AlterNet: James Bond Wannabe Part of Right-Wing Plot to Bug Senator's Phones

[marmar]

AlterNet / By Lindsay Beyerstein

James Bond Wannabe Part of Right-Wing Plot to Bug Senator's Phones
One of the men arrested in the plot to bug Sen. Landrieu's phones has ties to the intelligence community -- and an angry penis (according to himself).

January 28, 2010


Earlier this week, four young men were arrested for allegedly scamming their way into the New Orleans offices of U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and trying to tamper with the office telephones. All four were criminally charged with entering a federal building under false pretenses to commit a felony.

Their defenders hypothesize they were just "checking" on the senator's phone lines to make sure that constituent calls weren't being blocked. Some conservative groups have complained bitterly in recent weeks that they couldn't get through to Landrieu. Certain paranoid elements of the right speculated that Landrieu had "done something" to her phones to make it easier to ignore their calls. (A rather pervasive and simpler technology for that does exist; it's called voicemail.)

James O'Keefe, one of those arrested, is a videographer who became famous for dressing like a pimp in a purported sting in which he quizzed low-level ACORN employees about how to exploit underage girls. In his latest caper, perhaps O'Keefe was interested in exposing Landrieu's allegedly scandalous telephone system. But if that's all he and his comrades were after, why did they recruit Stan Dai, a "freelance consultant" with ties to the intelligence community, to aid in their quest?

The circumstances of Dai's arrest are difficult to square any theory that the men were just checking the protocols of Landrieu's phone system. A federal law enforcement official told the Associated Press that one of the four suspects was arrested a few blocks away in a car with "a listening device that could pick up transmissions." Another anonymous official told MSNBC that the man in the car was Stan Dai. It's unclear why the listening device wasn't mentioned in the affidavit. The U.S. Attorney's office for the Eastern District of Louisiana declined my request for further comment. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/news/145457/james_bond_wannabe_part_of_right-wing_plot_to_bug_senator%27s_phones

[FBaggins]

1. Yep... I read the guy runs a "spy school"

Assuming this is the same guy I read about.

This keystone-cop display couldn't possibly be good for business. :evilgrin:

[Atman]

2. They have nothing to worry about.

Republicans don't get in trouble for this kind of stuff. If it had been a Dem, the coverage on the news would eclipse the SOTU address.

.

[zbdent]

3. you know what just occurred to me?

the person at ACORN got into trouble because he/she "didn't report someone trying to pimp an underage girl" ...

and yet ... the RW videographer didn't get into any trouble for, what is it called, solicitation of prostitution? OF AN UNDERAGE GIRL???

[crikkett]

4. it was fake, that's why. n/t