By ERIC GELLER and CORY BENNETT 12/29/16 02:13 PM EST Updated 12/29/16 05:31 PM EST
My reaction:
What a total waste of energy. All the hype and for what? Too little too late, Barack. Your caution served no one's interests and now, on the eve of your departure, you're expelling Russian operatives and sanctioning some Russian intelligence czars in Russia. Wow. How unimpressive. Russia will respond by expelling Americans and that will be that. Yes, perhaps there will be unrevealed covert cyber sanctions. One can only hope. But who the heck knows and we won't. Call me tired of this 11th hour grandstanding in this and other areas. I voted twice for you, President Obama, and you've been, overall, a good president. But, Obama supporters seem unwilling and/or unable to criticize you and that is unfortunate.
My own view on the cyber warfare issue is that our Government has been far too tardy in ramping up this country's defenses against all cyber intrusions. Because we're primarily a capitalist country dominated by private enterprises, perhaps some in Government have felt defending against cyber attacks is the job of the private sector. They are wrong, in my humble opinion. We should have built better defenses. Still today it appears anyone who truly wants to hack can do it, except perhaps at the highest levels, and then it isn't clear they can't do it there either. So, far more should have been done years ago and needs to be done right now. As to this episode, I think Obama should have spoken sooner about Russia's interference in the 2016 elections and not felt either that he'd look too partisan or that it would cause Russia to interfere with actual voting. Finally, I'd like to believe that our Government has been engaged in major covert cyber espionage vis-a-vis Russia and others but, even if true, I believe that should be ramped up considerably. Admittedly, we don't know what has been done and we won't know about what will be done.
