What are we going to do about Russia? There is strong evidence, supposedly, that Russia has hacked into Hillary Clinton’s allies and is giving the information it receives to WikiLeaks, who have been slowly releasing the information day-by-day.
Vladimir Putin has given a non-denial denial in which he doesn’t really say whether they hacked Clinton’s allies or not, just that Russia doesn’t intend to influence the election.
“I would like to reassure everyone, including our US partners and friends – we do not intend to influence the US election campaign,” he said.
Clinton would like some of the pressure taken off of her and, instead of answering the questions facing her, she turns the story around to Russia, like every good little politician. The United States government has followed and blamed Russia as well.
The White House has said that they are going to have a “proportional” response and, as in all spy movies, no one will know ahead of time. On October 16, Vice President Joe Biden said that they will be retaliating against Russia by committing a cyber attack of their own.
No, this isn’t the start of a cyber war. However, it isn’t a good idea to fight fire with fire just because Russia embarrassed the United States. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton embarrassed the United States and we haven’t kicked them out of the country, so why are we so up in arms over Russia?
Putin has dismissed the threats saying, “You can expect anything from our American friends. But what did he [Biden] say that was new? Don’t we know that official bodies of the United States are spying and eavesdropping on everyone?”
That, of course, was a reference to when information was leaked that the NSA had been spying on their allies. Let’s not forget that the United States has spied and hacked their own allies; they don’t have the right to get angry and shake their fists.
However, America’s political secrets are apparently so great that they would start attacking Russia in cyberspace just to get even.
It’s extremely hard to pinpoint the culprit behind a cyber attack and the U.S. government hasn’t been too open with their evidence. They’ve only really said that they have it. So, while it is likely that Russia could have attacked the U.S., it isn’t for certain either.
Of course, Putin did say that the attacks were a good thing, which didn’t help to simmer the U.S. government’s anger. “It doesn’t really matter who hacked this data from Mrs. Clinton’s campaign headquarters,” Putin said, “the important thing is the content was given to the public.”
He isn’t really wrong either. No information as of yet has been enough to damage the Clinton campaign, not with Trump as the opponent. However, it isn’t all flattering information and while Clinton may hate it, it is information that U.S. citizens have a right to know.
It also isn’t new for countries to be hacking each other. There are spy agencies for a reason and no, you cannot pretend that it only happens in movies. Countries hack each other all the time, so the government doesn’t have a right to act victimized by it because they’ve done it themselves and they aren’t the only ones.
It is fairly likely that Russia hacked into the GOP as well, for anyone who is concerned that they only targeted Democrats. Marco Rubio, Florida Senator and former GOP candidate for president, reminded Republicans of this, telling them not to get too secure. He’s right, Republicans could be up next and that could be extremely embarrassing for them as well.
At the most recent debate, Clinton redirected some of the scrutiny she received for the leaked emails to Russia, which turned to Trump and Russia, which then turned to Trump’s denial that Russia in cyberspace is actually a thing. So, basically, more of the same nonsense from both of them.
The emails are actually a little bit for funny for U.S. citizens to read. This is a rare front row seat to insider politics. I advise all Americans citizens to just relax and enjoy the drama that just so happens to be the United States government.
Laina Yost
Managing Editor