HBGary Federal Spied On Families And Children Of US Chamber Of Commerce Opponents

from the lovely-folks dept

The story of HBGary Federal keeps getting worse and worse. After threatening to reveal the "leaders" of the leaderless group Anonymous, the company's servers were hacked and emails released, exposing a bizarre plan to intimidate Wikileaks critics to get them to stop supporting the site, and to plant false information. A few days later, it came out that HBGary Federal (along with partners Palantir and Berico) also had proposed a similar campaign to help the US Chamber of Commerce silence critics. New reports show that HBGary Federal boss Aaron Barr apparently went so far as to "demonstrate" his ability to intimidate people by using social networking info to dig up information and photos on people's families.

In fact, in a bit of bravado, he even used the same tactics to reveal info he was able to glean about the family of one of the lawyers, Richard Wyatt, who had contacted HBGary Federal from the law firm/lobbying firm of Huntoon and Williams, in looking to secure their services for both the Bank of America anti-Wikileaks campaign and the US Chamber of Commerce anti-critics campaign: I still don't think that hacking HBGary Federal's email was the right move, but if anyone has ever come close to deserving such treatment, it seems like Barr may be in the lead.

Filed Under: families, spying
Companies: berico tecnologies, hbgary federal, huntoon and williams, palantir technologies, us chamber of commerce

Firm Involved In Planning Attack On Journalist Glenn Greenwald To Hurt Wikileaks Apologizes; Cuts Ties With HBGary Federal

from the fallout dept

Yesterday we had the news of how HBGary Federal -- the firm whose CEO claimed he had "infiltrated" the non-group's leadership and identified who ran the non-group (which doesn't actually have "leaders" in the traditional sense) -- had been exposed for planning a propaganda attack on Wikileaks at the request of some lawyers working with Bank of America (and, it turns out, recommended by the Justice Department). Part of the strategy was to somehow put a tremendous amount of pressure on Salon writer Glenn Greenwald to stop his support of Wikileaks. Exactly how that was to work was not entirely explained.

However, the Tech Herald, which broke the original story, has now spoken with the CEO of Palantir Technologies, one of the two other companies that HBGary Federal had teamed up with in this proposal. Dr. Alex Karp, who is both the co-founder and CEO of Palantir, seems to be genuinely sorry about the whole ordeal, saying he told his firm to cut all ties with HBGary Federal, and issuing an apology to Greenwald.

"The right to free speech and the right to privacy are critical to a flourishing democracy. From its inception, Palantir Technologies has supported these ideals and demonstrated a commitment to building software that protects privacy and civil liberties. Furthermore, personally and on behalf of the entire company, I want to publicly apologize to progressive organizations in general, and Mr. Greenwald in particular, for any involvement that we may have had in these matters."

Meanwhile, HBGary Federal apparently remains pretty quiet...

Filed Under: apologies, glenn greenwald, wikileaks
Companies: hbgary federal, palantir technologies, wikileaks