hacking

In recent days the Department of Homeland Security secretary Jeh Johnson offered to state election officials his agency’s assistance in security their electronic balloting systems. The assistance was needed and perhaps should even be mandated, Johnson said, because U.S. elections because American elections are considered vital “infrastructure.”

Never mind the implications for freedom; having the federal government take over all elections essentially violates the Tenth Amendment. But, even if states were to agree with this, what makes anyone believe that the federal government, and DHS in particular, is even capable of protecting state balloting systems when it can’t protect it’s own data from being hacked?

Because if you do believe that they are capable — you shouldn’t.

“We should carefully consider whether our election system, our election process, is critical infrastructure like the financial sector, like the power grid,” Johnson said in recent days. But, as pointed out by We Are Change web site, DHS was hacked recently, and by a 16-year-old kid from England.

As further reported by Fox News in February, the 16-year-old boy managed to hack into systems belonging to both DHS and the FBI, breaching the email accounts CIA Director John Brennan and DHS’ Johnson.

The hacker told the online webzine Motherboard that he stole names, titles and contact information for 20,000 FBI employees and 9,000 DHS workers. He said the hack was possible using a compromised Justice Department email.

Investigators said they believe it is the same hacker who broke into and compromised the email accounts of Brennan and Johnson in October 2015, though authorities added that neither of them used the hacked email accounts for official business.

As for the stolen data, authorities said the hacker essentially lifted an internal phone directory. But the fact is, he was nevertheless able to breach DHS and FBI systems.

The English teen was believed to have been the leader of a group of hackers calling themselves “Crackas with Attituge,” or CWA, Fox News noted. Friends of the suspect’s online moniker, “Cracka,” promised Motherboard there would be further hack attacks on U.S. government systems.

Then of course there is the fact that governments like China and Russia have hacked U.S. systems as well. In fact, hackers tied to Beijing nabbed the personal data including fingerprints on tens of millions of current and former U.S. government employees, it was discovered last year, in a hack of the Office of Personnel Management.

More importantly, however, there are major problems with the federal government taking over all elections, We Are Change reiterated. “Free elections are the foundation of a free republic. A DHS declaration of elections as a ‘critical infrastructure’ would be a dangerous power grab that threatens the very foundation of the United States,” the site noted, adding that the current administration is “covering up” national security crimes [allegedly] committed by Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

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Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton may have come to a realization: She’s not going to beat Republican nominee Donald J. Trump in November, so she’s come up with a whacky conspiracy to blame it on: Russian President Vladmir Putin.

As reported by Breitbart News, Clinton herself recently claimed that Putin was orchestrating a series of hacks against her campaign and the Democratic National Committee because he is trying to help Trump win.

Asked about various reports that have suggested Russian hackers were attempting to break into voter registration and other related systems in the U.S. during an interview with ABC’s David Muir, Clinton said “there is no doubt in my mind” that “there is something going on” with Putin. She further hinted that the Kremlin was planning to hack the November election.

“Every American should be concerned about Russia doing anything to try to tilt and influence our election,” she continued, claiming to cite U.S. intelligence as proof that Moscow was behind the DNC hack, at least. “Voters should be concerned about this.”

She went on to theorize that Putin has essentially admitted he is trying to influence the outcome of the U.S. election by hacking into our voting systems. She said she found it “troubling” but “revealing” that when Putin was asked about it recently during a press interview he did not actually deny it, saying that it was a good thing the information got out. She added that her past dealings with Putin led her to take that as “an admission.”

But Putin did deny that his government had anything to do with the hacks. In an interview with Bloomberg News, he said specifically he didn’t “know anything about it” and that “on a state level,” his government has never done anything like that.

Clinton then tried to tie Trump to Putin and in a close, personal way, saying the Russian leader prefers her GOP rival. She cited “close relationships” with those in Trump’s inner circle, “all the way up to Putin himself.”

For his part, Trump has said he respects the Russian leader, but his campaign has adamantly denied that the billionaire business mogul has any dealings with the Russian government at the present time. In 2008, though, the Washington Post reported that Trump’s son, Donald Jr., told a real estate conference that Russians “make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.”

Still, there is no proof that a) Russia is trying to throw the U.S. elections against Clinton; b) that Putin favors Trump over Clinton; or c) that the Democratic candidate’s goofy conspiracy theory is premised in reality.

It is more likely the product of a desperate and compromised presidential candidate who sees herself losing in November.

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