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Biden hints at U.S. response to cyberattacks blamed on Russia

 
“We’re sending a message,” Joe Biden said. “We have the capacity to do it.”
“We’re sending a message,” Joe Biden said. “We have the capacity to do it.”
Published Oct. 16, 2016

WASHINGTON — Since the Obama administration formally accused Russia about a week ago of trying to interfere in the election, there has been intense speculation about whether President Barack Obama has ordered the National Security Agency to conduct a retaliatory cyberstrike.

The strongest hint so far has come from Vice President Joe Biden, who either revealed U.S. plans for a strike or engaged in one of the better bits of psychological warfare in recent times.

Taping an interview for NBC's Meet the Press, Biden was asked whether the United States was preparing to send a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Days before, U.S. intelligence agencies and Homeland Security had declared that the Russian leadership was responsible for attacks on the Democratic National Committee and the leaking of stolen emails.

"We're sending a message," Biden told Chuck Todd, the show's host. "We have the capacity to do it."

"He'll know it," Biden said. "And it will be at the time of our choosing. And under the circumstances that have the greatest impact."

Later, after Biden said he was not concerned that Russia could "fundamentally alter the election," Todd asked whether the American public would know if the message to Putin had been sent.

"Hope not," Biden responded.

His warning seems to suggest that Obama is prepared to order — or has already ordered — some kind of covert action after the stolen emails were published online. That would require what is known in the intelligence agencies as a finding — a presidential determination authorizing covert action.

Such a finding would allow the United States to make use of its newly developed arsenal of cyberweapons, which are under the control of the military's Cyber Command, the NSA and, in some circumstances, the CIA.

Biden's statement does not exclude the possibility of a response outside the realm of cyberspace. But most of the other options under discussion in the White House involve actions that would be public, such as economic sanctions under a 2015 presidential order on responding to cyberattacks. Such sanctions have never been invoked, but are suited to cases like the presumed effort to influence the election.

Some experts, however, say they may be insufficient. James Stavridis, the former supreme allied commander of NATO, wrote in Foreign Policy that the first step could be making America's evidence against Russia public.

"Revealing the names of the officials who authorized the cyberattacks against the United States would put Moscow in an extremely uncomfortable position," wrote Stavridis, a former admiral who is now dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. "Ideally, the United States could reveal emails or conversations between Russian officials that demonstrated their intent to undermine the U.S. electoral process."

But that would run counter to Biden's "hope not" statement.