By Colleen O’Connor
What is with the Hillary emails slog?
This silly thread dominates the Republican attacks against her.
It proves nothing except the GOP “establishment’s” cluelessness.
There may be lots of reasons to challenge the expected Democratic nominee, but a private email server is the silliest of them all. Why the Republicans chose to keep hammering on this issue for over a year is incomprehensible. The effect has been negligible—except in some consultant’s mind.
Even Bernie Sanders, her feisty competitor, dismisses this line of attack.
Should Hillary Clinton, the former First Lady, U.S. Senator, Secretary of State, and international philanthropist not have used a private email server, encrypted phones, her own network of social media bots and war room tweeters, she should have been cashiered for “dereliction of duty.”
If you don’t believe me, read this latest example on the “digital dark arts” of campaigns. A must read.
Granted this is about a convicted Latin American election hacker, but any truthful politico knows that such “dirty tricks” and “oppo dumps” have existed since before Richard Nixon—and they all take precautions against them.
So do networks, corporations, bankers, hospitals, government agencies, universities, private foundations, and millions of people in millions of places. It is only prudent to do so.
With the advent of the Internet and social media, hackers have just become more sophisticated, more robust, and more deadly in their implications. The much maligned “spin” cycles used by the campaigns’ talking heads are quaint replicas of a bygone era.
“For $12,000 a month, [this hacker’s] customers hired a crew that could hack smartphones, spoof and clone Web pages, and send mass e-mails and texts. The premium package, at $20,000 a month, also included a full range of digital interception, attack, decryption, and defense. The jobs were carefully laundered through layers of middlemen and consultants.”
“On the question of whether the U.S. presidential campaign is being tampered with, he is unequivocal. “’I’m 100 percent sure it is,’” he says.
Indeed, the most frightening aspect of this Bloomberg interview is what the hacker says about the dangers to democracy by these anonymous campaign saboteurs.
“When I realized that people believe what the Internet says more than reality, I discovered that I had the power to make people believe almost anything.”
And any presidential candidate that does not prepare for this eventuality, is indeed, “incompetent.” Not a tag that sticks to Hillary Clinton.
To be swayed by the number of Twitter or Facebook followers (susceptible to automated bots and illusory “friends”) as an indication of popularity is ludicrous.
It makes little sense to blame the charlatans or even the criminal class of hackers. Such people have existed forever.
“The fault, dear [people], is not in our stars, but in ourselves” for allowing them to hack and steal our elections.
The only safeguard for the electorate to guard against campaign manipulation is transparency, knowledge, and a healthy dose of incredulity.
Colleen O’Connor is a retired college history professor.
