To the Editor:

What if you could attack a country without building a single plane, or ship, or even one gun? What if the sacrifices that our brave veterans make every day could not stop this attack? And what if the citizens of that country were not even aware of the attack? It is not only possible, it happened to the United States of America. 

“The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion.” This is the first line and the major conclusion of the report by Special Counsel Robert Muller. Whether you believe that the report exonerated the President or not, the facts are clear. We were attacked by Russia. Since they have paid no price for putting their thumb on the scale of our election, we can be sure that they will do it again. 

Chapters II and III of Volume 1, (pages 14 to 50) lays out in incredible detail how this attack took place. “Facebook estimated the IRA (Russians) reached as many as 126 million persons through its Facebook accounts.” “Twitter announced that it had identified 3,814 IRA-controlled Twitter accounts and notified approximately 1.4 million people Twitter believed may have been in contact with an IRA-controlled account.” 

Some of these Russian Facebook accounts attracted enormous followings. “... the IRA’s ‘United Muslims of America’ Facebook group had over 300,000 followers, the ‘Don’t Shoot Us’ Facebook group had over 250,000 followers, The ‘Being Patriotic’ Facebook group had over 200,000 followers, and the ‘Secured Borders’ Facebook group had over 130,000 followers.” In total, the IRA-controlled accounts made over 80,000 posts.”

The power of social media to sway public opinion is undeniable. The Russians have been using their mastery of it as an extremely effective and cheap weapon for years. These operations constituted “active measures,” a term that typically refers to operations conducted by Russian security services aimed at influencing the course of international affairs. 

Given that the presidential election was decided by a mere 77,000 votes in three key targeted states, it is clear that we were successfully attacked by a foreign power. Where is the outrage?  Where is the call to action against a common enemy? Where is Congress and a 911 type commission? Or is it OK for a foreign power to help pick our next president? 

Louis Vitale

Franklin