Whether or not you believe President Trump is involved, you should be concerned about evidence of Russian intervention in our election, not just through false stories but attempts to hack voting systems. It shows that an adversary can attack not only our infrastructure, but our electoral process, as well.
There have been demonstrations of hackers remotely accessing the controls of cars and we have been alerted to the possibility that someone could access any of our electronic devises. And there have been several stories about the possibility of hacking the controls of our power grid, flood control systems, nuclear power plants and oil pipe lines—so we know electronic technology has made important systems vulnerable.
The fact that Russians exploited the vulnerability of our electoral system should be important to everyone. If Russians attempted to access the electronic voting systems in several states, not just political committee computers, then we should know we have seen the first major attack in a new kind of war.
Russian President Putin is a former KGB officer and apparently still sees the west as Russia's mortal enemy. He will try to defeat us however possible. One way would be to effect the outcomes of elections in Europe, undermining their credibility and legitimacy.
As ISIS hopes to change our way of life through fear, Russia is attempting to delegitimize our political institutions through fear by capitalizing on our political and social divisions. Therefore, this is a time for unity against these efforts.
Bob Harris, Albany
Note from KBJ: Isn't it interesting that it took the defeat of a progressive icon to get American leftists to grasp the evil nature of Russia? For the past 100 years, American leftists have been in love with Russians. Remember how they mocked Ronald Reagan's term "evil empire"? Remember how Barack Obama made fun of Mitt Romney for saying that Russia is the greatest threat to the United States?
