Tuesday, June 6, 2017

The conclusion of The Intercept's story on the leaked NSA report about election hacking is total crap

From the conclusion here:

The NSA conclusion “demonstrates that countries are looking at specific tactics for election manipulation, and we need to be vigilant in defense,” said [Harvard University's Bruce] Schneier. “Elections do two things: one choose the winner, and two, they convince the loser. To the extent the elections are vulnerable to hacking, we risk the legitimacy of the voting process, even if there is no actual hacking at the time.”

Throughout history, the transfer of power has been the moment of greatest weakness for societies, leading to untold bloodshed. The peaceful transfer of power is one of the greatest innovations of democracy.

“It’s not just that [an election] has to be fair, it has to be demonstrably fair, so that the loser says, ‘Yep, I lost fair and square.’ If you can’t do that, you’re screwed,” said Schneier. “They’ll tear themselves apart if they’re convinced it’s not accurate.”

IN OTHER WORDS, THE TRUMP ELECTION WAS ILLEGITIMATE BECAUSE HILLARY WON'T SAY 'YEP, I LOST FAIR AND SQUARE'.

Nixon never said that about JFK's theft of the election of 1960, because he was a patriot.

Every US state certified its election results in 2016. Every one. Because where there were problems, there were back up systems including paper ballots. Because the system is decentralized, multifarious and controlled by local officials it is robust. All the faults of the current chaos of voting in the United States are its strengths, protecting the integrity of the results.

All of this is admitted in the story, because even its authors know it to be the truth.