April 18, 2012 update:

First off, welcome Breitbart Unmasked readers [except for the horrible, vile troll - Neal Rauhauser or one of his associates - behind that revenge blog, which contains a lot of misinformation and is creepy and nasty].

I've spent over ten months working on the craziest story ever, and I have gotten a bunch of things wrong. Especially in this article.

Nearly every reference to Mike Stack is wrong. Neal Rauhauser and others [to be named later] have been menacing and smearing him ever since a sock called Dan Wolfe aka @patriotusa76 RT'd a tweet by former Congressman Weiner on May 27, 2011. He was also smeared and menaced by an anti-porn porn blogger named Darrah Ford who mysteriously vanished days after Weinergate broke.

I think I'm more fair to Socrates than most anyone on the left in this article, but I left comments at Firedoglake that probably should have been reflected more in this article. I don't approve of trying to take away a man or woman's blog. That's fucking bullshit.

Believe it or not - I still can't - Worthing is a real lawyer.

And Patterico appears to be a liar and a fraud. Stay tuned.

Apologies for all the things I got wrong here and in other articles. I think by the end of June, many things will become clearer...and I'll be able to fix all the rotten posts.

December 21, 2011 update:

An alleged lawyer who admitted to using an alias on the internet has responded to a subpoena based on his involvement in a cyber-stalking case, by publicly posting an email sent by the plaintiff which said that it was "regarding a legal matter in which [he was] a potential witness. This correspondence is strictly for legal purposes and you do not have my permission to republish this email or its contents in any public venue."

"I don’t need your permission," "Aaron Worthing" blogged before posting the December 15 email sent by Brett Kimberlin [see below for more background on this case].

From the email:

I would like to ask that you voluntarily appear as a witness in this case to testify about your relationship with Mr. Allen, your advice to him, and whether that advice included your legal opinion that, as Mr. Allen says, he has a First Amendment right to defame, harass, and stalk me because I am a “public figure.” I would also like you to testify if you advised Mr. Allen that he could attack Judge Jordan with his threats and posts under the First Amendment, and whether you told him that he could not be extradited to Maryland under a contempt order.

Mr. Worthing also accuses me of being Mr. Kimberlin's "associate" because of a ridiculous conspiracy theory that Mr. Allen has been spreading on the Internet for years.

To be continued....


December 20, 2011 update:

Three weeks before an order to show cause hearing which will determine whether or not an accused cyberstalker defied a Maryland injunction by continuing to engage in alleged defamation online, a blogger who claims to be a lawyer but recently admitted to using an alias is now being sought by the plaintiff for allegedly "assisting" and "conspiring with" the defendant.

Posted today at the Circuit Court of Maryland website: "PLAINTIFF'S MOTION TO COMPEL GOOGLE,COM AND/OR ITS SUBSIDIARY BLOGGER.COM TO DISCLOSE THE IDENTITY AND ADDRESS OF A BLOGGER WHO USES THE FALSE NAME AARON WORTHING AND WHO HAS BEEN ASSISTING AND CONSPIRING WITH DEFENDANT SETH ALLEN TO DEFAME, HARASS, STALK AND HARM PLAINTIFF AND ATTACHMENTS FILED."

Also, "PLAINTIFF'S REQUEST FOR WITNESS SUBPOENA, FILED," and a "SUBPOENA ISSUED FOR PERSONAL SERVICE AS TO GOOGLE INC, RETURNABLE ON JANUARY 2, 2012 AT 10:00 A.M. AND HANDED TO PLAINTIFF,."



As noted below, Worthing was sent an email by Seth Allen aka Socrates in which - out of exasperation - Allen jokingly - according to his testimony - referred to killing the plaintiff, Brett Kimberlin. Worthing also allegedly offered legal advice to Allen, who has spun his November court loss into a victory, due to the fact that the judgement amounted to only $100.

However, Allen (not to mention his conservative enablers including a number of Andrew Breitbart associates) fails to note that he pleaded poverty to the court in his motion to reverse judgement. Along with disclosing that all his money is in a disability trust controlled by a charity organization, Allen argued that he "failed to raise the funds to pay for air travel."

At his blog last week, Worthing deleted a comment by Allen, writing,

Soc

I have removed your comment, because frankly I know you presently have some kind of injunction related to all of this, and i want to avoid any violation of it. If you could do me a favor and forward a copy of the injunction, I will certainly let you post if it is in obedience to the injunction. i am sure that is annoying, but i have to protect myself from liability in that mess you are dealing with.

"Then delete me completely, like I was never here," Socrates responded. "That's rubbish moderating. There's no injunction against me posting. I thought you were an attorney."

Worthing said in response: "I don't know what the injunction covers or doesn't. I don't know anything about it. I have, however, seen injunctions that cover exactly that in cases like this."

Despite warnings to cool his wrath against the court (Socrates christened the judge who ruled against him "fatfuckface" and "ambulance chaser", who has subsequently recused himself from the contempt proceedings), Allen refuses to back down.

At his blog, Socrates wrote that "if a prosecutor is stupid enough to go after me, then good luck to them extradicting me. They can all kiss my ass."

I may have invented the broken record. I'll have to socratise that to make sure.

Check this out. I left a post on Aaron Worthing's website. He used to blog for Patterico.

He deleted it. He wants a copy of what the Judge ordered. He actually thinks there could be an injunction against me from blogging.

Here's hoping the Maryland Court puts an end to this once and for all. Mr. Jailhouse Lawyer is out of control!

Omg, I cannot wait until I get that court audio and post about what Kimberlin testified under oath.

Thanks for the advice. I'm not really worried about any of this.

It's all garbage. If a prosecutor is stupid enough to go after me, then good luck to them extradicting me. They can all kiss my ass.

Although Allen might face an angry court due to the attacks on one of its judges, some believe he might be aided by a - in some ways - not dissimilar cyber stalking case.

One of Allen's supporters, Donkeytale, noted in a diary at the Pffugee Camp blog,

Violent/murderous (so-called), vicious, impolite, frequently banned, and often abused by majoritarian groupthinkers, internet trolls across the world wide web are cheering and vigourously flipping off the epidemic herd mentality today after a federal judge dismissed a criminal cyberstalking complaint against a California man on free speech grounds.

In a nutshell, the Judge opined that posting on a blog is not the same as communicating a threat directly to another person through email, snail mail, telephone calls or face to face, and therefore blogging is a protected form of speech.

As Somini Sengupta at The New York Times reported,

In a case with potentially far-reaching consequences for freedom of expression on the Internet, a federal judge on Thursday dismissed a criminal case against a man accused of stalking a religious leader on Twitter, saying that the Constitution protects “uncomfortable” speech on such bulletin-boardlike sites.

The government had accused the defendant, William Lawrence Cassidy, of harassing and causing “substantial emotional distress” to a Buddhist religious leader named Alyce Zeoli. He had posted thousands of messages about her, some predicting her violent death. He lived in California, she in Maryland.

In his 27-page order, Judge Roger W. Titus wrote that “while Mr. Cassidy’s speech may have inflicted substantial emotional distress, the government’s indictment here is directed squarely at protected speech: anonymous, uncomfortable Internet speech addressing religious matters.”

The United States attorney’s office in Maryland, which filed the case, had no comment on the order Thursday, and it was unclear whether it would exercise its right to appeal the decision. Shanlon Wu, a lawyer for Ms. Zeoli, said in an e-mail that his client was “appalled and frightened by the judge’s ruling.”

However, the Cassidy case was a criminal case under a federal statute, while the Allen one is a state civil case alleging defamation and interference with business, so it almost definitely won't be a factor in the January 9 hearing.

More information on Aaron Worthing at this link: Lawyer using fake name asked others for real names.

Worthing's "rattling" response at this link.

.........

On December 9, an order to show cause on January 9 was issued by the Circuit Court for Montgomery County in regards to "PLAINTIFF [Brett Kimberlin]'S NOTICE OF APPLICATION TO MARYLAND STATE'S ATTORNEY FOR CRIMINAL CONTEMPT CHARGES AGAINST DEFENDANT SETH ALLEN [aka Socrates]" who was "ENJOINED PERMANENTLY FROM ENGAGING IN TORTUOUS CONDUCT CONSTITUTING DEFAMATION OF OR INTERFERENCE WITH BUSINESS RELATIONS OF THE PLAINTIFF" on November 16 after being sued for cyberstalking.



A new judge will be handling the proceedings. After losing the civil judgment, Socrates claimed that he was the actual winner at the Patterico blog, and attacked the judge that ruled against him, calling him "fatfuck" and "fatfuckface" and "a robot" at two different blogs, and defamed him as a former "ambulance chaser."

Patterico - a Los Angeles Assistant District Attorney named Patrick Frey who does a lot of blogging in support of Andrew Breitbart and his interests - is planning a blog post that purports to prove that Socrates outperformed Perry Mason in court, and somehow got Brett Kimberlin to commit "perjury."

At his blog on Sunday, Socrates celebrated "Patterico's Pontweetifications" by copying and pasting Frey's words of support - from his blog and Twitter account - for the accused cyberstalker who won't stop blogging about his imagined nemesis, and appears to be feeling enabled by all the attention from Breitbart associates.







Interestingly, Socrates has claimed to not be too familiar with Twitter, but instead of copy-and-pasting Patterico's tweets, he took them from Tweet Tunnel, a semi-obscure website I had only learned about from the Kid Kenoma blog a few months ago.

Breitbart researcher Liberty_Chick aka Mandy Nagy left a comment on a Socrates post Saturday which implies that I was involved in some kind of fake prank of Media Matters' Eric Boehlert - who seems to get paid to argue with Breitbart on Twitter.

Nagy and Patterico and other Breitbart associates have spent the last five months falsely accusing me of alleged crimes because I've reported stories such as "Breitbart Gang teams up with Real Porn WikiLeaks Crew" and "Andrew Breitbart and Dana Loesch already had Weiner pics". Patterico and Mike Stack - the co-pilot of Weinergate who has been accused of stalking women - evenclaim that I "swatted" them.

Defined as "prank phone calls to police to lure them to mobilize SWAT teams to respond to fake hostage situations," as ABC News reported in August. "Swatting perpetrators tend to be males between in their 20s and 30s -- social misfits who mobilize SWAT teams for nothing more than 'bragging rights.'"

However, Stack and Assistant District Attorney Frey are claiming that these calls were related to their "investigations" into Weinergate and were perpetrated by a dastardly trio composed of wannabe Democratic operative cum hoaxer named Neal Rauhauser aka Stranded Wind, Darrah Ford, a mysterious porn blogger who used an alias, and me.

Patterico has theorized that Rep. Weiner bankrolled us to stop him from reporting on his online interactions with teens. On July 28, Los Angeles Assistant District Attorney Patrick Frey wrote,

"And Ron Brynaert is in league with them and Neal Rauhauser.

Working for Anthony Weiner, to blunt the edge of material I have not yet released, from Anthony Weiner to Nikki Reid. To sow confusion.

And do other evil things."

Both claimed online that they have tapes of 911 recordings that sound like me, but in private conversations they have claimed otherwise. Nagy also claims to have been in contact with multiple law enforcement agencies investigating alleged crimes, and Stack sent me the following screenshots in November:







To be continued....Original post follows:

State's Attorney to mull criminal action against Patterico troll Socrates

by Ron Brynaert

Who is Socrates and why are conservative bloggers connected to Andrew Breitbart defending him and giving him legal advice and publicity?

Why is a Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney linking to a blog post that seems to defy an injunction?




And is it really true - as hoaxer Neal Rauhauser claimed - that Socrates threatened a liberal activist's life in an email cc'd to Breitbart in August?

This might be the first published photo of Socrates aka Seth Allen aka many, many other aliases, taken from his Massachusetts driver's license: [redacted upon request: 6/20/12]

In 2009, one blogger wrote,

Encountered socrates? Offended? Angry? Perplexed? Horrified?
You are not alone.
To save you some time and energy, here’s a sort of unofficial faq.
Q: Who is socrates?
A: According to his own admissions, he is an unemployed, caucasian, trust fund baby (1, 2).
Q: What names has socrates used?
A: No one except soc will ever know all of the IDs he’s created across the world wide web, but he seems to have poasted as socratictruths, socrates, prepostericity, Jeff Reynolds, may41970, KendrickGarrett, NoMoreKosHate, LetTheSunShine, nwoisevil, Guy Cabellero, ForJuliaScyphers, worthless poster, Broccolli, Happy Gilmore… (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, )
Q: Is it possible to reason with socrates?
A: No. Many have tried, but none have succeeded in reasoning wth socrates. socrates’ internal reality is much stronger than any external facts (1).
Q: socrates said terrible things about me/someone I know/my group and I’m very upset! What should I do?
A: You must immediately, and this is extremely important, stop reading anything socrates writes. Above all, you must not respond to any of his comments. His memory is spotty and he’ll forget about you sooner if you don’t communicate with him. To socrates, you will always be just another paid disinfo agent or useful idiot, like the rest of us. He does not think the people he encounters online are real people, just made-up characters, and treats them accordingly (1).
If you’re reading this trying to understand the confusion that ensues in socrates’ wake, then you’re probably quite a nice person, indeed. You/the person you know/your group probably did not do anything to warrant socrates’ attacks. It’s sort of like being hit by a drunk driver. You happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and socrates got an idea in his head about you.
...
A: That sucks. If it involved some sort of threat, contact law enforcement immediately. For less serious matters, you can contact the sites where the info was published and ask them to remove it. If it was on a site maintained by socrates, complain to the hosting company. Google will remove private info on request. You may also be able to sue for slander and get info about who socrates really is. There are people already trying to do this who may be willing and able to help you (1, 2, 3).

In September of 2010, a "COMPLAINT FOR DAMAGES AND INJUNCTIVE RELIEF FOR DEFAMATION, LIBEL CYBERSTALKING, AND TORTIOUS INTERFERENCE WITH BUSINESS" was filed against Allen by Brett Kimberlin (See The Ballad of Brett Kimberlin: Hypnosis, Levitation and a 'pot bombing' for some of the 'Breitbart gang vs. Kimberlin/BradBlog backstory).

Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Patrick Frey has a strange sense of humor.

At his blog www.patterico.com, Frey posted an article called Speedway Bomber Brett Kimberlin vs: Socrates/Prepostericity: The Hilarious Result.

So Brett Kimberlin, the Speedway Bomber, got a default judgment by filing suit against a penniless man who lacked resources to hire legal counsel. Yes, he’s still a perjurer and a convicted bomber who blew off a man’s leg. Yes, he was sued for wrongful death by that man’s widow and lost — and thumbed his nose at the judgment, showing his contempt for the rule of law. Yes, his associates who claim he was exonerated are spreading falsehoods. But when the defendant fails to respond, the court issues a default judgment. It’s ridiculous, but that’s how the system works.

Curiously, Patterico ignored that Socrates aka Seth Allen had written a bunch of derogatory comments about "Judge Fatfuck" at a blog called Pffugee Camp which showcases fake troll fights (even though I tweeted him about it before he posted his blog).

Make that one hundred dollars. The mediocre judge probably feels inflation has increased the value of such a booby prize for frivolous lawsuits won through default. I took a lot of slander on the chin yesterday. Fortunately, I was the smartest person in the room and was able to make sure how the case would be decided.


It was a very fascinating showdown. I'm still groggy from driving all the way down, going through a three or something hour hearing, and then driving all the way back. It will take time to write this one up in an appropriate manner.


But I will tell you this. You wouldn't believe the amount of shit smelled yesterday in not only Pennsylvania. I'm talking hardcore slander. And the judge definitely had a favourite in this case, imho, and it wasn't me.


I done good. I was like Perry Mason. Judge Fatfuck What'shisname had no choice but to declare me the winner. This will take time to properly socratise. There is no time limit. I also have all that other stuff which got deleted by the court which I can now repost.


I will try a little harder not to get personal, be more journalist-like. The only thing the Judge had on me, which really wasn't anything anyway, is that I broke some unwritten law in football blogging of no piling on. But to be blunt, I have none as in zero respect for that Judge, nor for that part of the state of Maryland and Washington D.C. which is clearly full of anal retentive, hypocritical, fat fuck fascists. Developing....

"Judge Fatfuck did not do right by way," Socrates complained in another comment that Patterico ignored. "He's basically a self-serving rent-a-judge. he's the type of ass who sits in on dui's and dumbass arraignments and is basically a robot tool of the state apparatus."

Regarding Kimberlin, Twitterer Stephen Sheiko asked Patterico, "Is that terrorist on Facebook, Twitter, or anywhere else where people can antagonize him?"


"I do not encourage 'antagonizing' him -- but I do have a post in the can about what he is up to these days. Stay tuned," Patterico responded.

[Editor's Note: See Breitbart Gang teams up with Real Porn WikiLeaks Crew to see how Patterico and other Breitbart associates and defenders seem to do a lot of encouraging of antagonizing behavior on Twitter]

On Wednesday, Patterico's commenters greeted Seth Allen - who hijacked a thread - by asking, "You hanging in there OK, Socrates?"

Socrates had threatened to kill Kimberlin in an email sent to Patterico, co-blogger and alleged lawyer Aaron Worthing, Breitbart researcher Mandy Nagy and Breitbart himself in August, but the conservatives rally behind Allen because the enemy of their enemy is their friend.

From: Truth Seeker
Date: Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 7:24 AM
Subject: Re: Making progress - urgent request
To: Aaron Worthing
Cc: Liberty Chick , Andrew Breitbart , patterico@gmail.com


Hi Aaron, thanks for the response. I think the default judgement is just for the preliminary injunction of deleting my blog. I am going to file motions myself. I will try to make it down to the next court session. But this is bogus. I need to know who this sherriff is. The record is in that courthouse, not at the website you mention. Brett Kimberlin is lying. That sounds like perjury and I want his parole officers to find out if he has yet again perjured himself. And all this time Breitbart just stands on the sidelines as if I don't even exist. I'll get this done myself if possible. I need to know that sherriff's name. I'm no lawyer, but you can't make claims in court that are lies. That means Kimberlin should go back to jail if that's true. Whatever, maybe I should murder him. Maybe that will finally get me some justice. This life sucks anyway. All anyone cares about is themselves and their own money. Freedom of speech is dead in America. Thanks for nothing Breitbart.

At the Qritiq blog, Mandy Nagy opined on the Kimberlin vs Socrates case,

"Again, anyone who read the complaint and the case file asks why it hasn’t been thrown out – it’s a ridiculous suit with ridiculous charges that are not accompanied by evidence. Had Socrates shown up for a single hearing before the damages phase, it would’ve been tossed. And you and any legal minded person looking at it knows that. You pretend not to know it.


Whatever your opinion of Socrates, whatever history you and others have with him, it doesn’t negate the truth about the facts of today. And all of you are intentionally distorting the facts, which I find to be extremely suspicious and telling."

In the comments of his blog post, Patterico wrote, "Prepostericity talks about this more at his blog. I don’t subscribe to everything he says and I don’t subscribe to everything he did (and did not) do during the course of the lawsuit. Nevertheless, I congratulate him on an excellent result in some patently frivolous litigation."

But in his eagerness to embrace his perceived enemy's friend's enemy, Patterico seems to be blissfully ignorant that the November 14 injunction against Allen, also prohibited him from defaming Brett Kimberlin or interfering with his business, and that Allen apparently violated that injunction by defaming Kimberlin and attacking the judge.

This is the latest news to report out of Maryland in the Brett Kimberlin vs. Seth Allen saga:

"A Status hearing on the above case was held today, 11/17/2011 by Judge James Bernard Sarsfield. The Court’s finding is as follows: Plaintiff only appears and explains a civil citation pending in Montgomery County Circuit Court in which injunctive relief in Petitioner’s favor on 11/14/2011 entered. Petitioner has filed contempt proceeding in that court on 11/15 and 11/17 against Respondent. This Court defers to that court on such issues and to State’s Attorney for possible criminal action."

Fresh off his self-proclaimed "victory" on Wednesday, Socrates reposted one of the twenty-one posts that - according to a source - Google removed from his blog in August after he defied a court order to pull them himself. Today, it mysteriously vanished: either yanked by Allen or perhaps Google again.

At his Dave From Queens blog, Socrates complains,

While there's no proof anything written in deleted articles was false, it doesn't seem legally they can be reposted. Hmmm.


I guess there are two options. Perhaps the stuff could be put together into book form. Maybe I could pick and choose good research done and simply come up with new narratives. My apologies go out to anyone who left comments on those threads. It's time for me to find a 1st amendment attorney. It's time to go on the offensive.

Socrates probably would have been better off deleting the post where he attacks the judge, but the damage might have already been done, and only time will tell if Patterico still finds it "hilarious."

Lowlights from Socrates blog attacking Judge:

he default actually should have been reversed, but the presiding Judge Richard E. Jordan is a rookie whose resume shows his specialty is "ambulance chasing."


....


According to The Office of Governor Martin O'Malley of Maryland, "[Richard E. “Rick” Jordan] specializes in personal injury cases." Hey, let's fill all court vacancies with ambulance chasers. That's the stuff!


Mr. Jordan also served as a prosecutor for Montgomery County. You think he might have a bias against defendants?


....


Not only is Judge Jordan a former ambulance chaser, imho, he appeared to have a negative disposition towards defendants representing themselves. Well, I didn't have the money to get a lawyer, Rickster.


As for possible future lawsuits I appear justified to file, the people who have libeled and cybersmeared me will probably be scheduled for court dates on my own home turf in Massachusetts. It should be much easier to find pro bono representation as a plaintiff rather than a defendant in a civil case.


I now await the audio which proves I was slandered in Monday's court proceeding. This whole lawsuit in and of itself was libel. I proved that in court. The only reason Kimberlin received 100 clams was because of the default judgement. I wish I had that audio right now. My constitutional rights have been violated. If there's any way to legally address this, I WILL!

At the Pffugeecamp blog, Socrates added,

Liberty Chick is a definite sweetie, but she already has a boyfriend.


She does write some things I don't like, but she is one of the more open-minded debaters. Perhaps a left-right romance can work. It's got the mechanics for Hegelian dialectics or something.


I asked her if perhaps Breitbart will let us cowrite an article and/or publish one of mine going solo. It's not like I am allowed on Huffington or DKos. I realise it would be the equivalent of Olbermann working for Fox News. Oh my, as Dick Enberg would say. Alas has been overused.


Perhaps I could try Firedoglake at some point. Anyway, blogspot does quite well by its bloggers for google search rankings. Just look at it how it propelled Francis Holland to big man in small pond status. So I kind of don't need nothing from nobody.


I wouldn't blog on it for Patterico. Or maybe. I don't know. I don't really like the tone of his joint. It's got too much of that stereotypical libtard versus repiglican juice.

Since Socrates likes to have the last word, here he is defending himself at Qritiq's blog in September:

Hi Qritiq,


I am not saying you run an unfair and unsafe forum. I do not know you. I do know there are a few cybersmearers here who have been attacking me for both no good reason nor with any proof, because there is none.


So I take it we are in agreement Ron has been displaying signs of psychosis. Neither of us have proof whether he is faking it or not. It is my opinion he is, in order to protect the milieu I helped expose, one he has been part and parcel of for many years. As I said, he appears to be a human rabbit hole. He appears to be running interference for fake lefties I exposed with proof. He is a historic troll cranking up the noise to signal ratio, period.


This KidKenoma person is a real sadistic jerk. It has decided to cybersmear me along with Neal, Ron, and others. Let’s take a look at his list of all these sock puppets I am allegedly supposed to be. I do not use sock puppets. I have had zombie accounts, but I always admitted to those. I was the one who provided that info. I am not a multi-personality troll. The Socrates from 2005 who is called a supertroll was not me. I am not Dustin. I am not The Last Name or Brain Left. To repeat, I have never hidden who I’ve been on websites. I have never had fake dialogue between my usernames. If you allow these cybersmearers to continue posting on your blog, that to me is a good sign this place is not safe to post on.


Prepostericity- Me
Worthlessposter- May41970
May41970- Some cybersmearer from Taiwan
PauloFrerie- Me years ago, but spelled wrong
ifkak- Not me
nwoisevil- email handle outed by Brad Friedman to a cyberstalker
struth40- email handle outed by Jeff Wells and another blogger
Homer- Not me
Noom- Not me
ShaghaiCharlie- Not me
antiwingnut- a myspace name I used
AKA- Not me
distorter- Not me
Jeff Reynlds- a username of mine at a now deleted blog
Jay Reynolds- Not me
BigJimMcbob- Not me
4kedtongue- Not me
TheCrustyPotato- Not me
MusterQuark- Not me
Brocolli- My username at Huffington
ForJuliaScyphers- Not me or possible zombie at BradBlog
GuyCaballero- Zombie at DKos
HappyGilmore- Username at Huffington for a few posts
LetTheSunshine- Zombie at DKos
NoMoreKosHate- Zombie at DKos
ProfesorMeathead- Not me

And one more Socrates comment for good measure:

I got into Weinergate, because it came to my attention I was being cybersmeared by Neal Rauhauser. I found out about it a month or two ago. I’m not good with dates, but I found out relatively recently I was the mastermind or an involved right wing tool. I’m a nobody blogger from Massachusetts who doesn’t deserve the crap I’ve received. Debate my ideas or things I’ve posted, but don’t attack me based on lies. I am now in contact with an FBI Special Agent from Boston. You (cybersmearers) keep pushing the garbage attacks on me, it could very well come back to haunt you. Even if they stop, the law may still catch up to you for your previous activities.

UPDATE:

Just Call Me Lefty has audio from Socrates' first day in court. Allen argues that the threat against Kimberlin was a bad joke but seems to be upset that Nagy "ratted" him out. I personally think the audio humanizes him but I'm kind of a softie (that is - when I'm not responding to menacing tweets by Breitbart agitators or arguing with journalists or bloggers who won't correct errors and/or lies).

Socrates spins a sketchy yarn about Kimberlin's "incestuous" relationship with Raw Story. But what would I know? I only worked there for six years, four years running the joint as Executive Editor. His proof was that "a raw nerve was hit in Raw Story's Larisa Alexandrovna" when he asked her about it and because it says it on the internet.

A few months ago, I actually did ask the real person who owns Raw Story on Facebook if Kimberlin ever owned any part of Raw Story but he ducked the question. But John Byrne promised me health care coverage for four years, a $100,000 "bail-out" if I was fired, actually once chose to hire sketchy journos like Larisa Alexandrovna and Jason Leopold, and apologized to me in March promising to send me more money than the paltry amount I had to fight for but never did, so do with that knowledge what you will.

But this argument from the comments section of Patterico's blog is the most "interesting" development. Another abusive, menacing troll named DohBiden called Socrates a "faggot" which is, apparently, fair game at the www.patterico.com blog, as long as it's not said by a liberal who will probably get banned:

You can’t judge a large group of people (like the left) according to the behavior of one or two people, Prepostericity says.

And if one or two people here shout him down, then he will judge everyone else here according to the behavior of those one or two people!

If I can be serious: DohBiden is out of line above, but then, DohBiden is very often out of line. He kind of reminds me of that guy who used to post with bird names. You sort of have to take him for what he is.

But when there are people here willing to say DohBiden is out of line, you have no business painting everyone here with the same brush. At least, if you’re going to argue that you can’t judge a group by one or two of its members.

Comment by Patterico — 11/17/2011 @ 7:15 pm

Exactly Patterico.

I admit I’m often out of line.

Sorry.
Comment by DohBiden — 11/17/2011 @ 7:52 pm

Honestly When I’m out of line I need to be called out on it.
Comment by DohBiden — 11/17/2011 @ 8:02 pm

I’m willing to admit when I’m wrong and I was.
Comment by DohBiden — 11/17/2011 @ 8:28 pm

I appreciate that.
Comment by Patterico — 11/17/2011 @ 10:57 pm

I admit I’m often out of line.

Well, I don’t comment here much these days, so someone has to step in for me…
Comment by Scott Jacobs — 11/18/2011 @ 1:47 am

You’re a hypocrite, Patterico.

It’s an excellent example of how the left tries to shut down truthful speech with thuggish actions like filing frivolous lawsuits.

Maybe you should shut your piehole. The majority of citizens understand how much integrity police, prosecutors, courts, corporations and politicians have. It’s unfortunate you couldn’t lend me the $400 to prevent the default. It’s surprising a person like you doesn’t have a credit card. I would’ve paid you back.
Comment by Prepostericity — 11/18/2011 @ 2:19 am

Prepostercity

That was totally out of line, totally. I’m sorry for your troubles, they were disturbing, but to project them onto Pat?

Pat has a young family to take care of, as a man you should understand where his priorities lie, and furthermore defending you has exposed him legally and financially as these same people have attacked him as well
Comment by EricPWJohnson — 11/18/2011 @ 3:14 am

$400 loan? What?
Comment by carlitos — 11/18/2011 @ 5:41 am

Carlitos
Something that should have been kept private
Comment by EricPWJohnson — 11/18/2011 @ 5:51 am

I don’t know what you’re talking about. You went radio silent for months during which time I was repeatedly sending you emails, which you ignored, telling you to address the lawsuit. If you had displayed a responsible can-do attitude and the only issue was a $400 loan that probably could have been arranged; people here would have donated for the cause of free speech.

That’s not how it played out and you know it. You buried your head in the sand, allowed a default, and engaged in counterproductive actions (to put it mildly) after the default. Actions that made it impossible to help you.

Please do not paint a fictional picture of what happened.
Comment by Patterico — 11/18/2011 @ 6:39 am

Evidently Seth is referring to a last-minute request he made for me and Liberty Chick to buy him a plane ticket for the next day to try to REVERSE a default that had already been entered.
Comment by Patterico — 11/18/2011 @ 6:52 am

Everything will be told in due time. I have nothing to hide. For now I want to correct Seth’s misstatement — and I’ll assume it was an innocent misstatement — that I refused to lend him $400 to “prevent” a default. That’s false.
Comment by Patterico — 11/18/2011 @ 7:09 am

Cops have integrity?
Please tell that to the leftys who prop up Mumia Abu Jamal.
Comment by DohBiden — 11/18/2011 @ 7:13 am

Well, that illustrates the bounds of the sympathy I had for Seth right there.
So Seth, if we can’t count Kimberlin as “part of the Left”, can we count people like you who turn on on people who were willing to help and bite them as part of the Left?
Comment by SPQR — 11/18/2011 @ 8:07 am

Shorter Seth – We don’t really know each other Patterico, but since Kimberlin and his buddies have also harassed you, YOU OWE ME, BIG TIME.
Comment by daleyrocks — 11/18/2011 @ 8:16 am

On Saturday, Socrates left the following comment at the pffugeecamp blog, claiming that his edited posts won't be "breaking the court order":

Since I am on blogger, there will be no difficulty reshooting up the google charts for certain phrases, names, and whatnot.


Here's the deal. Since I've been an unpaid blogger, most of my schtick has not been excellent. I admit that.


Now I am able to look at what was deleted as roughdrafts.


I am now able to cut out the fat and rewrite the narrative so I am not breaking the court order.


Thus, interested readers are going to get a far better read this second time around. The stuff will be much tighter. Like with the above.


All the clutter has been excised. People will be able to clearly understand why Kimberlin not only wanted my stuff deleted from google, but why he wanted the judge to order that I never again blog on him or Brad or anyone else associated to him.


While I never libeled or defamed him in the original writings, as proven by the damages hearing, I can't take a chance with the criminal injustice system.


I'm just finishing the touches on my next installment. It's titled Incestuous Relationships Part 1. It is a continuation of the theme of this article.


The use of the word incestuous has no sexual connotation. It's use is in alignment to Donkeytale's post and how things tend to go viral on the internet.


Now kiss me my fool. p:>

On Sunday, in his comments section, Patterico (who recently yanked this June 30 Weinergate post which slandered me, as I tweeted last week) addressed Seth Allen's "recent comments about the judge," calling them "counterproductive," but then the Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney - couldn't help taking a dig at Kimberlin, speculating that Socrates might be telling the truth that he lied under oath about being "exonerated regarding the bombings."

Frey probably should remind his readers - who hopefully include his overseers at the Los Angeles District Attorneys office who have been alerted by multiple bloggers about his apparent abuse of power by slandering people on the internet - that Kimberlin filed a California Supreme Court complaint against him.

In his first comment after his 11/16 post, Patterico - I believe - took a shot at me, because I tweeted about complaining to his bosses about how he has been menacing me for five months with harassing phone calls, blog posts and tweets.

I hope this serves as a lesson to some of the would-be litigants in the world who go around threatening lawsuits at the drop of a hat, as a way to try to deter constitutionally protected speech. I have received several such threats in recent months, and they’re about as scary as a fluffy bunny. Ask yourself: if a lawsuit against a penniless man who doesn’t defend himself results in a $100 judgment, it is possible that maybe your threat to sue a lawyer –one with pro bono counsel already retained — doesn’t sound very scary?

Since July, Patterico has been making ridiculous accusations against me, calling me a "hacker" and a "criminal", and claiming I worked for Rep. Weiner to prevent him from reporting on his true relationships with teens. I feared he was hacked, since his tweets have been absurd since we talked on the phone on July 1, and he later tweeted that he was leaving Twitter.

In another blog post, Patterico wrote,

And then there are Neal Rauhauser and Darrah Ford. Suffice it to say that the former has been repeating the slanders of a convicted bomber against me, even as he has devised crazed theories that my wife and I are behind the hacking of Weiner — a hacking which never happened, by Weiner’s own admission. The latter has long carried a huge vendetta against a man named Michael Stack, who worked with Wolfe to expose Weiner’s penchant for following young women on Twitter. Circumstantial evidence ties together Ford and Rauhauser — and also ties them to a man named Ron Brynaert, a former editor of a web site connected to the bomber. You haven’t heard the last of him.

And somewhere in all this — again after Weiner’s resignation — Mike Stack, blogger Ace of Spades, and I were threatened not to look into the activities of Gennette and Weiner. The threatening parties have gone much further than that, in fact, and the matter has been turned over to law enforcement. I am not revealing details, but when we catch the people who did it, I predict that they will go to prison.

Someone in this story has risked a great deal. Someone has a considerable investment in the story, even after Weiner’s resignation, to the point where they are willing to risk prosecution and prison time.

In a future post, I'll include other comments that Patterico made that I saved before he pulled his June 30 article that had over 3,750 comments, many attacking me and my sources (someone posted a comment referring to an expunged false arrest of mine from twenty years ago that was somehow illegally obtained, Patterico claimed to me, but he never showed me it).

The Breitbart crusade against Kimberlin is partially connected to the hacking of HBGary by Anonymous, which I'll get to in future posts. But Frey's strange fixation on Kimberlin over bombings that took place over thirty years ago - instead of Neal Rauhauser, a hoaxer who glommed on to Kimberlin, Anonymous, HBGary, Indict Breitbart, Daily Kos and #OWS and HAS menaced him - is something that only a Herman Melville could possibly explain, since it makes no sense to any one not connected to Breitbart.

I don’t want to pile on Prepostericity, who has engaged in some serious errors in judgment, to put it mildly, but who has also been the victim of one of the nastier cyberstalking campaigns in recent memory. But I have a feeling that his recent comments about the judge are going to prove very counterproductive when Kimberlin tries to convince the judge he violated the injunction.


Personally insulting the judge is never a good litigation strategy.
Comment by Patterico — 11/20/2011 @ 12:29 am


I’d like to think his outburst was a temporary fit of anger.


But he also knows I can’t support him when he says outrageous things.
Comment by Patterico — 11/20/2011 @ 12:31 am


I hasten to add that those outrageous things do not include his statements that Kimberlin is a convicted bomber. Which he is.


By the way, I eagerly await the courtroom audio to hear if Kimberlin claimed to be exonerated regarding the bombings.


And if he did so under oath.
Comment by Patterico — 11/20/2011 @ 12:34 am




Insulting the judge won’t win you any sympathy.


Kimberlin is a pile of sludge.
Comment by DohBiden — 11/20/2011 @ 8:13 am

Thanksgiving Day Update

"Perry Mason always got the criminal to admit the crime," @Patterico tweeted on Thanksgiving. "But what if he got the criminal to commit provable perjury? Almost as good!"

This appears to be a reference to Socrates' claims that he was better than Perry Mason in court and he got Brett Kimberlin to admit something on the stand that Patterico can prove isn't true on the internet by using google and pretending that he is a deputy district attorney from Los Angeles. Or is he?

At the Pffugee Camp blog, Socrates wrote, "I have some very good news. A blogging friend has listened to the November 14th hearing and was very impressed. Things are now making 100% sense to that person. It's been like that for me the whole time, but it's nice to know that someone else gets it."

Stay tuned.

Enjoy your turkey. Patterico sent bizarre tweets on the 4th of July so he doesn't take holidays off. And Scooby Doo is usually pretty busy on Thanksgiving.

To be continued...

(originally posted on November 17, 2011)

It's always the media's fault even when you're the writer.

"Why was @DMatthewstewart recruited in June to help @Goatsred? What are his skills? Being a goofball? Hacking? Making bets?" I asked on Twitter today.

According to Andrew Breitbart researcher Liberty_Chick aka Mandy Nagy, "He's a keen researcher. And yes, he is a goofball (which is refreshing when you're under a lot of misguided harassment)."

On January 10, I sent an email to Mike Stack AKA @goatsred about an article written by @DMatthewStewart called "The Smoking Gun's Carelessness Leads to SWAT Team Raids on Individual," published on the Yahoo Contributor Network as an opinion/editorial that same day. His article contained many mistakes which I feared might be deliberate.

The main issue with the article is that it harps on Stack being allegedly singled out for being one of the first to RT the @RepWeiner underwear tweet when he wasn't even around that night on May 27. Multiple times, Stewart claims Stack was the victim of alleged swattings based upon the bogus premise that all he did was tweet.

In a tweet that day, Stewart blamed a nameless editor: "Hey @ronbryn I actually agree with you in the hatchet editing job. And there are a few other things too. Can we talk and stay on topic?"

I try to avoid Mr. Stewart since I'm 99 percent certain he sent me ten obscene text messages on October 15 after I called him a hypocrite on Twitter for complaining about doxxing by the left on the right but then engaging in it himself, and threatening to release social security numbers. He also tweeted publicly for me to kill myself and his faithful lackey @DoctorWarbucks threatened to hunt me down in Brooklyn and kick me in the head with his boot.

@DoctorWarbucks tweeted, "@dmatthewstewart must b trippin if you think im bowing down to @ronbryn Hand delivering a xmas card to him from Timberlin to his mouth. Word."

Stewart writes outrageous blog posts about me calling me a criminal and he started a blog with a similar name to this one to mock it. For some reason, he likes to joke that I use a "banana phone" to pleasure myself. For the record, I never owned one.

But Mr. Stewart wonders why we can't just hug it out. (And @DoctorWarbucks "apologized": "I apologize Ron for making any threats to you. I did not mean it and I am not really going to come to your house. i was only messing with you because you have been messing with some of my friends. so dont cry & take it seriously. just chill bro")

"I actually agree with a few points you made in that email. And I agree the editing was terrible," DMatthewStewart tweeted, after I mentioned this email on Twitter today.

However, @DMatthewStewart claims, "I have no control of that. It belongs to yahoo. I retained no rights. But I didn't agree with what you thought was bogus."

Even though @PatDollard claimed in an August podcast that Stewart worked for Andrew Breitbart's Big sites, @DMatthewStewart claims, "That was a mistake. An incorrect statement."




January 10 email to Mike Stack aka Goatsred:

Again, I'm trying to help. But you might take this the wrong way. Anyway, as an editor and someone who knows this story pretty well, here are my thoughts:

The entire yahoo news article is based on a completely wrong and bogus thesis...

Either that's your choice, your's and Doug's choice, or you are being duped...or it's just poorly edited.

Or it's typical blogosphere dumbshow bullcrap...get something wrong so the other side can alinsky and then both sides are right.

Either way....i hope you get these fixed...since they ruin the story, which is mostly accurate.

Anyway, The Smoking Gun never accused you of being an early RTer of Weiner and that's Dave/Doug/whatever his name's main thesis.

"Mike Stack, a 39-year-old New Jersey resident, is known as “goatsred” in the Twitterverse, where he has helped lead a months-long assault on the New York City politician. Stack was joined at the hip in this pursuit by “patriotusa76,” who gave his name as “Dan Wolfe” and was the online avenger who happened last Friday night to discover the notorious tweet emanating from Weiner’s account."

www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/internet/mike-stack-weinergate-co-pilot-219073

The Smoking Gun reported Dan Wolfe "was the online avenger who happened last Friday night to discover the notorious tweet emanating from Weiner’s account."

http://voices.yahoo.com/the-smoking-guns-carelessness-leads-swat-team-raids-10813497.html?cat=9

These lines are bogus:

"Even the touch of sarcasm when Stack "happened to discover the tweet" is blatant when contrasted to the cabal TSG suggests existed."

They said Dan Wolfe "happened to discover", not you.

"And finally Mike Stack was not the first or only person to see the pictures, he was not even the first to "retweet" the picture either. Former Raw Story editor Ron Brynaert knew this from very early on and eventually wrote about it on his personal blog just two weeks after the Smoking Gun story."

The first sentence I already showed was wrong...the second sentence is wrong, too...my blog was from August not two weeks after The Smoking Gun.

Bastone - if he chose to respond - would just alinsky and cherry pick the wrong things....

this should be fixed too, since it implies it came after his first letter to you about the vets72 thing:

"But Bastone seems to be eager to continue the Smoking Gun's smearing of Stack by asking him "what did the pepper spray feel like" in his response, as emails show."

This should be proven....or edited:

"The same user name appears on the Daily Kos website and has long been believed the user is Democrat operative Neal Rauhauser."

More stuff referring to you retweeting...when the issue is you talking to teens to get dirt on Weiner..which is never mentioned in the story:

"The question now becomes not who Mike Stack is or what he has done in his past; which he has never denied. But how is that relevant enough to the tweeting of Weiner's inappropriate picture to be part of the story. The answer is that there is no relevance."

and

"The end result is the personal destruction of someone who did nothing more than participate in social media in the political sphere."

No, you sent the stuff to Breitbart....it's Dan Wolfe who "did nothing more than participate in social media in the political sphere."

(Update: Whois info for Tommy Christopher's website "Daily Dose" lists "Thomas Eric Beller" as the owner, and other things I've found back that up. However, Mr. Christopher said on a recent podcast aimed at attacking Daily Caller reporter Jeff Poor for reporting on him, "I feel like I'm lying almost" when he provides his name to the Secret Service guards at the White House" and that the "name on his birth certificate isn't either of the two." "I have friends everywhere...." Christopher told Ed Morrissey, and proved it when many conservatives stood up for him on Twitter and at their blogs (as usual, most liberal bloggers just completely ignored it). To be continued...)

"I asked my friend Caleb to witness the call because this person threatened my family and has waged a cyberstalking campaign against me," Mediaite's Tommy Christopher responded in an email last night when I complained about a weird phone call we had last night to (redacted).

Mr. Christopher has ducked my questions regarding his role in the fake Weinergate teens hoax for the last eight months, and when I noticed that he had a long history of using his family as props in his satire and news articles - and even co-starred in his old videos - I wondered how outing the real name of a White House correspondent could endanger them. And I thought it was strange that Mr. Christopher had so many conservatives attacking Daily Caller reporter Jeff Poor, who first revealed he wasn't using his real name.

See: What is Mediaite blogger Tommy Christopher’s real name?

Is it possible Tommy Christopher aka Mr. McNulty and his brother - an activist - both fight to keep their real last name secret because they are related to a New York Times executive who seems to only follow liberal bloggers on her Twitter account?

Mr. McNulty accused me of blackmail because I sought answers - in part - to help Mike Stack aka @Goatsred who has been menaced for eight months over Weinergate ever since mysterious sock Dan Wolfe aka @patriotusa76 vanished.

See: Stack's new blog where he has been chronicling the many horrible pranks and accusations hurled at him by Democratic consultant Neal Rauhauser and his #P2 friends.

Stay tuned... Follow @ronbryn on Twitter.

It sure got quiet after I outed Mr. Christopher. I guess we both have no readers or followers on the Twitter.

Even though Rep. Anthony Weiner resigned in June of 2011, the former Democratic Congressman continued to pay his top financial adviser $8,000 a month for the rest of the year.

In March of 2006, Crain's New York Business referred to Dolev Azaria as a "fund-raising whiz," so it seems strange that a Queens congressman who resigned after being caught lying about an online sexual scandal would still keep her on the payroll, if he had little need to raise money anymore. But Azaria's luster as a "fund-raising whiz" may have faded since 2006, considering none of the Democrats she has been reported as helping to raise money for in the past currently hold any elective office, including, of course, Weiner.

FEC filings for Friends of Weiner indicate that Azaria might have received a nearly 40% raise after Weiner quit on June 16, 2011, raising her salary from $6,300 to $8,000-to-8,500 a month.

Azaria didn't respond to questions I sent her, so I can only theorize if Weiner kept paying her because he plans to run for mayor of New York City in 2013 or for some other reason.

"Shamed former Rep. Anthony Weiner and his wife, Huma Abedin, looked the picture of happiness as they strolled through the Flatiron District with their infant son over the weekend," The New York Post reported just a few days ago, so perhaps he's still mulling a political comeback.

The October quarterly filing shows Azaria began drawing $8500 a month for "Administrative Services" beginning on August 3, 2011. Even after Weiner resigned, FEC records show Azaria also was reimbursed for scattered meals and other small costs, such as telephone and office supplies. Until June 30, Azaria had been earning $6300 a month as the July and April quarterly filings show. The 2011 year end filing indicates Azaria's monthly salary dropped slightly from $8,500 to $8,000 for the last two months of 2011.



"Former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) spent more than $130,000 in campaign funds in the three months after he resigned from the House on June 24, according to new filings with the Federal Election Commission," Russell Berman reported for The Hill on October 23, 2011. "That total was more than what all but three of the 11 sitting members of New York City’s House delegation spent during that time."

Weiner’s campaign reported more than $10,000 in travel expenses during the third quarter, which began a week after his resignation became official. The campaign spent another $25,000 on consulting firms and “policy research,” and slightly less than $30,000 on legal fees.

Weiner stepped down after admitting he had repeatedly lied about sending lewd photos and messages to women on social networking websites. His campaign reported refunding $15,000 in contributions during the third quarter, and ended the filing period with nearly $92,000 cash on hand.

“Most of the expenditures, including the travel to Washington, are associated with the winding down of Anthony’s campaign,” said Risa Heller, a Weiner spokeswoman whose firm is being paid by the campaign. “I remain on the payroll to field the regular calls, like this one, that continue to come in related to his service in Congress.”

Azaria's name didn't come up in The Hill article, even though she personally received close to 20% of the reported $130,000 spent in campaign funds during that period.

Berman's article added, "The spending of political contributions on legal fees and even consultants after a lawmaker has resigned in scandal might be 'unpalatable to the public,' but it is generally legal, said Lisa Gilbert, deputy director of Congress Watch at the watchdog group Public Citizen. 'The only bright line that exists is that it [the money must be] connected to the time in office,' she said."

According to LegiStorm, Dolav Azaria began working for Rep. Weiner in August of 2001 as a part time employee. Promoted to special assistant in 2002, Azaria brought home $26,833.32 for the year, and earned $29,000 in 2003. But Azaria's salaries since being promoted to financial adviser in the summer of 2004 aren't tracked by LegiStorm anymore (the 4th quarterly from 2004 for congressional staff salaries didn't even list her: link).

Over a decade ago, Weiner and Azaria used to live in the same apartment complex on Avenue V in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. One website notes, "A few times in 2002, FW (Friends of Weiner) reimbursed Dolev Azaria ([redacted] Avenue V, Apt 5D [next to Weiner's apartment 5C], Brooklyn, New York 11229) for supplies." Filings show Azaria was reimbursed between $500 and $600 in 2002, but that a $70.35 payment she was paid on 3/21/03 was voided on 6/30/03.

The Barton has 91 units and Weiner's room was right next door to Azaria's when she started working part-time for the then-single congressman. At the time, Weiner was in his late thirties, while Azaria was about 20-years-old.

If Weiner and Azaria ever dated, that information never reached the NYC gossip pages, but they did share one memorable summer evening "huddled..until the wee hours" together with two of the biggest entertainment stars in the world.

In August of 2004, the NY Daily News reported, "Hours after the final gavel ended the Democratic National Convention in Boston, Jon Stewart and Leonardo DiCaprio still huddled at the Roxy with New York Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn & Queens) and his finance aide, Dolev Azaria, They stayed until the wee hours Friday."

More from the NYC tabloid's gossip column:

"We could have gone longer," Weiner told us. "That's the problem with Boston - everything closes at 2 a.m."

Weiner, who shared a group apartment at 50 Grand St. with Stewart when the "Daily Show" star was waiting tables at Lupes and breaking into standup, said: "Jon doesn't go out much in New York. So it was great that he could be out."

The group had an intense discussion about politics, with the young rep (who will run for mayor against Mayor Bloomberg next year) and the actors "building up the Democratic party so Jon can tear it down next week."

The stars had watched Sen. John Kerry's speech from a $5 million skybox with John Cusack, Sean (P. Diddy) Combs and Christie Hefner - paid for with donations from Los Angeles rich guys Steve Bing, Casey Wasserman and Ron Burkle.

Sen. Hillary Clinton was also in the box, alone after Bill and Chelsea Clinton went to Martha's Vineyard to stay at the home of Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg. Earlier, Hillary had reportedly been "looking at the frilly things" at the La Perla lingerie store. Hmmm

In December of 2005, NY Mag's Sarah Bernard predicted "at Least One Person on This Page Will Be Justly Famous by 2010."

26. Dolev Azaria, 23, campaign-finance director.
Two years ago, Congressman Anthony Weiner tapped Azaria to be his campaign-finance director; she oversaw a staff of six, some of whom were Ph.D.’s fifteen years her senior. Now she’s launching her own political-consultancy firm.

Five years later, in December of 2010, NY Mag did a follow-up: "We Said They’d Be Famous: What Actually Happened?"

Chadwick Matlin reported,

Azaria is still helping raise money for Anthony Weiner, just like she was five years ago. But now she has a healthy collection of other Democrats in her stable — Sean Maloney, John Sabini, David Yassky, Anthony Weiner, and Mike McMahon. She says she’s angling to get more involved in the nonprofit sector in the near future. “I remain strongly dedicated to supporting people whose ideology I believe in and whose career I want to further, but I also remain committed to giving back to the larger community and to people in need throughout the world.”

According to the NYC Campaign Finance Board, Azaria was the treasurer for a political action committee called BIG APPLE PAC FEDERAL in 2002. The PAC distributed $11,500 to Democrats running for office that year, as revealed at Open Secrets.

During the 2009-2010 campaign finance cycle, Azaria earned $125,202 with Weiner, according to Open Secrets, and $86,652 for the 2012 cycle, so far.

In 2010, Azaria earned at least $28,000 working for freshman Democratic Rep. Michael E. McMahon during his losing campaign to Republican Michael Grimm, a former FBI special agent. In 2006, Azaria earned $57,000 in consulting fees working for former State Senator John Sabini, who resigned after losing the Democratic primary to Hiram Monserrate (who was later infamously ousted after being arrested for sexual assault) and being appointed to chair the New York State Racing and Wagering Board by former NY Governor David Paterson; and $56,000 fundraising for Sean Patrick Maloney who unsuccessfully ran for New York state Attorney General that year, but came in 3rd place in the Democratic primary. The other reported Azaria client, David Yassky, lost his 2006 US Congress bid against Rep. Yvette Clarke (NY-11).

The Daily News recently reported, "Disgraced ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner used campaign money to hire private investigators to chase down his lie about his now-notorious crotch-shot tweet."

Alison Gendar's article added,

Weiner paid T&M Protective Services of Manhattan $13,290 for “legal services” in the fourth quarter of 2011, financial statements filed Tuesday with the Federal Election Commission reveal.

Sources told the Daily News, however, that Weiner hired T&M — a firm loaded with former NYPD sleuths — when he was in full spin mode over the controversy that eventually led to his resignation.

Two sources familiar with Weiner’s downfall said the Queens pol told investigators his Twitter account was hacked. T&M investigated — and learned Weiner had sent them on a fool’s errand.

However, the NY Daily News failed to note that the October quarterly filing shows Weiner paid T&M an additional $29,832.00 on September 1, 2011.

According to Open Secrets, the Weiner campaign paid $43,122, in total, to T&M Protective Services in 2011.


(Hat tip to Qritiq for noticing the payouts to Azaria in 2011)

Two of the most powerful Democrats in the world called Sandra Fluke - a 30-year-old activist who chose to study law at Georgetown in order to protest their birth control health coverage policy - because radio host Rush Limbaugh crudely compared her to a prostitute or slut.

Many conservatives - and at least one liberal - believe Fluke is a plant, and her activism is being coordinated by the White House, progressive activism groups and partisan blogs like Media Matters. NBC News falsely claimed Fluke was only 23-years-old and online liberals refer to her as a "college student", when she already graduated from college and is an adult attending law school. President Obama reportedly told Fluke her parents should be proud of her, which seems to be an odd thing to say to a 30-year-old woman.

Both President Barack Obama and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have many things in common, but one particular thing in common is that they both have employed Jesse C. Lee to work with liberal bloggers and online journalists. Mr. Lee used to belong to a secretive liberal mailing list called Townhouse which reportedly had hundreds of members.

As Sam Stein reported for The Huffington Post in May of 2011:

The Obama administration has created and staffed a new position tucked inside their communications shop for helping coordinate rapid response to unfavorable stories and fostering and improving relations with the progressive online community.

"This week, Jesse Lee will move from the new media department into a role in the communications department as Director of Progressive Media & Online Response," read an internal memo from Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer, provided to The Huffington Post. "For the last two years, Jesse has often worn two hats working in new media and serving as the White House's liaison with the progressive media and online community. Starting this week, Jesse will take on the second role full time working on outreach, strategy and response."

The post is a new one for this White House. Rapid response has been the purview of the Democratic National Committee (and will continue to be). Lee's hire, however, suggests that a portion of it will now be handled from within the administration. It also signals that the White House will be adopting a more aggressive engagement in the online world in the months ahead.

How many folks working in the White House belonged to Townhouse, Journolist or other possible liberal listservs, in which they secretly plot to push memes to counter the GOP? And how come nobody seems to care about this coordination between liberal politicians, liberal activists, liberal journalists and liberal bloggers, which is similar in some ways to the Pentagon analysts scandal during the Bush Administration. These days, activism and journalism seem to be one and the same, which means that there is more of a chance that newspapers could be publishing propaganda instead of facts. Most members I know who belonged to Townhouse and/or Journolist care more about their team winning than uncovering the truth.

Huffington Post's article noted at the bottom, "Disclosure: Lee is a personal friend of Stein."

On Friday, March 2nd, I asked Jesse C. Lee, the White House Director of Progressive Media & Online Response, in a tweet, "Can I send you some questions about emails you sent to liberal Townhouse listserv when you worked for Ex-Speaker @NancyPelosi?"

I then tweeted to Greg Sargent, who blogs for The Plumline at The Washington Post, "If GOP Speaker flack blasted a RW blog 8 minutes after it was published to secret conservative listserv would it be a story?"

Both ignored me.

This is a Townhouse email from Jesse Lee, written on November 9, 2007, while he worked for then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

Subject: TPM: Presto! CNN Edits Pelosi's Quote To Make Her Say Dem Congress "Hasn't Done Anything"
Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2007 19:08:24 -0500
From: "Lee, Jesse"

Doesn’t get much more blatant or deliberate than this…

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2007/11/presto_cnn_edit.php

I sent the following email to Sargent last Friday.

Also ignored.

Hello,

I'm hoping you can answer a few questions about the day future Obama appointee Jesse Lee blasted your TPM article to Townhouse when he worked for then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

1) Did you send this story to Pelosi's office before you published?

2) Did Pelosi's office tip you off to the story in the first place?

3) Do you think it would be a story if this were about a Republican Speaker's spokesman sending a blog blasting MSNBC or CNN to conservative bloggers nine minutes after it was published, if you don't think this is one now?

4) Do you think it's wrong to use stuff from secret listserv to report on how White House shill coordinates with bloggers? [Daily Kos diary: Watch out for the White House shills]

5) Do you agree that the CNN edit was "blatant or deliberate"?

6) How often do you communicate with Mr. Lee and other White House flacks?

7) Did you send a thank you email to Jesse for blasting this?

8) Did TPM get a traffic surge from this? Do you remember if other bloggers linked up from the Townhouse email?

9) Did you ever think about quoting Lee when he editorialized in Townhouse emails or feel guilty for not being able to do it?

and

10) Strange wording here: "But Pelosi actually said that she was unhappy with Congress because we haven't done anything to end the Iraq War."

What do you mean "we"? I mean your article - to some readers - might look like you wrote a confusing sentence with a "she" turning into a "we" in order to make a "creative" edit of a quote in a "blatant or deliberate" manner or um maybe someone in Congress wrote that line and you forgot to change the "we" into "they". Funny thing is though in my opinion you were correct to use "we" since you're a partisan hack who carefully criticizes Democrats now and then to pretend you are objective, like everyone else these days.



Full disclosure: Raw Story is suing me for $500,000 for reporting on the coordination among most Dem organizations and - apparently (should i congratulate you guys for this?) every single left-leaning online reporter currently working today.

I've seen blogs do stuff like this before. But never The New York Times.

Twenty minutes after Barrett Brown tweeted a link to a New York Times article quoting him last Tuesday, March 6, I asked the by-lined reporter a question, which she ignored.

[UPDATE at bottom: Reporter who has been Barrett Brown's "go-to" reporter at The New York Times provides canned response for deletion.]

Barrett Brown - who is often referred to as an "unofficial spokesperson" for Anonymous, although many dispute the designation - sent the tweet "My statement to Times on this totally gay situation link #Anonymous #Antisec #ProjectPM" because, at the time, the article by Somini Sengupta contained that statement.

It doesn't anymore, and the corrections don't exactly explain why.

Brown's politically incorrect - unless you're on 4chan - citing of a "totally gay situation" referred to how "Arrests Sow Mistrust Inside a Clan of Hackers," as the NY Times reported, "Hector Xavier Monsegur, who operated under the Twitter handle The Real Sabu, was charged with 12 criminal counts of hacking into unauthorized computers, the Justice Department said, adding that he had been cooperating with law enforcement officials for several months."

This is what The New York Times originally reported on March 6, but removed later for unknown reasons, taken from this cache link:

Barrett Brown, a member of Anonymous who has often served as a spokesman for the group, said that his home in Dallas had been raided and that the F.B.I. had sent three agents to his mother’s house, where he was staying last night.

"I received an advance warning of the raid and put all my laptops in very specific places where they couldn’t be found," Mr. Brown said. He said the agents left without making an arrest.

Mr. Brown said the arrests elsewhere would not slow down the Anonymous movement. "There are lots and lots of people here that continue to work. The F.B.I. did not really cut the head off of anything. Anonymous will go forward as usual. So will I. We hired an army of lawyers last January. We are prepared for a big slug-out."

In response to Barrett's tweet and the linked Times story, I tweeted, "@BarrettBrownLOL Who gave you "advance warning of the raid"? Do you have an inside FBI source? How come @SominiSengupta didn't ask you that?"



The Times article originally was much shorter, and only mentioned that "Nicole Perlroth contributed reporting," while at double the length but without any mention of Brown it now states, "Reporting was contributed by Nicole Perlroth, Steven Yaccino, Alex Vadukul and Tim Stelloh."

A few hours later, I also tweeted, "@SominiSengupta @NicolePerlroth Did you ask @BarrettBrownLOL who warned him of FBI raid so he could hide his laptops?" That tweet was also ignored by Brown, Sengupta and Perlroth.

The following day, Brown also ignored my tweets questioning why his pastebin account of the alleged raid on his mother's house by the FBI referred to AnonymousSabu as "a degenerate pussy traitor who couldn't face two fucking years in prison, making him the biggest pussy in the history of mankind." Brown had written, "The documentation left with me by the FBI after the raid on my mother's home states that the evidence they were looking for pertains to 'conspiracy to obstruct justice, and the obstruction of justice, i.e. tampering with a victim, witness, or informant,'" so his attacks on the informant and/or witness don't seem very wise, if he doesn't want to be charged with any crimes.

Some twitterers have speculated that Brown also might be a confidential informant. In response to haters, Brown jokingly tweeted, "According to my new CIA handlers..." on March 10. Brown's frequent antagonist on Twitter, Tom Ryan from "Provide Security" tweeted, "you should tell why you typed up that warrant And pastebin? Because your book deal is as a paid informant. #justsayin."

Not long after my tweet, Patterico, a Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney, blogged, "Barrett Brown claimed his residence had been raided by the FBi, but told the New York Times that he had had advance word of the raid and had hidden his laptops."

At Ars Technica, Jon Brodkin noticed that the Brown quote was removed from the Times article at some unspecified time later:

Self-appointed Anonymous spokesman Barrett Brown told the New York Times that he received advance warning of the FBI raid on his home in Dallas, and that he hid his laptops to avoid them being found. Brown promised that "Anonymous will go forward as usual. So will I. We hired an army of lawyers last January. We are prepared for a big slug-out." (The quote seems to have been deleted from the Times story, although a portion of the quote exists in another Times article and the full quote appears in some other accounts.)

As it currently stands, this is the only correction accompanying the article which mysteriously removed Brown's statement:

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: March 10, 2012

An article on Wednesday about arrests in a government crackdown on a confederation of hackers, using information from court documents, misstated the age of Jake Davis, one of those arrested. He is 19, not 29.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: March 8, 2012

An article on Wednesday about arrests in a government crackdown on a confederation of hackers gave an incorrect spelling from court documents for the surname of one of those arrested. He is Donncha O’Cearbhail, not O’Cearrbhail.

A version of this article appeared in print on March 7, 2012, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Arrests Sow Mistrust Inside a Clan of Hackers.

As Ars Technica's Brodkin noted, another link on the New York Times website retained a fragment of Brown's statement, which was originally part of a Page 1 story: a blog in the Bits section credited only to Nicole Perlroth called "What Do the LulzSec Arrests Mean for Anonymous?."

“There are lots and lots of people here that continue to work. The F.B.I. did not really cut the head off of anything. Anonymous will go forward as usual,” said Barrett Brown, who has claimed to speak on behalf of Anonymous in connection with past attacks, like the one on Stratfor in December. “We are prepared for a big slug-out.”

Searching for Brown's name in The New York Times search engine doesn't bring up the March 6 article the raid was reported in, either.

Why did New York Times remove all references to the alleged FBI raid of Brown's apartment, including a quote which alleged that the Anonymous spokesperson had been tipped off?

In February, The Daily Mail reported, "A confidential call between the FBI and Scotland Yard was recorded by hacking group Anonymous - the very people they were trying to catch, it was revealed today."

Mark Duell reported,

The group released a 15-minute tape of what appears to be a conference call last month about tracking and prosecuting the group’s members.

The top-secret conversation begins with a bizarre exchange between the U.S. and British agents, where they talk about cheese and eating 'McDonald's at the Pentagon'.

"The #FBI might be curious how we're able to continuously read their internal comms for some time now. #OpInfiltration," @AnonymousIRC tweeted, so perhaps that's how Mr. Brown received his "advanced warning" of the FBI raid.

Update:

12/27/11: BarrettBrownLOL assures NY Times reporter Nicole Perlroth that the posted denial that the Stratfor hack wasn't #Anonymous op is bogus."

12/30/11 "more stolen data to come?" Perlroth links to "Anonymous spokesman" Barrett BrownLOL's pastebin.

Before Forbes and NY Times gigs, Perlroth "worked as the Foreign Policy Intern in the Office of Senator Edward M. Kennedy."

Perlroth's past as Foreign Policy Intern in Sen. Kennedy's office is apparently irrelevant or unknown to the NY Times.

While at Princeton in December of 2003, Perlroth worked on the 2004 "Joe Lieberman for President Campaign" during a "Joe-Term".



Finally, Perlroth semi-responded to my tweets over the last two days.

Hi Ron, Thanks for the inquiry, it's the type of q we often get from readers. In this case the story that was originally posted... on the Web was updated and revised multiple times before it went to print, with some material deleted as more was added. In happens all the time, in part to freshen the story and in part because we think that changes make it better. Hope that helps!

Of course, Perlroth's answer doesn't help at all, and I don't expect her to respond to my tweets in response:

"Did you contact FBI to confirm that @BarrettBrownLOL's mom's house was raided? Did you ask him how he got advanced warning?"

"Do your @NYTimes editors know you campaigned for Lieberman, interned for Kennedy and that you are biased towards Anonymous?"

Barrett Brown told Bloomberg Business Week that he was tipped off to the raid in a short interview:

I got a piece of information last night that allegedly emanates from the FBI chain of command. There are people in there that are sympathetic. So I did get warning. They came and raided my apartment in Dallas at 6:30 a.m., and knocked down the door since I wasn’t there. They came to my mom’s place [where Brown was staying] at the same time. A small group of three Dallas FBI. Mom answered the door, she woke me up, I went outside to talk to them. They’re still there.

"Self-appointed" Anonymous spokesman [or not] Barrett Brown certainly has his admirers in the mainstream media and liberal blogosphere.

Veteran journalist Michael Isikoff broke many big stories for The Washington Post and Newsweek - including the alleged desecration of Korans at Guantanamo Bay and former President Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky - before becoming the national investigative correspondent for NBC News in 2010



A screenshot from a 2011 interview reveals that Isikoff was apparently "honored" to meet Brown, just weeks after Anonymous hackers attacked a US security firm. Perhaps that's the reason Isikoff didn't inform NBC News viewers that Brown was then currently "on day four of withdrawals from opiates."

"He says he's honored," Barrett Brown bragged online to Anonymous members in an IRC chat during the middle of a March, 2011 NBC News interview with Michael Isikoff.



Isikoff can be seen seated next to Brown in the video, so he was able to witness Brown's claim that he was "honored" live as Anonymous members were informed. In his article, Isikoff wrote that Brown "allowed a reporter to observe as he and what he said were other Anonymous members communicated in a secure chat room."

"Why did you tell @BarrettBrownLOL that you were 'honored' to meet him when you interviewed him last year? Or did he lie?," I asked Isikoff over Twitter on Saturday, but he didn't respond. Brown has evaded my questions since last year, although he sometimes mocks me or smears me as crazy, along with his associates Kenneth Lipp and Neal Rauhauser.

Although Isikoff introduced Brown as an "underground commander in a new warfare", and reported that "Brown calls himself a senior strategist for Anonymous", Isikoff ended the NBC News network report by adding, "Brown told us he is not personally involved in any computer hacking but he fully expects federal prosecutors will come after him."

More from Isikoff's related article:

A leader of the computer hackers group known as Anonymous is threatening new attacks on major U.S. corporations and government officials as part of at an escalating “cyberwar” against the citadels of American power.

“It’s a guerrilla cyberwar — that’s what I call it,” said Barrett Brown, 29, who calls himself a senior strategist and “propagandist” for Anonymous. He added: “It’s sort of an unconventional, asymmetrical act of warfare that we’ve involved in. And we didn’t necessarily start it. I mean, this fire has been burning.”

A defiant and cocky 29-year-old college dropout, Brown was cavalier about accusations that the group is violating federal laws. He insisted that Anonymous members are only policing corporate and governmental wrongdoing — as its members define it.

“Our people break laws, just like all people break laws,” he added. “When we break laws, we do it in the service of civil disobedience. We do so ethically. We do it against targets that have asked for it.”

And those targets are apparently only growing in number. Angered over the treatment of Bradley Manning, the Army private who is accused of leaking classified U.S. government documents to WikiLeaks and who is currently being held in solitary confinement at a military brig in Quantico, Va., Brown says the group is planning new computer attacks targeting government officials involved in his case.

....

(In the interview, Brown, a sometimes freelance journalist, said he is not personally involved in hacking computers, stressing that he only advises the group, participates in its internal strategy sessions and serves as its spokesman. An FBI spokeswoman on Tuesday described the bureau’s investigation of Anonymous members as “ongoing,” but declined further comment.)

Like The New York Times and other media outlets, Isikoff made no mention of Brown's - perhaps still ongoing - drug addictions but unlike other journalists he had first hand knowledge: Brown told Isikoff himself.

Tim Rogers reported for D Magazine last March - in a story called "Barrett Brown is Anonymous" - that his friend emailed him the night before the NBC News interview, telling him, "Apparently Isikoff is freaked out about having another journalist here."

"But I'll secretly record the proceedings and provide to you," Brown promised Rogers.

A little context: Michael Isikoff is a former investigative reporter for Newsweek. Now he’s a correspondent for NBC News. He flew in from Washington, D.C., in late February with a producer and a cameraman to talk to Brown about his involvement with a notorious international group of hackers called Anonymous that recently used their Low Orbit Ion Cannon to bring down the websites of MasterCard and Visa and the Swedish government, among others, because the institutions had made moves hostile to WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange. It’s complicated—as Isikoff would learn. But more on that in a moment.

....

Isikoff’s cameraman and producer are the first through the door. Then the man himself, suited, gray hair, short. We shake hands. It feels awkward.

Ever the congenial host, Brown introduces us. “Tim’s a friend,” he says to Isikoff. “He’s writing a story. You guys can have a turf war if you want, but I’m on day four of withdrawals from opiates, so I don’t want to get involved.” Only, because he speaks in a low, rapid baritonal mumble, like he is the world’s worst auctioneer, it comes out: “Timsafriendhes‑writingastoryyouguyscanhaveaturfwarifyou
wantbutImondayfourofwithdrawalfromopiatessoIdontwanttogetinvolved.”

Having mumbled the introduction, Brown steps out onto the tiny second-floor patio to smoke a cigarette, leaving me with Loehr, Isikoff, and his two-man crew. The guys from D.C. stare at me.

“What did he just say?” the producer asks.

“Barrett said that I’m a friend of his and that he’s on day four of withdrawals from opiates.”

Brown has used heroin at various points in his life. On the night about a year ago that he met Loehr, in fact, at the Quarter Bar on McKinney Avenue, he told her he was an ex-junkie. “Ex” is a relative prefix. To manage his addiction, Brown was prescribed Suboxone, a semisynthetic opioid that is meant to be taken orally, but he had been dissolving the film strips in water and shooting the solution to produce a more satisfying high. On the Sunday before Isikoff’s visit, Brown showed me the track marks on his arm. He said he had run out of Suboxone, though, and was saving his last dose because he didn’t want to suffer through withdrawals during his big television interview. Then Isikoff rescheduled from Tuesday to Thursday. Brown couldn’t wait. Now he is hurting.

Isikoff and his crew seem to have trouble processing it all. Was Brown kidding about the drugs? Who is this friend again? And will he have to interpret everything Brown says? They are too befuddled to fight any “turf war.” In any case, Brown returns from his smoke break and launches into a primer on Anonymous, sending the cameraman scrambling to set up his lights. The producer clips mics to Brown and Isikoff. I slip into the kitchen, where I can eat the grapes that Brown’s mother bought for him while I watch the proceedings.

According to entertainment lawyer/disc jockey Mirna Hariz, Brown was shooting up heroin as late as 2010, and a week before the Isikoff interview, Rogers warned him "that if he’s going to have an impact, he’s going to have to connect with people, and he can’t do that on heroin. Words to that effect."

"At the risk of sounding like an asshole, a lot of the rules don’t apply to me," Brown informed Rogers. "My heroin addiction is much different than everyone else’s."

Perhaps it's a weird twitter bug...

How the heck did a Neal Rauhauser tweet show up on my Twitter timeline page?




When I reloaded, it was gone. Twitter does weird stuff sometimes, so who knows.

[4/8 Update at bottom: Weiner campaign collected $337,078 for congressional reelection race he bowed out of, but after scandal only refunded $15,000 to 4 contributors; $5,000 went to June donors; still "an active candidate" for 2013 NYC mayoral race, disgraced ex-congressman has until June to decide what to do with reported $4.8 million war chest]

2011 was not a banner year for Anthony Weiner. He started out a Congressman who wanted to become NYC mayor, and ended it out of office in disgrace.

This year might not be so great, either, if the Federal Election Commission disagrees that contributions for an election that was never to be can instead be earmarked for "winding down" costs. Post-resignation expenditures include $50,000 in disbursements to a top fundraiser and $40,000 to a security investigation firm "sent on a fool’s errand" to clear Weiner of online infidelities he eventually confessed to, after first blaming on hackers.

On January 31, 2012, the FEC sent a letter to the treasurer of Friends of Weiner, which demanded a response by March 6, related to the former Democratic Congressman's October quarterly report.

Back in 2007 the New York Observer, reported that "the treasurer for Mr. Weiner’s campaign is Nelson Braff, the co-founder and executive vice president at Perrin, Holden & Davenport Capital Corp., in Manhattan, who, according to the biography on the company’s Web site, is also an amateur comedian."

An American Comedy Institute catalog adds:

A consummate public speaker, Nelson's hobby for years was stand-up comedy, and he performed at such high profile comedy clubs as Don't Tell Mama, The Improv and Caroline's. He and his longtime friend Jody Eisenman formed PHD Capital, a Wall Street brokerage and investment-banking firm, in 1995.

Since the FEC letter warned of a potential audit, Mr. Braff should - it goes without saying - take the matter seriously. However, his response seems to ignore some of the FEC analyst's concerns, appears rather terse, and may not be viewed as "adequate."

Dear Treasurer:

This letter is prompted by the Commission's preliminary review of the report(s) referenced above. This notice requests information essential to full public disclosure of your federal election campaign finances. Failure to adequately respond by the response date noted above could result in an audit or enforcement action.

Additional information is needed for the following 1 item(s):

- While it is permissible for a person to make a contribution for the general election prior to the primary election, the recipient committee must employ an acceptable accounting method to distinguish between primary and general election contributions. (11 CFR § 102.9(e)) This general election amount must be maintained in the committee's account.

Since the candidate is not seeking office and will not participate in the 2012 general election, any contribution received for the general election must be returned to the donors, in accordance with 11 CFR § 110.1(b)(3). The use of general election contributions to pay primary debts and obligations is prohibited under the Act as such use could result in individuals making contributions with respect to the primary election in excess of the $2,500 per election limit. Any subsequent report(s) filed with the Commission must disclose the refund of any general election contributions. Refunds must be done within 60 days after the candidate's announcement not to seek re-election.

If you have not already done so, please inform the Commission of your corrective action immediately in writing and provide a photocopy of your check for any refund. Refunds are reported on Line 20(a), (b) or (c), as applicable, of the Detailed Summary Page and on a supporting Schedule B of the report covering the period in which they are made. (11 CFR § 104.8(d)(4))

Although the Commission may take further legal action, your prompt action to refund these contributions will be taken into consideration.

Please note, you will not receive an additional notice from the Commission on this matter. Adequate responses must be received by the Commission on or before the due date noted above to be taken into consideration in determining whether audit action will be initiated. Failure to comply with the provisions of the Act may also result in an enforcement action against the committee. Any response submitted by your committee will be placed on the public record and will be considered by the Commission prior to taking enforcement action. Requests for extensions of time in which to respond will not be considered.

Electronic filers must file amendments (to include statements, designations and reports) in an electronic format and must submit an amended report in its entirety, rather than just those portions of the report that are being amended.

If you should have any questions regarding this matter or wish to verify the adequacy of your response, please contact me on our toll-free number [redacted] (at the prompt press 5 to reach the Reports Analysis Division) or my local number [redacted].

Sincerely,
Jill Sugarman
Sr. Campaign Finance & Reviewing Analyst
476 Reports Analysis Division

The February 23, 2012 Friends of Weiner response to the FEC query was quite brief, and it may potentially get the campaign in deeper water, unless further information was provided before March 6.

This submission is in response to the Commission's request for additional information dated January 31, 2012, concerning the committee's October Quarterly Report (7/1/2011 - 9/30/2011).

The Committee used the funds that were in the committee's account to pay, as allowed in section 113.2 of the Commission's regulations, the ordinary and necessary expenses incurred in connection with the Congressman's duties as holder of federal office including costs associated with the winding down of the Congressional office. None of the funds contributed for the general election were used to promote his election to any office. The Committee refunded contributions to every contributor who requested a refund. The regulations expressly provide without any limitation that funds in a campaign account may be used for the purpose described above.

Friends of Weiner appears to completely ignore the analyst's complaint that "the recipient committee must employ an acceptable accounting method to distinguish between primary and general election contributions." The campaign also seems to be arguing - without explicitly stating it - that they are only compelled to return donations if contributors requested such.

According to CFR 113.2 - Permissible non-campaign use of funds include "[t]he costs of winding down the office of a former Federal officeholder for a period of 6 months after he or she leaves office."

Since Weiner's resignation took "effect at midnight, Tuesday, June 21, 2011," that would mean - according to that particular FEC rule cited by Friends of Weiner - the period would have commenced on December 21, 2011.

However, the most recent filing shows that multiple disbursements occurred after that date, including an $8,000 payment to campaign finance director Dolev Azaria [See previous article for more on Weiner's former next-door neighbor who has gotten paid over $50,000 since June: Weiner paid 'fund-raising whiz' $8K a month after he resigned] for administrative services, $2500 to Risa Heller for communication consultations, $1194 to TD Card Services for credit card payment, $1372.63 to the Baker Hostetler LLC for legal services and $5859.53 to SL Green Realty Corp. for rent all on December 30.



As the NY Daily News reported in February, in an article attributed to Alison Gendar called "Disgraced ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner used campaign money to hire private investigators to chase down his lie about his now-notorious crotch-shot tweet","Weiner paid T&M Protective Services of Manhattan $13,290 for 'legal services' in the fourth quarter of 2011."

That disbursement also occurred on December 30, which was nine days after the regulation cited by Friends of Weiner to explain why general election funds were being used to pay "winding down" costs.



However, the NY Daily News failed to note that the October quarterly filing shows Weiner paid T&M an additional $29,832.00 on September 1, 2011. According to Open Secrets, the Weiner campaign paid $43,122, in total, to T&M Protective Services in 2011.

According to the report filed on January 31, 2012, $25,311.02 still remained on hand at the close of 2011, so Azaria, Heller, and perhaps T & M might have gotten similar payouts at the end of January and even February.

Last October, Russell Berman reported for The Hill, "The handful of members of Congress who have resigned amid scandal in recent years have maintained active campaign accounts, federal records show, and they have spent tens of thousands of dollars in political contributions on legal fees, travel, public relations consultants and, in at least one case, the salary of a family member."

Weiner stepped down after admitting he had repeatedly lied about sending lewd photos and messages to women on social networking websites. His campaign reported refunding $15,000 in contributions during the third quarter, and ended the filing period with nearly $92,000 cash on hand.

“Most of the expenditures, including the travel to Washington, are associated with the winding down of Anthony’s campaign,” said Risa Heller, a Weiner spokeswoman whose firm is being paid by the campaign. “I remain on the payroll to field the regular calls, like this one, that continue to come in related to his service in Congress.”

....

The spending of political contributions on legal fees and even consultants after a lawmaker has resigned in scandal might be “unpalatable to the public,” but it is generally legal, said Lisa Gilbert, deputy director of Congress Watch at the watchdog group Public Citizen. “The only bright line that exists is that it [the money must be] connected to the time in office,” she said.

Only time will tell if the FEC decide to make an example out of Friends of Weiner. If an audit or other enforcement action is taken, then the FEC and media might look more closely at the nearly $100,000 spent just on Weiner's former "fund raising whiz" and the security firm hired to probe Weinergate.

"Please note, you will not receive an additional notice from the Commission on this matter," Sr. Campaign Finance & Reviewing Analyst for the FEC Jill Sugarman warned Friends of Weiner. "Adequate responses must be received by the Commission on or before the due date noted above to be taken into consideration in determining whether audit action will be initiated. Failure to comply with the provisions of the Act may also result in an enforcement action against the committee."

Weiner campaign collected $337,078 in contributions, but only refunded $16,000

According to the year-end filing for Friends of Weiner (pdf link), the reelection committee collected $337,078 but only refunded $15,000 to four donors after the Democratic congressman resigned. Two of the donors that received refunds appear to have made contributions after the scandal broke, but before and after he admitted sending tweets.

The October Quarterly filing shows that $2,000 was refunded to Titan Capital Group's Russell Abrams on 7/26, $5,000 to Soltana Cracker's Brian Gold on 7/26, $3,000 to Taconic Investment Partners' Paul E. Pariser on 7/13, and $5,000 to real estate developer Donald Zucker on 7/26. The July Quarterly filing shows $1,000 was refunded to Titan Research & Development's Aaron Malinsky on May 1, which was close to four weeks before the infamous underwear tweet was sent.

According to the FEC filing, Pariser's contributions were made on June 7, 2011, which was the day after Weiner finally admitted sending the underwear tweet. Abrams' contribution was recorded as occurring on June 2. Zucker's came before the scandal.

Alison Gendar reported for The New York Daily News on October 20, 2011:

“Given the way things went, and the fact that I had just made the contribution a week or two before the scandal broke, I asked for a refund,” said Brian Gold, president of Sultana Distribution Services, a Bronx-based candy distribution center.

Gold added, "Once the scandal broke and it was clear his mayoral aspirations were over, it just seemed to make sense to ask for a refund. It’s very unfortunate that his indiscretions went down that road."

Actually, Gold's contribution was recorded as occurring on 4/12/11, which was about a month and a half before "the scandal broke."

Weiner's resignation took effect on June 21, so all refunds were made within the required 60 days period.

Gendar also reported,

Weiner also has $4.85 million war chest from his aborted New York City mayoral run, according the New York City Campaign Finance Board.

He has not closed that account or provided any refunds, according to board documents. His next city campaign update is due in January, 2012.

However, there doesn't seem to be any updates in 2012, since the last recorded expenditure from Weiner's mayoral war chest, was on July 25, according to the NYC Campaign Finance Board.

Last August the Queens Campaigner reported,

Weiner’s war chest now contains about $4.8 million, according to records from the city Campaign Finance Board raised from 2007-09, which the disgraced congressman was widely expected to use for a 2013 run. And according to the board, he has not officially dropped out of the race.

“As far as the paperwork on file with our agency is concerned, he is still an active candidate for 2013,” said Eric Friedman, spokesman for the board.

Weiner has several options for how to spend the money, but he is forbidden from putting it toward personal use.

He could donate the money to charity, give it back to his contributors or use it to make donations to political campaigns.

Joe Anuta added, "Weiner is required to alert the board by June 2013, the next election year, whether he will drop out of the race. Other than that, Weiner does not need to make any decisions."

Weiner hasn't collected any donations for the 2013 NYC mayoral race since 2009, and as Anuta reported, "[a]lthough the money is currently in a race for a city office, it would be possible for Weiner to transfer it for either a state or federal race," even if it is years or decades from now.

A lying troll named @CouldBeMe7 who pretends to be a conservative but is obviously tied to Democratic consultant/cyber-smearer/hoaxer Neal Rauhauser somehow was able to erase retweets I made of her smears and attacks against Rauhauser's "enemies".

A longtime friend of her's named @MuddleVanHeck wrote a blog post spinning her relationship to Rauhauser, but the two of them have been smearing conservatives like Twittergate victim @GregWHoward and @SwiftRead - who has been reporting on Neal's vile deeds for two years.  @CouldBeMe7 even smeared Mike Stack aka @Goatsred as a "girlfriend beater" and attacked all the women in the #BornFreeCrew who helped bring down Anthony Weiner.

Any conservative who vouches for these obvious "moby" trolls should not be trusted.

Here are a few screenshots; more to come:





 

6/15/12 Update: According to a source at the Board of Elections in the city of New York, former Congressman Anthony Weiner still has another year to decide if he wants to use the nearly $5,000,000 he has raised to run for mayor.

I had mistakenly reported that Weiner only had until June of 2012 to decide, but last year The Queens Campaigner reported, "Weiner is required to alert the board by June 2013, the next election year, whether he will drop out of the race." However, my source at the NYC Board of Elections told me that that date is speculation, and that a deadline won't be chosen until 2013. The New York Post recently reported that Weiner isn't running for mayor, but no official decision has been reached, as far as I could determine.

My source at the NYC Board of Elections agreed that it was strange that no papers in New York City were reporting that Weiner could still be a candidate for mayor in 2013, especially since he has nearly $5,000,000 and his committee recently moved to Manhattan.

As I exclusively reported last month (see below), the office for Friends of Weiner moved from Forest Hills to Manhattan on May 7, and is now using the email address for his longtime fundraiser Dolev Azaria, who received a raise last year after he resigned.

Weiner's spokesperson Risa B. Heller, the Friends of Weiner committee and Dolev Azaria have ducked all my questions. Heller and Azaria won't even tell me if they still work for Weiner, but those questions hopefully will be answered after the next New York City campaign update is released.

6/7/12 Update at bottom: Six weeks after resigning from Congress, Weiner registered a domain for 2013 NYC mayoral race

6/5/12 Update at bottom: Screenshots of interior of fancy new Park Avenue South location for Friends of Weiner

On May 7,  2012, a new Statement of Organization was filed by Friends of Weiner which changed the committee's email address to Weiner's former campaign finance director Dolev Azaria. Azaria was paid nearly $8,000 a month for the last six months of 2011 after Rep. Weiner resigned, as I exclusively reported in February, but hasn't been listed on any of the previous 2012 filings.

The old address for Friends of Weiner was also changed from 1 ASCAN AVENUE #31 FOREST HILLS, NY 11375, as the 2007 Statement of Organization indicated, to 254 PARK AVE SOUTH SUITE 12A NEW YORK, NY 10010.

Since Weiner still has close to $5,000,000 in his war chest, and has at least another year to decide if he wants to run for NYC mayor, this might just be some sort of temporary stop-gap.  It seems extremely unlikely that Weiner would fight for his old seat, just a year after the Weinergate scandal.





According to Melissadata, a filing appears to indicate that the "Candidate is the challenger in the current election cycle" for NY-9 in 2012.



I've contacted Friends of Weiner and will update this post if I receive a response.

6/5/12 Update: New Park Avenue location for Friends of Weiner

As I reported, Friends of Weiner has relocated from Queens to Manhattan. Since I still have yet to receive a response from the committee, I have no idea what this move means. It's possible that the fancy new location is where Weiner's former fundraiser Dolev Azaria now resides, since the committee is now using her email address.

The website for 254 Park Avenue South brags, "Not just another Park Avenue facelift in a chic enclave where life is everyone's favorite sport live stirred not shaken north of your expectations south on Park Avenue come explore."

"On the outside, 254 Park Avenue South is a flawless example of neoclassical architecture in the Beaux Arts style," the building's website adds. "On the inside, it's a triumph of modernism, functionality and ease. Constructed in 1913 using an abundance of French limestone, 254 was recently rejuvenated by design principal, Charles Allem. The passion and expertise can be seen throughout, from the sensitive restoration of the historic facade to the carefully considered interior spaces."

Clicking on lifestyle informs visitors, "The residents at 254 are not the types to let moss grow underfoot. If there's a game to be played, they show up, suit up and play. Whether that means a workout at 254's fully equipped fitness center or shooting a few hoops in their home (ceilings heights soar up to 14 feet), the players at 254 grab live by the basketballs, tennis balls, golf balls...you get the picture."

Unfortunately for former Congressman Weiner, 254 Park Avenue doesn't appear to have an ice rink where he can play hockey.

Some screenshots of the room interiors taken from the website:






6/7/12 Update: Six weeks after resigning from Congress, Weiner registered a domain for 2013 NYC mayoral race

According to the New York City Campaign Finance Board, six weeks after resigning from his Congressional seat on June 16, 2011, Weiner registered an Internet domain for the 2013 mayoral race.

The website - which I haven't been able to find yet - was registered on July 25, 2011, through Arizona's GoDaddy.com. The domain registration is listed as two office expenditures, $165.12 and $31.23 for a total of $196.35. A year earlier, on July 22, 2010, three expenditures to GoDaddy.com were listed under "Prof. Srvcs. Domain Name" totaling $202.90. It doesn't appear to be a renewal for his website from 2005, www.mayor.anthonyweiner.com, since that was purchased through DomainName and isn't set to expire until November 11, 2013.

Whatever the case, it shows that Weiner still seems to have his heart set on the mayoral seat, or - at the least - was worried that someone might poach the address and use it to mock him.

On September 20, 2011, I sent an email to Deputy District Attorney Patrick Frey aka Patterico, my former colleagues at Raw Story, Brad Friedman @TheBradBlog, Crooks And Liars editor Diane Sweet, and Justin Elliott (who then worked at Salon but now reports for Pro-Publica) which called out Brett Kimberlin's Velvet Revolution as "wackadoo hoaxers".

Nine months later, Patterico is still pretending that I'm tied to Kimberlin and The Brad Blog, and ignores the fact that Raw Story later tried to sue me and that Elliott, my former colleagues at RS, Friedman and every single left-leaning blogger and journalist turned against me partly because I tried to help conservatives who were SWATed and were sent death threats.

The email I sent Patterico contained a forwarded press release by Kyle Hence, who used to date Larisa Alexandrovna and who belonged to Kimberlin and Friedman's Velvet Revolution, a "wackadoo group" I froze out at Raw Story when I was Managing Editor and promoted to Executive Editor from January of 2007 to mid-October of 2010.

"Kyle Hence is a lying hoaxer who has sent out fake news releases for a long time," I wrote in the 9/20/11 email.

I advised my former colleagues, "If you are at all serious you should publicly call him out," and mentioned a hoax he tried to push me to cover in December of 2009, which DeadSpin wrote up a day later as "Tiger Woods Accident Story Becomes Latest Email Hoax Your Dad Will Send You".

9/11 Truther Kyle Hence forwarded me the bogus Tiger Woods story - that fooled less cautious reporters - on December 23, 2009, including a phone number, name and email address of the "conservative" source he allegedly received it from.

"FYI for what it is worth from a friend of a friend is the inside story on Tiger," Hence's source claimed. "Knowing the source, I actually believe this. The sensationalism of the media has never been as accurate as you would believe. The following paragraphs come from my friend’s friend..." [Identical hoax story can be read at this link].

In my 9/20/11 email sent to Frey, Elliott, and others, I complained that Hence "tried to get me to report this Tiger Woods hoax story for Raw Story. He sent the tip to me before anyone else in the media....so we would have had the 'pleasure' of having an exclusive on fake news."

"Kyle and Larisa Alexandrovna are a couple of hoaxer wackadoos along with everyone in the wackadoo velvet revolution," I wrote, which only Patterico responded to, although he ignored the contents, and just asked for other information, which I promptly sent him.

After a few emails distorting tweets I had recently made, Patterico - who had strangely turned on me over the summer, even though I was on the phone with him during his 7/1/11 SWATing and had been trying to help - thanked me for forwarding him the press release Hence had sent me and other emails that the creepy and menacing Neal Rauhauser kept sending me, at the time. But - to this day - the lying Deputy District Attorney still pretends that I'm in some kind of crazy conspiracy with the Velvet Revolution gang and Rauhauser, a Democratic operative who appears to be a longtime FBI informant and agent provocateur, whom New York Times journalist Jennifer Preston warned me was "dangerous."

"The fact that you are forwarding Neal's emails is reassurance to me that you are not working with him," Frey wrote me on September 21, 2011. "I became suspicious of you because you refused to talk to me on the phone, when you should be able to recognize my voice."

Frey added, "But if you're forwarding Neal's emails then it is likely you are on the up and up. Please keep forwarding them."

Apparently, Deputy District Attorney Patrick Frey - who has spent a few years defending hoaxer James O'Keefe III, a convicted misdemeanorer - manipulated me into sending him emails that he could later spin on the Internet to frame me as a "criminal" and "terrorist": Convicted Bomber Brett Kimberlin, Neal Rauhauser, Ron Brynaert, and Their Campaign of Political Terrorism.

Since I report the truth about both sides, and have criticized just about every left-leaning and right-leaning blogger, journalist, and media organization at least once, I've become a convenient patsy. While right-wingers call me criminal, my former friends and colleagues on the left pretend I'm crazy and ignore the nearly year-long harassment I've faced while probing Rauhauser and the Breitbart associates who have smeared and menaced me simultaneously.

My Scribd account was deleted and all of my articles were scrubbed, so I'm going to re-post them here at my blog.  The following article originally appeared at http://www.scribd.com/deleted/98854322

Deputy District Attorney Patrick Frey's blog post about his SWATing is full of misinformation and lies, but the one thing Patterico conveniently forgets is that our phone conversations, emails and Direct Messages were about our mutual distrust for Lee Stranahan, at the time.

Prior to and after the SWATing, Stranahan was smearing me and Patterico for talking to me. Why the Deputy District Attorney keeps pretending that Stranahan wasn't the main subject of our discussions is quite curious.

http://patterico.com/2012/07/01/one-year-ago-today-3

In the email published below, I was referring to film professor Lew Hunter who allegedly told Stranahan that his former student Jennifer George from Boston was extremely liberal. New York Times reporter Jennifer Preston was convinced that someone was punking her, and that she never spoke to the real film professor (who never got back to me).

"I think that we’ve been punked by the UCLA professor and I think it’s been a huge waste of time," Preston allegedly told Stranahan.

http://patterico.com/2011/06/30/someone-smarter-than-me-explain-why-this-is-not-possible#comment-814237

"Preston clearly thought that the website and Lew Hunter and his wife were all possibly fake," Stranahan wrote in a comment on July 1, 2011 at Patterico's blog, just before he was booted as a guest blogger. "We argued about this point, which I was stunned by."

Stranahan was falsely claiming that I was trying to dissuade Preston from reporting on the threats to Patterico, Ace of Spades HQ and Mike Stack aka Goatsred, but the opposite was the case.  Considering the fact that I've spent a year still probing what happened, and Preston never reported anything about the SWATings or threats, I believe it's rather obvious that I'm telling the truth.

In fact, Preston told me that she even had George's telephone number, but she didn't call her back for some strange reason.  George called me on June 30, after sending me an email, but she always used *67 so I never learned her phone number.  After about a week or so, George mysteriously broke all communications with me, and I don't believe anyone has heard from her since.

One of my theories - at the time - was that Stranahan was working with progressives such as Neal Rauhauser to entrap Patterico.

Patterico and I also spoke about how since Rauhauser had many followers on Twitter and at Daily Kos, it was extremely possible that many of his commenters were actually liberals pretending to be conservative.  But he conveniently forgot that part of our conversation, as well, and cherrypicked from one of my emails to him, that I'm posting in full below, which largely dealt with Stranahan.

"On July 1, 2011, Ron Brynaert sent me 7 emails," Patterico wrote on the 1 year anniversary of his SWATing. "Not one referred to the SWATting that had occurred the night before. All were bizarre, impossible to understand emails about Neal Rauhauser, and sock puppets he had spoken to, and Anthony Weiner, and starchild111, and Jennifer George, and Jennifer George’s film professor."

But Patterico knows damn well our discussions mainly centered on the duplicitous, smearing Stranahan.

On our phone call, Patterico said that Stranahan had "tunnel vision," and refused to open his mind to all possibilities, but I was more convinced that Lee was working against us deliberately to hide something.

Patterico claims I "lured" him on the phone to talk about Weinergate, but I mainly wanted to talk about how and why Stranahan was smearing us.  New York Times reporter Jennifer Preston and I had a falling out because she wanted to "go dark" and drop the story, so the three of us began working together to figure out who the mysterious "Alicia Pain" was, that had been making threats to conservatives, and doxed me with information from a 20-year-old false arrest that had been expunged. 

I never went to trial, never saw a judge, and never was convicted, but Patterico and his friends have been defaming me as a "criminal" ever since he deleted Pain's comment, which I never even saw.

Preston warned me that Rauhauser was a "dangerous Democratic operative," yet, for some reason, Stranahan refused to talk about Neal, and, in fact, was exchanging emails with him for an interview which he never published.

But a year ago, Patterico seemed to be in my corner, and, finally, on July 3rd, he had enough of Stranahan's lies and wrote in a comment:

"Lee Stranahan may be completely right about his theory that a woman with the initials 'JG' is behind everything that has happened. He really may. But I have been reading his posts, and listening to his radio show with the yowling cat, and I know he has been saying and implying things about me that are simply not accurate. I have tried to remain silent about this, but I am listening to his radio show from last night and hearing how he misrepresents my position on all of this, and I can remain silent no longer."

Patterico continued, "I disabled his account here at patterico.com on Thursday night, after I read this post of his, in which he ridiculously accused me of providing JohnReid9 with an uncritical platform to spout lies: 'Patterico has uncritically posted information from (drum roll) John Reid . . .' 'Publishing this sort of lie – totally unchallenged — from a person confirmed to be a fake seems very questionable on Patterico’s part. This is especially true about someone who has been so critical of Tommy.'"

"The implication that I have been somehow supportive of JohnReid9 is totally false," Patterico added. "I have been publicly agnostic on JohnReid9 for my own reasons. For Lee to insinuate that I am a dupe, in the manner of a Tommy Christopher, was absurd and false. I was shocked and appalled to see such an accusation from someone with access to post on my blog. So I disabled his account."

Patterico continued, "I decided to remain silent about it, until I fully listened to his latest radio show, where he discussed private communications with me, and continued to portray my positions in a misleading fashion."

http://patterico.com/2011/06/30/someone-smarter-than-me-explain-why-this-is-not-possible#comment-814841

In another comment, Patterico wrote, "It’s bad enough to have a Neal Rauhauser go around acting like I am “falling for” something that I EXPLICITLY DISCLAIMED any vouching for. To have it said by someone who was a guest blogger here — it just didn’t work."

http://patterico.com/2011/06/30/someone-smarter-than-me-explain-why-this-is-not-possible#comment-814842

No longer a guest blogger, Stranahan complained at Patterico's blog in the comments, "Well, there is evidence Patterico is buying into Rons theory .. Read the theory here and read Patterco’s entusism for it."

http://patterico.com/2011/06/30/someone-smarter-than-me-explain-why-this-is-not-possible#comment-814929

"I spoke to Patterico a few hours ago and he was arguing adamantly for this theory, with no evidence whatsoever," Stranahan later added. "It’s what he believes. Does he say that the obvious truth MIGHT be right? Sure."

Stranahan continued, "And that’s the problem. He believes a wacky theory. He believes it MORE than a simple, provable theory. And when challenged, he bans people."

http://patterico.com/2011/06/30/someone-smarter-than-me-explain-why-this-is-not-possible#comment-814968

Referring to Patterico's SWATing, Stranahan complained, "Patterico is the one holding back a lot of info — not me."

http://patterico.com/2011/06/30/someone-smarter-than-me-explain-why-this-is-not-possible#comment-814996

An obviously pissed off Patterico added another update in the comments about Stranahan, later that same day on July 3rd:

"UPDATE x2: My decision has been vindicated by Lee’s latest post at his site, in which he displays in spades his recent tendency to a) disclose private conversations that he should know good and damned well I would not want him to discuss, and b) get what I said in those discussions wrong."

"Again: Lee seems to be unable to distinguish between a theory and a fact. He is also apparently unable to distinguish between someone advancing a theory and claiming a fact as true. This leads him to put words in my mouth that I didn’t say, or to misunderstand what I have said. Asking someone to consider evidence, and to consider how that evidence might support a possible theory, is not the same as declaring that possible theory is true."

"Lee is again portraying me as gullibly accepting the views of people whose views (I assure you) I am not gullibly accepting. Neither am I publicly denouncing those people. I am taking in information. Lee used to understand that."

"Incidentally, I have not 'banned' him but simply disabled his account to 'no role on this blog.' He still has the ability to comment, although if he comes on here and misrepresents the nature of our private communications, or even discusses them, that may change. There is simply too much at stake to dick around."

"I do not want to be in a fight with Lee, but I strongly encourage him to stop spilling the private details of every conversation he has with people onto the Internet. There is a reason I feel I cannot talk to him any more, and why I consider it a huge mistake that I even tried last night."

http://patterico.com/2011/06/30/someone-smarter-than-me-explain-why-this-is-not-possible#comment-815082

Later, Patterico added, "Arguing for a theory does not mean I believe it. Refusing to listen to a person’s evidence does not mean the person has 'no evidence whatsoever.' Talking about private conversations without permission is never great; doing so and getting them wrong is worse; doing so and getting them wrong in an environment when threats have been made and law enforcement is involved is reckless."

"I can’t talk to Lee Stranahan again until all this is sorted out. Until then, as I have said, if he makes a claim that I said something, do not assume his claim to be true."

http://patterico.com/2011/06/30/someone-smarter-than-me-explain-why-this-is-not-possible#comment-815089

"Lee Stranahan has a new post up saying he will stop commenting on Weinergate, as it is in the hands of law enforcement," Patterico wrote later that same night. 

http://patterico.com/2011/06/30/someone-smarter-than-me-explain-why-this-is-not-possible#comment-815389

Absurdly, Patterico claims, "I think Ron Brynaert was still on the line."  He knows damn well I never hung up during his SWATing...and he also knows that I told him that I had trouble sending Direct Messages that night, so I wasn't certain if Stranahan had gotten my urgent DM about the SWATing.

I'll discuss other out-and-out lies in Patterico's blog post at a future time, with more proof that he is trying to make me a patsy, while pretending that I haven't spent an entire year volunteering to talk to any and all police and FBI investigators.  I've offered to prove I'm innocent by sharing all me emails and phone records, but Patterico seems more interested in pretending I'm the "bad guy" and smearing me.

Do I think he should be fired?  Hell yes!  Since his behavior is outrageous.  And he's a stone cold liar.

But a year ago, I had no idea that Frey was such a liar and bully, and thought it was wrong that Neal Rauhauser seemed to be targeting him, and trying to get him fired. 

Patterico should not only be fired, he should go to jail for smearing me as a criminal.

This is the entire text of one email I wrote Patterico on Friday, July 1, 2011 at 7:16 PM:

I wrote the film professor...hopefuly he'll get back to me.

please just look at all sides.......not saying THIS IS FACT...

And March 13th is the day Starchild went after ginger lee....if dirty tricks people were watching Weiner and waiting....it would help to have a plant on the right.

http://patterico.com/2011/03/27/new-guest-blogger-lee-stranahan/

Read every post he writes: i asked him for film school professor stuff instead of giving me...he mocked the theory on his site.

I'm really good at puppet reading....I have no clue what your regular columns are like....but there is no doubt that your comments section doesnt have at least six neal r plants: wittier i see praises lee, then slams him, but ALWAYS makes sure to quote the key parts that sow division.  I can tell the diff between a Maybee and some of the other ones.

Then...what happened the other night...and the stranded wind post.....the entire M.O. of these sick fucks every one of them is to DIVERT!!!!!!  So they pretend to go after lee stranahan.....when that's not their real target.

It's you.  They want to damage your career...

You gotta think hard about who put weiner thoughts in your head...and especially if the idea of lee stranahan blogging specifically was addressed on March 13, 2011.  Cause it's after Ginger Lee tweeted about Weiner that the whole thing went down.

One of the documents related to the SWATings mysteriously deleted from my Scribd account this weekend was a December 2, 2011 email sent by "Gaped Crusader", who most probably is Neal Rauhauser, a Democratic operative who claims to have ties to the FBI. Rauhauser worked with Adrian Lamo, the hacker who turned in Bradley Manning, for a group called Project Vigilant - where they both reportedly worked for Chet Uber. Lamo was mentioned a few times in the Gaped Crusader email which carried the header: "SWAT".

"After a search, it appears my NDA prevents me from confirming or denying whether any party has been CC'd on any PV e-mail," Adrian Lamo told me on Twitter earlier today, after first claiming otherwise, when asked about communications with Rauhauser regarding working on projects together, based upon his "general memory."

"I can say with authority that I have never received an e-mail concerning or addressed to that individual, with the exception of replies to queries concerning him from third-parties, spurred by this kind of inquiry," Lamo tweeted.

Lamo also told me, prior to checking his email account, "I've never collaborated with Mr. Rauhauser directly or by proxy on any issue insofar as I'm aware."

In another tweet, Adrian Lamo told me, "@ronbryn You can deny anything when you focus on explaining what you don't say at the expense of actually saying anything you'll back."

"If you watch carefully, you'll see @diesl0w, quoted in this article, sometimes talk with @NealRauhauser," Gaped Crusader told me in the email, and added, "Both Rauhauser and Uber were in Omaha when Global Hell and the swatters were at the peak of their power."

From his protected account, @diesl0w tweeted, "@6 @ronbryn that one twisted my mind."

"@diesl0w All part of the service," Lamo responded.

I tweeted to @diesl0w, "I didn't realize Adrian Lamo @6 - along with @ChetUber - followed your protected account. @NealRauhauser used to follow all 3."

Joking just like Rauhauser would, @diesl0w tweeted back, "@ronbryn @6 @ChetUber @NealRauhauser maybe its a conspiracy where we all have secret handshakes and talk in rainbows," and added, "@ronbryn @6 @ChetUber @NealRauhauser or we could just all be infragard.. I don't remember."



Patterico recently wrote a post claiming to show "extensive evidence connecting Gaped Crusader to Brett Kimberlin associate Neal Rauhauser." I still think it's possible somebody is hoaxing somebody but I have little reason to doubt Rauhauser is Gaped Crusader and have other communications with him that suggest more proof he was at least a close associate.

December 2, 2011 email sent by "Gaped Crusader" who most probably is Neal Rauhauser:

Swatters have been a problem since the 1990s anarchist hacker outbreak. The worst of the worst was Global Hell, and there was a big cell in Omaha. Jason Neff, kiddie fiddler, was recently arrested after a years long chase by Special Agent Allyn Lynd.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/tag/swatting/

If you watch carefully, you'll see @diesl0w, quoted in this article, sometimes talk with @NealRauhauser. The reporter on this is Kevin Poulsen, who was prosecuted by the former head of the DoJ cybercrimes division, Mark Rasch. Rasch is also the general counsel for Project Vigilant.

http://www.examiner.com/technology-in-san-francisco/big-names-help-run-project-vigilant

You can find Rasch, Poulsen, and Adrian Lamo, the guy who caught Bradley Manning, mentioned in the same breath here.

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread644608/pg1

If you look at Rauhauser's LinkedIn you will find those looking at him often look at Chet Uber, the head of Project Vigilant. Rauhauser has admitted involvement in this, but the story is really sketchy.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/nealrauhauser

Both Rauhauser and Uber were in Omaha when Global Hell and the swatters were at the peak of their power.

This goes back, all the way back to before the internet had a web over the top of it - Rauhauser, Uber, Lamo, Rasch, Poulsen, some of the people at the NSA Center for Excellence at the University of Nebraska Omaha.

Did they SWAT @goatsred? Or is it some old enemy of this group trying to set them up? Is it something with Patterico, or is it some obscure hacker spat over Manning? It's hard to tell with this bunch - they've fought like cats and dogs since clear back during Operation Sundevil, the event that lead to the creation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sundevil

And if you watch EFF co-founder @JPBarlow close enough ... yeah, he's talking to Rauhauser, too.

Wheels within wheels. I'm just trying to understand it all.

9/9/12 UPDATE

Former Congressman Weiner changed his profile picture on the Facebook account (http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151155759312258&set=a.438452967257.258129.809897257&type=1) he stopped using for official business in November of 2010 at around 11 AM on September 9, 2012.  

The new profile picture is the posed shot with his wife and baby that appeared in the July 18, 2012 edition of People Magazine (http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20612678,00.html).

Weiner also removed the May 30, 2011 note - as shown in a screenshot below - implying he was hacked and the "going out of business" note he posted on November 24, 2010, after he switched to the Anthony D. Weiner Facebook account.



Original article follows:

"Anthony Weiner is back on Facebook," Zeke Miller reported for BuzzFeed one week ago, after Andrew J. Hawkins @andyjayhawk - a political reporter for Crains New York - had tweeted that the former congressman "started using Facebook for iPhone" 37 minutes ago, which would have been around noon on July 14. Hawkins knew the exact time the account was linked to Weiner's iPhone because he noticed it on his "Facebook feed".
This is what it looked like a year ago:
However, that's Weiner's old, abandoned account on Facebook. The former Congressman switched his Facebook account from Anthony.Weiner to AnthonyDWeiner in November of 2010, and only left one message there afterward, on the same day he stopped posting at his new account, three days after the "Weinergate" scandal publicly began on May 27, 2011.
"We are having a big 'going out of business' sale on this page," Weiner wrote on November 24, 2010. "But we have double coupons and huge discounts on a far better site. Check it out at http://www.facebook.com/AnthonyDWeiner. ill be posting there. so this one may get a little dusty."
According to reports - and one of my sources who sexted with Weiner - the old account was used by Weiner in 2011 strictly to speak to his female admirers (it's possible Weiner used his older account to speak to other people, but none have come forward). My source told me that she never exchanged any communications with Weiner on his newer Facebook account which contains his middle initial "D". Also, he ignored her pleas to contact her after the scandal broke out.
Weiner abandoned both accounts on May 30, 2011, but he only left a message referring to his hacking at his older account, which appears to have been unnoticed by the press.
"Hello friends," Weiner wrote on May 30, 2011 in his first message at his old Facebook account in six months. "I know this page has been dry for a while, but if you've gotten any odd emails, chats or notices from here recently, drop me a note. And thanks for supporting me over at our fully jazzed page linked above."
Since the message was left before he admitted to sexting a week later, Weiner - perhaps - was thinking of pretending that the older account had been hacked.
In January, I asked Facebook a number of questions regarding both of Weiner's accounts and their policies - in general - when someone claims to be hacked.

To whom it may concern,
I'm a freelance journalist working on an article related to the Congressman Anthony Weiner scandal. I used to be the executive editor for www.rawstory.com and helped provide research for a New York Times story last summer on the scandal.
I have a few questions that I'm hoping someone can answer at Facebook.
On May 28, 2011 Ginger Adams Otis at The New York Post reported,"Anthony's accounts on both Facebook and Twitter were hacked," said spokesman Dave Arnold.
............
Weiner, who represents parts of Queens and Brooklyn, got a message about a week ago from Facebook alerting him that his password might have been tampered with, Arnold said. But the warning was ignored, granting the hacker carte blanche to hijack Weiner's online identity.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/queens/undies_in_twist_over_weiner_wiener_HznNI7XvjWgn9Lm2Xuq5pK#ixzz1kV1Y9TtH
Is there any way I can confirm that Rep. Weiner and/or his office received such a message from Facebook in the last week or two of May?
I'm curious why if this wasn't true no one from Facebook denied it.
Were any hacking investigations launched after Weiner's claims hit the airwaves?
Did Weiner contact Facebook to probe or vice versa after Weiner's spokesman mentioned the hacking?
Did the Secret Service or FBI or any other law enforcement agencies contact Facebook to probe the claim before or after the news hit the press?
If there was such a probe, has it ended or is it ongoing?
What does Facebook normally do when a celebrity claims that their account was hacked? I would assume it would be a black eye for the company, and you would want to ensure that the claim was true. Have there been circumstances when you probed such a claim and found no proof of it? Would Facebook ever consider taking legal or criminal action when a false hacking claim is made?
Approximately how many confirmed Facebook hackings occurred in 2010. How many reported? Does Facebook keep track of such events (obviously, I'm assuming you do)?
Thanks, Ron Brynaert

"Thanks for your inquiry," a manager from Facebook's Public Policy Communications sent me an email by iPhone - months later - on May 13. "We'll decline to comment."
Weiner didn't start publicly posting on Facebook until August 17, 2010 - which may be after he allegedly started conversations with two women: Lisa Weiss and Traci Nobles.
As noted by journalist Greg Beato's Weinerology timeline, Nobles sent Weiner the message, "Sup sexy?" in August of 2010, according to a screenshot published at the The Las Vegas Sun on June 8, 2011.
Last October, I asked reporter Karoun Demirjian about his Las Vegas Sun exclusive, "How were you able to tell Weiner's conversation 'appears to date from August' since the screenshot doesn't show a date and Nobles didn't seem to tell you much?"
Demirjian responded by email,

"It's because of the picture of her that's featured in the conversation. The thumbnail didn't match the profile picture of Nobles that was up at the time. But she briefly accepted my Facebook friend request the day the screen shot was sent (that's what let me pull enough vital stats about her to verify thru official registers that I was talking to a real person). If you clicked on her album of profile pictures to see her history, however, those were dated, and the one that appeared in her conversation with Weiner had, if memory serves me correctly, been put up in August and then replaced later that month with the next in sequence. But because Facebook profile pictures are moveable once they are posted, and the date registered on them is the date they're uploaded, I couldn't be 100% sure. The dates of her profile pictures were all in sequence, and she had enough of them (more than one per month, I believe) that it seemed unlikely she'd have re-cycled an old shot. Plus the placement of the picture in the queue meant she would have had to cycle through and re-select every one of the intermediary pictures (between the one in question and the most recent) again to keep the order looking as it did, had re-used the picture. So it seemed a pretty safe guess -- but without a hard date on the conversation it wasn't enough to be totally sure -- hence the 'appears to date from August.'"

"Is it actually you?" progressive blackjack dealer Lisa Weiss asks Weiner, initiating a Facebook correspondence with the newly married congressman," Beato notes on his Weinerology timeline, linking to RadarOnline's Facebook transcript.
RadarOnline's Dylan Howard reported, "The woman says she has 200 sexually explicit messages from Weiner from a Facebook account the Democratic politician no longer uses."
However, Weiss has argued that most of the messages were not "sexually explicit."
RadarOnline's June 6, 2011 article continued, "Star and Radar have confirmed Weiner's sexting messages originated from a Facebook account he used regularly until November 24, last year and recently abandoned. (A source close to Weiner verfied that he used that page.)"
"Since, he's redirected his legion of 44,144 supporters to a second and 'official' Facebook presence, specifically designed for public figures," Howard added.
The ABC News scandal timeline links to both Weiner Facebook accounts, with regards to his communications with Meagan Broussard. Weiner apparently friended Broussard from his abandoned account after she left message on his newer Facebook account.

April 20, 2011
• Meagan Broussard (MB) comments on link on Rep. Anthony Weiner (AW) Facebook page: "hotttt," she wrote.
• AW Facebook profile "friends" MB; she accepts.
Broussard said the two began talking "every single day, multiple times of day" via Facebook chat, often via smartphone.

There were about 10 comments left by Traci Nobles on Weiner's public Facebook account in late October and November of 2010 that were sexually suggestive which others complained about.
"Word Weiner! Kick some ass! Is this a live, nude, chat"? Traci Nobles joked on October 28, 2010 six minutes after Weiner mentioned that he was "hosting a live chat over on Daily Kos."
A day later, after Nobles wrote, "Word Weiner! How BIGGGG?," another Weiner Facebook follower responded, "Traci, That's very childish, how old are you, are you old enough to be on facebook?"
"They can't all be blessed with those balls, unfortunately for us!" Nobles wrote on November 3, 2010. On November 10, she wrote "Word Weiner! I'm in, all day, EVERYDAY! And if by some chance they do come to the table... can I sit in your lap? I love a good tough Weiner! Kick ass:)" and "Ahhhhhhhhh, if only Obama had those super-sized Weiner balls! A girl can dream. Keep it fired up Weiner! I heart you!!" on November 12, 2010.
In response to the "sit in your lap" comment, another Weiner follower complained, "ew! restrain yourself woman this is a public page!!"
On November 16, 2010, Nobles wrote her most explicit message yet, "Thanks for the post weiner and balls. how excellent that Andy may have had( even if for a instant) to worry about what the fuck he would do for 28 days without coverage. keep on keepin on 'weiner and balls'! MUAW! Luv u"
Eight days later on November 24, 2010, Weiner abandoned this account, announcing a big 'going out of business' sale on this page.
Strange that there would be new activity on an abandoned account Weiner seemed to only use for sexting.

8/17 UPDATE: 

Team Romney still ducking questions about their Social Media Director, but FEC filing suggests Bill Murphy was hired in mid-to-late July and is getting paid $5,541.66 a month.  Digital Director Zac Moffatt avoids questions about his relationship to both Murphy and his frequent colleague, convicted felon Ali Akbar, who just got off probation in May.

8/16 UPDATE:

Did @TeamRomney even know @BillMurphy worked for "charlatans" at American Liberty Alliance since he left it off his resume?

A July 20th tweet by the official @TeamRomney twitter account ( http://twitter.com/TeamRomney/status/226361975628767232 ) indicates that Bill Murphy is the Social Media Director for Mitt Romney, even though he has ducked questions, blocked me on twitter, scrubbed his resume, and deleted his blog since I started reporting on him August 12.

The latest monthly filing by the Romney for President campaign to the Federal Election Committee reveals that a William Murphy was paid $2,770.83 for his work in July (http://query.nictusa.com/pres/2012/M7/C00431171/B_PAYEE_C00431171.html).  Since another Team Romney member - who was just recently hired in June - has been earning precisely double that amount, the FEC filing suggests Bill Murphy joined the campaign in mid-to-late July and is getting paid $5,541.66 a month.

 Aside from working for years with a convicted felon who was on probation until May, Mr. Murphy has been closely involved with Tea Party lawyers involved with Super PACs who are working with the RNC to overturn donation limits. (See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gop-lawsuit-challenges-campaign-contribution-caps/2012/06/27/gJQAqtVf7V_story.html and http://www.iwatchnews.org/2012/03/15/8416/gop-super-pac-men-seek-overturn-donation-limits ) Murphy also is linked to sketchy charities and groups that skirt FEC regulations.

Mr. Murphy and his colleague Ali Akbar also worked for the American Liberty Alliance when it was founded in June of 2009.  ALA launched a Liberty Tour in late 2009 which sought to teach conservative activists to use deception and commit dirty tricks on the Internet in order to "control the dialogue," as I will soon be reporting. 

Together, Murphy and Akbar have worked for at least five groups over the last three years, four of them while straddling opposite sides of the Mitt Romney for President debate.  In 2012, New Jerseyite Murphy worked in Akbar's Texas-based Vice and Victory firm, and also with a group called Blog Bash that organizes parties at conservative conventions, while serving as Director for the National Bloggers Club and the National Finance Director for the Breitbart Scholarship Fund, all alongside Akbar who was on probation until May.

On Tuesday, Romney Digital Director Zac Moffatt blocked me on Twitter - even before Murphy did - rather than reply to simple questions about Team Romney's Social Media Director, such as when he was hired and how much he is paid.  

After discovering tweets between Moffatt and Akbar, and Murphy before he joined Team Romney, I tweeted, "No wonder @MittRomney Digital Director @ZacMoffatt ignores my tweets. He apparently is pals with @BillMurphy and convicted felon @Ali Akbar!"  

"MT @billmurphy: @ali save us all the trouble and come on board tonight. we have a lot of work to do. cc @justin_hart," Moffatt tweeted on January 29, 2012 ( http://twitter.com/ZacMoffatt/status/163832573561274368 ).  This was in reference to Akbar's leadership in the NotMittRomney protest campaign, at the time.  

Moffatt blocked me immediately after I tweeted, "Why did convicted felon @Ali MT Romney Digital Director @ZacMoffatt plea for resumes days before forming NotMittRomney?" On March 11, at a blog he purchased last October, Akbar wrote, "I lead the most prominent and largest contiengent of “Not Mitt” folks over at NotMittRomney.com" before declaring, "It’s over though." Akbaralso paid "special thanks to "some Romney supporters: Bill Murphy, Austin James, Zac Moffatt, Saul Anuzis, and Chandler Epp for keeping your heads screwed on tight while [Akbar] lobbed cannon balls at [their] castle." As others have observed, the www.notmittromney.com website now goes to the official campaign site, and some speculate there may have been a "pay-off" involved.

I tweeted, "More tweets between Romney Digital Director @ZacMoffatt and convicted felon @Ali Akbar: http://topsy.com/twitter.com/zacmoffatt/status/177261205273067521 … How long have they been pals?"and "Convicted felon @Ali Akbar was psyched 441 days ago when @MittRomney campaign hired @ZacMoffatt to be Digital Director."

 The latest monthly filing by the Romney for President campaign to the Federal Election Committee reveals that a William Murphy was paid $2,770.83 for his work in July (http://query.nictusa.com/pres/2012/M7/C00431171/B_PAYEE_C00431171.html).  Since another Team Romney member - who was just recently hired in June - has been earning precisely double that amount, the FEC filing suggests Bill Murphy joined the campaign in mid-to-late July and is getting paid $5,541.66 a month.

I'll be updating this story with much more that I've uncovered over the last few days, and incorporating things I've tweeted at www.twitter.com/ronbryn  

Murphy has been working since at least 2009 with Ali Akbar, who Slate recently reported was "convicted of credit card fraud in 2007", and just got off of probation in May for a reported "crime spree," which he has lied about. (More to come on Akbar's crimes, which are alluded to in the Slate article on the battle between convicted bomber Brett Kimberlin and right wing bloggers: http://www.salon.com/2012/07/10/brett_kimberlin_versus_right_wing_bloggers/ )

Update at bottom: Murphy apparently scrubs blog, while his friends and colleagues attempt to smear me on Twitter. 

Original post follows: 

About an hour before publication of this story on Monday, August 13, William Murphy - the "Social Media Director at Romney For President" - scrubbed his resume, after ducking a series of questions I tweeted to him about his past experience and links to a convicted felon.

But immediately after I teased this story on Twitter, Mr. Murphy replaced his publicly viewable resume at the LinkedIn website, with only a slightly changed version (http://www.linkedin.com/in/billmurphy7).

This is the scrubbed version that only listed Murphy's work for the Romney campaign:

          

This is how it looks again, now:




Here are tweets I sent to Mr. Murphy before and after he scrubbed and then unscrubbed his resume:






As shown in a Google cache of the resume as it appeared before it was scrubbed and unscrubbed, Bill Murphy left off his stint as Account Manager for HiBall Beverage, Inc. in the greater New York City area from 2006 to 2007: http://tinyurl.com/8qa75hx

Aside from Mr. Murphy's scrubbed resume, I was unable to find anything about HiBall Beverage Inc. on Google: http://tinyurl.com/8cu7oxo



Here are some questions I'd like Mr. Murphy to address, including some I haven't tweeted yet.

Are you getting paid to be Social Media Director for Mitt Romney?

Do you officially work for the Mitt Romney campaign now or just a group trying to get him elected?

If so, when were you hired?

Did you quit convicted felon Ali Akbar's Vice and Victory?

Are you still a part of the Blog Bash team?  Have you ever gotten paid for your work with them?

Are you in any way involved with the National Bloggers Club?

Are you still working for the Conservative Action Fund as a district field manager or in any other capacity?

Did you get paid through Vice and Victory when  you worked for CAF or did you get two checks while working with Shaun McCutcheon?

Are you involved in any way with Shaun McCutcheon's legal battle to overturn donation limits?

Why doesn't your LinkedIn resume mention your role with the Conservative Action Fund?

Do you know how much Ladd Ehlinger Jr. was paid to create commercial for Bill Turner's NY-9 campaign?

I have many more questions for Mr. Murphy I'm hoping someone will answer.

8/13 UPDATE:

Social Media Director for Mitt Romney Bill Murphy ducks questions, and then takes his blog offline

Murphy seems to have taken down his blog, at least temporarily, after I asked him on Twitter - as shown in screencap above - what he meant when he referred to "evildoers" @GregWHoward over a year ago.  Howard was reportedly victimized on Twitter by Democratic operative and hoaxer Neal Rauhauser and a group of 4chan "supertrolls" called "beandogs" in 2010 (http://gawker.com/5659351/twittergate-how-internet-jerks-pranked-the-tea-party), but Murphy might have been referring to Democrats, in general.

This was  the March 26, 2011 Bill Murphy blogpost I tweeted about: "The evildoers will take advantage of this RT @GregWHoward: I’m alive, but sick as a dog. Not tweeting for a couple of days. #tcot #ocra #sgp". http://billmurphyblog.com/post/4106190541/the-evildoers-will-take-advantage-of-this-rt

 

The following message now appears when attempting to access www.billmurphyblog.com at 6:PM ET August 13, 2012:

                   Not found.

(Hat tip to Seth Allen @Prepostericity - who has also been menaced by Rauhauser - for tweeting, "The "evildoers" link is not working @ronbryn can't even google for it.")

Even though he has been active on Twitter today, Murphy has ignored all my tweets.  Meanwhile, his friends have attempted to smear me, but refuse to answer any questions.

Murphy's colleague and friend Ali A. Akbar tweeted that I was "trying to draw lines and bully some folks. Go look at his timeline. It's mostly funny-sad."

Convicted felon @Ali - who just got off probation a few months ago in May - added,  "you're such a wanna-be journalist. It would be cute if it wasn't disturbing and creepy."

In defense, Robert Stacy McCain - a correspondent for The American Spectator - tweeted, "Unlike Ted Kennedy, @ali never drowned any campaign aides," and  "Shocking scandal: GOP social media specialist worked for GOP social media firm!"

DEVELOPING...

CHECK BACK TOMORROW FOR MULTIPLE UPDATES:

EaglesPAC treasurer, attorney Dan Backer scrubs website after French director blasts him for using film as "propaganda weapon to raise money"; Public Integrity reporter who covers PACs ignores story but then uses Backer as source for article attacking Obama; Backer essentially blames alleged "client" for filching French film, but Statement of Organization filed with FEC only mentions his name...

"The Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group is part of the Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan Washington, D.C.-based organization that uses cutting-edge technology and ideas to make government transparent and accountable," according to its website. "The Reporting Group applies the techniques of journalism to make government more transparent." (http://reporting.sunlightfoundation.com/about/)

In March of 2012, Keenan Steiner applied the techniques of journalism to write a story called "Crusading lawyer takes aim at contribution limits" about Dan Backer, the Principal Attorney at DB Capitol Strategies," who has been pushing the FEC to ease a host of campaign finance rules." Steiner's article focused on "Backer's latest target: the ceiling on how much money a person can give candidates for federal office in one election cycle, which currently stands at $46,200." (http://reporting.sunlightfoundation.com/2012/crusading-lawyer-takes-aim-at-contribution-limits)

"Backer, who already forced the FEC to ease limits on creating super PACs after taking the agency to court last year, says he's not interested in lifting the limits on how much individuals can to each candidate -- $2,500 per election, or $5,000 during the course of a two year cycle," Steiner reported. "But he and his associates say the $46,200 overall cap is preventing their client, Alabama mining company executive Shaun McCutcheon, from fulfilling his wish to contribute upwards of $50,000 to more than two dozen GOP candidates, all of them challengers except for Reps. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., and Martha Roby, R-Ala. In an affidavit that accompanied the FEC petition, McCutcheon said he wants to contribute at least $51,900 this cycle and $60,000 next cycle. Backer and his associates argue that the FEC is infringing on McCutcheon's free speech rights 'to speak and to associate with every candidate of his choosing.'"

Steiner's article appears to be mostly based on "exclusive" quotes he obtained from Backer and his firm, contains nary a contrary word, and reads like a press release for the "crusading lawyer."

Perhaps if Steiner truly "applie[d] the techniques of journalism to make government more transparent" he might have found some of the potential FEC violations and other irregularities I have uncovered that I will be reporting on over the next few weeks.

According to Dan Backer's online LinkedIn resume (http://www.linkedin.com/in/danbacker), the George Mason University School of Law graduate has "[b]road leadership experience in developing, and achieving results in organizational strategic planning, member communications and programming, and grassroots advocacy, and his specialties include "PAC treasury & FEC compliance." Backer is also the "author of 'The Strategist', a monthly campaign finance & political law & strategy newsletter to 5000+ Practitioners."

While researching many of the PACs associated with Backer, I ran across a largely undefined one which appeared to be using a short French film to raise money for vague reasons.

"The Gloaming" (http://vimeo.com/44515468) is a short animated French film written by Nicolas Pasquet and directed by three filmmakers who use the moniker NoBrain (http://www.nobrain.fr/about-us), that was released by Sabotage Studio in 2011 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1825992). On June 28, 2012, "The Gloaming" was chosen as "short of the week" by a website which "seek[s] to discover and promote the greatest and most innovative storytellers from around the world." (http://www.shortoftheweek.com/2012/06/28/the-gloaming/)

"God-like beings have been the focus of many a film, but not many have tackled the subject with the vigor and confidence on show in short animation The Gloaming," El Vez wrote about the 14-minute animated film. "This parable of humanity satirically touches on religion, greed, jealousy, war and evolution (making it an interesting companion piece to Jossie Malis’ Bendito Machine series), with its brief duration seemingly covering the entire history of the universe in its fertile plot."

I contacted the filmmakers by email the other week to find out if they knew their film was being used to collect money by a PAC (http://eaglespac.com) tied to Backer (http://images.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/fecimg/?C00524504) : "Hello, I'm a freelance journalist working on a story about American political action committees, and one PAC that I'm probing is called EaglesPAC, and it is using your film 'The Gloaming' to raise money. Do you know why?"



Become an Eagle

Bradley Manning's Facebook account reveals he friended two soldiers who belonged to unit involved in 2007 "Collateral Murder" video he leaked, which may have alerted a security firm; Three weeks before speaking to Adrian Lamo, Manning also friended a security and risk management expert, who gave PowerPoint presentations on how firms can defend against security breaches from the "bad guys" who are "already" on the inside, and who is also Facebook friends with Manning's ex-boyfriend.

Manning's leaked "Collateral Murder" video puts WikiLeaks "on the map"

On April 5, 2010, WikiLeaks released the "Collateral Murder" video which was leaked by Private First Class Bradley Manning - while stationed with his Army unit in Baghdad, Iraq - in February to Julian Assange.

The press release announced, "WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting three airstrikes from a US Apache helicopter on July 12, 2007 in New Baghdad, Iraq. At least eighteen people were killed in the airstrikes, including two journalists working for Reuters, Saeed Chmagh and Namir Noor-Eldeen."

"The video was recorded by the gunsight camera on the Apache helicopter, identified as Crazyhorse 18, and is accompanied by the radio communications of the helicopter gunmen as they communicate with their commanders and troops on the ground.

When the video begins, the helicopter is circling above the city. It then focuses in on a group of men walking in the street, including the Reuters journalists. The soldiers in the helicopter state that they see members of the group carrying weapons, ask their commanding officers for permission to engage (fire), and fire upon the group with 30mm rounds.

The camera then follows Chmagh as he crawls along the road, and the soldiers can be heard urging him to pick up a weapon. A van, which was later learned to be carrying two children to school along with their father, arrives and several men pick Chmagh up and begin to carry him toward the van. The helicopter requests and is given permission to fire upon the van as it tries to leave. They fire upon the van with 30mm rounds.

The video then shows ground troops arriving at the area. A soldier can be seen running as he carries one of the children wounded in the attack on the van."

A Washington Post article published on April 16, 2011 - written by Ellen Nakashima - reported that soon after the "Collateral Murder" video was posted "that put WikiLeaks on the map...Manning began to exhibit 'bizarre behavior' at work, including showing 'blank stares when spoken to' and stopping in mid-sentence, according to Master Sgt. Adkins in a memorandum written for an investigation into whether any supervisors should be punished for failing to properly discipline Manning and for failing to run a secure SCIF."

The Post article also noted that "Manning e-mailed friends a link to the video, urging them to check it out."

"Manning’s strange behavior increased in 'frequency and intensity' and gave 'an impression of disrespect and disinterest' to his superiors. Adkins sent Manning not to a therapist but to a chaplain.

On May 7, Manning left his work area about 6:30 p.m. and was found an hour later 'sitting on the floor in a fetal position in a storage room.' It appeared as though he had been cutting open a vinyl chair. Etched in the chair were the words 'I want.'" A Gerber army knife lay at his feet.

Later that evening, having returned to his shift, he struck a female soldier in the face. He would later say he had no intention of hitting her and had no idea why he did."

Bradley Manning Facebook friends conscientious objector Josh Stieber

A week after the "Collateral Murder" video was leaked to the world, conscientious objector Josh Stieber - a member of the unit involved in the 2007 helicopter attacks but who wasn't there when it happened - began giving interviews to the press about it.

A press release issued by Stieber on April 9, 2010, which included contact info for his Media Advisory Sarah Lazare - the Project Director of "Courage to Resist" - titled "Veteran of 'Collateral Murder' Company Speaks Out," stated "that the acts of brutality caught on film and recently released via Wikileaks are not isolated instances, but were commonplace during his tour of duty."

"If these videos shock and revolt you, they show the reality of what war is like," Stieber said in the press release. "If you don’t like what you see in them, it means we should be working harder towards alternatives to war."

On April 12, 2010, Stieber told Democracy Now, "The natural thing to do would be to instantly judge or criticize the soldiers in this video...Not to justify what they did, but militarily speaking, they did exactly what they were trained to do...If we’re shocked by this video, we need to be asking questions of the larger system, because this is how these soldiers were trained to act."

Stieber also was interviewed by Scott Horton from Anti War radio on April 14, 2010, and by Salon's Glenn Greenwald on April 9, 2010.

Greenwald - who is a constitutional law attorney and used to be a political and legal blogger for Salon.com before moving on to The Guardian earlier this year - had spoken to Democracy Now on April 6, 2010, along with WikiLeak's Julian Assange. On his Twitter account, Breanna Manning @bmanningfm, Greenwald was one of the only two people Bradley selected to follow.

"...I had declined a couple of days earlier to follow a command that I didn't feel right in following so, so I was not allowed to go on this mission, or else I would have been in that video," Stieber told Greenwald on Salon radio.

Stieber complained, "And I guess one comparison that I would use is that maybe its being framed like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. If you were going to compare to a movie, when I feel its more like the Saw movies, where a character wakes up with a machine strapped to them and in order to make it out alive, they have to do something horrible to another person, so there's definitely that aspect of it. But its, yeah, its the nature of the machine, rather than, you know, the helicopter pilots just waking up one morning and like, alright, we're going to go out and kill some random people."

A document of Manning's "Facebook back to 2007" posted by Steve Fishman - who wrote an article called "Bradley Manning's Army of One" for New York Magazine on July 3, 2011 which called him a "dangerous soldier" - reveals that Manning Facebook friended Stieber some time between March 30 and April 25, 2010. After Manning was arrested, Stieber left a message on his Facebook page on December 18, 2010: "Happy Birthday Bradley, you're an inspiration!"

Cyberwarriors use "social engineering" for "offensive and defensive missions"

Reporting for The Washington Post on September 26, 2012, Robert O'Harrow Jr. explored how the concept of "social engineering - long favored by con artists, identity thieves and spammers - [has] become one of the leading threats to government and corporate networks in cyberspace."

"Serious hackers investigate their targets online and draw on troves of personal information people share about themselves, their friends and their social networks," O'Harrow Jr. reported. "Facebook, Twitter and other social media have become prime sources for the hackers, specialists said."

"'Everybody has their trigger,' said Bruce M. Snell, director of technical marketing at McAfee Security Systems. 'A good social engineer will find that trigger.'"

"Cyberwarriors at the Pentagon receive social-engineering training for offensive and defensive missions, knowledgeable specialists said," O'Harrow Jr. noted.

"At the same time, technology is transforming social engineering. One online data-mining service favored by hackers — as well as by security researchers and law enforcement — works much like a laser-focused Google. The automated system, called Maltego, enables users to quickly bring together and analyze disparate details about people from all corners of cyberspace, showing an individual’s links to friends, family, work associates and personal interests."

A security firm monitoring Stieber's Facebook account - and perhaps already alerted by friends of Manning - might have noticed the friending between the two conscientious objectors. That firm could have even been potentially hired by the US Government to help track down - and perhaps entrap - the "Collateral Murder" leaker.

Bradley Manning Facebook friends "Collateral Murder" soldier Ethan McCord

Between May 6 and May 30, 2010, Bradley Manning also became Facebook friends with Ethan McCord, another member of Bravo Company, 2-16 Infantry. McCord can be seen in the "Collateral Murder" video that Manning leaked. As Kim Zetter reported for Wired.com on April 20, 2007, "In July 2007, McCord, a 33-year-old Army specialist, was engaged in a firefight with insurgents in an Iraqi suburb when his platoon, part of Bravo Company, 2-16 Infantry, got orders to investigate a nearby street."

"When they arrived, they found a scene of fresh carnage – the scattered remains of a group of men, believed to be armed, who had just been gunned down by Apache attack helicopters. They also found 10-year-old Sajad Mutashar and his five-year-old sister Doaha covered in blood in a van. Their 43-year-old father, Saleh, had been driving them to a class when he spotted one of the wounded men moving in the street and drove over to help him, only to become a victim of the Apache guns.

McCord was captured in a video shot from one helicopter as he ran frantically to a military vehicle with Sajad in his arms seeking medical care. That classified video created its own firestorm when the whistleblower site Wikileaks posted it April 5 on a website titled 'Collateral Murder' and asserted that the attack was unprovoked. More than a dozen people were killed in three attacks captured in the video, including two Reuters journalists, one carrying a camera that was apparently mistaken for a weapon.

McCord, who served seven years in the military before leaving in the summer of 2009 due to injuries, recently posted an apologetic letter online with fellow soldier Josh Steiber supporting the release of the video and asking the family’s forgiveness. McCord is the father of three children."

McCord complained to Zetter, "When it was first released I don’t think it was done in the best manner that it could have been. They were stating that these people had no weapons whatsoever, that they were just carrying cameras. In the video, you can clearly see that they did have weapons … to the trained eye. You can make out in the video [someone] carrying an AK-47, swinging it down by his legs…."

But then McCord added, "I don’t say that Wikileaks did a bad thing, because they didn’t…. I think it is good that they’re putting this stuff out there. I don’t think that people really want to see this, though, because this is war…. It’s very disturbing."

Manning Facebook friends security and risk management expert Naveed Moeed

On April 30, 2010 - apparently right after his boyfriend broke up with him - Manning became Facebook friends with Naveed Moeed. How they met remains unknown and is a mystery, at this time. Moeed's Facebook entries from 2010 appear to have been scrubbed, since there is no sign of any communications with Manning to be found, or anything else from that year.

Naveed Moeed was principal technical consultant for the Middle East and Africa at RSA, the security division, and, according to his LinkedIn resume, spent 5 years, 3 months at the firm from April, 2004 to June of 2009, where he was "[p]art of the two-man team who started the MEA region for RSA, and grew the region from under $500k a year to over $6m a year, in three years." Prior to RSA, Moeed worked for a government agency called Joint Information Systems Committee or JISC - the "UK’s expert on information and digital technologies for education and research" - at the Monitoring and Advisory Unit (MAU) and the Technical Advisory Unit, from April 1999 to May 2000. He earned a PhD. in Physics at the University of Kent, where he studied from 1991 to 2000.

Since July of 2009, Moeed has worked for Verizon Business, according to his LinkedIn resume, as an "In region manager for VzB's Professional Services team for MEA. Responsible for a growing team covering the whole geography, increasing revenue and profitability and providing consistent cusomer experience for best in class Security and IT Services." In August of 2011, Moeed has been "[h]eading up a team as part of an EMEA-wide effort to establish and launch Verizon's new range of IAM products and services under the Terremark umbrella. The team in EMEA is responsible for the technical and sales enablement of these services in Europe as well as business development responsibility to increase Verizon's market share. As part of the wider IAM team, the group represents Verizon conferences and special interest groups including EEMA and Gartner."

Moeed's specialties include "Identity and Access Management, Encryption, Security Management, Security Incident and Event Monitoring (SEIM), Data Loss Prevention, Information Risk Management."

Although his resume claims he is currently a "Professional Services Manager, IAM Strategy and Business Development at Terremark" located in the Amsterdam Area, Netherlands, his Facebook profile lists his current address as Durham, North Carolina.
As Emirates Business reported on February 20, 2008,

"RSA, which provides information security solutions to 90 per cent of the Fortune 500 companies, has seen its Middle East client base grow from one bank the National Bank of Dubai in 2003 to 40 institutions at the end of last year.

We have seen exponential growth from this sector and this reflects how banks are reacting to security and how much they see it as leverage for accelerating the business. Its also about retaining customers.

Moeed, who was attending the Secur Middle East Congress in Dubai, said the extent of the damage caused by a security breach will depend on the size of the bank and type of clients it had."

Moeed is an expert in "social engineering" and gives presentations about warding off "cyber attacks" from within and outside.

The following paragraphs are taken from the University of Washington's Autumn 2005 course Wiki for Cyber Security and Homeland Security:

"Traditional hacking is no longer as big a problem as in the past, due mainly to current technology which can counter it. A different type of hacking, however, in the form of 'social engineering' (which includes attacks such as phishing), is on the rise. This is the view of Naveed Moeed, RSA Security technical consultant for the Middle East and Africa region, who spoke to ITWeb while on a recent visit to SA. Banks and financial institutions, some of which have recently been the targets of phishing attacks, are constantly facing the threat of fraud, he said. Phishing, he argued, is difficult to combat due to its innocuous nature, and takes advantage of users' perceptions that they are acting correctly by submitting information to an 'authentic' online banking site, for instance.

'It is becoming widely accepted that [banks and insurance companies] have to take responsibility for security – it cannot be left up to the users,' Moeed stated. With only four or five personal details, hackers are able to create a limited set of passwords, Moeed maintains, highlighting that about 80% of a Jordanian bank's online clients were affected after completing a bogus survey."

At the Web Security Summit 2007, held in South Africa, Dr. Naveed Moeed presented a PowerPoint slide show called "Avoiding Bad Security Practice by Hitting the Panic Button (cache link."

One of Moeed's slides contained a header which stated, "THE DATA SECURITY PARADIGM HAS SHIFTED" - underlined in bright red - with the subheaders, "YESTERDAY'S VIEW: Keep the Bad Guys Out" and "TODAY'S VIEW: Assume They Are Already In." Underneath "TODAY'S VIEW," Moeed's slide stated that the "THREAT" OF "[p]rivacy breach, intellectual property theft, insider attack" should entail a "FOCUS" on "[a]uthorization and accountability", and the "APPROACH" should be to "[m]anage and protect information: Identity management, data encryption."

In 2006, Moeed belonged to a group called UAEQuakers, Quakers in United Arab Emirates (Dubai) and he hosted at least one meeting at his own residence that same year in June.

As the BBC notes, "Quakers believe that war and conflict are against God's wishes and so they are dedicated to pacifism and non-violence. And from a practical point of view they think that force nearly always creates more problems than it solves."

"Many conscientious objectors (those who refuse to join the armed forces) are Quakers, but Quaker pacifism is not simply the refusal to fight: it includes working actively to bring about or preserve peace, by removing the causes of conflict."

Many of the Yahoo group's activity appears to be scrubbed (clicking on a link produces the Yahoo note: "There is no group called UAEQuakers. Please make sure you typed the web address correctly. If you have done so, the group may no longer exist.") but the following message sent by Moeed on June 6, 2006 was found in a cache link:

Hey Friends,

It looks like I will be travelling again for two weeks back on the 2nd of June. I would like to take the opportunity to host at that time if Friends are in agreement?

I look forward to seeing you all on my return,

In Peace,

Naveed
-- Naveed Moeed, Technical Consultant (Middle East & Africa)
RSA Security ME, Bldg 12 Off. 207, Dubai Internet City, P.O. Box 502318 Dubai

Mobile: +971(0)506577815, Landline: +971(0)43625496, Fax: +971(0)43686752

The group apparently sought and recruited Quakers from America, Great Britain and other countries, as well as Dubai residents, and another message noted, "Naveed and I were talking together recently and agreed that we thought it might be useful if we talked as a group to think about how we might raise our profile a bit as Dubai Quakers."

"Perhaps we can send out a missive, a photo, some news about us, etc. We also ought to register who can attend for us at Middle East Yearly Meeting, coming up in Lebanon in September. Let me know if anyone wishes to host meeting any time soon, maybe this Friday for example."

Quaker meetings would be a great place to spot potential "conscientious objectors" or "war resisters" who experienced changes of heart after enlisting with their countries' military forces. But there is no evidence that Moeed joined the UAEQuakers for such a purpose.

PBS Frontline later "obtained access to Manning's Facebook account", but only published an "edited version", which blurred out all the names of Manning's friends, and didn't include the dates on when he friended them.

"We have blurred the identities of those other than Manning posting comments or in pictures, as well as the names of people mentioned in the posts, with the exception of public figures and in several cases Manning's ex-boyfriend Tyler Watkins," PBS Frontline's article stated.

Security and Risk management pro also friended Manning's ex-boyfriend

Bradley Manning and Tyler Watkins became Facebook friends on November 17, 2008.

As Gawker's John Cook noted on May 24, 2011, after Frontline posted "Bradley Manning’s Lost Facebook Page," the soldier wrote openly about his relationship with Tyler Watkins, including being 'utterly lost and confused' after their break-up and referring at one point to his 'hubbie,' apparently without concern that his military colleagues would find out."

Nakashima's April 16, 2011 Washington Post article added, "Manning now had a love interest: Tyler Watkins, a freshman interested in neuroscience at Brandeis University who was an active member of Triskelion, the Brandeis club for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students. Manning began to make weekend visits to Watkins’s dorm at the tranquil, wooded campus west of Boston. On his Facebook page, Watkins declared that he was 'totally in love with Bradley Edward Manning!!!!!!!'"

In an article published by The New York Times on August 9, 2010, Ginger Thompson reported, "Before being deployed to Iraq, Private Manning met Tyler Watkins, who described himself on his blog as a classical musician, singer and drag queen. A friend said the two had little in common, but Private Manning fell head over heels. Mr. Watkins, who did not respond to interview requests for this article, was a student at Brandeis University. On trips to visit him here in Cambridge, Private Manning got to know many in Mr. Watkins’ wide network of friends, including some who were part of this university town’s tight-knit hacker community."

"Friends said Private Manning found the atmosphere here to be everything the Army was not: openly accepting of his geeky side, his liberal political opinions, his relationship with Mr. Watkins and his ambition to do something that would get attention.

Although hacking has come to mean a lot of different things, at its core, those who do it say, is the philosophy that information should be free and accessible to all. And Private Manning had access to some of the most secret information on the planet."

On June 6, 2010, Kevin Poulsen and Kim Zetter reported for Wired, "In January [of 2010], while on leave in the United States, Manning visited a close friend in Boston [- Tyler Watkins -] and confessed he’d gotten his hands on unspecified sensitive information, and was weighing leaking it, according to the friend."

Watkins told Wired that Bradley Manning "wanted to do the right thing. That was something I think he was struggling with."

On January 21, 2010, Manning posted on his Facebook page that he "misses Tyler Watkins."

After WikiLeaks posted his "Collateral Murder" video, Manning reportedly spoke to Watkins about the reaction in the United States.

"'He would message me, Are people talking about it?… Are the media saying anything?' Watkins said. 'That was one of his major concerns, that once he had done this, was it really going to make a difference?… He didn’t want to do this just to cause a stir…. He wanted people held accountable and wanted to see this didn’t happen again.'

Watkins doesn’t know what else Manning might have sent to Wikileaks. But in his chats with Lamo, Manning took credit for a number of other disclosures"

In her Washington Post article, Nakashima noted, "Since the Wired story, Watkins has not spoken to the media and did not return phone calls for this article. (After Manning’s arrest, federal investigators swooped into Boston looking for leads on WikiLeaks among Manning’s friends in the tech community, which one called a chilling experience.)"

According to Manning's Facebook page, he and Watkins apparently broke up on April 30, 2010, and at 5:13 PM wrote, that he was "utterly lost and confused over Tyler's relationship status." Watkins seemed to be ducking Manning, even though both were online that night. At 7:19 PM, Manning despondently wrote, "Anyone want to be my official 'next of kin?'"

However, Manning and Watkins must have had some kind of contact by the next morning, since on May 1, 2010 at 9:51 AM, he wrote on Facebook that he was "livid: first lectured by ex-boyfriend despite months of relationship ambiguity; then personally attacked by uncle over 'ex-'boyfriend'' (with scarequotes) and 'lifestyle.'"

Interestingly - and perhaps intriguingly - Bradley Manning's ex-boyfriend Tyler Watkins and security and risk management expert Naveed Moeed are friends on Facebook, too. Watkins' Facebook messages from 2010 are also scrubbed.

Manning arrested nearly one month after Facebook friending Naveed Moeed

On May 26, Bradley Manning was arrested five days after contacting a hacker, who has a long history of manipulating online web articles, and was convicted for computer crimes, and ordered to pay $65,000 to the federal government in restitution to the New York Times nearly a decade ago. That hacker now "volunteers" for a strange security firm, and has given inconsistent accounts about his communications with Manning, his tenure with the firm, and the circumstances on why and how he "snitched" - as many liberals refer to his actions.

On May 30, a mutual friend of Watkins and Manning, Danny Clark left the following message on his Facebook account, "Hi, are you okay? Haven't seen you on IM for a while. Posting here in case others worry as easily as I :-)." Clark refused to speak to federal agents, but the hacker who turned in Manning interviewed him - while working as a confidential informant for the Army Criminal Investigation Command(CID) - and turned the logs over to the government.

The Guardian's Ed Pilkington reported on August 30, 2012, "A military judge presiding over the court martial of the WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning has set the date for what is likely to be the biggest whistleblower trial in US history."

"Judge Denise Lind set aside six weeks for the trial of the US soldier, between 4 February and 15 March. Manning faces 22 counts relating to charges that he leaked hundreds of thousands of secret US state documents, including war logs from Afghanistan and Iraq and diplomatic cables, to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks.

The trial start date looks likely to hold firm despite months of postponement. By February Manning would have been in custody for almost three years – far longer than the 120-day period normally allowed under military rules between charges being preferred and the start of a trial.

The judge made her ruling at the end of a three-day pre-trial hearing at Fort Meade in Maryland, which was attended by Manning. The soldier, who worked as an intelligence analyst at forward operating base Hammer outside Baghdad, where he was arrested in May 2010, faces life in military custody."

Afterword

Readers who have been following my reporting on Neal Rauhauser and Adrian Lamo at this blog and on my twitter account Ron Brynaert @RonBryn know that I've been reporting on how both worked for a firm called Project Vigilant, which had some involvement in Manning's arrest.

Both Rauhauser (who sent a public tweet to Lamo @6 on the same day the convicted hacker first spoke to Manning, but claims he was "inactive" in PV throughout 2010, because he was concentrating on progressive politics and writing diaries at the popular Daily Kos blog) and Lamo refuse to answer direct questions, and have instead mocked me and - almost definitely - have directed trolls and sock accounts to menace and smear me. And last weekend private info about my family - including the possible Social Security number for my father who died in 1996 - were leaked onto the Internet.

My Twitter timeline going back to June of 2011 contains many links and exclusive reporting on Rauhauser, Lamo, Project Vigilant chief Chet Uber, and other members of Project Vigilant, for those who don't want to wait for the next installment.

"[W]e have two mutual friends, how interesting," Manning said to Lamo - who would turn him in a few days later, after allegedly contacting Uber - according to the Manning-Lamo logs published by Wired.com on July 13, 2011. "[S]mall world."

As www.usdayofrage.org founder Alexa O'Brien noted on her blog, "Lamo reportedly told PBS, when asked if he knew if Manning reached out to anybody else, confessed to anybody else?: "I've heard reports that he asked his significant other to help him with the couriering of information and was rebuffed in that. Again, I don't know if that's true."

"And looking at his Facebook page, he had posted angrily after disputes and incidents with his significant other in the past," Lamo also told PBS. "There didn't seem to be a lot of restraint there, although there were certainly good intentions."

In another article at her blog, Alexa O'Brien noted,

"Special Agent Antonio Patrick Edwards, CCIU, testified that he attempted to interview Danny Clark between 18 and 23 June 2010, but that he did not interview Clark, because Clark invoked his right to counsel. Edwards testified that he had knowledge that Danny Clark communicated with Adrian Lamo, because Adrian Lamo provided Edwards with the chat log between Lamo and Clark 'around July 22 [2010].' Edwards testified that Adrian Lamo did not receive the suggestion or 'specific guidance' by law enforcement to search for information, 'but if [Lamo] does collect information, [Lamo] should let [law enforcement] know.' Edwards testified that Lamo 'knew there were other individuals involved and opportunities in that community with other hackers,' and if Lamo 'was to discover anything' that it was suggested by law enforcement that Lamo 'should share that information.' On cross examination, Edwards testified that law enforcement was interested if Lamo found something, but 'tread lightly. Do not be deceptive. Don't do anything illegal.'"

According to theDecember 20, 2011 Article 32 Pretrial hearing in U.S. v Pfc. Manning transcript, published by O'Brien - which she wrote "was obtained from a respected journalist in attendance that day at Fort Meade" who "wished to remain anonymous, but wanted the transcript to be made public - Bradley Manning defense attorney, military-appointed JAG Captain Paul Bouchard asked Special Agent Edwards, "Anyone from law enforcement direct Lamo to have communications with Clark? Suggest it?"

"No," Special Agent Edwards replied. "No. We said he has no specific guidance to search, but if he does collect information, he should let us know. I think he knew there were other individuals involved and opportunities in that community with other hackers. If he was to discover anything, he should share that information."

Captain Bouchard then asked, "Was Mr. Lamo encouraged [to speak to Danny Clark, while acting as a confidential informant for the Army Criminal Investigation Command (CID) in late July of 2010]?"

"If he found something, yes of course we're interested," Edwards responded. "But tread lightly. Do not be deceptive. Don't do anything illegal."

However, since Lamo later admitted while under oath that he had told Clark on July 21, 2010, "Let's agree neither of us is gonna share these logs," Lamo was deceptive, and, yet the Army CID retained him as a confidential informant for a year.

Lamo told Manning defense attorney Coombs, "At the time, I found there was a necessity that overrode that implied agreement, yes." But the agreement wasn't implied, it was explicit. Lamo claimed that sharing the logs with law enforcement "was not [his] intent in contacting Danny Clark," but his explanation that he was only "curious regarding [Clark's] role in the WikiLeaks affair," seems dubious, since he was working with the government at the time.

"What in this chat with Danny Clark made you want to report to law enforcement?" Lamo was asked.

Lamo responded, "I found it unusual that someone would install additional encryption software on an Army computer, and that they would employ a civilian in so doing."

I published this article before contacting Naveed Moeed, primarily because I'm skeptical he'll talk to me, and I'm being menaced, smeared, and harassed by enough trolls, socks, security firm employees and even liberal bloggers, as it is. But I'll be sending him a link to this article, in hopes that he can help fill in the blanks or correct errors I've made. I haven't tried contacting Tyler Watkins, either, since I believe he still is avoiding the media.

[CORRECTION: I mixed up Naveed with another one of Manning's Facebook friends so I removed the line]

TO BE CONTINUED.......

10/14/12 Update: Adrian Lamo's 2009 stalker troll is Project Vigilant volunteer; Scrubs Facebook page after I outed him on Twitter; Pulls clown act to pretend he's not in Hack The Hackers...

10/10/12 Update: Project Vigilant Chet Uber told Wired reporters Kim Zetter and Kevin Poulsen in August of 2010 that Adrian Lamo had been volunteering for "about a year"; In June of 2010 interview Lamo told CNET that he "and the FBI wanted to continue feeding [Bradley Manning] disinformation...

Interviews, messages on Facebook from Project Vigilant director suggest Adrian Lamo - the hacker who turned in Bradley Manning - had been "volunteering" for "secret group" since 2009; "Whiz kid" Intelligence Directorate accused of plagiarism

DEVELOPING... More members to be revealed over the next week or so... Read "Bradley Manning Facebook friend was a security and risk management expert" for some more background details...

On June 21, 2010, San Francisco technology columnist Mark Albertson wrote an article for Examiner.com called Secret group aids fight against terror: the first story about "unpaid volunteers" who had allegedly been "patrolling the Internet for many years."

"For the past 14 years, a significant volunteer group of U.S. citizens has been operating in near total secrecy to monitor and report illegal or potentially harmful activity on the Web," Albertson wrote.

Since that article was published, a number of journalists and bloggers have suspected that the hard-to-believe group was a hoax, a fraud or a front, due to its underdeveloped website, strange director, and conflicting stories spun by the "unpaid volunteers" to the media.

But in August of 2010 at a DefCon event, when the director claimed that he played a background role in the arrest of US soldier Bradley Manning, many journalists and bloggers changed their dismissive tune. Manning was arrested in late April that same year, days after revealing to Adrian Lamo - who either joined Project Vigilant before or after - that he had been leaking classified material to the international non-profit media group, WikiLeaks. A video Manning named "Collateral Murder" which showed footage of a 2007 US Apache helicopter strike in New Baghdad, Iraq that killed at least eighteen people helped put WikiLeaks "on the map", Ellen Nakashima wrote for The Washington Post in April, 2011.

Declan McCullagh reported in a August 10, 2010 article for CNet.com that Lamo "became Project Vigilant's associate director for adversary characterization about half a year ago," but both have ducked questions about the claim. In an interview with Elinor Mills published on June 24, 2009 at CNet.com, Lamo said he was "looking at an option as a staff scientist in what's called 'adversary characterization,' figuring out who is going to break into your s*** before they do it and how they're going to do it before they even formulate the plan," but told her "it would be inappropriate to specifically state who I would be a staff scientist for."

Lamo told Mills that he was working as "a threat analyst for a privately held company," which he revealed was Reality Planning LLC, but he didn't tell her it was his own firm, and that he may have been its only employee, at the time (In January of 2012, Reality Planning LLC lists a workforce size of 5-10). In a February 1, 2010 article, also written by Elinor Mills, Lamo was referred to as a "threat analyst."

"Uber says Lamo worked as a volunteer research associate for Project Vigilant for about a year on something called adversary characterization, which involved gathering information for a project on devising ways to attribute computer intrusions to individuals or groups," Kim Zetter and Kevin Poulsen reported for Wired on August 1, 2010. "He helped define the roles, tools and methods intruders would use to conduct such attacks."

Also worth noting is that six months before Manning's arrest, Albertson - who would later "out" Project Vigilant in an exclusive - wrote a November 2, 2009 article called "Adrian Lamo knows your number", that referred to him as "a working journalist who is frequently called upon to give speeches at security conventions and various 'cybecrime' gatherings", and predicted he "may soon become an ever bigger celebrity if a movie – Hackers Wanted– is ever released."

On May 6, 2009, Project Vigilant Director Chet Uber left a comment on Adrian's Facebook page - which he named "Felon" - after the "Hackers Wanted" trailer was leaked and Lamo joked, "It's about time someone did this, even if I do want to strangle the writer just a bit. Also - Russia? That's a bit far from Los Angeles." Uber "Liked" the link and wrote, "Thanks for sharing." After Lamo wrote that he needed a new iPhone on December 28, 2009, Uber wrote, "oh pooo baby have to get a new top of the line toy, I am sooooooo sad."

On April 21, 2009, Uber apparently knew Lamo well enough to refer to his wife: "OK this has gone way past a writing obsession. Lauren, I am pretty sure this developed into a sexual fetish with stalker overtones. LOCK UP YOUR MAN!"

In September of 2003, after the FBI issued a warrant charging Adrian Lamo with computer hacking crimes and couldn't find him at his parents' house, the then 22-year-old hid out for a few days and called Kevin Poulsen - a longtime friend and former hacker who later published the Manning-Lamo chat logs as an exclusive for Wired. Poulsen reported for Security Focus that Lamo "did not plan to turn himself in until after conferring with [his] attorney," and "quipped about the proper etiquette of being arrested by the FBI, and suggested jokingly that SecurityFocus should purchase the publication rights to a favorite photo."

The "homeless hacker" pleaded guilty in January of 2004 and was sentenced to "six months of home confinement," and "two years of probation and ordered to pay more than $64,900 in restitution, after he hacked into the New York Times internal computer network, accessed and modified confidential databases and used the paper's LexisNexis account to conduct research, according to a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York," Paul Roberts reported for Computer World July 16, 2004.

"I think this is unsporting of the New York Times," as a fugitive from justice, Lamo told his friend, because after hacking the paper he had warned "the Times of their vulnerability through a SecurityFocus reporter," in February of 2002, Poulsen reported. Poulsen was the reporter who got the exclusive on the hacking and presumably contacted the Times in Lamo's behalf. Times spokesperson Christin Mohan released a statement in 2002 that the paper was "actively investigating a potential security breach" and "[b]ased on the results of this investigation we will take appropriate steps to ensure the security of our network." Poulsen also noted, "In September, the hacker used a vulnerable Web-based production tool to tamper with a wire service story on Yahoo! News, deliberately choosing an old story to minimize the impact."

"I still owe the federal government roughly $60,000 in restitution to Microsoft, LexisNexis and The New York Times," Lamo told PBS Frontline in February of 2011, but ducked questions from me on Twitter, on whether he paid it off, since his firm Reality Planning LLC "had $135,000 in 2011 revenue," which may have included a defense contract from the US government.

According to a online profile, Lamo's Reality Planning LLC "engages in information assurance services (security analysis, 'red team' testing, etc) & creative resolution to issues relating to the occlusion / unavailability of 3rd-party information resources occasioned by technical or diplomatic limitations."

Three days after he was discharged from his forced institutionalization and eleven days before speaking to Manning, Lamo tweeted seven times about Reality Planning from May 10 to May 17 of 2010, mostly complaints about allergies and yawning.

Lamo also is listed as the registrant for SETEC ASTRONOMY, which is an anagram for "too many secrets," that was used in the 1992 Robert Redford movie spy movie "Sneakers." A plotline from the movie involved how "the NSA ha[d] intercepted some transmissions from the Russians to a certain mathematician named Dr. Gunter Janek, who's working on some sort of 'black box' dealing with cryptography under a project called Setec Astronomy."

As a blog noted in March of 2011, www.setecastronomy.org was registered on August 21, 2009, and the now-scrubbed site claimed, "This is a Tor Exit Node It is distinctly likely that you are reading this because you had some issue with the traffic coming from this IP address. This machine is part of the Tor Anonymity Network, which is dedicated to providing privacy to people who need it most:- ordinary computer users - i.e. people like you......Email address: adrian@setecastronomy.org."

"I'm at SETEC ASTRONOMY (3 Embarcadero Center, San Francisco). http://4sq.com/9ea2bD ," Lamo tweeted on April 12, 2010. Two days later, he tweeted, "Adrian Lamo checked in at SETEC ASTRONOMY. 'Brrrrcld.'"

The whois for SETEC listed a Wilmington, Deleware for Reality Planning LLC, and bizapedia.com claims Lamo's firm was registered on 3/19/07. Another whois listing links that address to a website called FaithManages.org that was registered on September 15, 2011. Lamo's Wikipedia entry notes, "When approached for comment during his criminal case, Lamo frustrated reporters with non sequiturs such as 'Faith manages', (probably a reference to science fiction television show Babylon 5) and 'It's a beautiful day.'"

On September 16, 2012, Lamo tweeted, "Hey, does anyone remember the web site that listed unusual .mil patches? Someone mentioned a SETEC ASTRONOMY one, wanna see if it's there."

Searching for information on Lamo leads journalists into rabbit hole after rabbit hole, which might be the point. Lamo's press releases sometimes include silly lines such as, "Although Lamo is an officer in Reality Planning LLC, a business intelligence interest, Adrian Lamo is Adrian Lamo's premiere information security concern."

"My plan initially was not to see him arrested. I and the FBI wanted to continue feeding him disinformation," Adrian Lamo told Elinor Mills in a story published on June 7, 2010 at CNET.com. She added, "However, the criminal investigation unit of the Army had other plans, he said."

"'If it was just the video, I would have left the issue alone, and frankly, he would have had my kudos--and he still does,' Lamo said. 'But it wasn't just the video. It was a lot of information that was unrelated to our activities in Iraq and Afghanistan or the war on terror at all, including information about some of our major trading partners.

Asked to elaborate, Lamo said he couldn't say more, except that the sensitive information had to do with code words and that it was 'top-secret sensitive, compartmentalized information.''"

Constitutional lawyer and blogger Glenn Greenwald wrote an article for Salon on December 27, 2010 called, "The worsening journalistic disgrace at Wired," which was a sequel-of-sorts to a column he wrote that June on the "long, strange and multi-layered relationship between Poulsen and Lamo."

"But now there are new facts making all of this stranger still, and it all centers around a man named Mark Rasch. Who is Rasch? He’s several things. He’s the former chief of the DOJ’s Computer Crimes Unit in the 1990s. He's a 'regular contributor' to Wired. He's also the General Counsel of 'Project Vigilant,' the creepy and secretive vigilante group that claims to gather Internet communications and hand them over to the U.S. government. Rasch is also the person who investigated and criminally pursued Kevin Poulsen back in the late 1980s and early-1990s, thus helping to put him in prison for more than three years (added: see the post here, near the bottom, regarding Poulsen's objections to this sentence and the evidence that supports it). As detailed below, Rasch also has a long and varied history with both Poulsen and, to a lesser extent, Lamo. And — most significantly of all — Rasch is the person who put Lamo in touch with federal law authorities in order to inform on Manning."

At Wired, Poulsen countered, "Nearly half of [Greenwald's] article is devoted to a characteristically murky conspiracy theory involving a well-known cybercrime attorney and former Justice Department lawyer named Mark Rasch. Rasch is one of three people that Lamo sought for advice while looking to turn in Bradley Manning. The blockbuster, stop-the-presses, 'incontrovertibly true' disclosure with which Greenwald caps his piece? That Rasch once prosecuted me for hacking the phone company."

The 'regularly contributes to his magazine' part is apparently a reference to two 2004 opinionpieces in Wired magazine," Poulsen added.

Greenwald argued back, "Rasch then proceeded to have numerous interactions over the years with Poulsen — and then end up as the person who helped direct Lamo to government authorities to inform on Manning — is absolutely relevant and is something that should be disclosed when Poulsen writes about this case.

"My claim that he was a 'regular contributor' to Wired was based on numerous sources, apparently including Rasch himself. From Rasch's biography on the SCIIP Board of Advisers: 'He writes a monthly column in Symantec's Security Focus online magazine . . . and is a regular contributor to Wired magazine.' His biography as a guest on The Charlie Rose Show states that he 'is a regular contributor to Wired magazine.' His own prepared biography makes the same claim ('a regular contributor to Wired Magazine'). If Rasch has nothing to do with Wired other than the single article, then there is obviously no disclosure issue, but it also means that someone has been making false claims about Rasch's relationship to that magazine."

Greenwald also noted that Rasch "close to 40 times [had] been cited as a source in Wired articles, including — as I documented in my piece on Sunday — multiple times by Poulsen and [Kim] Zetter [who co-wrote the June 6, 2010 exclusive about Manning's arrest]."

As I reported on Twitter two weeks ago, "Since 2007, @KimZetter used @mdrasch as source on 11 @Wired stories but oddly stopped after 12/27/10 @ggreenwald story [link]." Rasch has only been quoted sparingly at Wired by other writers, as well.

On September 26, 2012 I tweeted, "After @ggreenwald nailed @kimzetter @kpoulson for leaving out @mdrasch role in Manning case, @Wired fired back weakly" and "@mdrasch wrote columns for Symantec's "Security Focus" which hired ex-con @kpoulsen who wrote puff piece on @6 in 2001." Lamo argued back, "@ronbryn Mark Rasch had no substantive role in the key events. No one was 'nailed' by Glenn. Rasch was simply counsel to someone involved." While Poulsen just ignored everything I tweeted, and chose instead to mock me: "@ronbryn Don't you see! It's all connected! Wake up sheeple!"

A day after Lamo turned himself in to the federal courthouse, Rasch was quoted in a September 10, 2003 Security Focus article by Kevin Poulsen, in which he accurately complained that the Times appeared to be inflating the LexisNexis charges.

"'Three hundred thousand dollars seems very high, and it seems very unlikely it's what LexisNexis would charge,' says Mark Rasch, an attorney and former Justice Department cybercrime prosecutor. The question is more than academic. The $300,000 figure raises Lamo's maximum sentence under federal guidelines from six months in detention, to more than three years in prison, assuming no criminal history and a guilty plea, according to an analysis by Rasch. 'It's the difference between going home at the end of the day, and spending more than three years in jail,' says the lawyer."

A few weeks later on September 29, 2003, Rasch also wrote a column for Security Focus, claiming that he was not an "apologist for hackers like Adrian Lamo, who, in the guise of protection, access others' computer systems without authorization, and then publicize these vulnerabilities."

"When Lamo did this to the New York Times, he violated two of my cardinal rules: Don't make enemies with people appointed for life by the President of the United States; and don't make enemies of people who buy their ink by the gallon.

Now, in the scope of prosecuting Lamo, the FBI is doing the hacker one better by violating both of these precepts in one fell swoop.

The Bureau recently sent letters to a handful of reporters who have written stories about the Lamo case -- whether or not they have actually interviewed Lamo. The letters warn them to expect subpoenas for all documents relating to the hacker, including, apparently, their own notes, e-mails, impressions, interviews with third parties, independent investigations, privileged conversations and communications, off the record statements, and expense and travel reports related to stories about Lamo.

....

And yet the FBI publicly announced to the world, through a Wired.com reporter, their intention to subpoena every journalist who ever talked to Adrian Lamo. Apparently, the FBI can talk about their intention to subpoena reporters, and mention specific reporters' names in the Lamo affidavit, but if journalists have the temerity to mention it to their own lawyers, this could devastate the prosecution.

I've never spoken to Adrian Lamo, but I am sure that by writing this article, I am making myself a target for subpoenas, search warrants (government, take note that the law prohibits search warrants for reporter's notes) and demands to preserve evidence. All I have to say is, quoting President George W. Bush, 'Bring it on.'"

'Big names' of Project Vigilant revealed, so far

Even though Project Vigilant's director has claimed that the group has as many as 600 "unpaid volunteers" working for it, only about a dozen names have been linked, so far. "Vigilant also claimed to have 'collection officers' in 22 countries that gather intelligence or coordinate networks in person," Glenn Chapman reported for AFP on August 1, 2010. Director Chet Uber claimed Project Vigilant was "in a drive to be at 'full capacity' by adding 1,750 'vetted volunteers' by the year 2012," Chapman noted
.
However, on August 21, 2012, Albertson reported, "Uber says that Project Vigilant has expanded its volunteer force from 500 in 2010 to a current level of 750, with the biggest increase coming in Project Vigilant's core volunteers (defined as people who work 5 or more hours per week) who today number 125." In his "exclusive" June of 2010 columns, Albertson spoke on-the record to Uber and - according to his own accounts - a shadowy Democratic operative named Neal Rauhauser who somehow managed to hook up with liberal bloggers, Anonymous hacktivists, and members of the Occupy Wall Street movement, even though he belonged to a group which essentially spied for the government. Since early 2010, Rauhauser has spent much of his time harassing conservatives, critics, journalists (including me) and bloggers, but somehow argues that it's the other way around.

"Finding information about Project Vigilant is not easy. They have a public webpage that reveals little information about the group. Names of the volunteers are stored in such a way that they are not accessible from any network. Access to the work of the group by its own members is highly controlled and monitored.

The group’s collaboration with the U.S. Government is handled through another highly secure web portal which supports protected email, chat and other features."

In a follow-up column published on June 22, 2010, Albertson revealed "Big names help run Project Vigilant." He wrote, "It’s tempting to look at a secret group of cybercrime “monitors” and dismiss them as a group of lightweights trying to play cops and robbers in the Internet world. Nothing could be farther from the truth."

Aside from Project Vigilant General Counsel Mark Rasch, who "led the Department of Justice computer crime unit" for nine years, and Director Chet Uber, who claimed to be "a founding member of InfraGard (a partnership between the FBI and the private sector) and a longtime participant in AFCEA (Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association)," the other "big names" outed were Cybercop co-founder "Kevin Manson, who serves as Project Vigilant’s liaison with state and federal law enforcement groups", second in command George Johnson, who "was handpicked by DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency – part of the U.S. Department of Defense) to develop secure tools for the exchange of sensitive information between federal agencies," Ira Winkler, "president of the Internet Security Advisors Group and...former employee of NSA (National Security Agency)," and "Suzanne Gorman, one of Project Vigilant’s top leaders,...a former security chief for the New York Stock Exchange [who] is widely viewed as one of the foremost experts on Web threats in the financial services world."

In August of 2011, blogger Baily Carlson took a "Closer look at Project Vigilant," adding some other names to the list.

"Blaine Burnham formerly NSA Information Security expert between 1987-1998. Before the NSA, Blaine worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory developing tools and techniques to achieve higher levels of Information Security to secure the US national nuclear weapons arsenal. He is now the executive director of Nebraska University Consortium on Information at University of Nebraska.

Blaine['s] position with Vigilant is listed as Independent Validation & Verification.

Wayne Wilson has US Top Secret security clearance. He has worked with military contractor Northrop Grumman and Department of Defence contractor The Yellowstone Group where his primary focus was on 'Cybersecurity and Linguistics for the NSA and other Agencies'."

Carlson also named AJ Fardella, "Contracted for Secret Service, DOJ, DEA" Richard Brandt, "former Journalist for BusinessWeek" Mike Tomasiewicz, "ConAgra Foods Sys Admin, certified as InfoSec professional" Doug Jacobson, "Professor of Electrical/Computer Engineering at Iowa State University, founder of Cybersecurity business Palisade Systems" and Christophe Veltsos, "Faculty of Computer Information Science at Minnesota State University."

In August, Albertson added "Jeff Bardin (Assistant Director, Intelligence and Analysis – Middle East Desk, Chief Intelligence Officer for Treadstone 71)" to the list of members, and "some major leaders in the computer and Internet world who are not members of the group, but were willing to talk for this story about their support for Project Vigilant’s work."

"These include Vint Cerf, Vice President for Google and widely recognized as the 'father of the Internet,' Bill Cheswick, a highly-regarded Internet security expert, and Winn Schwartau, one of the world’s top experts on cyberterrorism. 'I know an awful lot of people who are involved with Project Vigilant,' says Schwartau."

However, Cheswick appears to have had more involvement with the group, since a follow-up article by Albertson published on August 22, 2012 noted, "The group has also acquired the data generated by Bill Cheswick, a legendary security expert, whose Internet Mapping Project has emerged as the most complete picture to-date of the enormously complicated vines that link web servers around the globe. 'I may be the only person who ever pinged a U.S. nuclear submarine,' Cheswick recounts proudly." While employed as a computer scientist for AT&T Bell Laboratories in 1991, Bill Cheswick "set up a hacker honeypot to snag and study break-ins over the modems at the Labs." Cheswick wrote a paper about how "we led this cracker on a merry chase in order to trace his locations and learn his techniques."

And [Editor's Note: This paragraph won't be added until I finish this article, since I don't want to compromise a source for some of my research, at this time. Uber, Lamo and Rauhauser have done a lot of scrubbing since I began reporting on this story over a year ago, and then mock me for "hallucinating" what was once available for all to see on the world wide web.].

Intelligence Directorate James Smith monitors #AntiSec in IRC chat rooms

From December 5th-to-6th of 2011, EC-Council's CISO Executive Summit included speeches by Ira Winkler, Jeff Bardin and James Smith who was billed as the Intelligence Directorate at Project Vigilant. According to a biography pasted at the CISO website, "James Smith is a Certified Ethical Hacker. He founded SmithwaySecurity, an independent cyber-security research firm, in 2009. He is an International Member of the Intelligence Directorate for Project Vigilant LLC and currently serves as an Intelligence Analyst. He holds a string of industry qualifications including MCSE, Network+ and IT Security, namely Security+ and CEH. His experience ranges from networking and web application penetration testing, adversary characterization, attack attribution and intelligence gathering. Aside from Security, James works in Network Administration for IBM and Bell Aliant."

Smith's LinkedIn resume adds that he lives in New Brunswick, Canada, and is also a Technical Analyst for Innovatia, and that he used to work for IBM Global Services and Griffith Colson Intelligence Service.

Smith is also scheduled to speak at the Global CISO Forum, which will be held on October 29 and 30 in Miami, Florida. According to a message Smith wrote on his Facebook page, he'll be "[s]peaking about SAP Security with a few others :)."

On his Facebook page, Smith's "Likes" include Palantir Technologies, HBGary, BlackBag Technologies, Hack The Hackers and Anti-WikiLeaks.

On November 9, 2011, Project Vigilant director Chet Uber wrote the following recommendation for Smith on LinkedIn, "James is well versed in INFOSEC and has a strong interest in the fields of Attack Attribution and Intelligence. He has been an ENCLAVE Member of ProjectVIGILANT LLC since we took over BBHC and prior. He was easy to vet, is polite, hard working and shows strong potential to move upwards to the next grade of Intelligence Analyst. We put a lot of faith in James."

In January of 2012, using his smithwaysecurity com email address in a discussion called "Rate Stratfor's Incident Response" posted at seclists.org, James Smith told Laurelai Bailey and others, "This mailing list is a big part of the IT Security community." In December of 2011, Stratfor was hacked and founder/CEO George Friedman confirmed a month later, that "customer credit card and other information had been stolen."

"From the beginning, it was not clear who the attackers were. The term 'Anonymous' is the same as the term 'unknown.' The popular vision of Anonymous is that its members are young and committed to an ideology. I have no idea if this is true. As in most affairs like this, those who know don't talk; those who talk don't know. I have my theories, which are just that and aren't worth sharing. "

On February 27, 2012, "WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files more than five million emails from the Texas-headquartered 'global intelligence' company Stratfor."

"The emails date from between July 2004 and late December 2011. They reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal’s Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defense Intelligence Agency. The emails show Stratfor’s web of informers, pay-off structure, payment-laundering techniques and psychological methods..."

Anonymous took credit for the hacking, Stratfor claimed that many of the emails released by WikiLeaks were altered or forged.

On June 28 of 2011, Gawker's Adrian Chen claimed, the FBI raided Bailey's "home because of her connections" to the hacking group Lulz Security.

"At about 11 am last Thursday, 29-year-old Laurelai Bailey heard a knock at her Davenport, Iowa home. She found around eight FBI agents swarming at her doorstep, search warrant in hand. But the agents politely 'told me they weren't there to arrest me,' Bailey tells us in an interview.

Instead, they had some questions about hackers Bailey had been hanging out with online. They told Bailey they were investigating a February attack against the security firm HBGary by an elite group of hackers associated with the hacktivist collective Anonymous. Those hackers would later break away from Anonymous to form Lulz Security, who attacked the FBI, PBS, and the CIA in a well-publicized spree before calling it quits this weekend amid increasing pressure and the arrest of a purported member in England.

Bailey's conversation with the feds lasted about five hours, during which she told them everything she knew. But Bailey says she knew nothing that anyone couldn't find out themselves, using leaked chat logs and Google. The feds also asked if she could infiltrate the group.

Chen added, "But Bailey insists she was never a member of LulzSec, nor has she ever engaged in illegal hacking. In the chat logs she leaked, she is seen chatting freely with the hackers as the HBGary hack unfolded,, offering advice, kibitzing—even giving suggestions for a logo. But she says she became close to the hackers through her involvement with Crowdleaks, a Wikileaks-focused news website. She claims she was in the room during the HBGary hack simply acting as a reporter for Crowdleaks." FBI Raids Iowa Woman's Home in Lulz Security Hacker Investigation 'They wanted to know if I could get close to them,' Bailey says. 'I told them these people hate me... it wouldn't do any good." Bailey says Lulz Security hackers hold a grudge against her for leaking logs from the secret chat room in which they planned the HBGary hack—which she says she did in retaliation for them harassing some of her friends. (We later published an article based on the logs.) When the interview was over, the agents carted off a couple of her hard drives, her camera and other computer equipment.'"

Smith also told Laurelai Bailey and others, "Well I have been in their irc chat rooms. A few of them are very Intelligent in Information Security. Well if you are only defining say #AntiSec- I would say about less then a third. As for the other 97% they just know how to attack and exploit vulnerabilities."

After another hacking claimed by Anonymous in January, Smith left many messages in a discussion seclists.org called "Megaupload.com seized," including, "I can only imagine the bloodbath this will cause.!!"

Adding to the mystery of Project Vigilant - and perhaps fuel to the belief that it's a hoax or front - Smith's SmithwaySecurity.com isn't currently accessible online. But an archive link from 2009, claimed, "SmithwaySecurity is a professional information security consulting company specializing in IT security assessments as well as security training services and policy development. Our innovative services will keep your organization protected from the latest security threats and assist you in acheieving the highest security levels. SmithwaySecurity has the experience and expertise to guide your organization through the ever changing information security challenges of today's business environment." The archived link also contains a welcome message posted June 12 2004.

Another archived link from some time in 2008 claimed, "Smithway Security is a website security company that provides security services to all clients. Our company runs 24/7 to keep our clients happy at all time. We specialize in website security and are up to date on all exploits that may harm your website or server."

The site claimed, "Our goal is to help clients and governments secure their servers and websites while maintaing a quality infrastructure," "[s]ome of the services we offer to our clients and government agency's around the world are Foot printing, Scanning, Patching, Denial of Service protection, Server maintains,Forensics, Tracing, VPN setup, Proxy blocking, SQL Injection protection, Pen tests, Arp, DNS poisoning, Firewall's, IDS systems, Encryption Network Surveillance, Snifing Protection, Stats Report and more,"Our security company is hard working and up to date on all the newest security practices. We are located in Canada. With years under our belt we are the security force of the future," and "We are an online based security company that offers our services world wide to many countries. We are located in the city of Saint john, New Brunswick You may email us at: j_fbi@hotmail.com and james@smithwaysecurity.com."

The j_fbi@hotmail.com email address was included in the "final" LulzSec hacking announcement.

"On June 26, 2011, LulzSec bids adieu by releasing their final data dump containing over 750,000 accounts some with emails and passwords in cleartext. These accounts were obtained from random sources including hackforums.net, nato-bookshop.org, and several gaming forums.

LulzSec announced the release in a Twitter post at https://twitter.com/#!/LulzSec/status/84758628325801984. The table below is the list of these accounts. The release contains also over 500,000 accounts with username and password combination from Battlefield Heroes Beta, a game published by EA. These accounts are tagged with bh in the list below. All passwords have been completely masked to protect the users from further attacks."

The following video, "Bluetooth snarfing," was embedded on Smith's website, and the description from YouTube notes, "Think your phone can get hacked. These guy's break the world record and hack a phone from over a mile away! As seen on TECHTV." One of the kids in the video is called James, and resembles James Smith's online photographs.

According to whois, Smith registered the website on March 6, 2008.
A profile at LinkedIn for SmithwaySecurity claims, "SmithwaySecurity, is an cyber defense firm, was born out of the need to help protect our businesses, government, financial and educational institutions and various organizations from vicious hackers. Our objective is to provide enterprise level information technology consulting to small and medium sized corporations and governments. The solutions that SmithwaySecurity delivers are not meant as a quick fix to your IT security challenges. Our solutions are well thought out."

Smith's profile on his Twitter account @JamesS755 claims SmithwaySecurity is "[d]elivering innovative and relevant solutions for today's global security challenges from providing IT security and intelligence."

SmithwaySecurity's Facebook account boasted on September 12, "We now have a few big clients from Europe, Thanks to Nemanja Gjorgjevic."

On July 30, 2011, a user claiming to be Andrew Wallace complained at wirelessforums.org, "A Canadian called James Smith going by the SmithwaySecurity has set up a Facebook page in which he has plagiarized and modified many posts I used to have on my blogspot blog."

"He has been contacted many times by me to remove the text from the 'notes' section of his Facebook page and also from his personal profile.

He appears to be doing it to get my attention.

He has failed to respond to my messages calling for the posts to be removed and I have threatened him with legal action."

An old version of Wallace's Twitter profile @awallaceuk claimed, he is "the founder of 'n3td3v - Security Solutions', an organisation which investigates hackers if they attack UK interests."

Homosexpionage? Lesbian lover of transexual Mata Hari calls Project Vigilant "whiz kid" a "genius at his job"

In March of 2011, an odd article at igossip.com written by J.J. Martin claimed, "Rumor has it that celebrity cyber-whiz kid James Smith, ceo of Smithway Security, will be awarded 'Cyber Security Hero of the Year Award', by GCIS Director Alysyn Bourque," which was allegedly based on an email sent by "Kayla Cohen, cyber security chief at GCIS and the girlfriend of intelcom chief Alysyn Bourque," who called him "a genius at his job."

"Smithway Security is credited with predicting several cyber threats in advance and is a rising star in the cyber security Industry.

"I think this guys has so much to offer. He wants the best for cyber security across the board and if we listen to what he has to say, we'll all be better for it", said Avivah Beiser, a GCIS staffer.

Smith is currently planning a hacking contest to test cyber security measures."

If Project Vigilant seems strange, then Griffith Colson Intelligence Service (GCIS) has to be off-the-charts, and reporting on the following rabbit hole is almost embarrassing.
According to an article called "HoneyTraps. Sex & Spy Babes written by Nava Adler for Security Industry News Today and published at OutMilitary.com on February 23rd, 2011 by Kayla Cohen, Alysyn Bourque "wrestled control of the agency from her former lover and agency co-founder Will Griffith and turned GCIS into a female dominated firm, complete with an equally exotic team of impressive babes, [and] knows the power her female agents have."

"Bourque ended her romantic relationship with Griffith in 2009 after she learned he had once worked as a transvestite prostitute. While Griffith has been credited with being an expert in ‘homosexpionage’, it didn’t sit well with Bourque and failed the test in what she demanded of a relationship. Griffith’s less than masculine performance left Bourque underwhelmed and unsatisfied. She remains friends with Griffith, who has since admitted that he’s gay.

....

...Openly lesbian, Bourque has proven an effective intelligence chief. She has built her agency into one of the most effective private intelcom agencies anywhere and continues to expand. Her operatives, often said to use their exotic, seductive qualities to gather field intelligence for clients, are at the top of their game.

Another GCIS operative Kayla Cohen (left), is Deputy Director of Cyber Security. Also a lesbian, she is the picture perfect honeypot. As the top cyber spy for GCIS, Cohen is sexy, smart and, well, sexy. Cohen has said that Bourque's leadership of the agency empowered others like herself to 'come out'. When an Israeli rabbi blessed the use of female spies in 'honeytrap' or 'honeypot' stings in October of 2010 against terrorists,' Bourque (who is part Jewish) and her Jewish team of female ops had to smile from ear to ear. At the time, Cohen said sex was part of her daily diet and welcomed the ruling of the rabbi. Bourque encourages her agents to be feminine, sexy and willing to use those qualities in their work. The agency is quiet on whether or not sexual activity is actually employed as a method of operation."

In March of 2012, the [editor's note: highly reputable and trustworthy, I'm sure] igossip.com website claimed that the transexual Mata Hari Alysyn Bourque became a model, and is now the author of a lesbian book of poetry called "The BlackLight Chronicles" and "openly queer ex-lover and former transvestite hooker Will Griffith" is "known as EPICENIA in the art circle."

Available for sale at Amazon.com, the book description states, "Blacklight Chronicles is a contemporary work of the kind of literature often born into something classical, exotic and soulful, walking the line between passion and pain, and how the poet views her beloved and the embrace of the soul with the fire of their lust. It captivates the soul with love, sadness, vulnerability. It is both full of light and despair."

On June 27, 2012, SecurityTekNewswire claimed, "A new reality show is scheduled to premier later this year on NAIStv, the official broadcasting network of the National Association of Investigative Specialists. 'GCIS Los Angeles' will be a weekly half hour reality show that gives the viewer an inside peek into the world and work of Griffith Colson Intelligence Service (GCIS), a private intelligence communications agency."

"Focus on the daily work at GCIS will include the firm’s Cyber Security Task Force, led by the sexy Kayla Cohen, GCIS cyber security chief. Viewers will get a glimpse of Cohen as she monitors online terror recruitment sites and extremist social networks. One episode will be dedicated to the GCIS Digital and Cyber Narcotics Division.The show will also take a look into the GCIS Communications Command Center and we’ll follow the footsteps and a day in the life of GCIS Director W. Edward Griffith, head of the agency. Griffith is also Director-General of Machaseh Security Service, the GCIS Israel unit. Machaseh will also be highlighted in a series of planned episodes."

The website for GCIS claims, "Our mission to is to protect the security of the United States and her allies while attempting to secure the goal of peace. We respect the sanctity of all life, regardless of religion, politics, social affiliation, race, creed, gender, or sexual orientation."

Griffith Colson Intel Center has a bizarre tumblr account, which has everything from FBI alerts to strange stories on GCIS and a 2010 "holiday message from the GCIS family".

"As we approach Christmas, all of us at GCIS are thankful for the degree of your support and for enabling us to serve you better each day.

This has been a year that has brought with it attacks from those who do not sympathize with the vision we all share and we have become stronger because of it.

We have grown together because of your support, prayers and friendship. To wake up each day and continue the work we have charted is not just a job for us. Serving you is an honor and blessing.

I also want to express the honor the GCIS team shares in serving under a director who has the integrity, sense of mission and purpose to lead. Alysyn Bourque is not just the head of our agency. She is the head of our family. To serve under her is an honor and we thank her for her sacrifice and service. She has the ability to put aside personal issues to focus on the issues we all care about. With two young children, she certainly has her hands full. She never misses a beat and we look forward to her leadership as we enter 2011."

Adrian Lamo's 2009 stalker troll Baljeet Singh now becomes Project Vigilant volunteer

In the aforementioned April 21, 2009 Facebook post, in which Adrian Lamo and Chet Uber trade tweets with Lamo's wife and friends, references are made to a troll using the name Baljeet Singh.



At one point, Lamo wrote that Singh had left 21 messages in the thread, however, all of Baljeet's Facebook messages in the thread were later scrubbed.



Reporting on Chet Uber, Neal Rauhauser, Adrian Lamo often turns into a game, since the hackers like to scrub evidence to make journalists look paranoid. Rauhauser wrote a post at his blog last week called "Ron Brynaert hallucinates history", mocking me after he deleted all of his Tweets from his @StrandedWind account, including a tweets he sent to Lamo, which @6 replied to on May 21, 2010, the day Adrian first spoke to Manning on IM chat.



"@StrandedWind Indeed. They do quick work :)," Lamo said to Rauhauser, who was using his @StrandedWind twitter account, which he abandoned for public use later that year [I emailed Rauhauser to ask what the tweet meant; my guess is that it was reference to medication Lamo was taking that made him sleepy. I also asked about two tweets he sent to Lamo in 2011, which implied he might have sent Adrian a "snitch" hat when he was a paid informant for the Army CID, and if he knew about it].

"Lamo I have seen a couple of times in text chats hosted by PV," Rauhauser admitted in an email he sent me on January 12, 2012. "Never met him, never talked on the phone, we occasionally exchange sly insults via Twitter." Both Lamo and Rauhauser seem to go out of their way to argue they have no connections: Lamo contradicted himself when I asked about Rauhauser - as I reported in July. Yet Rauhauser claimed last week, "What Adrian does and what I do are radically different – we never crossed paths within PV. Go ahead and ask Adrian, if he responds at all he’ll confirm what I have just said about our non-relationship."

After I mentioned that Baljeet Singh worked with Chet Uber and Adrian Lamo as a volunteer at Project Vigilant on Twitter a few days ago on Twitter, he scrubbed his profile.

"Don't worry about it, Chet," Lamo tweeted. "Nothing here is an object of concern at this point." I responded, "Adrian, Why were you and @ChetUber talking about a 'future' Project Vigilant 'volunteer' based in Uttar Pradesh in 2009?"

Lamo trolled back, "Happily for all carbon-based life in that vicinity, the world need never know. ;)," then I tweeted, "I think the world does need to know why @6 and @ChetUber discussed 3rd Project Vigilant member year before #BradleyManning arrest." Then Lamo lamely mocked me with the title of a James Bond movie: "The world is not enough!"

But there are many other links between Singh and Lamo going back to 2009, and he forgot to delete his friending of Chet Uber on December 5, 2010 at his "I.AM.INTO.YOUR.SYSTEM Facebook page.



He changed his profile to claim he is the "Founder and President at Hack The Hackers", and left a nutty note on the group's page that reads like Pidgin English.

"Hell all members of HTH, Do me a favour plz, as u r the member of 'HACK THE HACKERS' plz record a video 'speak abt hack the hackers and whtevr u want to speak abt technology and hacking' of your minimum 2mins and email me. We use the video for the promotion."

His Hack the Hackers colleagues then pretend they've never heard of Singh, even though - as I show below - he's been with the Adrian Lamo group for almost a year, at least.

Although Singh's Facebook profile claims he lives in Mathura, Uttar Pradesh, - perhaps coincidentally since it's not an uncommon name - there happens to be a Baljeet Singh who lives in Carmichael, California, where Adrian Lamo's Reality Planning LLC is based, and he may be one of his employees. Regardless, the real Baljeet Singh and his alter ego has many, many ties to Lamo, going back to 2009, yet his Project Vigilant colleagues like to pretend they don't know him.

On May 16, 2012, at the Project Vigilant Facebook page, Singh left a note saying "Hello from India," yet Chet Uber acted like he never heard of him before, even though they'd known each other for at least three years. James Smith also left a message on that same thread, which was the first one on the group's account.

For some reason, there is a second Project Vigilant Facebook page, and more comments by Singh can be found there [unless or until they are scrubbed], in which he and Uber play dumb, acting like they never heard of each other before. A cryptic message from Uber posted on May 11, 2012 states, "This will be dealt with. This is not the official page, but I know why Adrian did this."

Uber continues, "I wish people would understand that there is nothing wrong with ProjectVIGILANT, but if anyone was to ask what you do there. The answer should be no comment. Anything else risks your status with the project."

Perhaps realizing that this Facebook page predated the other one, five days later, a befuddled Uber linked to the 2nd account and wrote, "Update Here is the official page actually, if I did build this I don't remember but the logo is old, and for the record this is our page with the new logo and not much more. While our market is Defense, we are formally an NGO acting as a Scientific Research Agency doing Attribution. I do not know of any clients in the end who would want our work. Whether we get to the point that we are a vendor I will change it back. Does that please you more @Baljeet?"

In an online 2600 meeting hosted a week ago by Adrian Lamo on October 5, 2012, Baljeet Singh was listed as one of the 86 attendees. And Lamo and Singh are also members of a group at profileengine.com.

Singh also calls himself Jeet Rock and he has two other Facebook accounts connected to that name: J33tr0ck and HACKERS.ARE.NOT.CRIMINALS. The latter one claims that he is the Founder and owner of the Facebook group IOCW "International Organization for Children Welfare" while the former one shared a link on January 6, 2012, via Niels Groeneveld [who is also linked to Project Vigilant, as I will report on soon], called ""US Government Accuses Bradley Manning of Aiding Al Qaeda." Both Baljeet Singh and his alter ego Jeet Rock can be found on Project Vigilant Intelligence Directorate James Smith's list of Facebook friends, as well.



At a November 30, 2011 post featured on the Hack the Hackers Facebook page, Adrian Lamo and Niels Groeneveld are listed as Admins for the "team" and Jeet Rock is the "Manager and Owner".



On May 21, 2009, using his alter ego Jeet Rock, Singh created an Orkut community group called Adrian Lamo "The Homeless Hack". 58 members, mostly from India, belong to the group, but not Lamo himself, who might be adhering to the Groucho Marx line famously quoted by Woody Allen in "Annie Hall": "I don't care to belong to any club that will have me as a member." There isn't much on the group's page, and it looks like it was abandoned in December of 2011, but a poll asks "Who is your fav. hacker?" Lamo came in first place, while Kevin Mitnick placed, but Kevin Poulsen received zero votes.

The notorious trio of US convicted criminal hackers Lamo, Mitnick and Poulsen once took a picture together, that has been featured on many blogs which have criticized the Wired reporter's relationship with the "homeless hacker".

To be continued...

10/18/12 Update: 2006 posting at forum - where Russell Handorf still contributes using his "grey hat hacker" handle "satanklawz" - suggests he has been working for FBI three years earlier than his resume claims; Adrian Lamo admits being "friends" with Handorf but still won't answer any real questions; Chet Uber offers to have Lamo "interview" me - Neal Rauhauser, who claims he has nothing to do with Project Vigilant, suggests I should accept offer - which I will, after they start giving serious answers to my serious questions first; Project Vigilant submitted bid for Voice Stress Analyzer request by BoP to detect if inmates are lying.

Highlights: At college, Russell Handorf used to illegally "sniff" networks for free web access; Decade ago, hosted Adrian Lamo website where he used to be known as "satanklawz"; Defended Lamo online in web forum postings; In 2003, wrote that fugitive Lamo's enemies might DoS the NY Times, attack investigators; Provided details on web on how to access potential Comcast customers' private info; Wrote "Fear Not: Hacks, Attacks and Cracks" column; After Philadelphia InfraGard Board of Directors gig, former "grey hat hacker" joined FBI in September of 2009.

[Editor's Note: Before publishing this article I emailed both Russell Handorf and Adrian Lamo to ask them questions about their past and possibly present relationship, but neither one got back to me. I'll gladly correct any errors or add comments if they change their minds. My last two articles provide more background on Adrian Lamo, Neal Rauhauser, Project Vigilant and the Bradley Manning case: Bradley Manning Facebook friend was a security and risk management expert and More members from secretive, oddball Project Vigilant group revealed. Article by Ron Brynaert]

The following screenshot was the front page for a website owned by a "Grey Hat hacker" who the FBI hired to be a computer scientist for its Philadelphia Cyber Squad in 2009:

On November 14, 2001, Russell Handorf left a message at the Penetration Testing Mailing List at seclists.org, where "participants frequenly disclose techniques and strategies that would be useful to anyone with a practical interest in security and network auditing."



Handorf was responding to a question about "a Cayman router which still has the default password set as blank. Can anyone supply any help in how to show the client that this is dangerous or esculate priv to admin?" In his response, future FBI Cyber Squad computer scientist Handorf mentioned Adrian Lamo, who would be arrested and charged with computer hacking crimes two years later.

to escalate privs, go to the webpage, and then where it has the passwords in the fields.... view the source of the webpage (passwords are there clear text).

for more and better information regarding this, talk to adrian lamo."

At the bottom of his message, Handorf listed his personal website and four others which he presumably was attached to: www.russells-world.com www.inside-aol.com www.terrorists.net www.bad-mother-fucker.org and www.philly2600.net.



In a January 21, 2001 interview [from a scrubbed article which was re-posted after Bradley Manning's arrest in June of 2010], Adrian Lamo said that his websites were "inside-aol.com, terrorists.net and securid.org." When asked, "What do you spend most of your time online doing?" Lamo responded, "breaking and exploring -=) [Hat tip to Adrian Lamo for opining on Facebook that original edit of this paragraph was "confusing on its face".].

Just a few days ago, Lamo joked on Twitter that he "used to own" www.terrorists.net but that he "turned out just fine!"

Two months before Handorf recommended Lamo, the "homeless hacker" who, years later, would gain infamy after turning in Bradly Manning, "demonstrated" to Kevin Poulsen at SecurityFocus.com, "that he could rewrite the text of Yahoo! News articles at will, apparently using nothing more than a web browser and an easily-obtained Internet address." Poulsen - who has reported on Lamo many, many times over the last decade - became a journalist after being convicted of computer hacking crimes, and later moved to Wired.com, where he exclusively published the May of 2010 chat logs between Lamo and Manning.

"The hacker has a history of exposing the security foibles of corporate behemoths. Last year he helped expose a bug that was allowing hackers to take over AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) accounts. And in May, he warned troubled broadband provider Excite@Home that its customer list of 2.95 million cable modem subscribers was accessible to hackers.

Lamo's hobby is a risky one. Unlike the software vulnerabilities routinely exposed by 'white hat' hackers, the holes Lamo goes after are specific to particular networks, and generally cannot be discovered without violating U.S. computer crime law. With every hack, Lamo is betting that the target company will be grateful for the warning, rather than angry over the intrusion."

On October 1, 2001, the College Humor website - which is an "an online depository for all of the content that floats around collegiate computer networks" announced, "Our new friend Russell Handorf has been named the Computer Security Administrator of CollegeHumor.com.He recently discovered a vulnerability in our page display script, notified us, we fixed it, and all was well."

In 2003, at a collegehumor forum, two people claimed Hardof sent them the following message: "read the Patriot Act- bu bye."

At college, Russell Handorf used to illegally "sniff" networks for free web access

An article from August 11, 2001 called "Driving Away With Wireless Secrets" published by Newsbytes, reported on how Handorf used to "sniff" networks to get free online internet access.

Some nights when they are bored and the traffic is light in downtown Philadelphia, Russell Handorf and a friend take what they call a "war drive" through the city's financial district. They're looking for wireless networks to sniff. Recently this summer, as Handorf, a student at Philadelphia's Drexel University, was on a slow midnight cruise with his friend at the wheel and his Dell notebook across his lap, the computer's wireless network card started to pick up a strong signal - right across the street from the headquarters of a major regional bank.

'Within a couple of minutes, we synched up with the network and it let us in. No authentication at all. They were passing us all the traffic that was going across their network,' said Handorf.

After his friend pulled the car over, Handorf used the bank's Internet gateway to connect to his favorite Internet relay chat (IRC) channel.

'I told my friends, 'Look at my DNS.' And they all said, 'Oh my God, you're in a bank!' said Handorf, who claims he has no intention of harming the networks he sniffs, and only does it to get free, anonymous Web access.

A year later, a March 24, 2002 article for the Philadelphia Inquirer called "Drive-by hackers hunt free, easy Web access This man may be tapping into your network" - written by Reid Kanaley - showed that Handof was still "sniffing" for free internet access

"Russell Handorf was in a no-parking zone, but so what? His laptop computer, propped against the steering wheel, had his full attention.

Handorf was probing the wireless-computer networks humming around Center City, trying to sneak his way online.

'I'm on the Internet,' he finally proclaimed on this recent afternoon. 'Whaddya know. . . . This is a fast connection, too.'

Utilizing the credit-card-size wireless adapter plugged into the side of his laptop, Handorf, 22, of the city's Queen Village section, had gotten onto the Net by tapping into the computer system of an unsuspecting business among the nearby office towers

....

Part hacker, part evangelist for high-speed wireless Internet access, Handorf is one of a growing number of computer enthusiasts touting the problems and promises of wireless networking.

One of the problems is the new sport Handorf was demonstrating. Variously called war driving, net stumbling, LAN jacking and drive-by hacking, it is focused on breaking into the so-called Wi-Fi networks that are popping up in more and more offices and homes.

War driving is "'very common. Anyone who is a tech-savvy geek with a laptop and a wireless NIC [network interface card] is capable of doing it,' said Handorf, a Memphis, Tenn., native with eyeglasses and close-cropped blond hair, who is studying business at Peirce College. He said he would not mind landing a job in computer security."

"Generally, computer-network intrusion is illegal under federal computer-crime statutes, but no cases involving hacking of wireless systems have been prosecuted, Department of Justice spokeswoman Casey Stavropoulos said last week," the Inquirer reported. "Managers of two networks that played unwitting hosts to Handorf said last week that they were beefing up security on their systems after learning of his demonstration for this article."

The 2002 story on Handorf added, "And while he has used some of those networks for Web surfing, it is 'out of respect' that he does not attempt to invade his hosts' computer files.

Russell Handorf's pre-FBI days as a "grey-hat hacker"

On October 15, 2001 in a discussion called "Civil Disobedience" by the Editor-In-Chief of HackersDigest.com, which quoted several Kevin Poulsen articles, John Thornton worried that about a bill, if passed, he claimed, "Hackers/Script Kiddies will no longer be looked at as just kids messing around with computers, but as terrorists." In response, referring to himself as a "grey-hat hacker", future FBI Cyber Squad computer scientist Russell Handorf argued that they shouldn't "be bothering" the FBI "with Internet stuff when we are capable of doing it ourselves."

"Well, as a sysadmin and grey-hat hacker (not cracker) I'd like to say this... If anyone does abide by this, please do install some sort of alert system like ARIS to collect our knowledge about these news attempts and stuff. It is my understanding that John doesn't want the companies to report the individuals to the ISPs and governmental agencies. This is a good idea, however it still needs to be reported because new stuff comes up all the time. What if this was sooner and CodeRed came out and no one decided to report anything?

My point is this: knowing that the FBI is first of all is swamped with other physical claims of attacks, why should we be bothering them with Internet stuff when we are capable of doing it ourselves? The lists of users on bugtraq and others are huge, there is much more expertise here than the government will ever set a finger on.

I'm all for what John is saying, however the reports of break ins should not be reported to the g'ovt, but to the lists- and the people in the lists should be more communicative to assist the afflicted company so that new attacks could be fended off like mace to a pack of wild badgers.

please forgive any grammatical and spelling errors, this message was written in haste (lunch time:P)."

A definition for hackers at Technopedia states that they "utilize[] alternative system access methods to sabotage computer systems and networks. Hacking actions are differentiated as illegal and unacceptable (black/grey hat hacking), or legal and acceptable (white hat hacking)."

"Hacker types are delineated according to intent, as follows:

Black hat hackers break into computer systems illegally and cause harm by stealing or destroying data, i.e., a banking system to steal money for personal gain.

White hat hackers use their skills to help enterprises create robust computer systems.

Grey hat hackers perform illegal hacking activities to show off their skills, rather than to achieve personal gain."

In his pre-FBI days, Russell Handorf defended Adrian Lamo online

In a July 1, 2000 posting, Russell Handorf "a.k.a. a deity called alphonzo" claimed that he hosted Lamo's website, www.inside-aol.com, and that he also owned websites named after the classic sci-fi b-movie "Soylent Green," which famously starred Charlton Heston, and ends with the classic line, "Soylent Green is made out of people." A year later, on July 1, 2001, another Handorf forum message says likewise.

According to the Texas US Business Directory Library, "Charles Handorf" was registered as a music company, and along with some of the other websites attached to his forum messages, WWW.SHITCUM.COM is listed, and the email address provided is satanklawz@yahoo.com

At SlashDot.org, Russell Handorf has a profile, which links to his personal website, http://www.russells-world.com, and links to a few comments he left under his nickname "satanklawz".

In a posting titled "AOL Still Working On AIM Security Hole," future FBI Cyber Squad computer scientist Russell Handorf wrote at SlashDot.org on December 2, 2000 under the handle "satanklawz" attached to the email address root@inside-aol.com, "read the article at inside-aol.com. you create an aol account that over gens the AIM account which inturn you need a CC inorder for billing to be authenticated."

"wrong wrong wrong sir. the exploit is only for AIM and, eventho AOL has "FIXED" it, is still exploitable," Handorf also wrote as "satanklawz" wrote at SlashDot.org.

On December 1, 2001 at Geek.com Ron Kessen commented on an article called "Adrian Lamo's Continuing Hack Ventures", and both Lamo and Handorf left comments. "I'm not so sure I want to say this man's work is good, but on the other hand I am a bit disturbed at how easy it is for him to hack into websites and corporate networks," Kessen wrote.

"Incorrectly configured proxy servers, routers, and Web applications seem to be the most gaping vulnerabilities taken advantage of by this roving hacker. ZDNet calls him a “network intrusion specialist,” but I don't like that term because it really doesn't describe what he is. No matter how you slice it, he is breaking into corporate networks and taking advantage of vulnerabilities to gain access to classified or sensitive information he has no right to.

Companies have not gone after him legally because he has helped them fix security holes, and this is good. I just don't like the picture; I envision another hacker of the same style taking full advantage of vulnerabilities and doing damage of some kind to the networks he compromises. Seems like if Lamo really wants to do security work he should get a real job like the rest of us. But I guess that wouldn't be right; he might have to make a commitment, and we couldn't have that, could we?"

Five hours later, using the header "i'm not a preacher or a traveling salesman," Lamo responded, "I generally don't participate in discussions about me it feels crass. I'm not here to convince any of you of anything in particular. Debate over things like this is important to cultural evolution. It would be somehow unhealthy if there was no disagreement over this."

"Two people can look at the same event or person and come away with different conclusions without either having to be wrong — as long as this is the case, the world is probably still ticking.

All I want here is for you to be informed before making up your mind. Don't take any one article as your sole source of information on this, or anything. Look further. Right up to the most damning ones. Moreover.com is a great source for this. Even then, remember that no one gets it exactly right.

If you believe that a person couldn't follow a course without a motive, or that an action couldn't find a person, rather than vice-versa, you may also believe that likening someone to Don Quixote is a bad thing.

Thanks to everyone who stopped to think about this, regardless of your final opinion. JMS put it best — our thoughts form the universe, they always matter."

A day later, Handorf defended Lamo, arguing, "Apparently the flame wars concerning jealousy have started."

"Everyone wants fame in some form or fashion, hackers earn theirs by playing the game of cat 'n mouse (more like gazelle and cheetah now a days). From my observations from people who know him personally, and also persons who interact with him on an almost daily basis, Adrian is a very loyal, respectful, honorable man. Those individuals who say that he is wasting his time away by not conforming into Corporate America should work for old school companies like IBM (In reference to that old commercial, I think the first, that Apple Computers had) and be restricted to conformity. Hackers, at least the successful ones in my option, do not conform for any reason. It is this kind of thinking of 'Lets try something new' that exposes the weaknesses of the person who is still thinking within the box.

As for people loosing their jobs concerning computer hackers- if your company gets hacked by a documented exploit etc, it is not the hackers fault it is the company's fault. Adrian's reverse proxy attacks have been documented for quite some time (Since the Excite@Home if I'm not mistaken). If people at WorldCom lost their jobs because of this, good. Why is it good? Because the incompetence and ignorance is being weeded out. Certifications and pieces of paper mean nothing in the world of computer security. The only reason why they exist is so that companies like Cisco can find another source of income. The only true computer security experts are hackers (btw- don't get hacker and cracker and all those others confused) because they actually have a love for the art, spend the time learning, and also love what they do regardless of their pay.

Kudos to Adrian. He does what he loves regardless of pay. He does what he loves because of a never dieing curiosity. I leave this post with one more phrase. Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him back."

A comment - most likely - left by Handorf at SecurityFocus.com on June 29, 2001, was left under the name "satanklawz (at) terrorists (dot) net [email concealed]," which suggests Russell used that nickname at another Adrian Lamo website.

In 2003, Russell Handorf wrote that fugitive Adrian Lamo's enemies might DoS the NY Times, attack investigators

On September 7, 2003, Handorf left a comment on a forum at infosyssec.com called "Adrian Lamo Live on TechTV discusses the FBI hunt for him..." which stated that "you can out right shoot" someone "in the physical world" if they "break into" your "personal property." While Lamos was a fugitive still at large, future FBI computer scientist Russell Handorf claimed that he feared "people who aren't his friends" might "unleash that hellous DoS against NYT and attack the people heading this investigation." Interspersed throughout his somewhat scary comments, Handorf included a few animated smiley faces.

"'I have a problem with the attempts of applying the analogy of "is it legal if someone were to break into , not do anything and tell you how to fix it?' The biggest issue with it that I have is that, in the physical world, you can out right shoot the person upon entry Razz Physical vs metaphysical (kinda- electrons have weight last time i checked Razz).

As he stated, if they don't play fair he'll give them a run for their money. I believe that to be the truth Razz The other issue that I'm concerned about are the people who aren't his friends, but heard of/support/etc him and are going to unleash that hellous DoS against NYT and attack the people heading this investigation are going to bring more woe onto Lamo.

As he said, this is going to be really really interesting as to how this pans out."

On March 3, 2004, Handorf started a forum thread at infosyssec.com called "Adrian Lamo's 1st article - Profiling network administrators," which linked to the March 1, 2004 www.networkworld.com story, and began with the Editor's Note: "Adrian Lamo, a white hat hacker who pled guilty to accessing The New York Times computers without permission, agreed to share what he knows about some of the common IT security slips network administrators make. Lamo studies journalism at American River College in Sacramento, Calif, as he awaits sentencing next month."

"Well, It's a start," Handorf wrote with an animated smiley face attached to the end of his sentence.

Russell Handorf provided details on web on how to access potential Comcast customers' private info

Eight days before 9/11, on September 3, 2001 in bugtraq posting called "verizon wireless website gaping privacy holes," Handorf wrote, "that was the point of the post- already i've been able to find a way to gather information of finding my peers (friends n such) phone number [Editor's Note: Adrian Lamo sarcastically comments at his Facebook page that the reference to 9/11 is "[t]asteful and relevant"; sorry, Adrian, I wasn't trying to suggest you and "satanklawz" were part of any terrorist plot, but how about addressing real questions instead of cherry-picking stuff to snark at?].

"they (verizon) has another database which links to this one that shows customer names/numbers -> info holes

this is my most preferable way to tell my colleagues that they're about to max out their minutes. verizon knows that these holes are exploitable, but they wont do anything about them. the problem have persisted since bellatlantic has changed their name to verizon."

On February 6, 2002, Handorf wrote on a seclists.org message forum, "Back when excite () home was compromised by adrian lamo, I was privy to such access as well. On the computer havoc.corp.home.net there lay the 'help desk' interface, where the users settings were editable. I distinctly remember the speed being an editable option for the modems. However the only way, to my current knowledge, it to edit this information on the ISP side- still. I remember a while back when faster transmission speeds were achieved via just plugging in a 100 base t nic and setting it to full duplex, but this is not the case anymore."

"As for current hacks for cable modems, there are a few that I have discovered specifically with comcast.net," Handorf added. "However this cannot be disclosed at this time. I will post it at a later date."

On February 7, 2002 MSNBC published an articled called "Comcast broadband data exposed," which claimed that future FBI computer scientist Russell Handorf left details on how to access a database containing private information of potential subscribers.

"A database with thousands of records detailing potential Comcast Business Communications Internet customers was found exposed on the Web this week by a computer security researcher. Phone numbers, addresses, private customer service comments and monthly billing information belonging to several thousand, mostly corporate users, was exposed. The so-called 'leads' database included prospective customers and was protected only by the same username and password 'test.'

DETAILS FOR ACCESSING the database were posted in an Internet mailing list devoted to computer security issues on Wednesday by researcher Russell Handorf.

Anyone following the trivial instructions found a Web-based 'front-end' to a database of leads for Comcast Business Communications — a division of Comcast Telecommunications Inc.

Among the options listed on the site were sales calls by zip code, revenue forecasts, sales pending, top 100 customers and 'approved credit memos.' One page labeled 'maintenance' included options like 'add employee' and 'run billing,' though it was not immediately known if such functions could really be carried out via the Internet page."

However, "[i]t did not appear that credit card information of bank account information was exposed," MSNBC reported.

A February 8, 2002 article at Computer World - written by Todd R. Weiss - reported, "A hacker found a list of potential corporate customers on the Web site of Comcast Business Communications Inc. and exposed data from the list in an online security forum, forcing the company to shut down the site yesterday for an internal review."

"The vulnerability was exposed by a hacker who identified himself as Russell Handorf in a security forum posting on the Web site of San Mateo, Calif.-based SecurityFocus.

In an interview today, Handorf, 21, said he found the unlinked Web page by using a proxy hunting program while looking through the CBC site in December. Handorf said he was interested in the Comcast site because he expected to find security vulnerabilities due to the transition under way by Philadelphia-based parent company cable company Comcast Corp., after its acquisition of Denver-based AT&T Broadband in December.

What he found, he said, were Web servers that he could access by using common user names and passwords such as 'user' and 'test.' The vulnerabilities are there, he said, because administrators have a massive amount of work ahead of them and are apparently prone to "simple oversights."

'My intent was to find something and tell them about it,' said Handorf, a Philadelphia-based computer security researcher.

Handorf said that he notified Comcast of the problem but that the company denied any vulnerabilities. Then, on Feb. 6, he posted his message on the SecurityForum list, he said. After that, Handorf said, Comcast thanked him for finding the problem and telling them about it. 'My intentions are good,' he said."

Seven years later when Comcast's homepage and website were hacked, Adrian Lamo tweeted on November 26, 2009, "And here Comcast greeted my news happily. Delivery, people. All in the delivery." [Editor's Note: I'm not sure if Lamo was claiming that he had something to do with Handorf's exposure of potential Comcast customers' personal info.] A year later, "Christopher Allen Lewis, a.k.a. 'EBK,' 20, of Newark, Delaware, and Michael Paul Nebel, a.k.a. 'Slacker,' 28, of Kalamazoo, Michigan," who were "associated with hacker group Kryogeniks", pleaded guilty and "were sentenced to 18 months in prison", according to news reports.

On March 22, 2006, Handorf left the following message and picture on an infosyssec.com forum board.

"Sorry, this thread is just too good to stay away from Smile

First point I want to make is that the goverment does have a role in regulating companies. One word: monopolies. When they get out of hand, you get that 5,000 dollar long distance bill for calling Aunt Edna you dont have any one to complain to, or any other choice for useage. I applaud the government for looking into companies not just for monopoly related issues, but issues similiar to Enron, Adelphia, etc. Who's to keep the company's honest? The customer? Hell no. (which raises who keeps the government honest, but living in one that has debated what the word "is" means and continues to interfeer with peoples personal rights and beliefs, I plead the fiz'ifth).

Other point is along the lines of once data is out, it's public. Hell yea, this is jsut the way things are. Companies will harvest this info, toss it into GIS databases, analyze, market, sell, buy, etc. All to do what? Make money. This is what businesses do, leave that alone. If you dont want businesses to make money, then you dont want an economy. Face up, things will NEVER be like they are on Star Trek for one reason: humans. We're stingy, greedy, smelly critters that love to horde things for ourselves. Nothing beats human nature in this case.

And that being said, I submit this creepy image."

Russell Handorf's "Fear Not: Hacks, Attacks and Cracks" column

Ken Belva, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief at bloginfosec.com, wrote the following recommendation for Handorf at LinkedIn.com on December 1, 2010, which didn't mention his position at the FBI: "Ken's ability to create a new information security media outlet, to recruit authors and to then help direct the theme of the content greatly exemplifies his visions of information security and to herd the proverbial cats. He has been a great colleague and sounding board for new, adventurous and challenging topics for discussion. I've enjoyed writing for him and look forward to working with him in the future."

Handorf used to write the column, "Fear Not: Hacks, Attacks and Cracks" for bloginfosec.com, according to a bio posted on March 4, 1999.

One of Handorf's columns on counterfeit Cisco hardware, published on May 6, 2008, linked to an October 23, 2006 networld.com article in which future Democratic consultant Neal Rauhauser is quoted. Rauhauser and Adrian Lamo, would later "volunteer" for Project Vigilant, under director Chet Uber.

"'Recently, I did some voice over IP integration for a client in Huntsville, and the engineer there asked if he could pay me with five extra VoIP network cards he had left over from the project,' says Neal Rauhauser, founder of Layer 3 Arts, a system integrator in Omaha. 'I got four cards I could use, and one that was counterfeit.'

Fortunately, Rauhauser never installs anything before checking it first. He's wise to counterfeits, having had his first run-in with such products in 2004, when two of six new Cisco 1721 routers started acting up at one of his client sites, a large auto manufacturer in Michigan. They turned out to be counterfeit, and he has since been campaigning against counterfeit products.

There were visible differences between the counterfeit and the real gear, he says, but only after close inspection. The counterfeit VoIP card had a brand-new box even though the card was 4 years old. He also noticed discrepancies in packaging and labeling.

'The printing on the bar-code label was fuzzy like it'd been printed off a low-quality printer instead of a laser. And its internal packaging was a plastic bag instead of a plastic box like the others,' Rauhauser says.

He contacted the customer who gave him the product, and the customer admitted he bought the cards off eBay. The four good cards came from a reputable seller. The bad card came from TFS Systems, which claims to be a Cisco registered reseller that buys only from Cisco's top-tier distributors. Rauhauser took pictures of the differences in products and called TFS to find how they wound up selling counterfeit product to his client.

'They were ready to pull my leg and tell me I was wrong. So I told them I was going to the FBI,' Rauhauser says. 'Then they asked me to box it up again, keep it pristine and they'll get me my money. I'm sure they sold it again on eBay right after they got it.'"

A column Handorf wrote on May 28, 2008 called "Real VoIPsploits: Helping to Introduce Your Local SWAT Team" addressed "Caller ID spoofing."

"This isn’t new stuff; traditional PBX’s have been spoofing phone numbers for a very long time. This is evident in when you get a phone call from most organizations and the number comes up as a 1800, or the like. However, there are services out on the Internet that sell caller ID spoofing to anyone who is willing to pay.

So what? What’s the worse that can happen? You can ask the people who were victimized by the latest mischievous pranks, often called SWATing. If you guess that this social engineering hack involves law enforcement, you’re right. Recently, a ring of phone hackers (phreakers) used services that allow you change your caller ID over the Internet to terrorize some of their peers and total strangers. They would call the police and emergency communications centers with a spoofed caller ID pretending to be a crazed person who has hostages. As you can imagine the result is the local SWAT team ready to siege and apprehend the suspect. Fortunately, no one seems to have been hurt and the most of the perpetrators were apprehended, but this is still ongoing."

Russell Handorf joins FBI in 2009, after serving on Philadelphia InfraGard Board of Directors

According to a profile of Handorf at zoominfo.com, he earned a PhD for Information Assurance and a Masters degree for Information Security at Drexel University's Goodwin College."



A bio at SecureWorldExpo.com adds, "Russell Handorf works for the Philadelphia office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on the Cyber Squad. In his 'pre-FBI' years, he worked as a Senior Security Analyst for the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and NASDAQ-OMX-PHLX. Before this he consulted for the US Federal and State Governments, companies and educational institutions where he performed security audits and assessments of their clients, infrastructure and networks. His industry experience started as the CIO and Director of Research and Development for a Philadelphia based wireless broadband solutions provider, ClosedNetworks. He previously served on the Board of Directors for the Philadelphia InfraGard Chapter, initially as Secretary and later Vice President. In his spare time, he is completing his PhD in Information Assurance."

Handorf's list of presentations include the following:

"2008-May SecureWorld Expo Philadelphia, PA

Secure World – Honeypots: A beginners guide for implementation in your production network

Honeypots and Honeynets have often been the tool of researchers and information security experts. However these open source tools have developed to a point in which they can provide protection for your production network and use is no longer restricted to the 'security technophile.' Learn how a proper deployment can alert you to real threats to your company's infrastructure and complement your existing security tool chain.

2007-December Drexel University Philadelphia, PA

Drexel – Wireless Security, Hacking and Forensics Techniques

A two hour presentation was given explaining where the current attackers are focusing their efforts in the wireless space. Security defense and countermeasures were presented and demonstrated. A new wireless hacking attack technique was demonstrated to the audience. After reviewing the new attack vectors, the challenges of conducting forensics in a wireless airspace were conveyed. The contents of a wireless forensics toolkit was explained and demonstrated.

2007-September HTCIA Philadelphia, PA

HTCIA – Wireless Forensics

A non 'Power Point' presentation was given explaining where the current attackers are focusing their efforts in the wireless space. After reviewing the new attack vectors, the challenges of conducting forensics in a wireless airspace were conveyed. The contents of a wireless forensics toolkit was explained. The presentation then began to discuss wireless forensics and security challenges of RFID and Bluetooth.

2007-February InfraGard Collegeville, PA

InfraGard – RFID and Bluetooth, a Hackers Perspective

The presentation was related to new short ranged radio broadcasts; demonstrations included new covert methods of communication and tools that hackers can use for intercepting these radio broadcasts. Discussions were centered around bringing awareness to the security teams of the vulnerabilities and possible solutions to them until the industry resolves inherent weaknesses in these communication protocols.

2006-February InfraGard Collegeville, PA

InfraGard – Wireless and VoIP Security Issues

Presented in summary the latest wireless security issues for implementation and design. Focused the remainder of the lecture on VoIP security issues from system design to the integration into PSTN networks. Demonstrations included a 'Linksys of Doom,' Caller ID spoofing, and call interception.

2005-December West Chester University West Chester, PA

InfraGard – Information Assurance Center

Presented on wireless security issues. Core presentation was participation in a panel regarding how law enforcement interacts with private industry when investigating a case. The audience interacted with the activity of a simulated attack. It covered: what a company should do if breached, rules of evidence in prosecuting a cyber crime, FBI computer forensic processing and procedures, and hacker tricks and motivation.

2005-October Lehigh Valley Chapter of Certified Fraud Examiners Allentown, PA

Wireless Security and Forensics

Presented on basic wireless security 101 information for Law Enforcement Officers and security professionals. Topics included wireless definitions, technologies, antennas, hacking tools, and a demonstration of a wireless network hack and denial of service attack. A wireless 'doom box' was presented to highlight the attack potentials and possibilities.

2005-April SecureWorld Expo / InfraGard Philadelphia, PA

Wireless Security

Presented on basic wireless security 101 information for Federal Law Enforcement Officers and security professionals. Topics included wireless definitions, technologies, antennas, hacking tools, and a demonstration of a wireless network hack and denial of service attack. A wireless 'doom box' was presented to highlight the attack potentials and possibilities.

2005-January Federal Bureau of Investigation Philadelphia, PA"

On November 3, 2010, Handorf addressed the Philadelphia Chapter InfraGard Meeting, as a FBI Computer Scientist, on "Stuxnet & Botnets."

Another bio at bloginfosec.com states, "Mr. Handorf serves on the Board of Directors for the FBI’s Philadelphia InfraGard Chapter, which has more than 800 members locally."

"He has consulted for the US Federal and State Governments, companies and educational institutions where he performed security audits and assessments of their clients, infrastructure and networks. He was CIO and Director of Research and Development for a Philadelphia based wireless broadband solutions provider.

He teaches at Drexel University’s Goodwin College, conducts technical reviews for InfoWorld and serves as net control for the Philadelphia Amateur Radio Emergency Service. He has recently completed a Master of Science degree in Information Security."

A resume at Russell's website - which he stopped updating a few years ago - states that he was a member of the Philadelphia InfraGard chapter since 2004, and joined the Board of Directors in 2006. It also claims Handorf received the following awards: 2007 – Recognition from INMA Board of Directors and FBI for InfraGard service and efforts: "2007 – Recognition letter from Special Agent in Charge of Philadelphia United States Secret Service; 2006 – InfraGard Appreciation Award from Director of the FBI and 2005 – FBI Appreciation Award."

Handorf's LinkedIn resume claims he started working for the FBI as a computer scientist in September of 2009, and that he worked as a Security Consultant from July 2001 to August 2002, but only list "NA" as his place of employment. According to LinkedIn, US Secret Service Special Agent John Toney wrote a recommendation for Handorf on May 1, 2008 which said that Handorf "would make a great Special Agent."

"Russ has been an invaluable member of the Philadelphia Area Electronic Crimes Task Force. His expertise in the field of information security is surpassed only by his willingness to help with any project. Russ is a great resource and sounding board whenever I am facing a new scheme that I can't quite figure out. He would make a great Special Agent"

A June 20, 2012 article for the Philadelphia Inquirer called "Advice for investors from the FBI on how to avoid getting scammed" - written by Erin Arvedlund - included an interview with Handorf.

"If you log in to your bank or brokerage account on a mobile phone, you are most vulnerable, said Russell Handorf of the FBI's Philadelphia field office.

'If you have programs like Skype on your phone — whether an Android or an iPhone — you've allowed that software to tag your location, take pictures of you and whomever you are talking to, and read your calendar, all of which can then be sent to other people,' Handorf said.

Ask yourself if you really need the latest application on your phone, and install anti-malware software for Android, BlackBerry or iPhone. While not foolproof, it's a first line of defense.

Investors can take startlingly easy precautions with usernames and passwords. Do you use the same key for your house, your car and your bike lock? Of course not. Then do the same for your online persona, Handorf added."

At West Chester University's College of Business Affairs Charles (Russ) Handorf M.S. is listed as a Special Agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation Philadelphia, PA, and he teaches in the Criminal Justice Department.

Forum posting suggests Russell Handorf has been working for FBI since at least 2006

At the LanPartyGoDS.com forum, which is the LAN Portal for PA, NJ, DE, and MD, Russell Handorf posts "funny" videos and other messages still using the name "satanklawz".

Handorf's latest post was on September 28, 2012. On October 9, 2011, the FBI Cyber Squad computer scientist linked to avideo of Adolf Hitler speaking while the theme song of the TV show "The Jeffersons" - "Movin On Up" - plays in the background.

But a curious posting from November 13, 2006 suggests Russell Handorf may have been working for the FBI at least three years earlier than his resume claims. In the posting, "satanklawz" claims that he had a car accident - somewhere in "Filthadelphia" - and rear-ended a woman who "freaked out" because he was wearing an FBI hat. After the police arrived, Handorf says he "told one of the officers 'Officer, by law I have to tell you that I have my side arm on my person at the moment. Do you want to see my permit?' To which he responded 'Dont worry, you're white.'"

I got into a car accident this morning. Through a series of complicated events... well not really. A cab driver stopped suddenly to pick someone up, the person I was following who was behind the cab driver screeched to a halt, as did I.... but the woman who was following me either

1). Had a bad reaction time
2). Was distracted
3). Crappy breaks
4). Combination of 1 2 and 3
So Ghetto beamer 2.0 is in progress. Just a minor fender bender.

Well, anyways, I get out and she freaks out because I have my FBI hat on. I call the cops and they show up. When they do, I told one of the officers "Officer, by law I have to tell you that I have my side arm on my person at the moment. Do you want to see my permit?" To which he responded "Dont worry, you're white." Well, anyways, long story short the cop said it was her fault, as it is, and now I have some interesting dimples in my bumper.

Meh, Filthadelphia

At his Facebook account, Adrian Lamo admits being "friends" with FBI Cyber Squad computer scientist Russell Handorf, but doesn't think it's newsworthy, even though the revelation that he became an unpaid informant for Army CID - for about a year after speaking to Bradley Manning starting in July of 2010 - didn't occur until December of 2011. Lamo also often corrects people on Twitter - and made an edit to his own Wikipedia account [which I'll expand upon in a future article] - when they say he informed for the FBI.

"I and the FBI wanted to continue feeding him disinformation," Adrian Lamo told Elinor Mills in a story published on June 7, 2010 at CNET.com, but he refuses to explain what that means, as well, since it more than suggests he fed Manning "disinformation" during his chats.

"Speaking of Ron, oh shit! the conspiracy unravels even further with the revelation that ... I have friends? Who knew! Diabolical of me.

I wonder why Russ wouldn't return a request for comment from this completely stable and not-at-all hilarious guy. *broad, puzzled shrug*"

Project Vigilant Intelligence Directorate James Smith - who no one has ever reported works with the group, to my knowledge - left a few comments on Lamo's thread, which are similar to absurd tweets by PV's director Chet Uber, that I'm not reporting anything "new": "he is just re writing news that's already out their. (Well some of it I guess) The other half is just bullshit."

"It's like a conspiracy theory /w no actual conspiracy," Lamo agrees. "All the ingredients are there, but it's like he forgot to add flour before popping it in the oven."

I asked Adrian Lamo on Twitter if he contacted his FBI "friend" in May of 2010 after he started speaking to Bradley Manning, and I will update this article, if he actually answers a question seriously, which he hasn't yet. And I'd also like to know if Lamo knows exactly when Russell Handorf joined the FBI, since it may have been 2006 or earlier, and not 2009 as he notes elsewhere on the web.

Meanwhile, Neal Rauhauser - who claims he has no ties anymore to Project Vigilant - thinks I should accept Chet Uber "offer" to let Adrian Lamo "interview" me for a news site PV is allegedly launching.

"Mr. Ron Brynaert, on behalf of the ProjectVIGILANT News Agency we would like to interview you. Response?," Uber tweeted. "@6 @attritionorg Could you please repeat the offer to Mr. Brynaert as despite my apology he has blocked me. The reporter would be Mr. Lamo."

Uber also tweeted: "I am totally enjoying reading the saga of Ron Brynaert up to 15,000, nothing new. It is amazing how time and total disorder create nada," and "@6 Why is it that Ron Brynaert continues to post things that are all public knowledge in a rambling mad method but refuses an interview?"

Then Uber tweeted something to the effect that Project Vigilant is still watching me, which is similar to scary tweets sent by another member of the secretive group to Barrett Brown, as I will be reporting in a future article: "For all those that believe that you can hide by blocking someone after you yourself have month long tirades tell @ronbryn we still watch him."

If Lamo, Uber and Rauhauser start giving me serious answers to serious questions I will agree to an interview, even though I know Adrian will try to turn the tables on me to grill me on absurd lawsuits, ridiculous criminal accusations and smears by right wing bloggers. Lamo also probably will ask me about an attempt by my former employer, RAW STORY, to prevent me from reporting on them, after they ducked questions about private information - and smears - they apparently told Neal Rauhauser and their links to convicted bomber Brett Kimberlin.

Perhaps Project Vigilant intends to test out a Voice Stress Analyzer program which Chet Uber bid on at fbo.gov for a Bureau of Prisons facility. The request is specifically from "a Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Berlin, New Hampshire", which "is a medium security facility housing male offenders," who "require[] an investigative tool, that is an analytical software system capable of passively analyzing an inmate's verbal response, in order to detect lying, stress and/or deception."

"FCI Berlin requires an investigative tool, that is an analytical software system capable of passively analyzing an inmate's verbal response, in order to detect lying, stress and/or deception. This is done independent of the inmate's spoken language, in either a live or record mode, and without any equipment being attached to the inmate. This software is functionally similar to a Lie Detector system, but without the need for hardware and certified expert operators. Training will be required and at least 1 year of support."

Even so, I'm game - that is - if the Project Vigilant trio first answer half of the hundred or so questions they've dodged for nearly 16 months.