NATO Researcher Warns of Russian Interference in 2019 Canadian Elections
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/nato-researcher-russia-interference-elec...
"Russia is a threat to Canada because destabilizing it will 'undermine the cohesion' of the broader NATO alliance. Moreover, it could serve to undermine Canadian policy in Europe..."
So Canadians' tax dollars will continue to flow to NATO, the military, the greasy Ukrainian oligarchy and its Nazi stormtroopers etc. Getting the northern chumps ready...
*See comments*
And so it begins. Though some of the comments from the article did give me hope:
"Will the Minister of Democratic Institutions spend as much time and effort ensuring that American special interest groups are not able to influence Canadian elections?
Our last election saw millions of dollars from the USA, go into an effort of elect a "progressive" friendly gov't. All this money flew under the radar due to our election laws regarding 3rd party advertising.
I'm no happier with Americans influencing our elections, than I am with Russians."
And the Russian sympathizers soon to pounce.
Canucklhead chumps will be happy - $500 MILLION of the people's money in the Federal budget for 'cyber-security' to protect them from Putin and the evil Russians under their beds trying to put a Tory back in power or whatever this delusional Canadian variant of the low-rent Yanqui farce turns out to be...
Liberals Pitch $5oo Million Cyber-Security Plan
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2018/02/27/liberals-pitch-500-millio...
"Canada's electronic spy agency takes a central role in new cyber security strategy, will see budget boosts."
State Dept Troll Farm Receives Huge Cash Infusion
https://t.co/C6OlA5FlUw
"The state Dept is launching a $40 million initiative to crack down on foreign propaganda and disinformation amid widespread concerns about future Russian efforts to interfere in elections..."
As usual, whatever tune Uncle Sam decides to play his little Canadian monkey is guaranteed to dance up a storm and hand all his coins over too. Trudeau troll-farms, away we go...
I missed the reference to Russia in that article.
Even if "Fancy Bear" isn't actually a Russian hacking group, but is in fact, literally a bear, do you feel it's better if Canada just literally ignore the threat?
dp omit
NATO Nonsense. It's a pretext to rob you and stoke their war machine. A hoax. Canada was told by USA to cough up more and they just did. Bigtime.
Technology and the changing nature of social media has created this threat. There ought to be defences whether there is an imediate threat or not.
As I understand it, it seems like a number of countries are trying this tactic in part becuase it is cheap and works. This is not about laying stronger blame in one country than another. The US has a histroy of destabalizing other countries. I would not suggest Canada should have no defences against them. This is not about the Russians alone for Canada. As well this technology can also be deployed domestically. We saw how robocalls could be used... Canada's system should be protected and we should not get all hung up on who suggested it.
Do you seriously think $500 million to the intelligence services will protect us from America. (or Robo-calls?) You need to read a bit of Edward Snowden perhaps. And about 'Five Eyes' and the CSE. This is a weapon that you should not willingly give them because there's a good chance it will be used against you. Don't consent to something you clearly don't fully understand. Or better yet, remind yourself that they're not even asking..
Edward Snowden: Surveillance is About Power
https://youtu.be/RSc_IlFBWkw
Mobo quoted the CBC comments section:
Our last election saw millions of dollars from the USA, go into an effort of elect a "progressive" friendly gov't. All this money flew under the radar due to our election laws regarding 3rd party advertising.
Who were the American groups trying to get the Liberals elected, and what sort of advertising did they run in Canada? Not neccessarily doubting that this happened, just curious.
I think the most interesting question is which Canadian party the Russians would want to help, if they were getting up to election hacking. I would imagine they would want to help the party most likely to disagree with the U.S. on major issues. That looks to be the NDP, not that we are particularly brave in our foreign policy positions. So, don't be surprised if thousands of Russian bots and trolls start singing the praises of Jagmeet.
Compelling evidence.
Of which there is still no evidence...
As if he cannot already do this by pointing to articles just like this one.
What are they going to do, hack our pencils?
Still confused how Russia will meddle with our paper and pencil ballots.
I don't recall anyone complaining about the effect of social media on elections when it benefitted faux progressives like Obama and Trudeau.
RE: VOTD. Large US unions, real estate developers and financial service industry associations and lobby groups typically support the Liberals in Canada, and the extraction industries/big oil, etc typically support the Conservatives. Elections Canada has reported on it, google the Tides Foundation for recent example. Typically US orgs will give money to local branches or to local third parties to spend.
Michael: I think your questions is unknowable and somewhat dangerous. To ask it is believing the hype. Do we need to, at this point in time, specify who should get the lion's share of the McCarthyite charges of "acting in the interests of Russians" coming down the canadian media pipelines? Besides, we all know it will be the NDP.
I don't understand these Russophiles. I don't think it's far fetched to believe that Russia interferes with their enemies elections. I'd say the US does the same to various countries. If there's a threat,the government needs to act.
All the Putin lovers here can move to Moscow and see just how swell of a guy he really is.
How trusting of you to allow the government to define the threat, and to tell us the solution to it. That kind of trust is very useful to governments everywhere.
Good question and you may be right, but of course that isn't the real motive, but rather to destabilize the system as a whole. After all, they didn't set out to get Trump elected because they never thought the Americans would be that stupid.
And it is also complicated with respect to the NDP given the large Ukrainian diaspora here in Canada, which is of course the real reason why we are getting such attention.
In case anyone needs reminding of the degree to which they are on this one, remember this coincidental show of national pride back in 2014?
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/ukrainians-in-winnipeg-decry-russ...
Or the outrage when people started talking about the Holodomor back in the 80s.
Mobo:
Yeah, I know about the Tides Foundation controversy. Thing is, though, when Harper and Levant were making a big issue about Tides and other groups funding environmentalist groups in Canada a few years back, the general repsonse from the left seemed to be "Yeah, well the oil companies are throwing foreign cash around all over the place, so we don't really have much choice but to fight fire with fire, now do we." At the very least, I certainly don't recall anyone on the left saying that environmentalists should on principle refuse money from US foundations.
I take the point that there has been foreign money(of whatever ideological origin) influencing our elections for some time now, though I don't know if US environmentalist groups are really what most progressives have in mind when they think of "Americans trying to elect a Canadian government." And I suspect that CBC poster you quoted wasn't a progressive at all, but was mad that Harper lost and is blaming left-wing Americans.
LOL, that was exactly what I was wondering!
According to the article, The $507.7 million is on top of another $2.2 billion joint initiative with Shared Services Canada. That's quite a lot of money, given how few seem to have a clue about any of it, let alone outrage. The curiosity and comprehension levels of the country vis a vis important affairs foreign and domestic was never anything to write home about, but the present state of this dumb-down is more than alarming and leading us down some rather bizarre, expensive and dangerous roads...
Sorry,I don't trust Strongman rulers.
Why not defend Duterte while you're at it.
VOTD: "At the very least, I certainly don't recall anyone on the left saying that environmentalists should on principle refuse money from US foundations."
Sure, if you look at this issue through a partisan lens, that logic makes sense. If you take the position that other countries shouldn't interfere in our domestic affairs as a general principle than when evaluating threats it would seem to me we should consider their individual scale, ability and power to interfere. I would put it that the US and China, at minimum, have far more ability and $ to spend influencing our elections, but they are not mentioned by Trudeau.
If one is generous and believes the US intelligence agencies, Russia spend some 6 million dollars on influencing the US election prior to the election. We are spending, as NDPP has pointed out, 500 million on combatting this threat alone, + another 2.2 billion on a joint venture with Shared Service Canada.
Michael and Pondering: I get that it's fun to speculate, but do you really think we are in any sort of position to judge the Russian government's motives vis-a-vis Canada? Governments don't announce their true intentions, and we have little to no direct experience with the Russian government or it's foreign policy, and we are not in a media environment where anything Russian is discussed in a reasonable, factual way.
Allan: Got it. Strongmen like Putin bad. Trudeau good, will protect us from Strongmen!
Very curious how the government intends to define (or not define) "interference", as well. The definitions used in the Kremlingate affair by the US were ridiculously vague and overly general. Kind of a key point for me.
Thanks for the thread NDPP! When I get the chance I'll add more opinions and comments.
"I say this as a former Secretary of State and as an American. The Russians are still coming. Our intelligence professionals are imploring Trump to act. Will he continue to ignore and surrender, or protect our country?"
https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/968874798771310592
Canadian chumps agree!
If either are doing it on the "down low" then I hope it would be mentioned.
If either of them openly made some contribution to "the People's Freedom Foundation" or some similar, I'm not that worried. But it's a general principle of criminal law that there's a difference between openly committing a crime, for all to see, and committing a crime and taking pains to try to cover up the evidence.
Russia's innocence in all of this crap would be so much easier to believe if it weren't being constantly and consistently asserted that they're innocent of EVERYTHING.
Like, if the defenders of Mother Russia could agree that, OK, looks like there really was some doping going on and Russia needs to finally own that, it would be just 100x easier to believe them when they say "there was no attempt to subvert any elections". But the idea that it's all just 100% "Russophobia", promoted by the U.S., the Canadian "chumps", Chrystia Freeland and the ghost of Ronald Reagan doesn't hold water.
"We will continue to prosecute the campaign against terrorists, but great power competition not terrorism - is now the primary focus of US national security.' Henceforth Russia and China will be America's main enemies, with Iran and North Korea thrown in for good measure. So detailed US Secretary of Defense, James ('Mad Dog') Mattis, last week in a statement of profound importance for the world.
But if so, how to maintain the $1 Trillion US military budget? Well, of course, trot out those good old 'Reds Under Our Beds..."
Why One War When We Can Have Two! - by Eric Margolis
https://ericmargolis.com/2018/02/why-one-war-when-we-can-have-two/
A Visit From Head-Office!
"I always welcome every opportunity to further strengthen our defence relationship with the US - our strongest ally, friend and neighbour."
https://twitter.com/HarjitSajjan/status/969244524462534657
That's OK. You can stay in the U.S., we'll stay in Canada and Putin will stay in Moscow.
Everyone will be happy!
Foreign, why should we be afraid of foreign governments interfering with elections?
I am much more concerned with the U.S. (not foreign, brethren) interfering with elections.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/17/sunday-review/russia-isnt-the-only-one-meddling-in-elections-we-do-it-too.html
https://www.newsbud.com/2018/02/23/newsbud-exclusive-the-us-is-the-grand-master-of-undermining-elections-not-russia/
I think it's a bit silly to call the U.S. "The GrandMaster" of undermining elections.
From Putin to Kim to Chavez/Maduro to Al-Assad to just about any state in the Middle East, it actually kind of seems like they're pitifully BAD at it.
So Putin to Kim to Chavez/Maduro to Al-Assad to just about any state in the Middle East; they're all bad at undermining elections (foreign).
And you don't think the U.S. is the "GrandMaster" of undermining elections.
So just who would you consider the "GrandMaster" if not the U.S., based on say, the history of the past 100 years?
To be a grandmaster one has to be skilled at something not just do it a lot. If there is a grandmaster we wouldn't know about it because they wouldn't get caught.
The US is a foreign country.
Countries spying and trying to influence each other's elections and politics is nothing new.
It is human nature to pay attention to the things that have an immediate or direct impact on our lives and things we believe we have influence over. For most people foreign affairs is in neither of those categories.
That we pay closer attention to politics doesn't make us wiser or more enlightened. Of all of the issues we are facing climate change is by far the most serious and the most threatening. We are talking about the only planet known to support human life. It's pretty important. Some people are dedicating their lives to fighting it and educating people about it to the point of obsession. They probably feel like screaming WAKE UP PEOPLE. How stupid can you be?
Judging people is counter-productive if you need to persuade them to support you or the causes you think are important.
I spend too much time on this board, too much, because I am not accomplishing anything here. I'm not influencing anyone. I guess it exercises my brain, forces me to think more logically, informs me, but none of those things are particularly significant to the world, just to me personally. Just knowing about stuff to be outraged about it isn't particularly constructive.
There has been no dumbing down. People were not better educated in the past. Quite the opposite. More people than ever have a university education. It's perfectly normal for people to focus attention on what has direct impact on their lives. Don't mistake that for being "dumb".
To speculate on which country manipulates elections in a totally corrupt system based on the power of money, under the control of the Mainstream corporate fascist press is just trivial...why are not people talking about the change of the system to become democratic based on the principle of informed consent?
And yet, university education is both more expensive and less valuable than ever...
Perhaps you mean "less lucrative"?
50 years ago, a Baccalaureate was probably akin to a Master's today. Not to mention that having gone to University at all implied that you were white and a bit priveleged and were likely to be financially successful regardless.
These days, a University degree is pretty much just Grades 13-16. So it shouldn't be a shock that being one of a hundred job candidates with a B.A. isn't the "shoo-in" that it once was.
No, I meant valuable. The internet makes learning easier than ever, on your own schedule, for those who have the desire to do so. The only reason to go to university now is to buy your accreditation.
Very well. TIL (Today I Learned) that vaccines will make me autistic, Donald Trump is a Statesman, the world is probably flat and Kylie Jenner is turning out to be a great Mom.
That accreditation includes a plausible assurance that you were taught real things. Honestly, that should be more valuable than ever.
In any case point made. More people are more educated than ever before.
Reading the internet is in no way comparable to a university education.
That way lies a dystopia where Jenny McCarthy is as qualified as an MD. So kindly stop with the anti-intellectualism.
If we are going to speculate:
First a party wanting to hack an election may not want to support a party so much as destabilize the country and the process leading to doubt about the democratic process.
Second, reportedly the Russians seem to promote right wing populists. The NDP is not that. The NDP is no tool to create major problems within the country. The worst they could do is create some electoral uncertainty but they are not going to rip up institutions or damage the effectiveness of the state.
If you had ill-will to Canada hacking an election is less likely to be in support of a party and more likely to be to radicalize a party. To that end here are some possibilities:
The NDP is not a worthy party to promote to attack the country. Such a campaign could risk electing it and unlike the others who people have claimed have benefited from hacking, the NDP will not damage the country.
If any party is the target, the objective is unlikely to elect them and more likely to direct them to a fringe direction or damage them so that no matter who wins, the country is divided.
Let's not stop at a Russian threat. I think this is the new battleground of a new cold war. Such a threat could come from a number of countries, including from within. It could come from non-state sources. It is cheap.
Given what is south of the border, I don't think it is reasonable to think that the US is much less (if any) of a threat than Russia. They have a lot more interests here.
Look at the orgainzed bots and humans active politically in the fake news, conspiracy area.
I personally do think that Russia is involved (sorry Russia defenders) however, I certianly do not think they are the only ones and I think a lot more domestic operators are involved with trying to poison opinion in the US. I am not sure why people might think that a domestic nasty dishonest fake news racket is a lot better than a foreign one. Both ahve the same objective. Spending minimal time on social media is an education in the number of people who will stop at nothing to promote their opinion without regard for truth, fairness or process. Some of them have money.
We have already had elections affected -- Pierre Poutine anyone?
Thanks, Sean, for a much more nuanced analysis than my rather flippant comment. I agree with all the points you make.
Thanks. I think it is equally dangerous presuming the Russians are innocent as thinking they are more of a threat than other sources. In any case, we need a defence becuase our system is valuable. You don't wait for a thief to implement some security.
Here is another thought. Politics in Israel are extreme. Canada is significant when it comes to Israeli politics. Israel is more advanced than most when it comes to spycraft. The government of Israel is run by people who appear to be crooks. Israel knows that Canada's position globally on them matters. There are many in Canada unhappy about Israel's positions. Why stop at Russia? Israel may or may not be a threat... We have no evidence but, I would metaphorically lock my door at night just the same.
I give this as an example -- not somethign I am claiming exists. My point it that debating the who (Russians) instead of the problem (the technology, affordability, ease of attacks) is a mistake.
I do not dismiss the need for the govedrnment spending money on security. I would be very unhappy to learn that these security measures were against one country only or presumed only one threat.
The difference is that pressure and influence and funding on the part of groups like the NRA, Big Oil, pharmaceutical corporations, the insurance companies, the military, and the U.S. government is an accepted fact. So it isn't that they are less important. In some ways they are more important.
But the objectives and the target groups and the denial in the case of Russian interference is a distinct problem, not least because one of the things it has exploited is racism and anti-immigrant sentiment. And for another, there isn't a large block of activists on the left who are falling for the arguments of big pharma. Evil western empire is a far easier sell.
And lying media.
I do agree with Sean. And I expect we also agree that this isn't an either/or. But this is a particular problem that has been around for a very long time. In part it is a testament to just how good they are at it.
On a slightly different tack, all of these cyber threats should remind us that paper ballots are the simplest and most effective way to ensure that at least the voting and counting process won't be easily hacked.
Yes. And at least we don't have a balkanized federal electoral system.
Yes, I agree.
Absolutely. Paper ballots that can be kept and recounted not only allow for a system not easily hacked but also one that can be verified and is the most transparent and understood for voters. You make an essential point.
I'm not talking about "reading the internet." I'm talking primarily about MOOCs, such as those offered through coursera, udemy, or edx (as just a few examples).
Want to learn calculus? There's a course for that. Website design? Got you covered. Physics? Java? Database management? Check, check and check.
Free (or almost free) higher learning, available anytime, to anyone with access to a computer and the internet, regardless of upbringing, minority status, or personal circumstances or background. How is that anti-intellectual?
Classic Magoo.
Sure. I did point out that you still get accreditation for going to university. But 40 years ago you could argue it might make sense to go to university without pursuing an accreditation (you can generally attend classes without paying tuition, you just won't get your work graded), if you had a non-professional interest in learning some subject, or were intending to work for yourself. That is no longer the case.
It's not "anti-intellectual".
But we've always had books. Read every book in the library and you'll know all we know.
When you attend an actual university -- even if some of what you do is online -- you're not "buying" accreditation, you're earning it. I don't really want to undergo surgery performed by someone who swears they totally did every MOOC they could about surgery.
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