[parktheredcar]

The bloomberg article I read (http://archive.is/j5wRd) presented it as evidence. Maybe other publications are doing the same.

>As part of the administration’s response, the FBI and Homeland Security Department also released a report with technical evidence intended to prove Russia’s military and civilian intelligence services were behind the hacking and to expose some of their most sensitive hacking infrastructure.

[mundo]

The "evidence" cited is not the handful of unclassified details included, it's the fact that the FBI and DHS are willing to go on record publicly accusing Russia. There are no asterisks or weasel-words or "allegedly"s. Just a clear "Russia did it."

There are only two possible explanations for that:

1) A massive conspiracy in which the leaders of practically the entirety of the US military/intelligence community are willing to go on record with a hoax that will easily be unraveled by the incoming administration in a few months

2) There is clear and damning evidence that Russia did it, but it's classified

[naturally2014]

I'd guess a third option, actually: It's just a best guess, but they don't like being questioned.

If they had damning evidence it'd be in their interest to release it.

[walshemj]

Not if it would give any humint sources away and they may have kicked out people to allow a source to step into their shoes - as the UK did to put there man in as the Resident in London

[porpoisemonkey]

It's somewhat obvious from the context but for anyone not familiar with military jargon I think the parent post meant to say "humint" instead of "humit" which is short hand for "human intelligence" or in layman's terms "spies".

[walshemj]

oops my bad

[acjohnson55]

Of course, Iraq and WMD do little to build confidence.

Not that I don't believe you -- motive and opportunity for Russia are crystal clear here, and given that the results of the election are not going to be overturned, I see little gain for the current administration to lie about this.

[boomboomsubban]

>1) A massive conspiracy in which the leaders of practically the entirety of the US military/intelligence community are willing to go on record with a hoax that will easily be unraveled by the incoming administration in a few months

Unless the actual perpetrators were the US intelligence community and/or the incoming administration. Then they could both hide their tracks or have no reason to unravel this. But why suspect the group with the most to gain or the community with the most experience doing this? It's not like there's any other examples of a Republican politician breaking into the DNC to tap their communications, using the intelligence agencies to help cover it up...

[burkaman]

What does the intelligence community have to gain by perpetrating this hack?

[boomboomsubban]

Billions of dollars plus whatever power comes from picking the president and presumably having a potential deepthroat if they don't behave. And remember, the intelligence community is not unified. Even though Obama has been a huge ally of the intelligence community, not all branches got the same deal.

[burkaman]

Ok I guess I meant specifically, is there any reason to think the intelligence community would prefer Trump? Presumably they would prefer someone who was more interested in foreign involvement, and less likely to provoke mass donations to privacy and civil rights organizations.

[boomboomsubban]

Incredibly late, but I noted that the community is not unified, some of it is just about getting their candidate. Additionally, some of Trump's proposals mean a lot more cash/power for intelligence agencies, things like harsher standards on immigrants and more control over the internet.

[rogerthis]

If the 1 hypothesis were true, then the conspirator would be betting there will be no "incoming administration", not very soon, i'd say.

If the 2 were true, there would be also some conspiration to keep those important infomations classified.

Also, I can't help thinking about Snowden and the blown whistle of the NSA spying scheme.

[mistermann]

Snowden is a powerful trump card for dismissive claims like "massive conspiracy in which the leaders of practically the entirety of the US military/intelligence community are willing to go on record with a hoax" thaat used to work so well.

We know our security agencies (and high level politicians) are not just dishonest, but actively violating the constitution. That people still mock those who distrust these agencies is so strange.

[mundo]

It's not that I don't think they would lie about anything, it's that I don't think they would lie about something this trivial and small. The NSA lied about the multi-year global surveillance program which serves their core mission, so that means that the NSA and also the FBI and DHS will lie about a relatively minor news story? How is this even in their interests?

I'm more than willing to believe they're lying but I need something. Some evidence, a credible motive, a plausible story. You can't just say, "Well the FBI says so, and they lie all the time, so we can be sure it isn't so." That's the road that leads to disbelieving the moon landing.

[mistermann]

You don't think they might be a bit concerned a loose cannon like Trump might be a little more curious than normal candidates what sorts of interesting things they get up to, and where they spend their significant budgets?

> but I need something

That's how a lot of people feel about this whole "Russians rigged the election" thing, we'd like some evidence a little more substantial than "trust us", or at least we'd like to hear those words from someone we can trust, although no names come to mind. I can't think of very many public figures that I would trust these days.

[jessaustin]

...they might be a bit concerned a loose cannon like Trump might be a little more curious than normal candidates what sorts of interesting things they get up to, and where they spend their significant budgets?

It is perhaps significant that the "further analysis" leakfest started after Trump had already disappointed the spooks by bagging their special briefings, rather than back when all of the actual underlying facts were publicized well before election day. They always think they've got a thick enough profile of the incoming executive to bend him as far as they want. For example, Obama never closed their favorite EST Caribbean vacation-and-torture resort, even though doing so was a major campaign plank the first time around. Who knows what incriminating documents proved so persuasive? Maybe this time we've somehow elected someone who won't be in their pocket from Day One?

[RachelF]

With option 1, it will be hard for the new administration to unravel it without confirming the bias that they are in the pay of Russia. However this level of subtlety may be beyond Trump.

Perhaps Obama is trying to make Trump's new administration look illegitimate?

[cmurf]

Option 1's problem is far less anyone in the new administration is in the pay of Russia, but that the GOP for more than a decade has been claiming government is totally incompetent, cannot be trusted to do anything, should not be trusted, and could not investigate itself. This is hardly any different than the surveillance state, creating that infrastructure puts it right into the hands of political adversaries when the political winds change, and now creating distrust in government generally rather than just political enemies means the distrust is inherited when political winds change. It's deeply damaging to have this concept of "saying things makes them true/untrue" rather than appeal to facts.

[grandalf]

> presented it as evidence

Quite predictable, since they also considered the wild accusations of various politicians of a high level Russian conspiracy to be evidence.

[gipp]

If you rephrase your hysterical wording as "major bipartisan concern across every intelligence agency and nearly all ranking members of both houses of Congress, including the heads of both Intelligence Committees," then I'm not really sure what more evidence you or I could hope for from such an obviously sensitive, active topic for the time being.

[grandalf]

By mentioning that they are "ranking members" you make an argument from authority that is predicated on the legitimacy of the government alone, effectively saying "kneel and take whatever they say at face value".

In my view, they are all self-serving career politicians and none have shown any particular reason they should be trusted or respected. They were the ones who urged the knee-jerk reaction in Iraq which has cost trillions of dollars and many lives, among many other bad decisions that they all agree on.

[gipp]

Fine. But (assuming you extend this attitude to "the mainstream media" as well) you've created for yourself an ontology of the world in which it is impossible to claim any knowledge of anything outside your direct field of view. I'm not really sure how you intend us to accomplish much of anything without _some_ ability to trust _someone_ else. And bipartisan agreement from bitter enemies who have little or nothing to gain personally from such statements is about the lowest bar of trust I can imagine.

[hueving]

Politicians stand to gain government expansion when they scare the population.

So it's not nearly as low of a bar as you think. It's like you're claiming we must trust pharmaceutical representatives from competing companies when they both agree that we all need more pills.

[gipp]

Who's expanding what part of government here?

[grandalf]

The issue is not so much authority, the issue is urgency.

Why is there urgency to rush to judgment about alleged Russian election meddling?

If it happened, then unless anyone thinks the outcome of the election should be reversed, we have four years to get to the bottom of it, take action, and prevent it from happening again.

It's very much reminiscent of the blind urgency to invade Iraq on shaky evidence. Note that one tactic used to get people to act is to create urgency. The simplest example is "this offer expires in 5 minutes..."

It's not so much that I give no credit to any officials as having authority, it's that they all agree on the knee-jerk urgency when there is no apparent need to do so, and none feel obligated to offer a point by point probability assessment of whatever information, inference, or intelligence has them 100% convinced, since the information disclosed so far paints a vague, circumstantial picture.

This sort of elitist disregard for the basic rationality of the public is not something I can stomach, so I simply can't take their assurances at face value.

[tptacek]

That's not what "ranking members" communicates; rather, it suggests that the conclusion transcends partisan politics. That doesn't mean it doesn't succumb to other biases (though I don't think so), but it is a meaningful statement to make.

[grandalf]

I think there is a coalition of peculiarly anti-Russian hawks who have been the most vocal in their opposition to Russia's behavior in Crimea, etc.

This likely transcends party lines in the same way that support for wall street or the oil industry transcends party lines.

[tptacek]

So, that's what I'm saying: that the "ranking members" support the conclusion doesn't dispose of all bias, but it does dispose of the Trump vs. Clinton bias. It's up to you how to weight [Trump vs. Clinton] vs. [Russia vs. US].

But my impression is that [Trump vs. Clinton] is way more powerful than any other bias right now.

[tomp]

Was it any different with Iraq WMD?

[gipp]

Yes. Many, many parts of the intelligence community produced reports contradicting any claims of WMD evidence, and were summarily ignored by a very not-bipartisan administration. There is basically total consensus among every intelligence agency that the evidence points to Russia.

[willstrafach]

Not just ignored, but specifically worked around.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/05/12/selective-intel...

[rogerthis]

Basic sources on the total consensus?

[gipp]

https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/10/07/joint-statement-departme...

> The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations.

This is an official joint statement from the USIC, which is an official body composed of 16 different intelligence organizations:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_Com...