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Comment by ericras | Hacker News Reader

This has been my problem with the Russia story. We never get enough detail to make our own judgement of the severity of this. The media and the Democrats lump everything together under the umbrella of “Russia hacked our election/democracy”. Aside from the nonsensical nature of that statement, it has been a catch-all term for everything from Facebook ads to hacking some state commission’s Wordpress site that contained no secure data.... to possibly real hacks of important systems which are still classified. I really don’t care about the former but the later would be a big deal.

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Lets ignore the nomenclature for a minute. Russians used American social media to manipulate public opinion to help implement a Russian sympathizing Administration. Ignore the verbiage. Start with that.

That sounds like a great thing to raise as an issue in an election. Lots of voters might care about that. However, we have a First Amendment, so it's not against the law for anyone to talk to anyone else. That's the case whether it's some weird social media thing like those pictures of Bernie with big muscles or an actual true fact like that the DNC staff sent emails to each other discussing how they had screwed over Bernie. That is strictly legal, whether it is done by Russians or by the Citizens United dudes or by the actual Wikipedia source.

The first amendment does not protect the right of foreign nations to dispense propaganda. Indeed there are in fact provisions prohibiting foreign nations involving themselves in the election process in the US constitution.

Try again, greenbean. The text is literally this:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

I don't see the words "foreign nations" in there anywhere? Why are you posting this falsehood under a new account?

Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20538796.

That’s not good. But as with all things in life, you have to treat it proportionally to the impact as well as weigh it against other issues. Russian nationals (who, as of last week, Mueller was unable to convince a judge were tied to the Kremlin) buying Facebook ads to post memes of Jesus arm wrestling Satan is pretty damn low on my give-a-shit list.

All sorts of foreign nationals participate in our elections. They volunteer on campaigns. They appear as pundits on our news shows. Clinton’s campaign contracted with a foreigner (Steele) to dig up dirt.

The threat posed by China to the United States is 100x greater than Russia. Casting Russia as our greatest enemy rather than trying to find areas of mutual interest is a huge foreign policy misstep by the left in America.

Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia

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