Russian Towards the Mid-Term Elections

It’s really hard for our national security and intelligence agencies to forge a set of coherent counter measures against Russian meddling in our elections, when the President of the United States himself does not believe those charges. How sure is the rest of government? As punishment against such Russian interference in our November election, the Senate voted 98-2 (June) and the House 419-3 (July), signed into law by the President because he did not want to be embarrassed by an override, to mandate the White House to impose sanctions on Russia. Trump simply refused to implement that mandate within the required time period. Both Barack Obama and George W Bush openly recognize the extent of the Russian hacking/disinformation effort. We’ve seen the same Russian practices in recent European elections, but that we are not alone is hardly comforting.

With virtually zero support in our securities and intelligence agencies – or the Congress – for the notion that Russia did not interfere with the 2016 election, Vladimir Putin is smiling at the support he has garnered from Donald Trump who accepts manipulation expert Putin at his word. The Russian system of recruiting brilliant misfits, off the books but well paid and well-supplied with “extras” – to manage fake news, to automate social media/email bots that disseminate messages based on data tracking right down to the individual and to ferret out sensitive information by direct hacking – is perfectly suited for deniability. But versions of this methodology can be traced back to Putin’s KGB days in the Soviet Union, and the modern Web has made this one of the most successful tactics in Russian history. Wink-wink, Vladdy.

Knowing that Trump is sabotaging all those efforts to contain Russian election meddling, despite a landslide opinion to the contrary by the rest of the government, Russia is well-underway in their efforts to destabilize the upcoming November mid-terms. Trump’s base doesn’t care – it’s a red herring to them, and they are just experiencing waves of schadenfreude (joy at the misery of others) as their hero Donald does exactly the opposite of what their perceived incumbent tormentors want to see happen. But testimony before Congress, from the heads of our most vital and credible intelligence agencies, waves a giant red flag.

There is even a new threat as experts testified: “As hackers abroad plot increasingly brazen and sophisticated assaults, the United States’ creaky polling stations and outdated voter registration technology are not up to the task of fighting them off, according to elections officials and independent experts.” Los Angeles Times, February 14th. And those existing threats continue as well:

“Russia is already meddling in the midterm elections this year, the top American intelligence officials said on Tuesday [2/13], warning that Moscow is using a digital strategy to worsen the country’s political and social divisions.

“Russia is using fake accounts on social media — many of them bots — to spread disinformation, the officials said. European elections are being targeted, too, and the attacks were not likely to end this year, they warned.

“‘We expect Russia to continue using propaganda, social media, false-flag personas, sympathetic spokespeople and other means of influence to try to exacerbate social and political fissures in the United States,’ Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, told the Senate Intelligence Committee at its annual hearing on worldwide threats.

“Mr. Coats and the other intelligence chiefs laid out a pair of central challenges for the United States: contending with the flow of Russian misinformation and shoring up the defenses of electoral systems, which are run by individual states and were seen as highly vulnerable in 2016.

“‘There should be no doubt that Russia perceives its past efforts as successful and views the 2018 U.S. midterm elections as a potential target for Russian influence operations,’ said Mr. Coats, testifying alongside Mike Pompeo, the C.I.A. director; Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director; and other leading intelligence officials.” New York Times, February 13th.

Donald Trump has gone out of his way to discredit his intelligence agencies, calling their findings “fake news.” His efforts to undermine the FBI – by allowing the release of a deeply flawed GOP memo challenging the FBI’s use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance courts in the Russia investigation while refusing to authorize the release of the Democratic rebuttal – have his base cheering, Republicans tripping all over each other to garner support from that base, but those who fear for a complete destabilization in this nation’s law enforcement/intelligence gathering community truly concerned. They see the gradual elimination of our government’s normal checks and balances against an authoritarian president, who believes he is the law.

I’m Peter Dekom, and there is a real question whether democracy can actually survive in an open society where free dissemination of information and speech – digital and otherwise – are protected by constitution, practice and statute… as malevolent forces use those same legal protection to decimate the society that created them.