Current cyber warfare

Like many of you I watched the congressional hearings investigating the alleged Russian interference in our 2016 presidential election and the possible involvement of personnel from the Trump campaign with the Russians. Further, the investigations looked at claims by the President that President Obama had the Trump campaign wiretapped or otherwise surveilled during the campaign. According to President Trump, his campaign offices in the Trump tower in New York were surveilled and British intelligence officials actively took part in carrying out this surveillance.

Each of 17 our intelligence agencies had independently found that some level of Russian interference in our election did occurred. President Trump has claimed that these reports are all "fake" news and the alleged Russian involvement is part of a campaign by Democrats to cast doubt on the legitimacy of his election. There is no intelligence that supports the Russian attempts at election meddling had any decided effect on the election results. Many of our European allies and others have claimed that Russian interference in their elections has been an ongoing problem.

There is enough intelligence to support the suspicion that the U.S. election was the target of Russian intelligence, but no one has claimed that the Russians had any success in affecting the outcome of our election. Regardless, this attempt at Russian interference, otherwise known as cyber or hybrid warfare, should not be brushed off as "fake news." The FBI investigation into these alleged Russian actions is warranted and justified as a legitimate threat to our government's stability and credibility. It is almost impossible to get many of our federal agencies to agree on anything, yet the intelligence community does agree that this is real, and as such it should be investigated and addressed. Failing to do so would make our government agencies derelict and no U.S. official should presume to know the answer to this before investigations are completed. Assumptions such as those are irresponsible and potentially dangerous to our country.

The same can be said about the claims of alleged surveillance of the Trump campaign by President Obama, the British, or anyone else. Unsupported claims made without supporting evidence are paranoia and they demand proof or they should be seen as lies.

Jack Dragoni attended Boston College and served in the U.S. Army in Berlin and Vietnam. He lives in Chaffee, Missouri.