Wow...TPM "Russian Spy Who Allegedly Oversaw DNC Hacking Arrested for Treason"

[NRaleighLiberal]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/russian-spy-who-allegedly-oversaw-hacking-arrested-for-treason

By JOSH MARSHALL Published JANUARY 25, 2017, 8:07 PM EDT

I had seen references to this over the last two days. But those references were in publications I was not familiar with or, so I was told, in Russian language publications which I couldn't read. But now The New York Times is reporting that the man who purportedly oversaw the hacking campaign against the Democratic party in the United States, Sergei Mikhailov, has been arrested for treason.

Putin-era Russia is rather limited when it comes to the rule of law. It is not uncommon for those who fall from grace to find themselves targeted with prosecution. This was the method by which Putin brought the oligarchs to heel early in his reign. But treason is of course the most serious of charges.

From the Times ....
A senior official in the Russian cyberintelligence department that American officials say oversaw last year’s election hacking has been arrested in Moscow on charges of treason, a Russian newspaper reported Wednesday.

The arrest of Sergei Mikhailov, a senior officer of the Federal Security Service, or F.S.B., the main successor agency to the K.G.B., is a rare instance of turmoil in the country’s usually shadowy cybersecurity apparatus slipping into public view.

snip - more to read.

Hard to know what to make of this, but seems significant.

[rpannier]

1. Time to shore up those loose ends nt

[greatauntoftriplets]

2. Interesting.

Dead men tell no tales.

[Guilded Lilly]

5. Yup. Seems pretty cut and dried to me.

[Tatiana]

3. He will, of course, be "disappeared."

***Sigh***

This is a wicked world we live in.

[drray23]

4. It might be because putin is cleaning up.

Its possible he is being blamed for leaking info about the operation to that former mi6 operative who wrote that controversial report. If any if that is true it would not be surprising that the russians would want to clean up.

[GliderGuider]

6. Very odd, if it's related. But he might have done something else to piss off the boss

FSB guys are real multi-taskers I hear.

[fob]

7. What would be treasonous about hacking ANOTHER countries election wrt one's OWN country?

Over/Under on days until the "Sergei Mikhailov suicided self in cell" story?

Given these results from searching "russian national holidays", I'll take Feb 24 as the "incident" and Feb 27 as the report of

Feb 23 Thursday Defender of the Fatherland Day National holiday
Feb 24 Friday Defender of the Fatherland Day holiday National holiday
Feb 27 Monday Special Operations Forces Day De facto holiday
Mar 8 Wednesday International Women's Day National holiday

[Cha]

8. WOW.. the plot keeps thickening.. too bad some recipients

of said hacking don't get arrested in the USA.

[Chasstev365]

9. OK British Intelligence: start releasing EVERYTHING

Before it's too late!

[KittyWampus]

10. The job was sloppy. Too many mistakes.

[Generator]

11. What I got out of that

Correct me if you will-Is that the treason might be the leaker to the M16 Spy-telling on Trump. A gift from Putin to Trump. Hard to tell. Or just anyone that is giving info to US about anything they did would be treason to Putin. Leaking who leaked.

[jeanmarc]

12. Oh good, now let's be friends!

Unfucking real.

[Botany]

13. He is going to get the Michael Connell treatment

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/republican-it-guru-dies-in-plane-crash/

Dead men tell no tales

[enough]

14. We're going to have to get more advanced in Kremlinology if we want to

know what this is about.

I'm sure this will happen pretty fast now that we're in Trumpland.

[babylonsister]

15. No kidding; it can't get

more interesting in a sordid, frightening kind of way.

[Baitball Blogger]

16. Treason? Wait, Russia arrested him on grounds of treason?

[Best_man23]

17. These Folks Work for FSB and Kapersky

I know Kapersky has done a lot of good cybersecurity work, especially in the battle to defeat ransomware. But given their location (Russia) and the close tie between FSB and anything cyber going on in Russia, I would seriously need to rethink my antivirus choice if I was running Kaspersky on my computer (especially given the events of 2016).