<html><body bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><div>Can someone tell me why the average working stiff is unimpressed by this sort of news?<br><br><br></div><div><br>On Feb 13, 2011, at 1:14 PM, Dave <<a href="mailto:tiedye@turbonet.com">tiedye@turbonet.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><div></div><blockquote type="cite"><div>
<a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2011/02/10/lobbyists-chamberleaks/"><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2011/02/10/lobbyists-chamberleaks/">http://thinkprogress.org/2011/02/10/lobbyists-chamberleaks/</a></a><br>
<br>
Anyone from the local chamber care to comment?<br>
<br>
Dave<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<h2 class="title"><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2011/02/10/lobbyists-chamberleaks/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to 'EXCLUSIVE: US
Chamber’s Lobbyists Solicited Hackers To Sabotage Unions,
Smear Chamber’s Political Opponents'">EXCLUSIVE: US Chamber’s
Lobbyists Solicited Hackers To Sabotage Unions, Smear
Chamber’s Political Opponents </a></h2>
<p>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. </p>
<p>According to e-mails obtained by ThinkProgress, the Chamber
hired the lobbying firm Hunton and Williams. Hunton And
Williams’ attorney Richard Wyatt, who <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/19/chamber-of-commerce-still_n_768076.html">once</a>
represented Food Lion in its infamous lawsuit against ABC News,
was <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/19/chamber-of-commerce-still_n_768076.html">hired</a>
by the Chamber in October of last year. To assist the Chamber,
Wyatt and his <a href="http://images2.americanprogress.org/ThinkProgress/johnwoodsagreeingthemis.PNG">associates</a>,
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 <a href="http://StopTheChamber.com">StopTheChamber.com</a>. </p>
<p>According to one <a href="http://images2.americanprogress.org/ThinkProgress/ProposalForTheChamber.pdf">document</a>
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: </p>
<center><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/screenshotfixed.jpg"><screenshotfixed.jpg></a></center>
<p>The security firms hoped to obtain <a href="http://images2.americanprogress.org/ThinkProgress/themisplan.pdf">$200,000</a>
for initial background research, then charge up to <a href="http://images2.americanprogress.org/ThinkProgress/themisplan.pdf">$2
million</a> for a larger disinformation campaign against
progressives. We don’t know if the proposal was accepted after
Phase 1 was completed.</p>
<p>The e-mails ThinkProgress acquired are available widely on the
web. They were posted by members of “<a href="http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/201106/6798/Data-intelligence-firms-proposed-a-systematic-attack-against-WikiLeaks">Anonymous</a>,”
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 <a href="http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/Cyberactivists-warned-arrest-ftimes-3487898538.html?x=0">claimed</a>
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 <a href="http://gawker.com/#%215753570/anonymous-hackers-pay-back-fbi-snitch-with-50000-leaked-emails">40,000</a>
company e-mails.</p>
<p>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 “<a href="http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2011/02/09/the-disinformation-campaign-bank-of-america-considered/">actions
to sabotage</a> or discredit” him. </p>
<p>ThinkProgress has published a series of articles investigating
the Chamber and its activities. We <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2010/04/24/stealth-chamber-banks/">exposed</a>
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 <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2010/10/13/chamber-foreign-funded-media/">published</a>
a <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2010/10/05/foreign-chamber-commerce/">series</a>
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 <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2010/10/20/beck-koch-chamber-meeting/">participation</a>
in secret fundraising meetings convened by the billionaire
plutocrats David and Charles Koch. </p>
<p>ThinkProgress will be posting more details of the Chamber
lobbyist campaign to target progressives soon.</p>
<p>– With reporting from Scott Keyes</p>
</blockquote>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Windows, OSX, or Linux is the same choice as:
McDonald's, Burger King, or a (real) Co-Op.
</pre>
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