I asked the press on Friday to quickly get on the disturbing story of HBGary Federal et al on Friday. So let me tip my cap to The New York Times, which wrote a news story about it in Saturday’s paper.
Let’s hope that the Times and others are looking deeper into this story and not treating it just as news fodder.
The story as reported so far is that law firm Hunton & Williams solicited proposals from three companies, HBGary Federal, Palantir Technologies, and Berico Technologies, to help its client Bank of America fight the coming WikiLeaks document dump.
The Tech Herald last week reported that the three firms sent a proposal to Hunton & Williams on how to ratfuck (sorry, but there’s really no better word for it) WikiLeaks. The pitch also mentioned attacking journalists such as Salon’s Glenn Greenwald, saying “these are established professionals that have a liberal bent, but ultimately most of them if pushed will choose professional preservation over cause.”
The day after the Tech Herald scoop, ThinkProgress reported that the same group of firms had also pitched Hunton & Williams on attacking unions and other opponents of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce with similar dirty tricks. These included what might be called a, ahem, Dan Rather/Mary Mapes-inspired screw job:
“false document, perhaps highlighting periodical financial information… Afterward, present explicit evidence proving that such transactions never occurred. Also, create a fake insider persona and generate communications with (Change to Win labor coalition). Afterward, release the actual documents at a specified time and explain the activity as a CtW contrived operation. Both instances will prove that US Chamber Watch cannot be trusted with information and or tell the truth.
Also, writes the Times:
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”…
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.
Forbes’s Andy Greenberg reports that Barr “suggested going after the thousands of individuals who have donated to the group”:
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.”
Greenberg is also excellent to point out that though the two partner firms in the presentation, Palantir and Berico, have said they had nothing to do with the plot and have cut ties with HBGary Federal, that Palantir was on board with targeting Salon’s Greenwald:
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.
All this information came to light only because HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr bragged about taking down members of the hacker group Anonymous to the Financial Times on February 4. Anonymous promptly hacked the firm’s emails and released some 70,000 of them.
Both the Chamber and Bank of America deny having anything to do with this HBGary Federal stuff. And that may be true.
But it’s worth noting that the Tech Herald reported that HBGary Federal did secure a meeting with Booz Allen Hamilton, which had also been retained by BofA for its WikiLeaks “review”—a few weeks after pitching its scuzzy plan.
Keep it coming, this is very interesting as it unfolds
#1 Posted by Shadi, CJR on Mon 14 Feb 2011 at 03:13 PM
Ryan, "private-security" is the wrong modifier. Once a private firm enters a contract with a govt, or comes under any level of govt control, that firm ceases being simply private: it becomes corporatist, monopolistic, fascist, cartelized, etc. Examples include the Federal Reserve, Blackwater/Xe, and GM. Private-govt security? Yes. Pseudo-private security? Maybe. Private-security? No.
#2 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Mon 14 Feb 2011 at 03:37 PM
As I posted in the video link here, there is a growing nexus between public and private security, between the expertise of the NSA and the abilities of private companies to circumvent domestic limitations of the NSA
http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/audit_notes_hb_gary_federal_ba.php
(which, in a sense, renders the American potentially less secure since the information gathered is not the private individual government records, but a sellable asset)
The other act which occurred against wikileaks was the DDOS attack back in december during the cablegate break:
http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/12/01/5561895-ddos-attack-on-wikileaks-gathers-strength
Now I had three suspects in mind when this occurred.
1) China - it's hackers are notorious for their activity and about issues of secrecy.
2) the NSA - not the best use of taxpayer assets and I figured that they had other tools to really deal with sites they disapprove, but DDOS is generic enough to claim "anyone could have done it".
3) some Blackwatery computer firm the government usually hires to counter cyber crime (like from Chinese and Russian hackers - and now anonymous), but this time they tasked them to execute it.
It's also claimed that its a vigilante hacker named the Jester, who usually targets Jihad sites, attacked wikileaks.
At any rate, it should be asked what exactly these companies are doing with the government... and why one of the companies would use a creepy "Lord of the Ringy" name like 'Palantir'. What? Saurman works for the government? OMG!
#3 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 14 Feb 2011 at 06:01 PM
Pretty hilarious that a "provider of classified security services" can't secure it's own email.
#4 Posted by dblacksd, CJR on Mon 14 Feb 2011 at 08:45 PM
You don't know how hilarious:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/02/anonymous/all/1
Hat tip to Brad Blog:
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8354
#5 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 14 Feb 2011 at 10:07 PM
Thimbles, good to see you bring up Brad Friedman, I thought no one here would do that.
Tell me, do you think that HBGary was interested in a truther crank like Friedman, or do you think they were more interested in his buddy and Velvet Revolution partner Brett Kimberlin? You know Brett Kimberlin right? He planted lots of bombs all around a small town in Indiana, was involved in drug smuggling from Mexico, arraignedthe murder of his girlfriends grandmother and was finally caught while on his way to bomb an army base.
And why did Think Progress fell the need to redact that part out of the HBGary emails?
#6 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Wed 16 Feb 2011 at 09:52 AM
The investigation targeted Brett Kimberlin, a convicted domestic terrorist and business partner of Brad Friedman. Kimberlin was convicted of 8 bombings that maimed (amputation) several innocent people. Although these absolute facts are established by public record, this wretched monster and his niave enablers are waging a vendetta against anyone who dares mentions his terrorist activities. Fortunately in America, truth is an absolute defense against defamation, and it is the absolute truth by public record that Brett Kimberlin is a convicted domestic terrorist.
#7 Posted by anon, CJR on Sat 5 Mar 2011 at 11:12 AM