The Smoking Pile of ...

I cannot call this a smoking gun because the gun doesn't have any bullets in it. Yesterday the FBI released the linked report claiming that Russian agencies hacked organizations in the United States.

FBI - GRIZZLY STEPPE – Russian Malicious Cyber Activity. 

I have actually bothered reading the report and not one shred of evidence is provided to prove that Russia was involved in anything. Read the report for yourself. Claims without evidence are fake news. The Pimpernel wouldn't make claims that I cannot substantiate so why should I accept such claims from others without proof.

Saying that someone has been hacked is different that saying you know who did it. The FBI report provides NO information about the IP addresses that were responsible for the hack, nor does it even identify the nations associated with those IP addresses. NONE.

Now a little history. The CIA lied to get us into the Vietnam war and the Iraq war. The FBI for it's part has failed to jail anyone for crashing the economy in 2007-2008. Don't accept claims that are not actionable. I have said this regarding "pizzagate" and intentionally do not make unsubstantiated claims especially ones that could cause risky actions.

Let's start with the basics of reporting and charging someone with a crime. Who, what, when, where, why and how.

Who. Does the FBI report identify who the hackers are? No it does not. It does not claim Guccifer or any other hacker was involved.

What. What specifically was taken? We are not told in the FBI report.

When. We are not told specifically when anything was taken in the report. We are told vagaries about what might have been viewed; but, not when.

Where. We are not told where the supposed hacks were from because the IP addresses of those supposedly involved are not mentioned once. If you are going to hack from Russia than the IP address would be a Russian IP.

Why. The report does not say why hacks occurred. Nowhere in the report does it say that the hacks were done to effect the election because you cannot presume intent.

How. The most basic question is left unanswered. Instead we are told all the many ways that people may have been hacked and rather than being fancy, they are the exact same ways in which spammers and thieves go after data online. There is no special Russian way of hacking, all hacking is the same and some of the most famous hackers were just kids.

Now lets get back to the media's irresponsibility. Nowhere in the FBI report does it mention WikiLeaks. Nowhere in the report does it mention Putin. Nowhere in the report does it mention how the election was impacted. So, why is the media claiming things that are NOT in the report? The corporate media is as bad as the people who made mindless extrapolations about "pizzagate". It is a shame that we have to fact check the corporate media and even worse that they provide no facts, only unsubstantiated accusations.

Let me ask this really simple question. IF the electoral college denied Trump the presidency based on this report, would you feel good about it? There is NO connection between Trump and the Russians in this report and this is the report that the Clinton supporters wanted the electoral college without the rest of us seeing it.