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WaPo Mea Culpa


by Stephen Lendman
1-3-17

 
Rarely do US media scoundrels admit misreporting. Rare admissions virtually always come after irreparable damage was done - the initial account remembered, corrections largely unnoticed.

A previous article discussed WaPo’s fake news story about Russia allegedly cyberattacking a Vermont utility.

It was made up. It didn’t happen. The account was part of relentless, irresponsible Russia bashing - intensified ahead of Trump entering office to pressure him against normalizing ties and cooperating with Putin in combating terrorism, anathema to  America’s deep state, wanting adversarial relations maintained.

On January 2, citing unnamed federal officials, WaPo admitted “suspicious Internet activity found last week on a Vermont utility computer (was unrelated) to any Russian government effort to target or hack the utility…”

WaPo’s earlier fake news story fizzled, federal officials saying outdated malware discovered on a single Burlington Electric laptop was unrelated to Russia or malicious activity.

Yet WaPo’s fake news story created an uproar, precisely its intention. The follow-up correction is little more than a footnote after intended damage was done.

WaPo: “The Post initially reported incorrectly that the country’s electric grid had been penetrated through a Vermont utility.”

“After Burlington Electric released its statement, saying that the potentially compromised laptop had not been connected to the grid, The Post…corrected its article and later added an editor’s note explaining the change.”

The Neutrino malware found on a single laptop unconnected to Vermont’s electric grid wasn’t the misreported Grizzly Steppe, falsely attributed to nonexistent Russian hacking.

According to Burlington Electric spokesman Mike Kanarick, “(f)ederal officials have indicated that the specific type of Internet traffic, related to recent malicious cyber activity that was reported by us (last Friday), also has been observed elsewhere in the country and is not unique to” a single company or entity.

Dragos cybersecurity firm CEO Robert M. Lee debunked the FBI/DHS report released last week on hacking, saying it “offered no technical value for defenders. It was very much high level, and nothing in there was specifically descriptive of Russian activity.”

Its release coincided with Obama’s new sanctions on Russia for nonexistent US election hacking, each action reinforcing the other.

Separately, in a Fox News interview to air Tuesday evening, January 3, WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange was unequivocal, stressing “our source is not the Russian government and it is not a state party...Obama is trying to say that president-elect Trump is not a legitimate president.”

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

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