Acting in a Position

I felt sorry for the DHS rep who testified yesterday before the Senate Intelligence Committee.  She was "acting" in her position, meaning she had not gotten the job permanently yet and she was testifying on the Russian intrusions into State election systems.  This is a really difficult topic with lots of press coverage and divided politics.  This is a tough position to be in because you cannot possibly know about all the decisions that were made before you became acting, and you have to learn the details of events that someone else may have covered before you.  The Senators even toned down some of their questions because they it does little good - and may cause some political harm - to beat up a witness that was not high enough up in the food chain to be responsible for decisions that were made.  One of the guys who was, the previous Director of Homeland Security, was testifying at a House Commitee hearing at the same time.  That is poor scheduling, and did not help anyone improve their understanding of the issues.

We are also dealing with some pretty sensitive issues that are not open session discussions.  How can the poor Acting Director speak in public about which state election systems  the Russians were trying to get into?  How can they talk openly about the techniques that were used by a foreign power to penetrate government systems?  As time went on, it was obvious in both hearing that some of the states and the Democratic National Committee did not want help when told about the hacking.  Less than half even agreed to work with Homeland Security.

What one Senator wanted to know was were the ones who didn't want the help the same as the ones who got hacked?  We know the DNC certainly was.  Good question for the open forum but they didn't have, or didn't want to talk about, that part.

Having been in that position with State governments and military units who don't want to hear that they are being hacked, I can tell you it is a helpless feeling.  We cannot force some of these people to do the right thing, even to do what we point out to them they need to do in a real national emergency like the one created by Russian meddling in the US election.  The real question which was asked in the House Committee was why President Obama, who knew about this meddling, did not do more to make it public inside and outside government.  The excuse that he didn't want it to appear to be political is rediculous when coming from a man who actively campaigned for Mrs Clinton.  There was something else involved.  I certainly hope they get that question answered.