The USA is now officially a friend of Russia

[thewayne]

Ignoring the fiasco of Friday's Oval Office meeting between the weird old felon, Mascara Lad, and the Honorable President of Ukraine, the Secretary of Trying To Claim He's SoberDefense just gave Putin a lap dance and the cyber keys to the USA.

He ordered the U.S. military Cyber Command to ignore attacks and incursions from Russia. Allegedly the order states that they are to “stand down from all planning against Russia, including offensive digital actions.”

So that's it. With the exception of the NSA, the nation has no cyber defense against Russian attack.

If we ever needed any proof that there are traitors to the nation in the highest echelons of government, you don't have to look any further.

Benedict Arnold, we've got three new names to join you in infamy.

https://gizmodo.com/trumps-defense-secretary-hegseth-orders-cyber-command-to-stand-down-on-all-russia-operations-2000570343

Comments

[silveradept]

That seems like one of the orders where someone says "of course" and ignores the order as being unlawful and dangerous. The only way he's going to know is if someone admits to him they've been trying to hack the systems in question and been repulsed by the defenses in place. Can't imagine anyone actually would say that out loud.

And maybe much later, they will stand a court-martial for disobeying an unlawful and dangerous order, but in the meantime, they take their oath seriously and keep things safe.

[bibliofile]

> That seems like one of the orders where someone says "of course" and ignores the order as being unlawful and dangerous.

We can hope.

The thing that stands out to me is it shows how much Tr*mp and V*nce don't understand how that part of national security works. Countries gather intelligence on everyone all of the time -- even allies, in peacetime. It never stops. Ceasing those activities with regards to a particular country is stupid, and stopping with a sometimes adversary? OMFG.

(I am not an intelligence expert, but even *I* know this shit. Even from novels and movies, and watching the news occasionally. Holy crap.)

[thewayne]

I'm very curious if our Five Eyes partners and other 'allies' are now filtering or about to start filtering what intelligence they are sharing with the USA.

[silveradept]

They admitted to doing so during the last time he was in office because they suspected he or his were letting it all out to the Russians, and given that the campaign donor's people put in the clear something marked as not for foreign nationals, I'm guessing that not only does his briefing lack important details and materials, intelligence shared with the country is being compartmentalized so that he and his can't actually get at it or know it exists.