02/11/2011 archive

I know the Egyptian Revolution has been big news, but also over the last few days a story has been developing about how Bank of America and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have been hiring law firms and private security companies to attack progressive institutions and individuals.

In summary the story goes like this-

Security Firms Pitching Bank of America on WikiLeaks Response Proposed Targeting Glenn Greenwald

By: emptywheel, Wednesday February 9, 2011 8:49 am

On Saturday, private security firm HBGary Federal bragged to the FT that it had discovered who key members of the hacking group Anonymous are. In response, Anonymous hacked HB Gary Federal and got 44,000 of their emails and made them publicly available.

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As TechHerald reports, among those documents was a presentation, “The Wikileaks Threat,” put together by three data intelligence firms for Bank of America in December. As part of it, they put together what they claimed was a list of important contributors to WikiLeaks. They suggested that Glenn Greenwald’s support was key to WikiLeaks’ ongoing survival.

Now at the time the big joke was these security firms had the sadly mistaken impression that Glenn Greenwald is the kind of person who would respond to blackmail threats by putting “professional preservation” before “cause” and principle.  But the rabbit hole is deeper than that Alice.

Among the hacked documents was a Power Point presentation that laid out the plan of attack which included leaking false documents to destroy credibility and paying professional trolls $2000 a day to disrupt social media sites like Facebook and Twitter and political blogs like… well, this one.

HBGary Fees: "Dam It Feels Good to Be a Gangsta"

By: emptywheel, Friday February 11, 2011 8:05 am

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.

One the most interesing details is the identity of the firms proposing this scheme-

The Disinformation Campaign Bank of America Considered

By: emptywheel, Wednesday February 9, 2011 1:43 pm

Wikileaks has posted the presentation (.pdf) three security companies-Palantir, HBGary Federal, and Berico Technologies-made to Bank of America, proposing to help it respond to Wikileaks.

In addition to the degree to which the proposal emphasizes the national security ties and military background of the employees of the company (particularly Berico), the presentation fleshes out what the companies proposed.

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(A)ccording to Tech Herald, the law firm pitching these firms, Hunton and Williams, was itself recommended to BoA by DOJ. As the presentation makes clear, these are significant government contractors. (Remember, we’re getting these documents because Anonymous hacked HBGary Federal, which was offering what it had collected to DOJ.) To what extent is what we’re seeing just an extension of what our own government is trying to combat Wikileaks?

Bank of America had not committed to the proposal.  Another group, The U.S. Chamber of Commerce was already actively using HBGary to inplement their plan.

Hacked Documents Show Chamber Engaged HBGary to Spy on Unions

By: emptywheel. Thursday February 10, 2011 1:37 pm

(I)t appears that back in November the same parties involved in the pitch to Bank of America-Palantir, HBGary Federal, and Berico Technologies working through Hunton and Williams-started preparing a pitch to the Chamber of Commerce. At that point, HBGary started researching anti-Chamber groups StoptheChamber.com and USChamberWatch. At one point, HBGary maps the connections between SEIU, Change to Win, and USChamberWatch as if he’s found gold.

By the end of November, Barr starts working on a presentation outlining the difference between StoptheChamber and USChamberWatch, as well as “a link chart of key people in the distribution of information, background information on each individual and ways to counteract their effect on group.”

On January 13, HBGary believed they had signed a contract.

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On February 3, law firm H&W came back to the three security firms and told them they’d be doing their Phase I work on spec, until the Chamber had bought into the full project. At that point, the firms put together a plan including a proposed February 14 briefing.

The Chamber issued a non-denial denial-

From the ChamberPot: A Carefully Worded Nondenial Denial

By: emptywheel, Thursday February 10, 2011 5:29 pm

Note, first of all, that they’re not denying hiring Hunton & Williams, the law firm/lobbyist which they hired last year to sue the Yes Men. They’re not even denying that they retain Hunton & Williams right now.

What they’re denying is that they-or, implicitly, Hunton & Williams, on their behalf-hired HBGary.

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In other words, no, the Chamber has not “hired” HBGary. They’ve gotten HBGary to do a month of work for free to decide whether they want to hire them.

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Now, back in my consulting days, when working with a primary contractor there were always several iterations of work between when we pitched the primary and when we all, jointly, pitched the client itself.

So, sure, the Chamber didn’t see this document. They saw one that proposed the same or very similar plots against citizen activists, probably completed a week or more later, probably containing a different level of  detail (other emails discuss a November 23 meeting with a revised proposal).

They didn’t hire HBGary and they didn’t read the particular document TP linked to.

But that is far short of denying that they’ve been discussing such a plot with HBGary and/or Hunton & Williams.

Other firms involved in this plot are trying to back away from it too-

Palantir Tries to Preserve Their Government Contracts

By: emptywheel Thursday February 10, 2011 8:23 pm

As a reminder, Palantir Technologies is one of the two other security firms that HBGary partnered with to try to get spying business with Bank of America and the Chamber of Commerce.

But perhaps more relevant is Palantir’s primary focus: working with the national security apparatus. They’ve done at least $6,378,332 in business with entities like SOCOM and FBI in the last several years. And while they say they have no plans to adopt “offensive cyber capabilities,” that’s not to say they’re not helping the government analyze data on our presumed enemies.

I would imagine Palantir has pretty good reason to know that the government will not do business with a contractor using the same technologies to target Glenn Greenwald (and maybe Brad Friedman).

At least not publicly. Remember-DOJ recommended Hunton & Williams (which put Palantir and HBGary together for the bid) to Bank of America.

Glenn Greenwald (remember him?) sums it up in his post today-

The leaked campaign to attack WikiLeaks and its supporters

By Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com

Friday, Feb 11, 2011 05:12 ET

What is set forth in these proposals for Bank of America quite possibly constitutes serious crimes.  Manufacturing and submitting fake documents with the intent they be published likely constitutes forgery and fraud.  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.  Attacking WikiLeaks’ computer infrastructure in an attempt to compromise their sources undoubtedly violates numerous cyber laws.  

Yet these firms had no compunction about proposing such measures to Bank of America and Hunton & Williams, and even writing them down.   What accounts for that brazen disregard of risk?  In this world, law does not exist as a constraint.  It’s impossible to imagine the DOJ ever, ever prosecuting a huge entity like Bank of America for doing something like waging war against WikiLeaks and its supporters.  These massive corporations and the firms that serve them have no fear of law or government because they control each.  That’s why they so freely plot to target those who oppose them in any way.  They not only have massive resources to devote to such attacks, but the ability to act without limits.

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There are supposed to be institutions which limit what can be done in pursuit of those private-sector goals.  They’re called “government” and “law.”  But those institutions are so annexed by the most powerful private-sector elites, and so corrupted by the public officials who run them, that nobody — least of all those elites — has any expectation that they will limit anything.  To the contrary, the full force of government and law will be unleashed against anyone who undermines Bank of America and Wall Street executives and telecoms and government and the like (such as WikiLeaks and supporters), and will be further exploited to advance the interests of those entities, but will never be used to constrain what they do.  These firms vying for Bank of America’s anti-WikiLeaks business know all of this full well, which is why they concluded that proposing such pernicious and possibly illegal attacks would be deemed not just acceptable but commendable.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”

Mohamed ElBaradei: The Next Step for Egypt’s Opposition

WHEN I was a young man in Cairo, we voiced our political views in whispers, if at all, and only to friends we could trust. We lived in an atmosphere of fear and repression. As far back as I can remember, I felt outrage as I witnessed the misery of Egyptians struggling to put food on the table, keep a roof over their heads and get medical care. I saw firsthand how poverty and repression can destroy values and crush dignity, self-worth and hope.

Half a century later, the freedoms of the Egyptian people remain largely denied. Egypt, the land of the Library of Alexandria, of a culture that contributed groundbreaking advances in mathematics, medicine and science, has fallen far behind. More than 40 percent of our people live on less than $2 per day. Nearly 30 percent are illiterate, and Egypt is on the list of failed states.

Paul Krugman: Abraham Lincoln, Inflationist

There was a time when Republicans used to refer to themselves, proudly, as “the party of Lincoln.” But you don’t hear that line much these days. Why?

The main answer, presumably, lies in the G.O.P.’s decision, long ago, to seek votes from Southerners angered by the end of legal segregation. With the old Confederacy now the heart of the Republican base, boasting about the party’s Civil War-era legacy is no longer advisable.

But sooner or later, Republicans were bound to notice other reasons to disavow Lincoln. He was, after all, the first president to institute an income tax. And he was also the first president to issue a paper currency – the “greenback” – that wasn’t backed by gold or silver. “There is nothing more insidious that a country can do to its people than to debase its currency,” declared Representative Paul Ryan in one of two hearings Congress held on Wednesday on monetary policy. So much, then, for the Great Liberator.

Which brings me to the story of what went on in those monetary hearings.

Bernie Sanders: Organizing Help Wanted

We must defend America’s middle class before millionaires and billionaires own the entire country.

There is a war going on in this country and I am not referring to the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. I am referring to the war waged by the wealthiest people in America on the disappearing and shrinking middle class of our country. The nation’s billionaires are on the warpath. They want more, more, more. Their greed has no end and they are apparently unconcerned for the future of this country if it gets in the way of their accumulation of power and wealth.

On the floor of the Senate, we discuss a lot of things. But one thing we fail to talk about is who is winning in this economy and who is losing, and what that means for parents struggling to survive while working longer hours with lower wages, and worrying about whether their children will have the same kind of standard of living they have.

Right now, the top 1 percent controls more than 23 percent of all income earned in America. The top 1 percent controls more than the bottom 50 percent. It’s not only that the rich are getting richer. The very, very rich are getting richer. In the last 25 years, we have seen 80 percent of all new income going to the top 1 percent.

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

February 11 is the 42nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 323 days remaining until the end of the year (324 in leap years).

On this day in 1990, Nelson Mandela is released from prison

Nelson Mandela, leader of the movement to end South African apartheid, is released from prison after 27 years on February 11, 1990.

In 1944, Mandela, a lawyer, joined the African National Congress (ANC), the oldest black political organization in South Africa, where he became a leader of Johannesburg’s youth wing of the ANC. In 1952, he became deputy national president of the ANC, advocating nonviolent resistance to apartheid–South Africa’s institutionalized system of white supremacy and racial segregation. However, after the massacre of peaceful black demonstrators at Sharpeville in 1960, Nelson helped organize a paramilitary branch of the ANC to engage in guerrilla warfare against the white minority government.

In 1961, he was arrested for treason, and although acquitted he was arrested again in 1962 for illegally leaving the country. Convicted and sentenced to five years at Robben Island Prison, he was put on trial again in 1964 on charges of sabotage. In June 1964, he was convicted along with several other ANC leaders and sentenced to life in prison.

Imprisonment

Mandela was imprisoned on Robben Island where he remained for the next eighteen of his twenty-seven years in prison. While in jail, his reputation grew and he became widely known as the most significant black leader in South Africa. On the island, he and others performed hard labour in a lime quarry. Prison conditions were very basic. Prisoners were segregated by race, with black prisoners receiving the fewest rations. Political prisoners were kept separate from ordinary criminals and received fewer privileges. Mandela describes how, as a D-group prisoner (the lowest classification) he was allowed one visitor and one letter every six months. Letters, when they came, were often delayed for long periods and made unreadable by the prison censors.

Whilst in prison Mandela undertook study with the University of London by correspondence through its External Programme and received the degree of Bachelor of Laws. He was subsequently nominated for the position of Chancellor of the University of London in the 1981 election, but lost to Princess Anne.

In his 1981 memoir Inside BOSS secret agent Gordon Winter describes his involvement in a plot to rescue Mandela from prison in 1969: this plot was infiltrated by Winter on behalf of South African intelligence, who wanted Mandela to escape so they could shoot him during recapture. The plot was foiled by British Intelligence.

In March 1982 Mandela was transferred from Robben Island to Pollsmoor Prison, along with other senior ANC leaders Walter Sisulu, Andrew Mlangeni, Ahmed Kathrada and Raymond Mhlaba. It was speculated that this was to remove the influence of these senior leaders on the new generation of young black activists imprisoned on Robben Island, the so-called “Mandela University”. However, National Party minister Kobie Coetsee says that the move was to enable discreet contact between them and the South African government.

In February 1985 President P.W. Botha offered Mandela his freedom on condition that he ‘unconditionally rejected violence as a political weapon’. Coetsee and other ministers had advised Botha against this, saying that Mandela would never commit his organisation to giving up the armed struggle in exchange for personal freedom. Mandela indeed spurned the offer, releasing a statement via his daughter Zindzi saying “What freedom am I being offered while the organisation of the people remains banned? Only free men can negotiate. A prisoner cannot enter into contracts.”

The first meeting between Mandela and the National Party government came in November 1985 when Kobie Coetsee met Mandela in Volks Hospital in Cape Town where Mandela was recovering from prostate surgery. Over the next four years, a series of tentative meetings took place, laying the groundwork for further contact and future negotiations, but little real progress was made.

In 1988 Mandela was moved to Victor Verster Prison and would remain there until his release. Various restrictions were lifted and people such as Harry Schwarz were able to visit him. Schwarz, a friend of Mandela, had known him since university when they were in the same law class. He was also a defence barrister at the Rivonia Trial and would become Mandela’s ambassador to Washington during his presidency.

Throughout Mandela’s imprisonment, local and international pressure mounted on the South African government to release him, under the resounding slogan Free Nelson Mandela! In 1989, South Africa reached a crossroads when Botha suffered a stroke and was replaced as president by Frederik Willem de Klerk. De Klerk announced Mandela’s release in February 1990.

Mandela was visited several times by delegates of the International Committee of the Red Cross, while at Robben Island and later at Pollsmoor prison. Mandela had this to say about the visits: “to me personally, and those who shared the experience of being political prisoners, the Red Cross was a beacon of humanity within the dark inhumane world of political imprisonment.”

Ego So Big Reality Doesn’t Count  

The fury of a people whose hopes were raised and then dashed

As Mubarak clings on… What now for Egypt?

To the horrorof Egyptians and the world, President Hosni Mubarak – haggard and apparently disoriented – appeared on state television last night to refuse every demand of his opponents by staying in power for at least another five months. The Egyptian army, which had already initiated a virtual coup d’état, was nonplussed by the President’s speech which had been widely advertised – by both his friends and his enemies – as a farewell address after 30 years of dictatorship. The vast crowds in Tahrir Square were almost insane with anger and resentment.

Update: Hosni Mubarak has resigned as announced on Egyptian State TV by Suleiman the torturer.  The Army has taken over the government.  Is this good news?  As Mao said about the invention of fire for China- too soon to tell. – ek

This is a Live Blog and will be updated as the news is available. You can follow the latest reports from AL Jazeera English and Al-Masry Al-Youm: English Edition

The Guardian has a Live Blog from their reporters in Egypt that refreshes automatically every minute.

Al Jazeera has a Live Blog for Feb 11

Also follow the Live blog at mishima’s Ignoring Asia.

As you can see we now have the live feed from Al Jazeera English.

Last night’s announcement by President Hosni Mubarak that he was not leaving office infuriated the Egyptian people who immediately marched from Tahrir Square through dark Cairo streets to the building of the state run television station for a loud but peaceful demonstration. Today portends to be another day of peaceful marches and protests with a planned march from Tahrir Square to the Presidential Palace. Protests are planned throughout the country but everyone is anxious with the rise in anger and Vice President Omar Suleiman’s speech that was taken as an offensive. Al Jazeera is reporting that “Egyptian military’s supreme council has held an ‘important’ meeting and will issue a statement soon”. So far the military has remained on the sidelines. They were, however, embarrassed by Mubarak’s continued refusal to leave office since they had made public announcement that indicated that the protesters demands were going to be met. Day eighteen promises to be large and loud and let us all hope peaceful and successful.

Regular Features-

• Late Night Karaoke by mishima
• Muse in the Morning by Robyn
• Six In The Morning by mishima

Featured Essays for February 9, 2011-

• How to drop the unemployment rate to zero by gjohnsit
• Reporting the Revolution: Day 17 Up Date 2030hrs EST by TheMomCat
• The snowman: Obama to cut home-heating assistance to the poor. by Compound F
• UN: Sources – Mubarak Could Step Down Tonight by Edger
• Mubarak To World: I Fart In Your General Direction by davidseth

DocuDharma

I should mention tonight’s episode of The Ace of Cakes is the last ever.  It never quite grabbed me though I liked some of the characters (especially the wacky secretary who reminds me of Janine Melnitz) because I’m just not that into cakes.  Probably explains why I’m not a big fan of Food Network Challenge.

Pretty much all premiers.  I didn’t realize there was a new version of La Femme Nikita.

You have this belief that you are better than us. You have this belief that this country is so very good, and we are so very bad.

• ABC Family– Matilda
• AMC– Rocky IV x 2
• Animal Planet– Planet Earth marathon
• Comedy– Half a Futurama night
• Disney– Starstruck
• Discovery– Man v. Wild, Sr. v. Jr. (Season Finale repeat)
• ESPN– College Hoopies, Connecticut @ St. John’s, Illinois @ Minnesota
• ESPN2– College Hoopies, Florida State @ Georgia Tech, Alabama @ Vanderbilt
• Food– Ace of Cakes (Series Finale)
• FX– Archer x 2 (with premier)
• Lifetime– Disappearing Acts
• Sci Fi– Dragon Wars, Eragon
• TBS– Mean Girls
• Turner Classic– Annie Get Your Gun, An American in Paris
• TNT– Hoopies, Lakers @ Celtics, Mavs @ Nuggets
• Travel– Man v. Food marathon (thank goodness)
• USA– Royal Pains x 2, Fairly Legal x 2 (premiers + Instapeats)
• VH1– SNL marathon

I am Lrrr! Ruler of the planet Omicron Persei 8! May I crash on your couch?

Later-

(E)nough about me leg. Let me tell you about the rest of me. “Up North in the Never-Never, where the land is harsh and bare, lives a mighty hunter named Mick Dundee who can dance like Fred Astaire.”

• AMC– Crocodile Dundee
• ESPN2– College Hoopies, Gonzaga @ Loyola Marymount
• FX– 54
• Sci Fi– Fire & Ice
• Turner Classic– Too Young to Kiss
• Toon– Eagleheart (premier)
• USA– White Collar (this week’s)

Dave hosts Bryan Ferry.  Jon and Stephen in repeats from 2/1. Conan hosts Seth MacFarlane, Brooklyn Decker, and Dana Gould.

Well, you see, Aborigines don’t own the land.They belong to it. It’s like their mother. See those rocks? Been standing there for 600 million years. Still be there when you and I are gone. So arguing over who owns them is like two fleas arguing over who owns the dog they live on.

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