By Carey Wedler
The corporate media has all but accepted the resounding narrative that Russia hacked the U.S. election. But as outlets like the Washington Post receive harsh criticism for perpetuating these as-of-yet unconfirmed allegations, it appears the media isn’t the only institution that’s failing to practice due diligence.
Last week, the FBI released a joint analysis report with the Department of Homeland Security that focused on providing tips to prevent another cyber attack. But the agencies also claimed to have proof Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) servers — acts that resulted in the leaks of private emails that embarrassed the party and Hillary Clinton and arguably helped defeat her presidential campaign. But even as the media has parroted this analysis without question — ignoring valid objections from cyber security experts — the FBI itself reportedly failed to conduct an investigation into the DNC’s email servers.
“Six months after the FBI first said it was investigating the hack of the Democratic National Committee’s computer network, the bureau has still not requested access to the hacked servers,” Buzzfeed News reported exclusively on Wednesday.
According to their report, Eric Walker, the DNC’s deputy communications director, said in an email:
The DNC had several meetings with representatives of the FBI’s Cyber Division and its Washington (DC) Field Office, the Department of Justice’s National Security Division, and U.S. Attorney’s Offices, and it responded to a variety of requests for cooperation, but the FBI never requested access to the DNC’s computer servers.
In May, private cyber security firm Crowdstrike claimed to have discovered evidence that Russian intelligence agencies had hacked the DNC. But as tech-oriented Ars Technica has noted of Crowdstrike’s findings:
[W]hile the hackers may have been caught in the act digitally, the details by themselves don’t offer definitive proof of the identity of those behind the anti-Clinton hacking campaign. Public details currently don’t offer clear insight into the specific intent behind these hacks, either.
In fact, one criticism of the recent joint FBI-DHS report pointed out the difference between private and public intelligence. Robert M. Lee, a former U.S. Air Force Cyber Warfare Operations Officer and founder and CEO of cyber security firm Dragos, explained that data from different sources bears different confidence ratings — and the FBI and DHS failed to disclose which data they were referencing in the report. As Buzzfeed notes, “…the analysis was attributed to broad intelligence across both public and private sectors. Nowhere in the report does it say that the government conducted its own computer forensics on the DNC servers.”
Regardless, Buzzfeed reports that an intelligence official said the FBI has relied on Crowdstrike’s information. “CrowdStrike is pretty good. There’s no reason to believe that anything that they have concluded is not accurate,” the official reportedly said.
Still, according to industry experts, the FBI likely broke from precedent by failing to conduct its own investigation of the DNC server:
BuzzFeed News spoke to three cybersecurity companies who have worked on major breaches in the last 15 months, who said that it was ‘par for the course’ for the FBI to do their own forensic research into the hacks.
As such, Buzzfeed points out, it is unclear why the FBI failed to request access to the servers. “Beginning at the time the intrusion was discovered by the DNC, the DNC cooperated fully with the FBI and its investigation, providing access to all of the information uncovered by CrowdStrike — without any limits,” Walker claims. But even as it had that access, the FBI didn’t attempt to access the servers.
This little device delivers turnkey Internet privacy and security (Ad)
Worse, according to the intelligence official cited by Buzzfeed, “No US government entity has run an independent forensic analysis on the system.”
As the media continues to report the ‘Russia-hacked-the-election’ narrative as fact — and their articles are increasingly condemned for failing to provide hard evidence — it appears the authorities making the claims are also failing to conduct sufficient research.
The FBI declined to comment on this story.
This article (Oops: FBI Never Even Investigated the DNC Servers They Claim Russia Hacked) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Carey Wedler and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11 pm Eastern/8 pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, please email the error and name of the article to edits@theantimedia.org.
Why would they? It would reveal the entire thing was a sham. It’s the same as keeping the lid on Sandy Hook, 9-11 and the others.
Since Russia never hacked the DNC, there as nothing to show. What a bunch of crybabies.
Comey and AG Lynch should resign, they are incompetent and do not understand the ‘Rule of Law’.
The FBI and CIA are both laughable and makes me wonder why I pay taxes.
TAXATION is THEFT.
Oh, they understand it alright, they just don’t use it
Each and every day we are subject to propaganda, yet many of us are oblivious to the fact that we are being manipulated so frequently.
In light of compelling information and evidence which supports largely predictable outcomes, propaganda can be used to confuse, obstruct, and distract individuals and society from clearly understanding the issues at hand.
As we face serious and interconnected challenges, it is important to understand the role propaganda plays in society.
Propaganda is a form of communication geared towards manipulating and influencing the mindset of individuals through a series of emotionally charged messages. It can be used to either promote certain causes or to negatively influence and persuade people to support various ideological positions.
“People who own the society, the merchants and manufacturers, they are the architects of government policy and they design it in their own interest of course no matter how grievous the effect is on others. The point of corporate propaganda and the educational system is to instill these beliefs and it works pretty well.” Adam Smith
“There is massive propaganda for everyone to consume. Consumption is good for profits and consumption is good for the political establishment.” Noam Chomsky
“The major western democracies are moving towards corporatism. Democracy has become a business plan, with a bottom line for every human activity, every dream, every decency, every hope. The main parliamentary parties are now devoted to the same economic policies — socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor — and the same foreign policy of servility to endless war. This is not democracy. It is to politics what McDonalds is to food.” John Pilger
It sounds as if we must admit defeat and just allow this propaganda as if it is inevitable!!! I do not believe this action is right or in our best interest!!! While I believe Obama is trying to instigate a Civil War, what we really need to do is to turn that idea around. War should not be the answer-if it was God would not have given us a brain!!! For far too long we have resorted to force-sent our young men to die in order to avoid the hard work of finding the better solution. This is just another example of that. Foreign leaders around the world have implored the American people to rein in their corrupt government. We have the opportunity to do just that right now, with Trump. Fight the establishment without physical force. Fight the chain of endless wars by fighting the right way. Refuse to send young, innocent lives to stimulate the economy, or do the work we elected people who promised to do just that. If you need further proof that this is wrong, just look at Obama’s eight years in office. How many wars are we involved in right now??? His failure as a leader is glaring. His answer to those problems is obvious. The result of that is also. It’s about time we look to the obvious and change course. Civil War will lead us into irreparable damage. And God will not permit it. We must use the brains God gave us for a chance to survive. If the answer is not immediate-pray!!! It will come!!!
FBI couldn’t conclude that the Secretary of State’s private email server was hacked or not, and the secrets there were much better, classified and top secret. I would conclude that if Guccifer (1) hacked Bush/Powell/Blumenthal, the Russian were following him right into the Clinton server, especially after he exposed the private email address. This is the Russian hacking they and the MSM refuse to acknowledge. Hacking the DNC, if that did happen, only highlighted the corruption of the Democratic party, not state secrets.
Hillary and DNC would not let the FBI look directly way to much evidence of their own crimes on those computers and servers. They would be turning themselves in for Election crimes. They used a 3rd party to go through the computers that they hired then released the approved information to the FBI. Much like she did with all of her (Dam e-mils).
Nothing was needed from those computers to use against Hilliary Clinton in the election. She already had lost the election. Americans with any brains already knew enough about her that they would not vote for her. And she just kept opening her mouth and spouting lies during her campaign. If you will lie about simple facts that can be checked easily ,what else willyou lying about. Get over yourselves. You lost mainly because the last 8 years have been awful awful awful and people are tired of the crap.
The new IG investigation by the DOJ SHOULD include Loretta Lynch and it isn’t…her inappropriate meeting on the tarmac with Bill Clinton while an investigation of his wife was going on, then recusing herself from participation in Comey’s reopened investigation and most of all, not assigning an outside prosecutor to go after Hillary for her unsecured server. Much worse- her own assistant AG providing information to John Podesta about the FBI investigation into Clinton’s server- all being overlooked, are all the real issues placing our security agencies in jeopardy. They have become politicized and haven’t operated the way they were set up to function. This is purposeful interference to try and discredit the President Elect and is all a leftover of the outgoing administration. The patriots who will begin on Jan 21 will hopefully restore law and order to America and really look after the best interests of We The People.