The case that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee (DNC) computer network and interfered with the 2016 U.S. elections—such as that laid out Tuesday by the New York Times—is plausible, but the American people deserve hard proof that has yet to be provided, The Intercept‘s Sam Biddle wrote Wednesday.

While calls for declassification of the evidence have thus far gone unanswered, “the refrain of Russian attribution has been repeated so regularly and so emphatically that it’s become easy to forget that no one has ever truly proven the claim,” according to Biddle, whose colleagues Jeremy Scahill and Jon Schwarz demanded such proof this week. (The Times‘s headline: “The Perfect Weapon: How Russian Cyberpower Invaded the U.S.”)

Biddle argued:

He went on to pick apart some of the “evidence” and assumptions put forth by the U.S. intelligence community and parroted by lawmakers and corporate media alike.

For instance, Biddle wondered of the so-called Russian intelligence units behind the DNC hack, codenamed APT (Advanced Persistent Threat) 28/Fancy Bear and APT 29/Cozy Bear: “[H]ow do we even know these oddly named groups are Russian?”

He wrote:

What’s more, Biddle noted, “one can’t be reminded enough that all of this evidence comes from private companies with a direct financial interest in making the internet seem as scary as possible, just as Lysol depends on making you believe your kitchen is crawling with E. Coli.”

And considering the stakes, this “proof” just isn’t enough, Biddle said.

“What we’re looking at now is the distinct possibility that the United States will consider military retaliation (digital or otherwise) against Russia, based on nothing but private sector consultants and secret intelligence agency notes,” he wrote. “If you care about the country enough to be angry at the prospect of election-meddling, you should be terrified of the prospect of military tensions with Russia based on hidden evidence. You need not look too far back in recent history to find an example of when wrongly blaming a foreign government for sponsoring an attack on the U.S. has tremendously backfired.”

As Scahill and Schwarz said Tuesday: “Let’s have the proof.”

Meanwhile, Reuters reported Tuesday that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) “has not endorsed” the CIA’s claim of Russian hacking to benefit Trump “because of a lack of conclusive evidence.”

Edited to clarify the nature of the ODNI’s non-endorsement.