Russia Hysteria Infects WashPost Again: False Story About Hacking U.S. Electric Grid
Glenn Greenwald
December 31 2016, 8:44 a.m.
(updated below)
THE WASHINGTON POST on Friday reported a
genuinely alarming event: Russian hackers have penetrated the U.S. power system through an electrical grid in Vermont. The Post headline conveyed the seriousness of the threat:
. . .
The Post article contained grave statements from Vermont officials of the type politicians love to issue after a terrorist attack to show they are tough and in control. The state’s Democratic governor, Peter Shumlin, said:
Vermonters and all Americans should be both alarmed and outraged that one of the world’s leading thugs, Vladimir Putin, has been attempting to hack our electric grid, which we rely upon to support our quality of life, economy, health, and safety. This episode should highlight the urgent need for our federal government to vigorously pursue and put an end to this sort of Russian meddling.
Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy
issued a statement warning: “This is beyond hackers having electronic joy rides — this is now about trying to access utilities to potentially manipulate the grid and shut it down in the middle of winter. That is a direct threat to Vermont and we do not take it lightly.”
. . .
. . .
The Post’s story also predictably and very rapidly infected other large media outlets. Reuters
thus told its readers around the world: “A malware code associated with Russian hackers has reportedly been detected within the system of a Vermont electric utility.”
WHAT’S THE PROBLEM here? It did not happen.
There was no “penetration of the U.S. electricity grid.” The truth was undramatic and banal. Burlington Electric, after receiving a Homeland Security notice sent to all U.S. utility companies about the malware code found in the DNC system, searched all its computers and found the code in a single laptop that
was not connected to the electric grid.
Apparently, the Post did not even bother to contact the company before running its wildly sensationalistic claims, so Burlington Electric had to
issue its own statement to the Burlington Free Press, which debunked the Post’s central claim (emphasis in original): “We detected the malware in a single Burlington Electric Department laptop NOT connected to our organization’s grid systems.”
. . .
As the actual truth emerged once the utility company issued its statement, the Post rushed to fix its embarrassment, beginning by dramatically changing its headline:
. . .
As journalists realized what did — and did not — actually happen here, the reaction was swift:
. . .
THIS MATTERS NOT only because one of the nation’s major newspapers
once again published a wildly misleading, fearmongering story about Russia.
It matters even more because it reflects the deeply irrational and ever-spiraling fever that is being cultivated in U.S. political discourse and culture about the threat posed by Moscow.
The Post has many excellent reporters and smart editors. They have produced
many great stories this year. But this kind of blatantly irresponsible and sensationalist tabloid behavior — which tracks what they did when
promoting that grotesque PropOrNot blacklist of U.S. news outlets accused of being Kremlin tools — is a byproduct of the Anything Goes mentality that now shapes mainstream discussion of Russia, Putin, and the Grave Threat to All Things Decent in America that they pose.
. . .
Those interested in a sober and rational discussion of the Russia hacking issue should read the following:
(1) Three posts by cybersecurity expert Jeffrey Carr: first, on the
difficulty of proving attribution for any hacks; second,
on the irrational claims on which the “Russia hacked the DNC” case is predicated; and third, on the
woefully inadequate, evidence-free report issued by the Department of Homeland Security and FBI this week to justify sanctions against Russia.
(2) Yesterday’s
Rolling Stone article by Matt Taibbi, who lived and worked for more than a decade in Russia, titled: “Something About This Russia Story Stinks.”
(3) An
Atlantic article by David A. Graham on the politics and strategies of the sanctions imposed this week on Russia by Obama; I disagree with several of his claims, but the article is a rarity: a calm, sober, rational assessment of this debate.
. . .
UPDATE: Just as
The Guardian had to do just two days ago regarding its claim about WikiLeaks and Putin,
the Washington Post has now added an editor’s note to its story acknowledging that its key claim was false:
Is it not very clear that journalistic standards are being casually dispensed with when the subject is Russia?
___________________________________________
Read full story; it is more fun:
https://theintercept.com/2016/12/31...-false-story-about-hacking-u-s-electric-grid/
High tax states are blue states like California and New York. Wait until there is a Democratic government, they will reverse these changes first thing using budget reconciliation.
