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Democrats at the DNC were divided on last week's email hack
On Wednesday, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump stared directly into a camera during a press briefing and said: "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 [Hillary Clinton] emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press." This remark came after thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee were released by Wikileaks; the FBI has indicated it believes Russia was behind the attack. Trump has since said he was being "sarcastic" and his campaign manager denied claims that the candidate was calling for Russia to hack anyone. But that didn't stop Democrats from denouncing his language in the strongest of terms. "This has to be the first time that a major presidential candidate has actively encouraged a foreign power to conduct espionage against his political opponent," said Hillary Clinton's campaign. (What the Clinton campaign didn't mention is that this sort of maneuvering isn't entirely unheard of, even within the Democratic party.)
Democrats ask for immediate action to combat climate change
The Democrats and Republicans differ on many fronts, but the contrast is particularly striking when it comes to climate change. The Republican party platform dismisses it and its presidential candidate calls it a "hoax." But on Monday night as the 2016 Democratic National Convention began, multiple speakers including Senators Bernie Sanders (D, VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D, MA) touched on the need to directly address the issue. Similarly, the party's 2016 platform document spends many pages touching upon climate change, calling it an "urgent threat and a defining challenge of our time.
Trump wants Russia to hack the US government (updated)
Late last week, thousands of emails from the Democratic National Committee were released by WikiLeaks, the contents of which have caused plenty of controversy at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia this week. The FBI is investigating and Russia is believed to be a prime suspect in the hack that led to these emails getting leaked. Naturally, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has had plenty to say about the hack and some of the messages themselves. But what he said today is yet another level of crazy from an already audacious candidate. "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing," Trump said today, reports The New York Times. "I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press." By "find," it's pretty clear Trump was advocating for another hack to uncover more emails, specifically those from Hillary Clinton's private email server when she was Secretary of State. Regardless of whether those emails were on a private server or not, hacking emails sent while she was Secretary of State would amount to hacking the US government. The emails in question were deemed personal and private and deleted by Clinton.
Democrats wants to balance liberty and security in encryption debate
In 2012, the Democratic party platform document (released every four years at the Democratic National Convention) made barely a mention of internet privacy and how it affects US citizens. But that was before Edward Snowden's revelations. This year, as the DNC kicks off in Philadelphia, the new Democratic Party platform addresses the privacy concerns brought to light in 2013. It also gets into the recent battle over encryption that was highlighted by the FBI trying to force Apple to decrypt an iPhone connected to a murder suspect.
