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by thatsmystory » Sat Feb 12, 2011 3:16 am
by Plutonia » Sat Feb 12, 2011 1:51 pm
wallflower wrote:Wow! Plutonia, your documentation of these ongoing events is astounding. Thanks.
I missed all you put up on Wednesday at the cyber war thread, focused on Egypt
by Plutonia » Sat Feb 12, 2011 1:53 pm
Don't believe it. What they got caught at is business as usual.thatsmystory wrote:The apologies were extremely moving. It is very encouraging to witness such contrition.
by norton ash » Sat Feb 12, 2011 2:11 pm
Plutonia wrote:Don't believe it. What they got caught at is business as usual.thatsmystory wrote:The apologies were extremely moving. It is very encouraging to witness such contrition.
by Plutonia » Sat Feb 12, 2011 2:21 pm
HBGary Fees: “Dam It Feels Good to Be a Gangsta”
By: emptywheel Friday February 11, 2011 8:05 am
One of the more interesting documents on HBGary et al’s partnership with the Chamber of Commerce details the prices they wanted to charge. Now, other emails make it clear that the Chamber balked at what the team originally proposed would be $2 million of work–the Chamber didn’t pay these rates (indeed, they probably haven’t paid for any of this).
But I was particularly interested in what HBGary’s Aaron Barr proposed charging for the work of what they called a “Social Media SME.”
Social media sme ($250 per hour) – experienced in social media link analysis. Personna development. Content management. Social media exploitation techniques.
This is a social media consultant, someone we know from the team’s plans they intended to deploy on Facebook and Twitter in false personas ultimately aiming to destroy the credibility of anti-Chamber activists.
These are just reasonably skilled trolls.
And for that, they wanted to charge $2,000 a day.
To put it in even more stark perspective, consider one ultimate target of the campaign: the men and women SEIU organizes pushing back against the anti-worker policies of the Chamber. Many of these workers–the kind of people who keep your building clean or care for you when you’re sick–make as little $12/hour or less (though the wages for nurses and other skilled medical care providers are higher).
These corporate spook assholes–in addition to targeting Americans for political activism–also think they’re worth 20 times as much as the people who care for the sick.
As the Palantir employee working with Barr on these numbers put it, “Most of all that we are the best money can buy! Dam it feels good to be a gangsta…..”
by Plutonia » Sat Feb 12, 2011 2:23 pm
Oh. Right. He henorton ash wrote:Just guessing here, but I think thatsmystory might have been being a little sarcastic.
I'll take the opportunity to chime in with my own thanks for your work, Plutonia! Reportage formidable.
by norton ash » Sat Feb 12, 2011 2:39 pm
I don't know if people have realized that there was a new installment of "Top Secret America" back on Dec. 20, this one on domestic "Monitoring America."
It allows for most of the usual justifications and rationalizations -- in the end allowing a police chief to say crime is the real terrorist threat (since there is basically no terrorist threat). But it describes a domestic law enforcement/spook complex of a size and complexity rarely acknowledged.
Top Secret America - Front Page
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/
Part I (July 19)
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top- ... d-control/
Part II (July 20)
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top- ... urity-inc/
Part III (July 21)
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top- ... next-door/
by thatsmystory » Sat Feb 12, 2011 3:05 pm
Plutonia wrote:Don't believe it. What they got caught at is business as usual.thatsmystory wrote:The apologies were extremely moving. It is very encouraging to witness such contrition.
Bank of America and the Chamber of Commerce distanced themselves on Friday from any effort to embarrass or collect disparaging information about their critics. “We have not engaged in, nor do we have any plans to engage in, the practices discussed in this alleged presentation by HBGary,” said Lawrence DiRita, a Bank of America spokesman.
Tom Collamore, a chamber spokesman, said, “The leaked e-mails appear to show that HBGary Federal was willing to propose questionable actions in an attempt to drum up business, but the chamber was not aware of these proposals until HBGary’s e-mails leaked.”
Hackers Reveal Offers to Spy on Corporate Rivals
by JackRiddler » Sat Feb 12, 2011 4:25 pm
February 11, 2011
Hackers Reveal Offers to Spy on Corporate Rivals
By ERIC LIPTON and CHARLIE SAVAGE
Correction Appended
WASHINGTON — A fight between a group of pro-WikiLeaks hackers and a California-based Internet security business has opened a window onto the secretive world of private companies that offer to help corporations investigate and discredit their critics.
This week, hackers said they had penetrated the computers of HBGary Federal, a security company that sells investigative services to corporations, and posted tens of thousands of what appear to be its internal company e-mails on the Internet.
The documents appear to include pitches for unseemly ways to undermine adversaries of Bank of America and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, like doing background research on their critics and then distributing fake documents to embarrass them.
The bank and the chamber do not appear to have directly solicited the spylike services of HBGary Federal. Rather, HBGary Federal offered to do the work for Hunton & Williams, a corporate law firm that has represented them.
A Hunton & Williams spokesman did not comment. But spokesmen for Bank of America and the chamber said Friday that they had not known about the presentations and that HBGary Federal was never hired on their behalf. A chamber spokesman characterized the proposal as “abhorrent.”
Since the hacked e-mails appeared on a file-sharing network several days ago, a broad range of bloggers and journalists have been scouring them and discussing highlights on the Internet. The New York Times also obtained a copy of the archive.
One document that has received particular attention is a PowerPoint presentation that said a trio of data-related companies — HBGary Federal, Palantir Technologies and Berico Technologies — could help attack WikiLeaks, which is rumored to be preparing to release internal e-mails from Bank of America.
One idea was to submit fake documents covertly to WikiLeaks, and then expose them as forgeries to discredit the group. It also suggested pressuring WikiLeaks’ supporters — notably Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com — by threatening their careers.
“Without the support of people like Glenn, WikiLeaks would fold,” the presentation said.
Another set of documents proposed similar ways to embarrass adversaries of the Chamber of Commerce for an initial fee of $200,000 and $2 million later.
The e-mails include what appears to be an exchange on Nov. 9, 2010, between Aaron Barr, HBGary Federal’s chief executive, and John W. Woods, a Hunton & Williams partner who focuses on corporate investigations. Mr. Barr recounted biographical tidbits about the family of a one-time employee of a union-backed group that had challenged the chamber’s opposition to Obama administration initiatives like health care legislation.
“They go to a Jewish church in DC,” Mr. Barr apparently wrote. “They have 2 kids, son and daughter.”
A week later, Mr. Barr submitted a detailed plan to Hunton & Williams for an extensive investigation into U.S. Chamber Watch and other critics of the chamber, including the possible creation of “in-depth target dossiers” and the identification of vulnerabilities in their computer networks that might be exploited.
Another PowerPoint presentation prepared for Hunton & Williams said the research that HBGary Federal and its partners could do for the law firm on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce would “mitigate effect of adversarial groups” like U.S. Chamber Watch. The presentation discussed the alleged criminal record of one leader of an antichamber group, and said the goal of its research would be to “discredit, confuse, shame, combat, infiltrate, fracture” the antichamber organizations.
HBGary acknowledged Tuesday in a statement that it had been the victim of a “criminal cyberattack,” but suggested that documents placed in the public domain might be “falsified.”
The other two businesses referred to in the apparent proposals as planned partners in the corporate investigations put out statements that distanced themselves from HBGary Federal but did not say the documents were fake.
The co-founders of Berico, Guy Filippelli and Nick Hallam, confirmed that Berico had been “asked to develop a proposal to support a law firm” that was helping companies “analyze internal information security and public relations challenges,” but said their proposal had been limited to “analyzing publicly available information.” They called efforts to target people “reprehensible” and said they were breaking all ties to HBGary Federal, a move that Palantir executives also said they were making.
The episode traces back to a dispute in December, when corporations including MasterCard, Visa and PayPal severed ties to WikiLeaks, temporarily cutting off its ability to accept donations. WikiLeaks had just begun releasing leaked State Department cables in conjunction with a consortium of news organizations, including The New York Times.
Calling the companies’ severing of such ties an affront to Internet freedom, a loose-knit group of computer users named Anonymous coordinated attacks on the Web sites of such companies. Mr. Barr apparently began trying to uncover the identities of those involved with Anonymous. But after he boasted of his efforts in a newspaper article, hackers attacked his company’s Web site and made public the e-mails.
Jonathan E. Turner, who runs a Tennessee-based business that gathers intelligence for corporate clients, said that companies nationwide relied on investigators to gather potentially damaging information on possible business partners or rivals. “Information is power,” said Mr. Turner, former chairman of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners.
He estimated that the “competitive intelligence” industry had 9,700 companies offering these services, with an annual market of more than $2 billion, but said there were limits to what tactics should be used.
Bank of America and the Chamber of Commerce distanced themselves on Friday from any effort to embarrass or collect disparaging information about their critics. “We have not engaged in, nor do we have any plans to engage in, the practices discussed in this alleged presentation by HBGary,” said Lawrence DiRita, a Bank of America spokesman.
Tom Collamore, a chamber spokesman, said, “The leaked e-mails appear to show that HBGary Federal was willing to propose questionable actions in an attempt to drum up business, but the chamber was not aware of these proposals until HBGary’s e-mails leaked.”
Correction: February 12, 2011
HB Gary Federal and HB Gary are two related companies that share some of the same owners and have shared the same offices as their California headquarters. But they are distinct entities. An earlier version of the story was not clear on this distinction.
ORIGINAL
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/us/po ... nted=print
GG wrote:UPDATE: Several new items to note: (1) Salon's Editor-in-Chief, Kerry Lauerman, has an excellent response to all of this on behalf of Salon; (2) The CEO and COO of Berico -- the third company whose name appears on the report (along with Palantir and HB Gary) -- has now issued a statement [link fixed] condemning the proposal as "reprehensible" and also severed all ties with HB Gary; and (3) Bank of America has issued a carefully worded statement to USA Today, denying that they ever saw or have any interest in the proposal and claiming they never hired HB Gary to do this work (though they don't say whether they hired Berico or Palantir, the firms that were coordinating the proposal, to do similar work, nor whether Hunton & Williams did); I'll look forward to hearing from Palantir's CEO, as promised, on those questions.
UPDATE II: The New York Times this morning has a fairly thorough account of this matter that is worth reading. While Bank of America continues to deny involvement in these proposals, its law firm, Hunton & Williams -- one of the most well-connected law firms in Washington -- refuses to comment, and that firm appears to be a key link in all of these efforts.
by wallflower » Sat Feb 12, 2011 5:47 pm
Before this, what these guys were doing was technically illegal, but it was in direct support of a government whistle blower. But now, we have a situation where they’re committing a federal crime, stealing private data and posting it on a torrent,” Hoglund said. “They didn’t just pick on any company, but we try to protect the US government from hackers. They couldn’t have chosen a worse company to pick on.
by Plutonia » Sat Feb 12, 2011 9:38 pm
I have a particular hate for astroturfers too, WF.wallflower wrote:This story really blows my mind. That's a pretty banal fact from which it's easy to deduce I'm a pretty ordinary Joe; as in "You and Me Too." Even while I'm scratching my head and thinking WTF, anger about this wells up.
by seemslikeadream » Mon Feb 14, 2011 2:21 pm
Despite Denials, New Emails Suggest US Chamber Was Aware Of Private Security Firms’ Espionage Work
On Friday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — the big business lobby representing Exxon Mobil, Goldman Sachs, AIG, and other major corporations — released its second denial in the ongoing ChamberLeaks controversy. In it, they claimed that HBGary’s proposal “was never discussed with anyone at the Chamber” and that “the Chamber was not aware of these proposals until HBGary’s e-mails leaked.” However, at least six separate leaked HBGary emails suggest that, contrary to their denials, the Chamber was repeatedly made aware of the activities of HBGary and two other private security firms.
As ThinkProgress laid out last week, the lobbying firm Hunton & Williams (H&W) served as the go-between for the Chamber and three private security firms — HBGary, Palantir, and Berico Technologies — who were collectively known as “Team Themis.” Emails indicate that three top lawyers at Hunton & Williams — John Woods, Bob Quackenboss, and Richard Wyatt — met on multiple occasions with the Chamber in order to brief them on Team Themis’s proposals.
First, emails clearly indicate that the “client” whom Team Themis was assisting was indeed the U.S. Chamber of Commerce:
– December 13: Pat Ryan of Berico Technologies emailed John Woods that the team was excited “to provide the client with a powerful, innovative solution” and were “still working through the details of our Phase I research/analysis support for the Chamber.”
– January 9: Pat Ryan emailed his Team Themis colleagues that he had received a message from H&W lawyer Bob Quackenboss’s secretary “requesting a conference call on Mon at 10am to discuss the way ahead for the Chamber effort.”
Despite the Chamber’s insistence that they were “not aware” of HBGary’s proposals, a November 16 email between Aaron Barr of HBGary and Berico Technologies indicated that members of Team Themis had been communicating about the “sensitive” Chamber project:
Other emails records indicate that H&W told Team Themis it was in constant contact with the Chamber about the project:
– November 16: In a Team Themis internal memo, Eli Bingham of Palantir informed the group that H&W would soon “write and return a contract.” A week later, on November 23, a meeting was scheduled where Richard Wyatt, one of H&W’s top laywers, would be “presenting to the client.” Bingham pushed to “have a team representative there, or a demo video.”
– November 23: H&W lawyer John Woods wrote to Sam Kremin of Berico Technologies to explain that fellow H&W laywer Bob Quackenboss was the point man between H&W and the Chamber. “Bob is our key client contact operationally,” Woods wrote, “and he will be called upon to explain to a different group what you all will actually be doing.”
– November 29: After Aaron Barr wrote the email detailing Team Themis’s plan to create a “false document” and “fake insider personnas (sic)” intended to trick the Chamber’s political opponents, Sam Kremin approved and said he would forward the plans to Bob Quackenboss in order to brief the Chamber. “When I give these to Bob,” Kremin wrote, “I will emphasize that these are just examples to give him an idea of what he is pitching to the Chamber.”
– December 1: Matthew Steckman of Palantir updated Team Themis on a meeting he had just concluded with H&W. Discussing the proposed $2 million project fee, Steckman noted that H&W lawyer Richard Wyatt was “looking to push that number to the Chamber.” In the meantime, non-disclosure agreements were being drawn up for the team. H&W was enthusiastic because they saw the “potential for huge gains in this market especially since ‘the results of the election made some people angry.’” Steckman wrote that following Phase I of the project, H&W was “looking forward to briefing the results to the Chamber to get them to pony up the cash for Phase II.” That meeting had been set to take place today, February 14. It’s unclear whether it will still happen.
– February 3: Pat Ryan of Berico Technologies wrote Team Themis that they should meet with H&W lawyer Bob Quackenboss in the next few days to “select focused topic(s) for the demo to the Chamber” that had been scheduled to occur today. Ryan noted that Quackenboss told him that a separate demo had “sold the Chamber in the first place.”
While many questions remain in the unfolding ChamberLeaks controversy, what’s clear is that this multitude of emails clearly contradicts the Chamber’s claim that they were “not aware of these proposals until HBGary’s e-mails leaked.” Rather, H&W’s lawyers appear to have consistently kept the Chamber informed on Team Themis’s progress.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce Thugs Used 'Terror Tools' for Disinfo Scheme Targeting Me, My Family, Other Progressive U.S. Citizens, Groups
And why they are likely to get away with it...
"[W]ho better to develop a corporate information reconnaissance capability than companies that have been market leaders within the DoD and Intelligence Community."
- 'Team Themis', from their 11/3/10 "Corporate Information Reconnaissance Cell" proposal delivered to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's law firm Hunton & Williams.
As I learned late last Thursday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the most powerful Rightwing lobbying group in the country, was revealed to have been working with their law firm and a number of private cyber security and intelligence firms to target progressive organizations, journalists and citizens who they felt were in opposition to their political activism, tactics and points of view.
As I went on the air Thursday night --- my fifth in a six-day guest hosting stint on the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show --- revelations about the planned multi-million dollar political hit job by the security/intelligence firms working to develop a scheme for the U.S. Chamber (and another one, almost identical to it, on behalf of Bank of America) were just beginning to come to light. Both plots were being developed by the Chamber and BofA by the very same law firm, Hunton & Williams and with the cyber intelligence firms HBGary Federal, Berico Technologies & Palantir Technologies.
As the show began, I was able to report the news, based on an exclusive report from Lee Fang at ThinkProgress, that internal emails from one of the firms, confirmed that VelvetRevolution.us (VR), a progressive non-partisan, non-profit organization co-founded by The BRAD BLOG, and its StopTheChamber.com campaign were specifically highlighted as targets of the Chamber's plot which was proposed to include the planting of a "false document", in hopes they'd be publicly released by VR or other progressive groups, so the U.S. Chamber could then claim the groups involved had created a forgery.
The plan also involved creating "two fake insider personas", one at VR and another at the unrelated Change To Win organization, which had employed a coalition of union groups to create a non-profit campaign, some months after VR's, called U.S. Chamber Watch. The plan presented by Team Themis, as the three security firms called themselves, would then use one of the "fake personas" as "leverage to discredit the other while confirming the legitimacy of the second" in hopes of publicizing the fraudulent appearance of some sort of "conspiracy" between the various progressive organizations in order to somehow discredit them.
As Thursday's show continued, I received confirmation that I, personally, along with members of my family, had been highlighted in Themis' proposed hit job, as ThinkProgress followed up with a second story, based on several other emails from HBGary's CEO Aaron Barr. The email focused on me included names, personal information, home addresses, etc. of myself, family members and a number of other members of VR. Naturally, I reported on the then-confirmed news in the second hour of that night's Malloy Show.
An hour or so after the show went off the air Thursday night, The BRAD BLOG was no longer reachable, as our server had been knocked off line hard, so I was unable to follow up with much more information. The server we use, which is also the home for many other progressive websites, was out of commission for nearly 24 hours, though I am told by our server admin that the very unusual outage was related to a serious hardware failure which occurred at what was clearly a very inopportune --- and, naturally, suspiciously timed --- moment. Moments before Friday's show, The BRAD BLOG was finally back up and online.
Over the weekend then, I've finally been able to catch up with a lot of what I had otherwise been unable to on Friday due to the server outage and the need to prep for Friday's show while all of this was happening (and as the Egypt regime was collapsing at the same moment).
As I, and other journalists, have been plowing through some of the tens of thousands of emails from HBGary's CEO --- as stolen and released by the "hacktivist" organization calling themselves Anonymous, following Barr's public threat to expose their names --- I've been able to learn a lot more about the U.S. Chamber plan.
Part of the plan included highlighting me as a "Tier 1" player in a sophisticated disinformation/discrediting scheme that relied on high-tech tools developed for the U.S. Government's "War on Terror".
Team Themis' U.S. Chamber of Commerce plan was to deploy the very same techniques and technology used to track terrorists, terror organizations, and nations such as Iran, against private non-profit political advocates and citizens in the U.S.
As disturbing (and there is a lot that every American citizen and every member of the American media ought to be very disturbed by in this story) Hunton & Williams (H&W), the law firm working on behalf of the U.S. Chamber and the Bank of America, had been recommended to BofA, the nation's largest bank, for the parallel hit scheme to target and discredit WikiLeaks, by our own U.S. Department of Justice.
In addition to Barr's email offering personal information on me and my family, the H&W scheme by Team Themis, created for the U.S. Chamber, also included a Power Point presentation in which I am personally highlighted, with photograph, along with my wife "Martha" and "2 boys, James and John Friedman" at our "home at 1055 Raywood Ln, Silver Springs, MD".
Of course, I'm not married and have no children and don't live in MD, but these are the huge private firms receiving millions, if not billions, in U.S. tax-payer dollars to target terrorists, after all, so why let such details like accuracy, or targeting innocent people, or citizens and journalists exercising their right to free speech get in the way of a potential $2 million dollar per month contract from the U.S. Chamber get in the way? The Chamber, of course, is also funded by the world's largest corporations who receive billions in tax-payer bailout dollars and subsidies from the U.S. Government. Can you feel the synergy? Team Themis certainly did...
The PowerPoint slide above was the third one in the full presentation sent to John Woods and Bob Quackenboss of H&W, the U.S. Chamber's attorneys, as "example reports that you requested to give you a better idea of what we will be producing," according to the email it was attached to, as sent by Samuel Kremin of Berico Technologies. It was the first one focusing on a single individual. I'm honored.
"A couple things to keep in mind however," Kremin added, "are that these are just example reports and do not reflect the best efforts or true ability of our team."
Indeed, much of the information appears to be just sample template stuff, though there are slides following the one focused on me which focus on progressive political activists such as Ilyse Hogue, Director of Political Advocacy and Communications at MoveOn.org and attorney Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, both corporate accountability experts, Jane Johson, media director at SEIU, and others. So, naturally, these are "enemies" of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its member corporations, as they likely see them.
The team was likely withholding much of the data they'd already gathered on all of us. The email published by ThinkProgress last Thursday night included somewhat more accurate details on me and even my extended family, rather than the 'wife and 2 kids' stuff they used to sell their McCarthyesque plans to undermine private U.S. citizens and organizations at the request of the Chamber's legal goons.
The first slide in the presentation Berico's Kremin sent to the U.S. Chamber attorneys detailed their "PIR'S" or "Priority Intelligence Requirements" for the campaign to attack what they describe as "attack groups":
Damage Control
Two of the three members of Team Themis --- Berico and Palantir (the latter's name was on the slides used to demonstrate the Bank of American plan for attacking WikiLeaks, including a scheme to try and discredit Salon journalist Glenn Greenwald) have issued public statements distancing themselves from the third member, HBGary, in the wake of these revelations. Berico's is here [PDF]. Palantir's is here.
Each announces that they are severing ties with HBGary and its CEO Aaron Barr who, according to the emails, is seen as the most aggressive of the Team Themis members --- though that may be because it was Barr's emails which were released publicly by Anonymous. What we've learned up until now comes largely via the perspective of Barr's emails to the others, and so we've only seen snippets, to date, from the other members of the (very real) conspiracy coming together at the behest of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce via quoted text of replies to and from Barr's own notes to Berico, Palantir and the DoJ-recommended H&W law firm.
Berico's statement, from co-founders Guy Filippelli (CEO) and Nick Hallam (COO) includes the following:
Our leadership does not condone or support any effort that proactively targets American firms, organizations or individuals. We find such actions reprehensible and are deeply committed to partnering with the best companies in our industry that share our core values. Therefore, we have discontinued all ties with HBGary Federal.
Given the above-noted Power Point presentation was sent to H&W from Berico's Analyst/Consult Samuel Kremin, and the email first reported on by ThinkProgress, highlighting actual personal details on me and my family, was sent by Barr to both John Woods of H&W and Patrick Ryan of Berico Technologies, the after-the-fact claim that Berico "does not condone or support...effort[s] that proactively target American firms, organizations or individuals" is somewhat laughable on its face.
Moreover, as Berico's statement claims they are a "veteran-owned small business", it seems unlikely that the "leadership" --- the CEO and COO --- of such a "small business" would be unaware of a detailed proposal (which one of their own employees sent to a legal firm) for what was hoped to be, according to Barr's emails, a $2 million per monthcontract for the firm and its partners in slime.
For Palantir's part, in their statement, co-founder and CEO Dr. Alex Karp similarly promised to "sever any and all contacts with HB Gary", the helpful fall guy, it seems, in this matter. On behalf of his company --- which, as Emptywheel's Marcy Wheeler detailed last week, is no doubt scrambling in hopes of preserving their lucrative government contracts (they've received contracts to the tune of $6,378,332 since 2007 from the Dept. of Defense and the DoJ/FBI) --- he claimed they "will not be involved in such activities."
That, now that they've been caught and embarrassed by being seen as directly involved in such activities, naturally.
Karp's statement went on to say:
[W]e as a company, and I as an individual, always have been deeply involved in supporting progressive values and causes. We plan to continue these efforts in the future.
The right to free speech and the right to privacy are critical to a flourishing democracy. From its inception, Palantir Technologies has supported these ideals and demonstrated a commitment to building software that protects privacy and civil liberties. Furthermore, personally and on behalf of the entire company, I want to publicly apologize to progressive organizations in general, and Mr. Greenwald in particular, for any involvement that we may have had in these matters.
"May have had," Dr. Karp? Allow me to refresh your memory. Please note the logo on the top left of each of these PowerPoint slides created as part of the BofA scheme:
Greenwald reports that Karp ended up calling Greenwald personally to apologize last week and has promised to get back to him with information on whether or not Bank of America or Hunton & Williams actually retained the companies of Team Themis to carry out the pernicious scheme mentioned above. We'll look forward to that.
Palantir offered further comment on Sunday to The Tech Herald, claiming, among other things:
[T]he tactics proposed by HBGary were never accepted and never acted upon.
...
• Palantir did not participate in any activities involving HBGary's proposed tactics.
• The slide entitled "Potential Proactive Tactics" was authored solely by HBGary.
• The Palantir logo on the slide is the result of a collated deck and does not represent Palantir's position.
Given the detailed, 12-page proposal [PDF] titled "Corporate Information Reconnaissance Cell", submitted to Hunton & Williams on November 3, 2010, detailing Palantir's tightly-knit, side-by-side partnership in the triumvirate of cyber-security/intel firms calling themselves Team Themis, it's difficult to believe that Palantir was as innocent in these matters --- or even as "progressive" --- as their statements hope to convey.
Wheeler reports in another piece regarding part of the Themis plan to charge$250/hour to create false personas and exploit social media sites such as Twitter to help discredit progressive journalists and activists such as those fighting on behalf of those making $12/hour or less to "keep your building clean or care for you when you're sick":
These corporate spook assholes-in addition to targeting Americans for political activism-also think they're worth 20 times as much as the people who care for the sick.
As the Palantir employee working with Barr on these numbers put it, "Most of all that we are the best money can buy! Dam it feels good to be a gangsta..."
I suspect publicly distancing themselves from "any activities involving HBGary's proposed tactics," is a very carefully chosen phrase for Palantir, as both of the Power Point presentations I've highlighted so far --- the one bearing Palantir's logo targeting Greenwald and the one targeting me, under the Team Themis banner --- propose exceedingly pernicious and objectionable McCarthyesque tactics to be used against private American citizens and organizations exercising their right to free speech and peaceable assembly in the cause of progressive political advocacy.
While Palantir and their self-described champion of free speech and progressive values, CEO Karp, reached out to the widely-read and very visible Greenwald to apologize for the proposed attacks on him and his credibility, as evidenced on their logoed Power Point slide, to date, "Somehow," as Wheeler noticed, "Dr. Karp forgot to apologize to Brad Friedman, another journalist [Team Themis] has targeted."
HBGary, the company of the loathsome Aaron Barr, initially claimed to "have been the victims of an intentional criminal cyberattack," following their takedown by Anonymous. They went on to baselessly charge that "any information currently in the public domain is not reliable because the perpetrators of this offense, or people working closely with them, have intentionally falsified certain data."
Um, I don't think so. Neither does anybody else. As The Tech Herald observed, "It is unlikely that Anonymous would forge thousands and thousands of emails or attachments" and notes "the complete severance of ties by" the other two companies of Team Themis, "leaves little room for doubt that the information ... is legitimate."
And isn't a bit desperate to try and use the old "they intentionally falsified data!" ploy after you've already been busted as having concocted precisely such a scheme of fraud and forgery to plant false documents and then make that claim in order discredit others?
Remarkably, Barr also had the temerity, after all of this happened, to complain to Forbes about the fall-out from his decision to go after Anonymous: "Do I regret it now? Sure, I’m getting personal threats from people, and I have two kids. I have two four-year old kids. Nothing is worth that."
The irony was surely lost on this man.
[On a related note, for fans of Schadenfreude, you must read the hilarious and detailed inside story of the absolutely epic, legendary even, take-down by Anonymous of HBGary and Barr, its Egomaniac-in-Chief, including details on the 16-year old girl who managed to gain access to the company password at the multi-million dollar cyber-security "intelligence" firm as Anonymous then proceeded to take over their website (see the message they left on it here, including: "You've tried to bite at the Anonymous hand, and now the Anonymous hand is bitch-slapping you in the face"); deface Barr's Twitter account; remotely wipe his iPad clean; and downloaded the entire company email database. The account, as stitched together from the now-public record by by Ars Technica's Nate Anderson, is an instant classic.]
The self-discrediting Barr and HBGary have been quickly made the scapegoats in all of this, and so have received the most coverage in the media to date. But the instigators behind all of these diabolical schemes, the bag men at Hunton & Williams and the godfathers at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have still remained largely unscathed in media reports.
Hunton & Williams has yet to release a comment in regard to any of this, while the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, as is their wont, chose to go on the attack, charging, like HBGary, that they are actually the victims of "baseless attacks".
In their first statement on Thursday, Tom Collamore writing for the U.S. Chamber at ChamberPost, offered this remarkably daft "non-denial denial":
We're incredulous that anyone would attempt to associate such activities with the Chamber as we've seen today from the Center for American Progress. The security firm referenced by ThinkProgress was not hired by the Chamber or by anyone else on the Chamber's behalf. We have never seen the document in question nor has it ever been discussed with us.
While ThinkProgress and the Center for American Progress continue to orchestrate a baseless smear campaign against the Chamber, we will continue to remain focused on promoting policies that create jobs.
As is her wont, Emptywheel's Wheeler dispatched with the laughable response "From the ChamberPot" in short order (as, in turn, did virtually every single commenter on the Chamber's blog.) You'll note the Chamber's denial of having "hired" HBGary, "the security firm" in question, presumably, as they were the ones highlighted in ThinkProgress' initial "ChamberLeaks" report. But the emails released from HBGary reveal they and their partners constructing and then proposing the scheme to the Chamber's law firm H&W, even as a number of the emails reference H&W sharing the information with the Chamber.
So where they say HBGary was "not hired by the Chamber or by anyone else on the Chamber's behalf," that could well be true, if incredibly disingenuous and misleading.
[I interviewed Wheeler about the entire affair on Friday night's Malloy Show. You can listen to that interview, in "Hour 1" right here.]
A second non-denial denial issued by the U.S. Chamber the following day, claiming again to highlight "Another Smear" against them after ThinkProgress' second article (the one highlighting the email targeting me and my family, among others), was similarly disingenuous.
Both statements carefully avoided admission of the Chamber's retention of Hunton & Williams and what the firm did on behalf of the Chamber. The second statement continued with such weasly phrases as "The U.S. Chamber never hired or solicited proposals from HBGary, Palantir or Berico, the security firms being talked about on the web" and "No money, for any purpose, was paid to any of those three private security firms by the Chamber, or by anyone on behalf of the Chamber, including Hunton and Williams."
Right. The contract --- said to have been worth $2 million per month --- according to one of the emails said to be from Aaron Barr to his HBGary colleagues released on Sunday (versus $2 million for the entire contract, as previously reported ), was apparently never finalized. Wrote Barr:
I have been sucked up for the last, seems like almost 2 weeks working the law firm deal. The potential is huge for us. We are starting the pilot this week, 50K effort. After the pilot the end customer gets briefed. We were talking to the senior partner of the law firm on Friday and he wants a firm fixed price by month for 6 months and the figure we have come to settle on is $2M per month for the 3 team members. That will equal $500-$700K for HBG Federal, thats per month. We still need to close it, so I am spending most of my time making sure we blow them away and get the funding.
But the work H&W ("the law firm" presumably referenced above) was doing was certainly on behalf of the Chamber ("the end customer"), and it's as unlikely H&W took it upon themselves to seek proposals for such an invidious scheme on behalf of the Chamber with their direction, as it is to imagine that Team Themis acted without direction from either H&W or the Chamber, or both, as other emails suggest in contradiction to the Chamber's claims of innocence.
Also worth noting here: While we do not yet have evidence that Team Themis closed the deal with H&W and the Chamber, it seems quite possible that H&W was seeking competing proposals from different "intelligence" firms as well. Did anyone else actually get the deal? Are they working, even as we speak, on behalf of the Chamber to attack perceived enemies through attempts at discrediting them? The Chamber's two responses smartly avoid answers to those questions, or culpability in having sicced H&W against their political opponents on their behalf.
Though I have requested comment from all three cyber-security/intelligence firms as well as H&W on these matters, none have responded to my query at this time.
We do know that H&W --- the law firm recommended to the Bank of America by the DoJ to help defend against purported documents said to be soon published by WikiLeaks --- had been working for the Chamber as long ago as May 2010. That month, one of their attorneys, Michael J. Mueller, sent a threatening "cease and desist" letter to VR's publicist, charging that a press release issued by the group as part of the StopTheChamber.com campaign made "defamatory and false allegations concerning the United States Chamber of Commerce" in reference to the campaigns claim that "The Chamber, like the mafia, also uses threats to get its way."
Mueller's letter, issuing a mafia-like threat, went on to charge "the veracity of these individuals [who worked on StopTheChamber.com] is in question" and the firm demanded the group's press release be retracted. It wasn't.
That wasn't the first time VR had faced intimidation tactics courtesy of the mafia-like U.S. Chamber. In December of 2009, after StopTheChamber had issued a reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the Chamber's CEO Tom Donohue, Fox "News" sprung to its defense --- after the Chamber had tipped them off, according to one of their reporters --- resulting in a front page FoxNews.com hit piece on VR, making the silly, but effective claim, that the Chamber was being "HUNTED BY THE LEFT" with a "Bounty Put on Head of Chamber Boss."
The result, as The BRAD BLOG detailed at the time, was an absolute deluge of extremely graphic and violent death threats and racist emails from Fox "News" readers sent to the non-profit, non-partisan progressive advocacy organization.
Terror Tools & Your Tax Dollars Used Against You
As I pointed out to Firedoglake's David Dayen, during an interview for a story he was doing about these revelations on Friday, the day I was unable to post to The BRAD BLOG, one of the most maddening aspects about all of this is that journalists and progressive citizens and organizations are being attacked by corporations using our own tax dollars against us.
The U.S. Chamber is funded by its member corporations, the world's largest. Among those funders are AIG and Bank of America, both of whom received billions in tax-payer bailouts, as well as fossil-fuel companies such as ExxonMobile, the most profitable corporation in the history of civilization, who, nonetheless, continues to receive billions in tax-payer subsidies each and every year.
As organizations like VelvetRevolution.us and The BRAD BLOG beg for $5, $10 and $50 donations to stay afloat --- to report on and fight for things like the right to vote or a living wage for all U.S. citizens or for health care or a livable planet or to return competition to the public airwaves or for corporate and governmental accountability or against the absurd notion of "corporate personhood" or against the Chamber and their corporate cronies' control of virtually every aspect of American elections and democracy --- the Chamber musters millions, harvested from tax-payers, to discredit those same tax-payers with dishonest, thug-like, secret conspiracies of vengeance --- using their own tax dollars!
Worse, we now have evidence that they are enlisting, with the (at least passive) cooperation of the U.S. government, the very same tools that the U.S. government employs to supposedly fight terrorism around the world.
Doubt that? What "sold the Chamber to begin with," according to Berico's Patrick Ryan in one of the emails released by Anonymous, was "the Iranian shipping demo."
The demo, as published by Berico and Palantir on YouTube last November, demonstrates how they have developed software employed by the Dept. of Defense to map networks of organizations, individuals and companies via both classified and public source information, in order to create ties between them, and then use those ties to discredit or infiltrate.
Here's Palantir's "Iranian Shipping Demo" video...
...Note how the Palantir/Berico organizational mapping software described in the video, tracking shipments of weapons to terrorist organizations around the world, mirrors the web of connections used to show (if completely inaccurately) who my purported associates are in Palantir/Berico/HBGary's Team Themis Power Point presentation discussed at the beginning of this article --- the very presentation prepared by the three firms for the U.S. Chamber's law firm in hopes of securing the $2 million per month deal to attack me and other progressive advocates...
Your tax dollars at work. Fighting against terrorism. And you.
Corporate Immunity from the Rule of Law
Writing about Team Themis' Bank of America plot to discredit him, the one which almost identically mirrors the same group's proposed plot for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Glenn Greenwald, a Constitutional attorney in addition to now being a journalist and author, posits that the proposals, "quite possibly constitute serious crimes."
"Manufacturing and submitting fake documents with the intent they be published likely constitutes forgery and fraud," he says. "Threatening the careers of journalists and activists in order to force them to be silent is possibly extortion and, depending on the specific means to be used, constitutes other crimes as well."
But what, if anything, can or will be done by the U.S. Government for accountability against the use of such "possibly criminal" tactics used against American citizens by private corporations (fueled by tax payer dollars)?
As it was the Dept. of Justice themselves who are said to have recommended the firm Hunton & Williams to the Bank of America in their scheme to attack WikiLeaks, the DoJ would likely need to recuse themselves from any such criminal investigation. A Special Prosecutor would need to be assigned to the case, if the DoJ agreed. It seems unlikely that the Republican-led U.S. House Judiciary or Oversight Committees would be inclined to even hold hearings on a matter which would reflect so poorly on the corporations and top Rightwing lobbying group to whom they are so dearly beholden. That seems nearly as true even if it were Democrats who still held the majority. So it seems unlikely Congress would ask for a Special Prosecutor either. I'd love to be proven wrong.
A civil suit could possibly be brought by the individuals or organizations targeted in these schemes under a number of statutes that have been suggested to me over the weekend by a number of different sources.
Such a case, however, could also find itself bumping up against the U.S. Government if the Dept. of Justice decided to invoke the once-arcane, now-ubiquitous so-called "State Secrets Privilege", as used to entirely shut down cases said to potentially reveal national security secrets. More often than not, however, it's now invoked simply to avoid embarrassment to the U.S. Government and/or its favored associates. (See Marcy Wheeler's coverage last week of the government "declaring children's nosebleeds a state secret", not to mention the way it's been abused for years against national security whistleblowers such as former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds and many others.)
As you can see above, such a law suit, they might claim, could result in the exposure of tools and tactics, methods and means used in the so-called "War on Terror", as developed by Palantir, Berico and HBGary and contracted for use by the government to the tune of more than $6 million in the case of Palantir alone. Both Berico and HBGary also subsist off of enormous government contracts in the "War on Terror".
Still, the matter, at least from a civil angle, is being explored.
For now, the revelation of terror tools used so brazenly against political opponents in the private corporate sector is disturbing, to say the least. While the notion of paid political operatives subversively using social media to discredit opponents has long been suspected by many, here we have evidence that these tactics are, in truth, fairly common among those who can afford to deploy them. That commenter who always shows up to hijack a comment thread on a specific topic may very well be working for $250/hour.
Greenwald, as usual, cuts to the heart of the disturbing revelations:
The very idea of trying to threaten the careers of journalists and activists to punish and deter their advocacy is self-evidently pernicious; that it's being so freely and casually proposed to groups as powerful as the Bank of·America, the·Chamber of Commerce, and the DOJ-recommended Hunton &·Williams demonstrates how common this is.· These highly experienced firms included such proposals because they assumed those deep-pocket organizations would approve and it would make their hiring more likely.
But the real issue highlighted by this episode is just how lawless and unrestrained is the unified axis of government and corporate power.· I've written many times about this issue --- the full-scale merger between public and private spheres --· because it's easily one of the most critical yet under-discussed political topics.· Especially (though by no means only)·in the worlds of the Surveillance and·National Security State, the powers of the state have become largely privatized.· There is very little separation between government power and corporate power. · Those who wield the latter intrinsically wield the former.· The revolving door between the highest levels of government and corporate offices rotates so fast and continuously that it has basically flown off its track and no longer provides even the minimal barrier it once did. ·It's not merely that corporate power is unrestrained; it's worse than that:··corporations actively exploit the power of the state to further entrench and enhance their power.
...
The exemption from the rule of law has been fully transferred from the highest level political elites to their counterparts in the private sector. "Law" is something used to restrain ordinary Americans and especially those who oppose this consortium of government and corporate power, but it manifestly does not apply to restrain these elites.
Greenwald goes on to describe how the Dept. of Justice announced they'd bring full resources to bear against Anonymous after they'd briefly disrupted Paypal, MasterCard and Amazon's websites in retaliations for those organizations cutting off service to WikiLeaks, a media organization charged with no crimes whatsoever. Yet a "far more damaging and serious cyber-attack...launched at WikiLieaks" never brought a public peep from the very same DoJ in response.
He goes on to quote blogger John Cole's response to this mess thusly:
One thing that even the dim bulbs in the media should understand by now is that there is in fact a class war going on, and it is the rich and powerful who are waging it. Anyone who does anything that empowers the little people or that threatens the wealth and power of the plutocracy must be destroyed. There is a reason for these clowns going after Think Progress and unions, just like there is a reason they are targeting Wikileaks and Glenn Greenwald, Planned Parenthood, and Acorn...
You have to understand the mindset- they are playing for keeps. The vast majority of the wealth isn't enough. They want it all. Anything that gets in their way must be destroyed. ... And they are well financed, have a strong infrastructure, a sympathetic media, and entire organizations dedicated to running cover for them...
I don't even know why we bother to hold elections any more, to be honest, the game is so rigged. We're a banana republic, and it is just a matter of time before we descend into necklacing and other tribal bullshit.
At this point, it's become quite difficuilt to dispute Cole's fatalistic sentiments.
Team Themis' "Corporate Information Reconnaissance Cell" proposal [PDF] submitted to Hunton & Williams last November offers this as its final thought in the "Conclusion" graf:
[W]ho better to develop a corporate information reconnaissance capability than companies that have been market leaders within the DoD and Intelligence Community.
When things blow up, as they have, clients of Team Themis are now virtually guaranteed to get off scot-free from accountability by the DoJ or anyone else in the government, and perhaps even against those private citizens and organizations they were targeting. The U.S. Chamber, Bank of America and all of the thugs tied to their nefarious schemes knew that full well going on.
So yes, as Team Themis stated with confidence, "who better," indeed.
by JackRiddler » Mon Feb 14, 2011 6:49 pm
HBGary CEO Also Suggested Tracking, Intimidating WikiLeaks’ Donors
Feb. 14 2011 - 11:29 am | 12,703 views
WikiLeaks and its inner circle of supporters may not have been the only targets of a group of security firms that offered to take on the secret-spilling site on behalf of Bank of America. In an email conversation, the head of one of those firms also suggested going after the thousands of individuals who have donated to the group.
Last week the loose hacker group Anonymous released a set of more than 40,000 emails from HBGary Federal, the security firm whose servers it hacked earlier this month. One of the files in those emails was a PowerPoint presentation that described “the WikiLeaks Threat,” created by a group of three security firms that suggested Nixonesque tactics for sabotaging the site on behalf of Bank of America, including spreading misinformation, launching cyberattacks against it, and pressuring journalists.
Over the weekend, the loose hacker group Anonymous published another 27,000 emails from HBGary Federal’s sister company HBGary, and also created a search engine for those documents on its WikiLeaks-like site, Anonleaks.ru.
A quick search of the company’s WikiLeaks-related conversations shows that Aaron Barr, the HBGary chief executive who first caught the attention of Anonymous by boasting that he’d penetrated the group and identified its leaders, also suggested other tactics against WikiLeaks that weren’t included in that PowerPoint: namely, tracking and intimidating anyone who had given money to WikiLeaks. The security firms “need to get people to understand that if they support the organization we will come after them,” he wrote in an email. “Transaction records are easily identifiable.”
WikiLeaks has had its funding sources limited since December, when PayPal, Visa, and MasterCard all stopped accepting payments to the group. The site still solicits donations, however, via mail and bank transfer. Though governments could likely subpoena banks or wire transfer companies for information about those transactions, it’s not clear how HBGary Federal’s Barr planned to intercept that information.
The emails also show that it was Barr who suggested pressuring Salon.com journalist Glenn Greenwald, though Palantir, another firm working with HBGary Federal, quickly accepted that suggestion and added it to the PowerPoint presentation that the group was assembling.
HBGary Federal, Palantir, and a third security firm, Berico Technologies, were recruited by the law firm Hunton & Williams to prepare a proposal for Bank of America, which is rumored to be the subject of an upcoming megaleak of sensitive documents from WikiLeaks. The firms also did work on behalf of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to research its critics that would help to “discredit” and “shame” them.
Palantir and Berico have both said in statements that they’ve cut ties with HBGary Federal and wouldn’t participate in the strong-arm tactics represented in the leaked emails. The hacked firm itself has argued on its website that the posted documents were “falsified.” The company didn’t respond to a request for comment Monday.
In a statement on the filesharing site the Pirate Bay, a representative of Anonymous responded that “Anonymous has falsified nothing; we leaked your inboxes in full with no edits. In fact, most of your emails contain S/MIME digital signatures, proving that they’re real.”
The leaked emails also reveal several comments from Barr about his attitude toward WikiLeaks and Anonymous. “O [sic] believed in what wikileaks did when they released the helicopter video. I now believe they are a menace,” he writes in one message to a HBGary colleague.
“Its all about power.” he adds in another email. “The Wikileaks and Anonymous guys think they are doing the people justice by without much investigation or education exposing information or targeting organizations? BS. Its about trying to take power from others and give it to themeselves. I follow one law. Mine.”
link
http://blogs.forbes.com/andygreenberg/2 ... ks-donors/
by vanlose kid » Mon Feb 14, 2011 8:02 pm
by JackRiddler » Wed Feb 16, 2011 4:39 pm
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/02/15/palantir/index.html
Tuesday, Feb 15, 2011 05:16 ET
More facts emerge about the leaked smear campaigns
By Glenn Greenwald
Right: John W. Woods, partner in the firm of Hunton & Williams
(updated below - Update II - Update III - Update IV)
As I noted on Friday, the parties implicated in the smear campaigns aimed at WikiLeaks supporters and Chamber of Commerce critics have attempted to heap all the blame on HBGary Federal ("HBGary") and its CEO, Aaron Barr. Both Bank of America and the Chamber -- the intended clients -- vehemently deny any involvement in these schemes and have harshly denounced them. The other two Internet security firms whose logos appeared on the proposals -- Palantir Technologies and Berico Technologies -- both issued statements terminating their relationship with HBGary and insisting that they had nothing to do with these plots. Only Hunton & Williams and its partner, John Woods -- the central cogs soliciting these proposals -- have steadfastly refused to comment.
Palantir, in particular, has been quite aggressive about trying to distance itself. They initially issued a strong statement denouncing the plots, then had their CEO call me vowing to investigate and terminate any employees who were involved, then issued another statement over the weekend claiming that "Palantir never has and never will condone the sort of activities that HBGary recommended" and "Palantir did not participate in the development of the recommendations that Palantir and others find offensive." Such vehemence is unsurprising: the Palo-Alto-based firm relies for its recruitment efforts on maintaining a carefully cultivated image as a progressive company devoted to civil liberties, privacy and Internet freedom -- all of which would be obviously sullied by involvement in such a scheme.
But as Salon's Justin Elliott reports, there are newly emerged facts which directly contradict Palantir's denials. On Sunday night, Anonymous released an additional 25,000 emails from HBGary, and Forbes' Andy Greenberg was the first to make this discovery:The emails also show that it was Barr who suggested pressuring Salon.com journalist Glenn Greenwald, though Palantir, another firm working with HBGary Federal, quickly accepted that suggestion and added it to the PowerPoint presentation that the group was assembling.
Greenberg is referring to this series of emails, first from HBGary's Barr -- addressed to Palantir's Matthew Steckman and Eli Bingham along with Berico's Sam Kremin (click image to enlarge):
This was the reply from Palantir's Steckman to that email:
Roughly 15 minutes later, Steckman sent another email to Barr: "Updated with Strengths/Weaknesses and a spotlight on Glenn Greenwald...thanks Aaron!" -- indicating he had included the slide featuring this scheme. So much for Palantir's insistence that they "did not participate in the development of the recommendations." As Elliott noted, "Steckman's role in creating the slideshow -- which, it should be noted, also carries Palantir's logo -- would seem to contradict the company's" denials.
Last night, both Elliott and I sent emails to Palantir's General Counsel asking the company to reconcile this obvious contradiction. In response, they issued a statement announcing that they "have decided to place Matthew Steckman, 26 year old engineer, on leave pending a thorough review of his actions." They added that Palantir "was not retained by any party to develop such recommendations and indeed it would be contrary to Palantir’s ethics, culture and policies to do so" (Elliott has posted Palantir's full statement).
So apparently, if Palantir's new version is to be believed, a 26-year-old engineer went off on his own and -- without any supervision or direction -- participated in the development of odious smear campaigns intended for two of the nation's deepest-pocket organizations (Bank of America and the Chamber), potential clients which the emails repeatedly emphasize would be very lucrative. I'll leave it to others to decide how credible that version is, but I will note that several facts undermine it:
First, another Palantir employee besides Steckman-- Eli Bingham -- was one of the recipients of Barr's original email proposing this smear campaign. Second, this proposal was being developed immediately before (and for consideration at) a conference call that included Hunton & Williams' Woods, HBGary's Barr, a Berico official, and both Steckman and Bingham on behalf of Palantir (see the bottom email here); was a 26-year-old mid-level engineer the only Palantir official aware of what they were proposing to H&W in order to attract the Bank and the Chamber's business? Third, there's no question -- as this article yesterday from The San Francisco Business Times documents -- that at least three Palantir employees (Steckman, Bingham and Ryan Castle) were all sent emails containing the proposals to smear critics of the Chamber of Commerce, including ThinkProgress. That article notes that these newly released emails "suggest that staff at Palantir Technologies, a high-profile data analysis company co-founded by ex-PayPal CEO Peter Thiel, may have helped prepare a proposal for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to undermine a pro-labor publication called ThinkProgress with dirty tricks." Whatever else is true, Palantir's knowledge of and involvement in these proposals is more extensive than it originally claimed, and extends beyond the 26-year-old scapegoat just placed on leave.
But the real party here which deserves much more scrutiny is Hunton & Williams -- one of the most well-connected legal and lobbying firms in DC -- and its partner John Woods. Using teams of people scouring all the available emails, FDL has done its typically thorough job of setting forth all the key facts and the key players -- including from Booz Allen -- and Woods is at the center of all of it: the key cog acting on behalf of the Bank of America and the Chamber. It's Woods who is soliciting these firms to submit these proposals, pursuant to work for the Chamber and the Bank; according to Palantir emails, H&W was recommended to the Bank by the Justice Department to coordinate the anti-WikiLeaks work.
Despite being at the center of this increasingly disturbing scandal, Woods and H&W steadfastly refuse to comment to anyone. As The New York Times noted on Saturday when reporting this story: "A Hunton & Williams spokesman did not comment." For a lawyer to be at the center of an odious and quite possibly illegal scheme to target progressive activists and their families, threaten the careers of journalists as a means of silencing them, and fabricate forged documents intended for public consumption -- and then steadfastly refuse to comment -- is just inexcusable. Perhaps some polite email and telephone encouragement from the public is needed for Woods to account for what he and his firm have done. In exchange for the privileges lawyers receive (including the exclusive right to furnish legal advice, represent others, and act as officers of the court), members of the Bar have particular ethical obligations to the public. At the very least, the spirit -- if not the letter -- of those obligations is being seriously breached by a lawyer who appears to be at the center of these kinds of pernicious, lawless plots and then refuses to account to the public for what he did.
Given my involvement in this story, I'm going to defer to others in terms of the reporting. But -- given the players involved and the facts that continue to emerge -- this story is far too significant to allow to die due to lack of attention. Many of the named targets are actively considering commencing civil proceedings (which would entail compulsory discovery) as well as ethical grievances with the relevant Bar associations. As the episode with Palantir demonstrates, simply relying on the voluntary statements of the corporations involved ensures that the actual facts will remain concealed if not actively distorted. The DOJ ought to investigate this as well, but for reasons I detailed on Friday, that is unlikely in the extreme. Entities of this type routinely engage in conduct like this with impunity, and the serendipity that led to their exposure in this case should be seized to impose some accountability. That this was discovered through a random email hack -- and that these firms felt so free to propose these schemes in writing and, at least from what is known, not a single person raised any objection at all -- underscores how common this behavior is.
Yesterday, I did a 20-minute interview with Sam Seder about this case and its significance, which can be heard on the player below (the transcript is here); see also, these important new facts discovered by Marcy Wheeler. I also recorded a 30-minute discussion yesterday with MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan, which he will post later today (I'll provide the link when he does), and I'll also be on MSNBC at roughly 4:00 pm EST discussing this and related matters.
UPDATE: The Guardian now joins The New York Times in reporting on this story, and supplies some new, interesting details (and, naturally, Hunton & Williams failed to respond to requests to comment).
UPDATE II: Writing in Wired, Nate Anderson of Ars Technica has a truly superb account of what happened here, with a focus on the responsibility and knowledge of the executives at the implicated firms. The whole article should be read, but here's a sample:By October 2010, Barr was under considerable stress. His CEO job was under threat, and the e-mails show that the specter of divorce loomed over his personal life.
On Oct. 19, a note arrived. HBGary Federal might be able to provide part of "a complete intelligence solution to a law firm that approached us." That law firm was DC-based powerhouse Hunton & Williams, which boasted 1,000 attorneys and terrific contacts. . . .
The three firms [HBGary, Berico and Palantir] needed a name for their joint operation. One early suggestion: a “Corporate Threat Analysis Cell.” Eventually, a sexier name was chosen: Team Themis.. . .
Team Themis decided to ask for $2 million per month, for six months, for the first phase of the project, putting $500,000 to $700,000 per month in HBGary Federal's pocket.
But the three companies disagreed about how to split the pie. In the end, Palantir agreed to take less money, but that decision had to go "way up the chain (as you can imagine)," wrote the Palantir contact for Team Themis. "The short of it is that we got approval from Dr. Karp and the Board to go ahead with the modified 40/30/30 breakdown proposed. These were not fun conversations, but we are committed to this team and we can optimize the cost structure in the long term (let’s demonstrate success and then take over this market)."
The leaders at the very top of Palantir were aware of the Team Themis work, though the details of what was being proposed by Barr may well have escaped their notice. Palantir wasn't kidding around with this contract; if selected by H&W and the Chamber, Palantir planned to staff the project with an experienced intelligence operative, a man who "ran the foreign fighter campaign on the Syrian border in 2005 to stop the flow of suicide bombers into Baghdad and helped to ensure a successful Iraqi election. As a commander, [he] ran the entire intelligence cycle: identified high-level terrorists, planned missions to kill or capture them, led the missions personally, then exploited the intelligence and evidence gathered on target to defeat broader enemy networks" . . . .
But before H&W made a decision on Chamber of Commerce plan, it had another urgent request for Team Themis: a major U.S. bank had come to H&W seeking help against WikiLeaks (the bank has been widely assumed to be Bank of America, which has long been rumored to be a future WikiLeaks target.)
"We want to sell this team as part of what we are talking about," said the team’s H&W contact. "I need a favor. I need five to six slides on Wikileaks -- who they are, how they operate and how this group may help this bank. . . ."
After the Anonymous attacks and the release of Barr’s e-mails, his partners furiously distanced themselves from Barr's work. Palantir CEO Dr. Alex Karp wrote, "We do not provide — nor do we have any plans to develop -- offensive cyber capabilities . . . ." Berico said (PDF) that it "does not condone or support any effort that proactively targets American firms, organizations or individuals. We find such actions reprehensible and are deeply committed to partnering with the best companies in our industry that share our core values. Therefore, we have discontinued all ties with HBGary Federal."
But both of the Team Themis leads at these companies knew exactly what was being proposed (such knowledge may not have run to the top). They saw Barr's e-mails, and they used his work. His ideas on attacking WikiLeaks made it almost verbatim into a Palantir slide about "proactive tactics."
Anderson has written the definitive account thus far about the facts showing the involvement of each of these companies, and I encourage everyone to read his whole article.
UPDATE III: The discussion I had yesterday with Dylan Ratigan about this matter, along with a full transcript, can be found here.
UPDATE IV: Here is the MSNBC segment I did today on this story; the host was NPR's Matt Miller:
http://www.salon.com/news/wikileaks/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/02/16/hbgary_federal
Wednesday, Feb 16, 2011 12:01 ET
War Room
Firm in WikiLeaks plot has deep ties to Feds
By Justin Elliott
Salon illustration
HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr
It's well known at this point that HBGary Federal was one of several technology firms recently exposed for scheming to attack WikiLeaks, Salon's Glenn Greenwald, and critics of the Chamber of Commerce. What has gotten less attention is just how much business HBGary Federal and its partner company, HBGary, do with the United States government.
Internal HBGary Federal emails reviewed by Salon show that the firm was on its way to getting security clearance at the Department of Defense late last month. HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr has bragged that the firm provides "specialized threat intelligence, incident response, and information operations capabilities to the IC [Intelligence Community], DoD, and Federal agencies." The exact nature of the services provided by HBGary Federal -- and what intelligence agencies might be involved -- is not clear.
(The plotting against WikiLeaks and Chamber of Commerce critics, by the way, was performed by HBGary Federal at the behest of Hunton and Williams, a law firm that has worked for the Chamber and Bank of America, which is reportedly a future target of WikiLeaks. This work was apparently separate from the HBGary Federal's government work.)
HBGary proper, which is based in California, is known as a provider of malware detection services. HBGary Federal, which shares offices with HBGary and 15 percent of which is owned by HBGary executives, was touted as offering "best-in-class malware analysis and incident response products and expert classified services to the Department of Defense, Intelligence Community and other U.S. government agencies," according to one November 2009 email. Another internal email describes HBGary Federal as a wholly owned subsidiary of HBGary.
HBGary itself has won $3.3 million in federal government work since 2004, contracting records show. That includes contracts for services like "protection vulnerability assessment" with the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the FBI, and the Department of Interior.
Having proper clearance is key to winning federal security contracts. So it's not surprising that the bio of HBGary Federal's chief operating officer, Ted Vera, notes that he holds "security clearances with the DoD and Intelligence Community." Barr, for his part, came to HBGary Federal after stints as a Navy cryptologist and a cybersecurity official at Northrop Grummans, the defense contracting giant. A former CEO of HBGary Federal, Jamie Butler, who left the firm in 2006, held a security clearance at the "top secret" level.
On Jan. 27 -- when the plotting against WikiLeaks had already been underway for a few months -- HBGary Federal was granted what's known as "facility clearance" at the Defense Department. That's a precursor to getting specific classified access once a contract has been granted. (See the approval document, approved by the Defense Security Service, here.) DSS spokeswoman Cindy McGovern told Salon today that HBGary Federal is still in the process of getting its clearance. She had no comment on the fact that HBGary is implicated in the WikiLeaks scandal.
Emails also show the HBGary Federal executives corresponding with federal employees from a range of agencies including Los Alamos National Labs, the Army, and the National Security Agency. There's also talk of work with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.
Given all these ties to the federal government, it's striking how amateurish HBGary Federal's research methods were when it came to WikiLeaks and Chamber of Commerce critics. Barr, the HBGary Federal CEO, primarily used Facebook and other social media websites to put together dossiers on, for example, labor activists. It will be interesting to see if the bad publicity surrounding the scandal affects HBGary's contracts with the government.
Justin Elliott is a Salon reporter. Reach him by email at jelliott@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @ElliottJustin More: Justin Elliott
From http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_ ... index.html
Tuesday, Feb 15, 2011 11:53 ET
War Room
The powerful law firm at the center of the WikiLeaks plot
By Justin Elliott
L-R: Robert T. Quackenboss, John W. Woods, Richard L. Wyatt Jr.
One of the big outstanding questions in the story of the plot to undermine WikiLeaks and Salon's Glenn Greenwald, as well as a separate plan to discredit critics of the Chamber of Commerce, is the nature of the role played by the large international law firm Hunton & Williams.
Hunton, which brags it employs 1,000 lawyers in 18 offices on three continents, has worked for both the Chamber and Bank of America. The company is nervous because WikiLeaks is reportedly planning to release internal bank documents, and Bank of America apparently connected with Hunton to help respond to the crisis.
Hunton attorneys in turn had a series of e-mail communications -- since hacked by WikiLeaks supporters and published online -- with a trio of technology firms that proposed various schemes to attack WikiLeaks, Greenwald and critics of the Chamber. (One typical idea was to provide labor activists with false documents in order to discredit them.)
Unlike the Chamber and Bank of America, which have issued statements denying any responsibility for the attack plans, Hunton has been conspicuously silent. The firm did not respond to requests for comment from Salon last week. And the three specific attorneys at the firm who were involved in the episode have not responded to my requests for comment today. So now is a good time to look at the firm and the rarefied space it occupies in the legal world.
What makes Hunton's involvement in the anti-WikiLeaks scheming so striking is that the firm represents some of the biggest names in corporate America. Hunton's website touts its representation of Wells Fargo, Altria (aka Phillip Morris), the telecom Cingular, and defense contractor General Dynamics, among many others.
Hunton also has a big lobbying business in Washington. Its clients include Koch Industries, the private energy giant whose owners fund a range of right-wing and libertarian causes. (See the 2010 lobbying records for Hunton's work for Koch here; it involved fighting climate change legislation.) Other clients include Americans for Affordable Climate Policy, which is funded by the coal industry, the Gas Processors Association, the nuclear power company Entergy, U.S. Sugar Corp., and so on.
Just how well connected is Hunton? According to one of the hacked e-mails from December, Hunton was recommended to Bank of America's general counsel by none other than the U.S. Department of Justice. I have an inquiry in with the DOJ about this and will update if I hear back. As an employee of Palantir, one of the three tech firms involved in hatching the anti-WikiLeaks plan, put it:
DOJ called the GC of BofA and told them to hire Hunton and Williams, specifically to hire Richard Wyatt who I'm beginning to think is the emperor. They want to present to the bank a team capable of doing a comprehensive investigation into the data leak.
The man mentioned in the e-mail, Richard Wyatt, is the co-chief of Hunton's litigation group. As ThinkProgress pointed out, Wyatt is the Chamber of Commerce's attorney in its lawsuit against the Yes Men, who infuriated the business group by posing as Chamber officials in a 2009 prank.
The Hunton attorney who appears most frequently in the trove of e-mails is John W. Woods, who, according to his Hunton bio, "regularly counsels clients on ... electronic surveillance" and "has a particular focus in advising corporations in the legal response to network security intrusions and data breaches."
Woods corresponded with HBGary executive Aaron Barr about a proposal to attack Chamber critics. In one exchange, after Barr had produced some information about the family of another Hunton partner to prove his social media research prowess, Woods responded:
Aaron,
Thanks. I am not sure I will share what you sent last night - he might freak out. I will advise him that he may want to look at his facebook material. If you really want to impress Richard [Wyatt], I would look at the following web-site and tell him something about the guys behind it:
http://velvetrevolution.us/stop_chamber/
Barr responded with some links to social media pages of an official at the anti-Chamber group, noting that the official and his family "go to a Jewish Church in in DC, the Temple Micah."
The third Hunton attorney who appears in the e-mails is Robert "Bob" Quackenboss, a trial lawyer who specializes in helping corporations fight labor. He has worked on "public communications response to union-coordinated attack campaigns," counseled "employers on practical global labor relations strategies, collective bargaining and management of union elections," and even arranged for "physical security" for corporations targeted by unions. Quackenboss was said to be the "key client contact" with the Chamber as Hunton developed plans and talked about fees with the three tech firms.
The key outstanding questions are: Will Hunton continue to decline comment on this episode? And will the Chamber and Bank of America continue to retain Hunton? We'll keep you posted.
Justin Elliott is a Salon reporter. Reach him by email at jelliott@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @ElliottJustin More: Justin Elliott
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