[Vision2020] US Chamber’s Lobbyists Solicited Hackers To Sabotage Unions, Smear Chamber’s Political Opponents

[Darrell Keim]

I can't be certain, but I suspect they would tell you that they aren't
members of the US Chamber.  Not all Chambers are.

They became members when I was there, but were looking at discontinuing.

On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 2:43 AM, Sue Hovey <suehovey at moscow.com> wrote:

>   I don’t know who the local Chamber president is now, but it might be
> worth while to ask for a response.
>
> Sue h.
>
>  *From:* Ron Force <rforce2003 at yahoo.com>
> *Sent:* Sunday, February 13, 2011 4:55 PM
> *To:* vision2020 at moscow.com
> *Subject:* Re: [Vision2020] US Chamber’s Lobbyists Solicited Hackers To
> Sabotage Unions, Smear Chamber’s Political Opponents
>
>  The average working stiff never hears of it. Go to the news sites for
> CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox--not a peep.
>
> Ron Force
> Moscow Idaho USA
>
>
>  ------------------------------
> *From:* Joe Campbell <philosopher.joe at gmail.com>
> *To:* Dave <tiedye at turbonet.com>
> *Cc:* vision2020 <vision2020 at moscow.com>
> *Sent:* Sun, February 13, 2011 6:12:59 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [Vision2020] US Chamber’s Lobbyists Solicited Hackers To
> Sabotage Unions, Smear Chamber’s Political Opponents
>
> Can someone tell me why the average working stiff is unimpressed by this
> sort of news?
>
>
>
> On Feb 13, 2011, at 1:14 PM, Dave <tiedye at turbonet.com> wrote:
>
>  http://thinkprogress.org/2011/02/10/lobbyists-chamberleaks/
>
> Anyone from the local chamber care to comment?
>
> Dave
>
>  EXCLUSIVE: US Chamber’s Lobbyists Solicited Hackers To Sabotage Unions,
> Smear Chamber’s Political Opponents
> <http://thinkprogress.org/2011/02/10/lobbyists-chamberleaks/>
>
> ThinkProgress has learned that a law firm representing the U.S. Chamber of
> Commerce, the big business trade association representing ExxonMobil, AIG,
> and other major international corporations, is working with set of “private
> security” companies and lobbying firms to undermine their political
> opponents, including ThinkProgress, with a surreptitious sabotage campaign.
>
> According to e-mails obtained by ThinkProgress, the Chamber hired the
> lobbying firm Hunton and Williams. Hunton And Williams’ attorney Richard
> Wyatt, who once<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/19/chamber-of-commerce-still_n_768076.html>represented Food Lion in its infamous lawsuit against ABC News, was
> hired<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/19/chamber-of-commerce-still_n_768076.html>by the Chamber in October of last year. To assist the Chamber, Wyatt and his
> associates<http://images2.americanprogress.org/ThinkProgress/johnwoodsagreeingthemis.PNG>,
> John Woods and Bob Quackenboss, solicited a set of private security firms —
> HBGary Federal, Palantir, and Berico Technologies (collectively called Team
> Themis) — to develop tactics for damaging progressive groups and labor
> unions, in particular ThinkProgress, the labor coalition called Change to
> Win, the SEIU, US Chamber Watch, and StopTheChamber.com.
>
> According to one document<http://images2.americanprogress.org/ThinkProgress/ProposalForTheChamber.pdf>prepared by Team Themis, the campaign included an entrapment project. The
> proposal called for first creating a “false document, perhaps highlighting
> periodical financial information,” to give to a progressive group opposing
> the Chamber, and then to subsequently expose the document as a fake to
> undermine the credibility of the Chamber’s opponents. In addition, the group
> proposed creating a “fake insider persona” to “generate communications” with
> Change to Win. View a screenshot below:
> <screenshotfixed.jpg><http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/screenshotfixed.jpg>
>
> The security firms hoped to obtain $200,000<http://images2.americanprogress.org/ThinkProgress/themisplan.pdf>for initial background research, then charge up to $2
> million <http://images2.americanprogress.org/ThinkProgress/themisplan.pdf>for a larger disinformation campaign against progressives. We don’t know if
> the proposal was accepted after Phase 1 was completed.
>
> The e-mails ThinkProgress acquired are available widely on the web. They
> were posted by members of “Anonymous<http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/201106/6798/Data-intelligence-firms-proposed-a-systematic-attack-against-WikiLeaks>,”
> the hactivist community responsible for taking down websites for oppressive
> regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, and American corporations that have censored
> WikiLeaks. Anonymous published the emails from HBGary Federal because an
> executive at the firm, Aaron Barr, was trying to take Anonymous down. Barr
> claimed<http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/Cyberactivists-warned-arrest-ftimes-3487898538.html?x=0>that he had penetrated Anonymous and was hoping to sell the data to Bank of
> America and to federal authorities in the United States. In response,
> members of Anonymous hacked into Barr’s email and published some 40,000<http://gawker.com/#%215753570/anonymous-hackers-pay-back-fbi-snitch-with-50000-leaked-emails>company e-mails.
>
> It is widely believed that Wikileaks has sensitive information about Bank
> of America, and plans to expose it later this year. This revelation prompted
> Bank of America to hire the law/lobbying firm Hunton and Williams, which in
> turn, according to the e-mails posted online by Anonymous, hired HBGary
> Federal and other firms to go after Anonymous and supporters of Wikileaks.
> For instance, one proposal from HBGary Federal and its associates proposed
> targeting Salon reporter and Wikileaks-supporter Glenn Greenwald with “actions
> to sabotage<http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2011/02/09/the-disinformation-campaign-bank-of-america-considered/>or discredit” him.
>
> ThinkProgress has published a series of articles investigating the Chamber
> and its activities. We exposed<http://thinkprogress.org/2010/04/24/stealth-chamber-banks/>the Chamber’s efforts to coordinate a lobbying campaign on behalf of large
> banks, including JP Morgan, to kill significant portions of financial
> reform. In October, we published<http://thinkprogress.org/2010/10/13/chamber-foreign-funded-media/>a
> series <http://thinkprogress.org/2010/10/05/foreign-chamber-commerce/>looking into the Chamber’s efforts to solicit donations from foreign
> corporations for the same account the Chamber used to run partisan attack
> ads during the midterm campaign, as well as the Chamber’s participation<http://thinkprogress.org/2010/10/20/beck-koch-chamber-meeting/>in secret fundraising meetings convened by the billionaire plutocrats David
> and Charles Koch.
>
> ThinkProgress will be posting more details of the Chamber lobbyist campaign
> to target progressives soon.
>
> – With reporting from Scott Keyes
>
>
>
>
> --
> Windows, OSX, or Linux is the same choice as:
> McDonald's, Burger King, or a (real) Co-Op.
>
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