t think there’s any evidence to support her having meant to do any of it on purpose, despite of course the plethora of evidence of her having lied about it all along the way? Mmhmm. Assuming they never consider Russia guilty of the hacking, I suppose we could credit the FBI with consistency if only in the worst of ways.