First off, an important article written by an ex-FBI agent

https:/warontherocks.com/2016/11/trolling-for-trump-how-russia-is-trying-to-destroy-our-democracy

and read this twitter thread by same author Clint Watts:

https://mobile.twitter.com/selectedwisdom/status/860678896240513028

"Once in awhile we get shown the light, in the strangest of places, if we look at it right" - Hunter/Garcia

I'm rusty at this...

read this twitter feed from ex-FBI agent Clint Watts:

How Russia is trying to destroy democracies through an information war

Apparently the source of the Macron Leak/Hack is from an American Alt Right source: Jack Posobiec...connected to Bannon? Check out the discussion on Caroline O Twitter, Claude Taylor twitter and Malcolm Nance twitter

This is Russian, via the US! Go get them French Intelligence!!

"Once in awhile we get shown the light, in the strangest of places, if we look at it right" - Hunter/Garcia

As to your question, as to whether we should say anything...I think pushback is important, but it is important that we not circulate any links that we can't verify the source on. But I think the French people need to know this is Le Pen-Russian attempt to sway the vote with misinformation, or weaken Macron if he wins. But...I am hoping the French are smarter than the Americans. Surely the French Foreign Intelligence is on this already...

"Once in awhile we get shown the light, in the strangest of places, if we look at it right" - Hunter/Garcia

PS: Front page this sucker...

"Once in awhile we get shown the light, in the strangest of places, if we look at it right" - Hunter/Garcia

From Media Matters:

Fake News And The "Alt-Right" Are Pushing Forged Documents To Aid Marine Le Pen In France's Election

"Once in awhile we get shown the light, in the strangest of places, if we look at it right" - Hunter/Garcia

During last week's debate, Le Pen insinuated Macron might fall victim to a damaging leak regarding offshore accounts in the Bahamas.

Emmanuel Macron files complaint over Le Pen debate 'defamation' (The Guardian, 4 May 2017)

A member of Macron's entourage said the campaign would "not hesitate to prosecute for defamation" anyone who repeated the claims in public.

Paris prosecutors have launched a preliminary investigation into whether fake news was being used to influence Sunday's election runoff.

During the heated and sometimes vicious debate, Le Pen told Macron she hoped "we will not find out that you have an offshore account in the Bahamas" - apparently a reference to documents circulating on the internet that linked Macron to a Caribbean bank and were easily identifiable as forgeries. Macron swiftly rejected the comment as "defamation"

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman

From Malcolm Nance:

"Assessment: US Alt-Right may now be Intl' counterintel target.  
Prosobiec's cyber life likely DGSE priority Target
Can request arrest."

"Once in awhile we get shown the light, in the strangest of places, if we look at it right" - Hunter/Garcia

A past variant on this trick was pulled off against Prodi in the 2006 general elections. Within the same time frame just as electoral silence fell, Gerald Batten accused Prodi of being a KGB spy. Prodi narrowly won the elections and his government fell shortly after, sweeping Berlusconi back into power until 2011.

Batten was set up by Mario Scaramella and Alexander Litvinenko to pull it off.I'm quite sure I did a diary at the time although it was not then known that Scaramella and Litvinenko were behind Batten.

This is, of course, another group of players. Off hand, throughout history, the French have been refractory to disinformation, and unlike their neighbours, the Germans and the English, they have tended to nip impostors in the bud. We'll see if times have changed.

Index of Frank's Diaries

I haven't read any of the allegations, so bear this in mind when I say:

1. The hackers have probably left this too late.  There isn't time for news organisations to verify any of the allegations, so Macron can get away with just denouncing the hack.

2. France isn't the USA.  There is still a greater respect for privacy.

3. It looks all too similar to what happened to Hillary.  So it is easy to frame the story as black propaganda.

4. In the case of Hillary, the hacked material fed into and reinforced an already existing narrative about her.  This isn't the case with Macron.

5. The Greatest risk for Macron was probably a failure of left voters to turn out to vote for him.  This will help galvanise them.

6. This does nothing for Le Pen's image.

7. The greatest longer term danger for Macron is after the elections, if some of the allegations turn out to be proven. That is not a problem fro the elections however.

8. Last week I was expect a 60-40% result for Macron.  Given the outcome of the debate and this hack, I think it will be more like 65-35%.

Index of Frank's Diaries

Some thoughts: If this intended to influence the runoff then it is probably bullshit. If there is anything solid in there than releasing it earlier would have increased its impact​.
On the other hand if this is about the legislative then there might be something to it
Despite all the fear and loathing about fake news and Russian propaganda the impact up to now seems to have been negligible. It might have been the straw that broke the camel's back in the US campaign but there were a thousand factors of equal weight. And in the Brexit case it doesn't even register next to the standard right wing oligarch drivel you can read in the not-fake-news.
Also we shouldn't lose sight of the simple fact that in the US case the leaks were true. I haven't looked at the allegations, but I don't see how you swing 20 points without evidence and time for digestion.

Well, I've been wondering what their last push would be like. It's laughably lame.

And it lays it out in black and white how tight they are with the Russians. This has serious blowback potential for the legislatives: the number of FN MPs just shrank, at first reading.

Just as an indication : my hyper-political twitter feed does not reference this story at all, apart from one journalist linking e Le Monde's article on Macron's team's reaction. Good discipline on the left.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}

From Buzzfeed

Dear France: You Just Got Hacked. Don't Make The Same Mistakes We Did

"Once in awhile we get shown the light, in the strangest of places, if we look at it right" - Hunter/Garcia

I can't recall the last time that a former POTUS turned up not once but twice in MSM before an election in a foreign country to endorse a candidate.

L'espoir est en marche. Merci @BarackObama. pic.twitter.com/0azZHLZLse

— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) May 4, 2017

Black propaganda or White propaganda? Meddling or interference?

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

French election: Hollande vows 'response' to Macron hack attack - BBC

French President François Hollande has promised to "respond" after a hacking attack targeted presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron.

He gave no further details but said he knew of the risks of such attacks because they had "happened elsewhere".

Russian hackers reportedly shaking in their boots.

Have you noticed how the Macron Leaks continue to have such a huge impact, now that the election is over? Yep, me neither.

Why the Macron Hacking Attack Landed With a Thud in France - NYT

But in France, the leak did not get much traction. It certainly did not appear to give an edge to Ms. Le Pen, who won 33.9 percent to Mr. Macron's 66.1 percent on Sunday. The hacking operation was met, instead, with silence, disdain and even scorn.

Why?

First, French news outlets respected the blackout. The documents had landed at the 11th hour, without time for journalists to scrutinize them properly before the ban went into effect.

Second, the news media heeded an admonition by the government's campaign regulatory body not to publish false news.

But there was yet another crucial factor -- France does not have an equivalent to the thriving tabloid culture in Britain or the robust right-wing broadcast media in the United States.

And The Intercept reminds us of the difference between whistle-blowing and "politically motivated hacking":

There Are No "Macron Leaks" in France. Politically Motivated Hacking Is Not Whistleblowing. - The Intercept

Here's some news for the alt-right activists in the United States behind a disinformation campaign aimed at getting Marine Le Pen elected president of France by spreading rumors about her opponent, Emmanuel Macron: The French do not much like having their intelligence insulted by Americans.

There are more details about how the news spread, quoting again Nicolas Vanderbiest, and some details about the contents mixing the mundane, technical stuff and the occasionally hilarious (a 69 years old French MP allegedly paying for drugs in Bitcoins for a shipment to his National Assembly office - why, of course, happens all the time...)

Why Accuracy about Wikileaks Matters - emptywheel -

If Mahjoubi was being honest about his certainty the hackers didn't succeed, then the campaign would have no reason or means to feed disinformation. And the details offered here appear to be about disinformation in response to phishing probes -- that is, disinformation about metadata -- not disinformation about content.

But now, between the Daily Beast's gloating and the sharing of it with even less factual gloating, coupled with Macron's quick declaration that the dump included fake documents, raises real (but potentially unjustified!) questions about whether the campaign added the Cyrillic metadata that got so much attention. Not only has Wikileaks' vetting process not (yet) been exposed as a fraud, but the reporting may create even more distrust and uncertainty than there was. [Note, I posted a tweet to that effect that I have deleted now that I'm convinced there's no evidence Macron faked any documents.]

Moreover, even if it is the case that GRU hacked Macron and Wikileaks would have happily published the emails if they passed its vetting process (which are both likely true), Wikileaks didn't get and post the documents, which itself is worth noting and understanding.

I'm not sure I'm any the wiser even at this late stage about:

1. who is most likely to have done the hacking

2. Was it an amateurish effort which succeeded only because Macron's security was poor, or whether it required "state level" expertise to pull it off

3. Whether anything substantially embarrassing has been leaked

4. Whether the leak included fake documents, and if so, most likely faked by whom

5. Whether anybody in France gives a fcuk either way.

The only thing which seems clear is that it didn't have a substantial impact on the result, and any impact it did have may well have helped Macron.

The other issue which is raised by the episode is whether electoral laws need updating to cope with the possible impact of organised fake news and disinformation campaigns.  

Hillary obviously had a case that her defeat was at least, in part, due to a disinformation campaign against her.  But she has no effective remedy now the election is over. There is thus a case for legislating to ensure the courts can block publication of all illegally obtained information in the final weeks of a campaign unless there is strong corroborating evidence from legal sources.

However the bigger problem is whether blocking such information is even possible in the internet/social media driven world we live in. Perhaps we just have to educate the electorate to be more sceptical and discerning in their evaluation of "news".

Index of Frank's Diaries