There is no doubt that the Wiki Leaks emails played an important role in this election cycle. However, one must ask, “Where did these emails come from?” As of December 16, 2016, the U.S. intelligence community has concluded that these emails were seized by hacker backed by the Russian government. Since much of the findings have been classified, very little information has been available to major news outlets. According to a CNN report, we know that:

1. From July to November, thousands of emails were stolen from the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign manager, John Podesta.
2. In October, U.S. intelligence agencies blamed Russia for the cyber attack on the D.N.C.
3. Wiki Leaks refused to name the sources for its “October surprise” emails.
4. The actual voting process was not compromised.

Although the integrity of our electoral process was NOT compromised, there are still many questions to be asked. One such question is, “Why would Putin want to interfere in the U.S. election?” the answer to that question goes back to the year of 2011, when Hillary Clinton (then secretary of State) criticized Russia’s legislative election. After her criticism, the Russian people proceeded to protest against the incumbent president, Mr. Putin. According to John Podesta, this action by Secretary Clinton (and U.S. “interference” in Russia’s election) led Putin to seek “revenge” on the U.S. Despite the fact that this has NOT been confirmed, a CIA source told CNN that the hacks must have been approved by high levels of the Russian. For now, Putin’s vendetta seems like a plausible scenario.

In this new age of technology and rapid communications, this election has shown that no one is safe. Nobody, not even Hillary Clinton is safe from hackers online. No matter what we do, the fear of public embarrassment becomes more of a reality, every single day.