Friday, February 11th, 2011
You have to get up pretty early in the morning to make the Mafia look like pikers…
But apparently, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Cabal of Criminals has managed to do just that:
Earlier today, ThinkProgress published an exclusive report that the law firm representing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a right-wing trade association representing big business, is working with set of “private security” companies and lobbying firms to undermine their political opponents, including ThinkProgress. According to e-mails obtained by ThinkProgress, the Chamber hired the lobbying firm Hunton and Williams. Attorneys for the firm solicited a set of private security firms — HB Gary Federal, Palantir, and Berico Technologies (collectively called Team Themis) — to develop a sabotage campaign against progressive groups and labor unions, including ThinkProgress, the labor coalition Change to Win, SEIU, US Chamber Watch, and StopTheChamber.com.
This seems like standard PR warfare so far. Sure, it’s ugly and aggravating, but still fair game in the rough and tumble world of politics and bribery lobbying, right? Wrong. It gets worse:
New emails reveal that the private spy company investigated the families and children of the Chamber’s political opponents. The apparent spearhead of this project was Aaron Barr, an executive at HB Gary. Barr circulated numerous emails and documents detailing information about political opponents’ children, spouses, and personal lives.
One of the targets was Mike Gehrke, a former staffer with Change to Win. Among the information circulated about Gehrke was the specific “Jewish church” he attended and a link to pictures of his wife and two children (sensitive information was redacted by ThinkProgress):
Another target was Brad Friedman, co-founder of The Brad Blog. Barr’s profile of Freidman included information about his life partner and his home address (sensitive information redacted by ThinkProgress):
Oh, and lest you think the thugs hired by the U.S. Cabal of Criminals couldn’t kick any more dogs, they also engaged in a little bit of blackmail to keep the lawyers in line:
You know, I was originally going to comment on this with an especially snarky “shorter,” but that last bit just killed my enthusiasm for snide remarks. These criminals have to be stopped. NOW. If ever there was a worthy target of a RICO bust, it’s these bastards.
*SIGH*
Looks like it’s time for another Cassandra Letter to the AG/FBI that will be ignored until someone like Brad Friedman winds up in the news for an entirely different reason.
I was going to ask how this came out, but then I saw @hbgary.com and I remembered. Hurrah for Anonymous.
I share your feeling that nothing will be done about this, but we can at least try to spread the word. You never know. Look at Egypt.
Comment by bjkeefe — February 12, 2011 @ 11:26 pm
Yeah. Anonymous is doing some heroic work in these dark times. In a just world, they’d be up for a Nobel Peace Prize.
Comment by J. A. Baker — February 15, 2011 @ 12:46 am