US Voter Systems Breached; Mainstream Media Immediately Blames the Russians

It took six paragraphs before Reuters implicated the Russians.

An FBI investigation turned up “found breaches in Illinois and Arizona’s voter registration databases and is urging states to increase computer security ahead of the November presidential election, according to a U.S. official familiar with the probe,” the news agency reports.

Accessing information in a voter database, much of which is publicly accessible, does not necessarily suggest an effort to manipulate the votes themselves. When registering, voters typically provide their names, home addresses, driver’s license or identification numbers, and party affiliations.

The sixth paragraph undercuts the fifth:

But U.S. intelligence officials have become increasingly worried that hackers sponsored by Russia or other countries may attempt to disrupt the presidential election.

Voter database hack may be ‘precursor’ to larger attack. Find out more: https://t.co/JVQITpb387 pic.twitter.com/oit1Kbbqt6

— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) August 29, 2016

Ever since the DNC hack the government, its cyber experts, and the establishment media have fixed blame on the Russians despite any direct evidence.

However, the word “unsubstantiated” was used in regard to Donald Trump’s allegation the election will be rigged to favor Hillary Clinton.

Robert Mackey pointed out in July, citing Glenn Greenwald.

Even so… given the ease with which we were misled into war in Iraq by false claims about weapons of mass destruction — and the long history of Russophobia in American politics — it is vital to cast a skeptical eye over whatever evidence is presented to support the claim, made by Hillary Clinton’s aide Robby Mook, that this is all part of a Russian plot to sabotage the Democrats and help Donald Trump win the election.

Mook’s accusation plays on ignorance and panders politically:

Since very few of us are cybersecurity experts, and the Iraq debacle is a reminder of how dangerous it can be to put blind faith in experts whose claims might reinforce our own political positions, there is also the question of who we can trust to provide reliable evidence.

Despite the accusations by Democrats, there is virtually no evidence the Russians had anything to do with the DNC hack.

The State Department sidestepped complicity when its spokesman John Kirby addressed the issue in July.

“As I said, this is a matter that the FBI is investigating, and I’m not going to get ahead of the work that investigators have to do. And so I think that’s where we absolutely need to leave it,” Kirby said.

And there they left it—for less than two weeks.

Bloomberg:

The FBI has high confidence the Russian government hacked U.S. Democratic Party groups and the personal e-mails of political operatives, according to a person familiar with the findings, a development sure to heighten tensions between Moscow and Washington.

Not exactly official confirmation by the FBI.

“That is the circumstantial evidence that some Russian, or someone who wanted to make them look like a Russian, was involved, with these other media organisations. That is not the case for the material that we released,” said Julian Assange, cofounder of WikiLeaks, the organization that released the hacked emails.

The establishment media said Assange failed to implicate the Russians.

Politico:

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is refusing to discuss whether Russia had any involvement in a trove of emails from the Democratic National Committee leaked to his organization ahead of the party’s convention.

Refusing to divulge sources, according to Politico and the rest of the corporate media, amounts to covering up for Russia.

That’s how propaganda works in America.