U.S. expels 35 Russian diplomats, closes two compounds: official

[jpak]

Source: Reuters

The United States on Thursday expelled 35 Russian diplomats and closed two Russian compounds in New York and Maryland in response to a campaign of harassment by Russia against American diplomats in Moscow, a senior U.S. official said on Thursday.

The U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters the Russian diplomats would be given 72 hours to leave the United States. Access to the two compounds will be denied to all Russian officials as of noon on Friday, the official added.



Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-cyber-idUSKBN14I1TY

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From the NYT...

U.S. Punishes Russia for Election Hacking, Ejecting Operatives

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration struck back at Russia on Thursday for its efforts to influence the 2016 election, ejecting 35 Russian intelligence operatives from the United States and imposing sanctions on Russia’s two leading intelligence services, including four top officers of the military intelligence unit the White House believes ordered the attacks on the Democratic National Committee and other political organizations.

In a sweeping set of announcements, the United States was also expected to release evidence linking the cyberattacks to computer systems used by Russian intelligence. Taken together, the actions would amount to the strongest American response ever taken to a state-sponsored cyberattack aimed at the United States.

The sanctions were also intended to box in President-elect Donald J. Trump. Mr. Trump has consistently cast doubt that the Russian government had anything to do with the hacking of the D.N.C. or other political institutions, saying American intelligence agencies could not be trusted and suggesting that the hacking could have been the work of a “400-pound guy” lying in his bed.

Mr. Trump will now have to decide whether to lift the sanctions on the Russian intelligence agencies when he takes office next month, with Republicans in Congress among those calling for a public investigation into Russia’s actions. Should Mr. Trump do so, it would require him to effectively reject the findings of his intelligence agencies.

<more>

[Coventina]

1. Good. n/t

[fletch18]

79. Concur. How do we force them to leave?

Sanctuary city and all?

[Mc Mike]

85. Well, THAT little observation was certainly worth breaking a 10 year silence to make.

Sanctuary cities aren't set up to provide safe havens that allow enemy nation's spies to remain in the U.S., despite our federal government's expulsion ruling.

That's quite the cartoonish idea you have there, regarding what the sanctuary movement is all about. Very conservative, very uninformed, but not very amusing.

[Chasstev365]

2. Will Trump fly them home for free on his plane?

[Blue Shoes]

30. Its the least he can do to thank them.

[TheCowsCameHome]

54. Yes, in Romney-approved rooftop carriers.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

3. Holy shit! nt

[cilla4progress]

4. I would expect that Pres Obama

has good and strong...unequivocal...evidence that they somehow participated.

[geek tragedy]

5. they're citing Russia's egregious harassment of American diplomats inside

Russia as the rationale

[jpak]

9. and hacking the election - per CNN

n/t

[Sunlei]

21. good point. Russia already kicked out & harrassed our diplomats,. they can use a phone.

[jpak]

6. CNN says - "govt. reveals names"

n/t

[HoneyBadger]

17. What are the names of Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear?

[Sunlei]

26. those are the two large government run hacker groups in russia. they also destablised Turkey, Crimea

Ukraine and several other countries. Used the same dump hacked emails on WikiLeaks to destabilize a government- Republicans allowed in America.

[HoneyBadger]

18. So the hackers were physically in the US?

Wow!

[Igel]

50. No.

There are two groups--perhaps one person each, but that's unlikely from what I've seen.

They aren't government backed. They cooperate with the government. On the other hand, they also engage in purely malicious and criminal hacks for fun and profit. It's a cultural thing. They're criminals, but nationalist and patriotic criminals, the kind of thing you get in sharply fascist states where the government's corrupt and the attitude of the populace is that they'll baldly lie to protect the government (even if they resent the local officials). They're Russian; they might be in Russia, but at least in the past they were physically located some place in the SW part of the country, and have been allied with or form a unit with Russian hackers in the E. Ukraine. The government doesn't want to reign them in, because they often do on their own what the government would want, and the space between them and the government provides plausible deniability.

One tends to work with the FSB; the other, military intelligence. The two organizations do not coordinate or cooperate; if anything, they're usually described as competitive, acting more in parallel than in tandem. It would be like the FBI and CIA if both were fully authorized to conduct operations domestically and abroad, instead of being complementary.

[YOHABLO]

69. Unbeknownst to the rest of us. Not going to know either. CIA and FBI have their lips sealed.

[Kingofalldems]

7. Trump and his lying trolls won't like this one.

[notdarkyet]

24. Speechless.

So far they are dumbfounded. Will they defend Russia? Guess what news will dominate the media today?

[coco22]

61. Yes they will

RepubliCon on msnbc now defending russian talking about election again. That hate is strong.

[Sunlei]

28. Republicans and their UNFIT president won't like this one. fixed it :P

[Xipe Totec]

8. Da Svidanya, Demona Ikru!

(So long, devil's spawn)

[liberal N proud]

10. Trump connected Russians should be targeted.

[aquamarina]

11. This

[Alekzander]

12. That is good. USA, USA. Hope there is more to come.

[Eliot Rosewater]

13. Donald Trump and team seem willing to risk a world war for their profits and egos.

Too bad most of their voters dont understand this.

[Seedersandleechers]

14. Obama is going out with a bang

And he still has 22 more days.

[kacekwl]

47. Keep it up Mr. PRESIDENT.

[bucolic_frolic]

15. Obama is just one of the smartest ever

he may have been willing to compromise with Boehner too often

but he always studies all his options and acts in the best interests
of the United States

what will Bouffant Don do now?

[LisaM]

16. No, this should have happened before the election.

For all of his smarts, he did not do enough before the election vis a vis Comey and the Russians. He just didn't. I'm freaking out.

[Bradical79]

45. Sometimes that's the problem with people like President Obama

They underestimate others' ability to be foolish and self destructive.

[Abouttime]

77. Maybe Obama has a plan

That once and for all will bring don the con down before he's even confirmed by the house

[japple]

81. That is my fervent hope. My dream would be new election with

Bernie winning!

[SunSeeker]

49. I guess he, like everyone else, thought Hillary was going to win regardless.

So he didn't want to stir the pot and generate charges that he was helping her. Of course, after Comey put out his letter, all bets were off and at that point Obama should have condemned Russia loud and clear. But I think even after the Comey letter, Obama thought she was going to win.

Hindsight is 20/20.

[LisaM]

56. Sigh. I don't know how anyone thought that.

Anytime she got any kind of a bump, some new roadblock would be thrown up. I was terrified a couple of days before the election; not that I thought the Comey thing meant anything, but then down went the polls, in predictable fashion.

[Abouttime]

88. Hillary did win!!

Don't forget that, she won by 3 million votes. PA, WI, MI and FL were most likely stolen handing the EC to tRump.
I wish Obama would reference this!!

[SunSeeker]

89. Good point. nt

[FiveGoodMen]

19. On 'Yes, Prime Minister' they expelled 76 Russian Diplomats

when they wanted to cover up something else in the news.

I don't see how this will have any impact.

[Sunlei]

20. Good move! Republicans can invite back their hacker 'friends' to hack Americas government.

Republicans used the hacked stuff like they ordered the cyber-crime directly from Russia, let Republicans be responsible for letting criminals back into America.

[sdfernando]

27. Don't ever forget that putin and the russians probably have RNC or rep emails as well...

they will blackmail to get their ends.

[Sunlei]

36. IMO, they're already blackmailed. even trump his russian beauty pageants when they party with girls.

Russia probably holds many, many party fun videos as blackmail.

That's why trump paid off the girl he raped and beat in his & pedophile friend Jeffery usa 'party' so very fast.

When she got a good lawyer & lawyer threatened a public press interview on election week. He (and Republican backers?) paid millions, on the spot to stop the interview. And shut her up.

[SunSeeker]

52. Yup. Kinda like the bunga bunga parties of his fellow fascist, Berlusconi, but worse.

And, sadly, without the public outrage.

[elmac]

55. Its also quite possible that sniffles owes the ruskies a ton of money

being his corporate credit rating is in the dumpster. That plus his history of not paying for services, contracts, he can't get any traditional loans in this country.

[Sunlei]

60. He sold real estate to them, made deals in russia. sanctions closed banks, trumps son said "money

from Russia". Still, trumps a silly-stooge to his Fellow Republicans, a patsy-president.

People like old Cheney will start scarfing-up Americas Federal and state money again for their personal war-businesses and the idiot (R) president, will blame the food stamp abuse.

[HoneyBadger]

22. Tit for tat has begun

Russians leaked UN resolution Obama conspiracy doc

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.761741?v=8E9A556A0D3A4B42C3830D92C69C4C4E

[vkkv]

29. - And if that is correct? Too F'ing Bad. We can talk to whoever we want..

Screw pro-Bibi Israelis.
Screw pro-Trumper Americans.

[nini]

35. yep

agree completely

[nini]

34. like a site like that would be even click worthy

no thanks

[LittleBlue]

66. Haaretz is a great publication for ME news

It's the only major left-oriented newspaper remaining in Israel.

[Sunlei]

39. No secret, no tit for tat Mr. Putin, USA has always been for Pals to have their own country.

Two State solution.

unlike you Russians who want to group up with warmonger republicans and slay couple million woman, men and children with cluster bombs and poison gas and call babies 'terrorists'

[geek tragedy]

40. you have evidence of that leak's provenance and authenticity? nt

[HoneyBadger]

42. Nothing other than the amazing timing

[geek tragedy]

44. huh? That alleged leak happened days ago, after the US abstention.

When else would that sort of leak emerge?

[LanternWaste]

87. Bias often requires little more than timing

Bias often requires little more than timing to validate itself, upon which all the great post hoc ergo prompter hoc fallacies rest.

[vkkv]

23. Da !! хороший !

[flamingdem]

25. Take that pootie

[milestogo]

31. They'll be invited back for the inauguration & to live at Trump Tower

As a reward for hacking the election.

[JustAnotherGen]

32. Email from US Department of Treasury at 2:18 PM

Update to OFAC's list of Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) and Blocked Persons

Today, the President issued an Executive Order Taking Additional Steps To Address The National Emergency With Respect To Significant Malicious Cyber-Enabled Activities. This amends Executive Order 13694, “Blocking the Property of Certain Persons Engaging in Significant Malicious Cyber-Enabled Activities.” E.O. 13694 authorized the imposition of sanctions on individuals and entities determined to be responsible for or complicit in malicious cyber-enabled activities that result in enumerated harms that are reasonably likely to result in, or have materially contributed to, a significant threat to the national security, foreign policy, or economic health or financial stability of the United States. The authority has been amended to also allow for the imposition of sanctions on individuals and entities determined to be responsible for tampering, altering, or causing the misappropriation of information with the purpose or effect of interfering with or undermining election processes or institutions. Five entities and four individuals are identified in the Annex of the amended Executive Order and will be added to OFAC’s list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN List). OFAC today is designating an additional two individuals who also will be added to the SDN List.

Please visit this page to access the latest version of the SDN list. Check this page periodically as it may also be updated if a new list-related format or product is offered. For more information on this specific action, please visit this page.

Here's the page:
https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/SDN-List/Pages/default.aspx

[JustAnotherGen]

33. Russian Sanctions - email from Bureau of Industry and Security 12/28 at 3 PM

12/27/16
81 FR 94963

Russian Sanctions: Addition of Certain Entities to the Entity List, and Clarification of License Review Policy

This final rule amends the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) by adding twenty-three entities to the Entity List. The twenty-three entities who are added to the Entity List have been determined by the U.S. Government to be acting contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States. BIS is taking this action to ensure the efficacy of existing sanctions on the Russian Federation (Russia) for violating international law and fueling the conflict in eastern Ukraine. These entities will be listed on the Entity List under the destinations of Russia and the Crimea region of Ukraine.
In addition to the Entity List changes described above, this final rule revises the licensing policy in three sections of the Commerce Control List (CCL)-based controls in the EAR to clarify that BIS’s review of license applications for exports, reexports and transfers (in-country) to Russia will take into account and protect U.S. national security interests.

https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/regulations/federal-register-notices#fr94963

Shit is getting real.

[Sunlei]

41. That's the way to do it. Now Republicans will be the bad guys if they try to remove the EO.

[greatauntoftriplets]

37. Thank you, President Obama.

[progressoid]

38. Wonder how many have ties to Donnie's cabinet picks.

[Sunlei]

43. if the FBI is EVER allowed to "really investagate"- some Republicans will be in big trouble.

trump is ignorant, his 'betters', his fellow Republicans use him like a rug.

[geek tragedy]

51. Russia used hackers to try to interfere with our elections on behalf of Trump.

If you don't have a big problem with that, maybe this isn't the site for you.

[BumRushDaShow]

58. Glad MIRT took care of that one!

Too many Trump trolls continue to infest DU.

[GoCubsGo]

48. The republicans are all over Twitter, claiming "No proof of Russian involvement."

The fact that ALL 17 civilian and military security agencies have corroborated that the Russians have interfered with our election is apparently meaningless to them. No doubt the Cult of Trump is ignoring those facts.

[left-of-center2012]

53. Awaiting Trump's Tweet

As much as Trump tweets,
does that make him a twit?

[kytngirl]

57. Nope...

...it makes him a twat.

[blueseas]

59. Waiting to see what he tweets

Looks like we have to watch twitter for everything.

[Sunlei]

63. I think todays EOs hit him in the face like a soppy towel. Obama told him to call anytime with ??s

twit will be awake at 3am all "ritalined up" and send tweets to his internet-Jesus.

[iluvtennis]

62. Link to the detailed Homeland Security/FBI report...

https://www.us-cert.gov/sites/default/files/publications/JAR_16-20296.pdf

Appalling

[YOHABLO]

70. Thank you very much for the link here.

[Tatiana]

64. Good riddance.

Hope the covert actions are 100x worse.

[LittleBlue]

65. A necessary safeguard. Frankly, why did we allow known operatives in the country to begin with?

I'm reading the commentary with people saying "every country does this, we knowingly allowed spies here..." Huh? Why the fuck did we knowingly allow spies to operate in this country?

All this too-clever-by-half shit is why we're facing Trump. The elites weren't taking our security seriously, allowing the Chinese and Russians to hack us for decades so long as the times were good. What happened to this country? How did we become so uncaring and naive?

[BumRushDaShow]

67. Sometimes

it's to determine other/deeper motives that go beyond the dime-store novel plots.

IMHO, the Trump thing was a "fortunate circumstance" that the Russian oligarchs could take advantage of and was probably not the initial intent for the spying.

And as for "hacking" - the fact that we had an OS at one time used by something like 80% of the population that the programmers thought was hilarious to pepper with "easter eggs" rather than focus on security of the product, has nothing to do with the current administration and its security personnel. As it is (and as we saw first hand), you can have a powerfully secured system become compromised due to human responses to socially-engineered click-bait emails.

[YOHABLO]

68. Trump thinks he can work both side of the aisle and the Russians? Who does he think

he's hoodwinking? So, did the Russians rig the election in favor of Trump, therefore Trump owes? I think we just ''elected'' the most corrupt President in U.S. History. It's not so much I can't wait for him to be sworn in, give or take a natural disaster that would prevent it, but to verify my convictions and speculation on what Trumps MOD is will be. Russian diplomats expelled? Yeah, that's telling them. The real cause for concern is the deal that Trump and Putin put together. We'll soon see won't we.

[iluvtennis]

71. Agree with you. Glad russians diplomats expelled...but I wanted something done about the election n

[keithbvadu2]

72. It's just temporary. Putin will tell his lackey Trump to reinstate everything.

[ALBliberal]

73. Our president is such a smart badass!

[harun]

83. Have to agree. Put's Trump in a position where if he truly thinks the election wasn't hacked

and wants to undo Obama's action, he'd be bringing Russian KGB agents back in to the United States.

That wouldn't go over so well.

[babylonsister]

74. BOOM, and YES! nt

[samir.g]

75. I guess we need 'extreme vetting' of russians

[fletch18]

76. I love it! No big whoop, NYC is sanctuary city. Right?

No harm no foul. Free vacation and they can hang out as long as they please😉

[Mc Mike]

86. Repugs ARE treasonous nazi creeps. You're right.

And it IS hilarious how treasonous they are, always.

[AgadorSparticus]

78. I want to say shit just got real but I think there bigger shit is coming...

Holy moly!

[Lady_Chat]

80. Thank you, President Obama!

So glad, he did what he did!

[harun]

82. Good stuff Obama! At least we got a Progressive administration

for the last month of his Presidency. Better than nothing.

[roomtomove]

84. How is it that these spy

compounds were even allowed to exist in the first place...????????