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The traditional media has finally taken note of the campaign by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to enlist private security firms in a plan to smear their political enemies using dirty tricks. The Washington Post picks it up:
A feud between a security contracting firm and a group of guerrilla computer hackers has spilled over onto K Street, as stolen e-mails reveal plans for a dirty-tricks-style campaign against critics of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce [...]
The e-mails revealed, among other things, a series of often-dubious counterintelligence proposals aimed at enemies of Bank of America and the chamber. The proposals included distributing fake documents and launching cyber-attacks.
The chamber has adamantly denied any knowledge of the “abhorrent” proposals, including some contained in a sample blueprint outlined for Hunton & Williams, a law and lobbying firm that works for the chamber. The business group said in a statement Monday that the proposal “was not requested by the Chamber, it was not delivered to the Chamber and it was never discussed with anyone at the Chamber.”
And the Post actually pushes back on the Chamber’s lies, noting that one email from HBGary to another security firm that he spoke “directly” to the Chamber, and others calling a Hunton & Williams lawyer “the key client contact operationally” with the Chamber. There are multiple emails showing multiple contacts between the security firms, Hunton & Williams and the Chamber of Commerce. They cannot hide behind the fact that they didn’t sign a contract.
The LA Times also has a story today, which covers much of the same territory, with a little more depth about the proposed campaign against political enemies of the Chamber. For example, the story brings up the idea of planting a “false document” that these activist groups would spread around, only to have it revealed as a fake. It also reveals the connection to Bank of America and WikiLeaks.
The proposals were received by Hunton & Williams, a law firm that represents the chamber.
The firm, which also represents Bank of America, solicited a separate proposal from the security firms to help the bank deal with a threat by WikiLeaks, the international hacker organization, to release some of the bank’s internal data.
Ars Technica has a much longer profile of HBGary and their plot to take down WikiLeaks and its supporters. It’s pretty merciless on Aaron Barr, the head of HBGary. Apparently his firm needed cash bad and would go to any lengths to get it. He also massively overcharged for these services.
Glad to see this get some more attention. Hopefully, people will keep digging.
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what a bungled web they wove.
Hippie hippie hooray for the DFHs.
Dragging corp media kicking & screaming to report real news against their corp masters.
Wonder what kind of retaliation their cooking up now?
That’s a favorite M.O. on the far right, just ask Dan Rather.
But what I don’t get is why isn’t anyone on the left doing that? I realize it’s very underhanded and dishonest, but damn it, we can’t just unilaterally disarm. We’ve got to fight fire with fire.
I posted this on UT hoping to warn, but it got ignored (not surprised, my relations there are at zero). Here is the most important quote, from the Palantir part of the slide deck:
That is both illegal under all surveillance laws, it represents the use, by private intelligence corporations and contractors, of the fusion databases set up by DHS and the NSA, to do the illegal stuff of TIA-style fame, for hire for multi-national corporations.
I’d stop worrying about anything else until I found out the validity of Palantir’s assertion here, if I were “Hopefully, people will keep digging.” Whether or not they wrote the slide, their company logo is on it, they cleared it, and they made suggestions on the whole deck. And as the Wired article asserts, it went to all levels of the company for clearance. This isn’t an assertion that would have passed a single company lawyer or executive unnoticed if it weren’t Palantir’s desire to let it stay in the slides. It violates FISA, no matter what version, it violates CALEA, it violates the 4th Amendment. It’s CIA/NSA for private hire, domestically, a kind of STASI.com. So it’s the part I’d want to ask Palantir, before asking anybody, Hunton & Williams, Chamber of Commerce, DoJ, anybody, if it is true.
There is no left left.
C’mon, eCAHN. What about us? What about Think Progress, Code Pink, Cenk Uygur?
So you read that word as meaning the exact same databases that the USG has? Could it not also be read to mean use the same methodology on databases that private data collection firms have amassed?
I thought the private databases on personal info were more thorough & invasive than the ones the USG has.
I’m not knowledgeable about any of this, so just asking.
When an ex-Wall St. economist is included as a ‘leftie’ you know there’s no ‘left’ in the U.S.
I’m speaking of people who would support govt policies to the left of what the voters want. All the policies I see supported here, are also supported by the majority of the voters. That’s not ‘left’ by my definition.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is more dangerous than Al Qaida. Suprised the two haven’t formed a partnership yet. They have the same goal just different means.
as usual, you say it all, with style
good to see you!
And thanks David. This is a spot of bright news.
It is illegal, against business ethics, and should be stopped. When the Chamber and BofA, using the DOJ to go after individuals, their families, children and friends is used as a fear tactic, that is TERRORISM. It is also treason against fellow citizens of this country, especially during war time.
I will support Brad and Glenn with every breath against this Fascist attack against innocent Americans and their children.
This story re the Chamber is so fascinating to me. I can remember when no one paid much attention to it. They had a lunch meeting once a month attended by the business owners and took part in local things. And now they are not only a player but committing dirty tricks and such right along with the rest of the politicians. Amazing.
With regard to the LA Times article, it is important that someone correct their misinformation in that article–specifically, WikiLeaks is not a “hacker” organization, and the contract was for $2 million per month, not $2 million in total. The same article appeared in the Chicago Tribune, and there is a note about those issues in the comments section.
sharkbabe! long time…
Really, HBGary is starting to look like the Blackwater of the cyber world: incompetent and heavy handed, they couldn’t care less about method or collateral damage.
I think you meant; “what a bungled web is Rove” : )
Forgive my cluelessness, but what is “UT”?
I read it as meaning access to the data. Link analysis is as good as the data it links, unless it is overwhelmed. So are Bayesian filters, and filter fusion. Those are the techniques Palantir boasts on the other slides — that they can do those on big data. This slide boasts that they have access to the same big data that the government does.
No, private industry doesn’t have access to that, at least not legally, although they are the ones providing it to the government. The Narus STA 6400 that Mark Klein deposed about at the AT&T building in San Francisco is on the NSA side of the optical splitter, not the AT&T side. It reconstructs all the web and phone traffic for storage on government servers. The searches are done from there, and the fights with Senator Leahy over the FAA were about minimization and rollbacks of searching that material, essentially, the FISC gave the government the right to collect everything and then get warrants to search it, instead of getting warrants to collect it.
So private industry or political access to that, for private industry or political purposes, is a very scary thing. But lack of access to that means just link analysis on Aaron Barr’s hand collected hacking data, which is so trivial that it probably doesn’t need Palantir’s tools. So yes, I think they’re talking about searching the real deal.
Saudi, peak oil, Bush friendship with Saudi family, alqueda, Karl Rove, Plame leak, no wmd’s…and they knew it, lives lost and gone forever over lies. Real lies. Deadly lies. We don’t know that Al queda and the chamber are not the same thing…We certainly have no factual reason to believe what the Chamber says is their mission…do we? And we have facts that suggest that they tell lies…on purpose. We really don’t know who the “real” enemy is? Do we?
I’m glad you saw the similarity between this and Dan Rather. It struck me that way as well.
Thanks.
Unclaimed Territory.
Industry is government! Who-da thunk it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/14/AR2011021406281.html
this link to the article at WP does not resolve for me ???
I went back… but there was no left left there… right there… right? All overgrowed with thorny rose brambles.
The tools of the mega powerful can’t be used by the serfs. It is no symetrical thing.
Even Dan Rather had to STFU, he does a good job on HD tv, the best of what is left on documentary style imo.
did anyone notice that the article at the NY Times mentions Bank Of America spokesman Lawrence DiRita? DiRita was a top flack at the Pentagon for Rumsfeld. No suprise that BofA would use these tactics.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/us/politics/12hackers.html
“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.”
I can’t get to the WP article either- Maybe BoA had the site hacked and the story removed?
Ummn, not “enemies” of the Chamber; “critics” of the Chamber. I could be worng, but I think that’s an important distinction.
From the ARS article about the sordid affair, and Aaron Barr who headed up the one man HBGary committee to rat out Anonymous–the result was:
“….Anonymous took down his website, stole his e-mails, deleted the company’s backup data, trashed Barr’s Twitter account, and remotely wiped his iPad.”
hehehehe.
‘we have not engaged in, nor do we blah blah blah…’
never believe anything until it has been officially denied.
yer welcome, now move along.
Oh, that’s good! Almost makes me wish I was a techie and could join in the fun. Would pay good money for hidden camera video of Barr as he confronted each of these developments and realized what the fuck was going on. Priceless!