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Comment by mundo | Hacker News Reader

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

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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.

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

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".

oops my bad

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.

>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...

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

...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?

Ya, who knows....I do think he is very different than your typical politician, but exactly how no one really knows. You might be right that they thought they had the goods on him with things like the sex talk tape, but when he basically shrugs his shoulders and it slides right off his back, I could see how that might be worrying to someone who is also in the influence game.

I agree on Obama, I think something must happen in the first few days where the new President is sat down and gets told how things really work. I would think that is what happened to many of Obama's promises. I doubt anyone would look forward to having that talk with Donald Trump.

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?

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.

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