Glenn Greenwald: More Facts Emerge About The Leaked Anti-WikiLeaks Smear Campaigns

[Hissyspit]

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/02/15/palantir/index.html

TUESDAY, FEB 15, 2011 05:16 ET

More facts emerge about the leaked smear campaigns

BY GLENN GREENWALD

As I noted on Friday, the parties implicated in the smear campaigns aimed at WikiLeaks supporters and Chamber of Commerce critics have attempted to heap all the blame on HBGary Federal ("HBGary") and its CEO, Aaron Barr. Both Bank of America and the Chamber -- the intended clients -- vehemently deny any involvement in these schemes and have harshly denounced them. The other two Internet security firms whose logos appeared on the proposals -- Palantir Technologies and Berico Technologies -- both issued statements terminating their relationship with HBGary and insisting that they had nothing to do with these plots. Only Hunton & Williams and its partner, John Woods -- the central cogs soliciting these proposals -- have steadfastly refused to comment.

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But as Salon's Justin Elliott reports, there are newly emerged facts which directly contradict Palantir's denials...

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Last night, both Elliott and I sent emails to Palantir's General Counsel asking the company to reconcile this obvious contradiction. In response, they last night issued a statement announcing that they "have decided to place Matthew Steckman, 26 year old engineer, on leave pending a thorough review of his actions." They added that Palantir "was not retained by any party to develop such recommendations and indeed it would be contrary to Palantir’s ethics, culture and policies to do so" (Elliott has posted Palantir's full statement).

So apparently, if Palantir's new version is to be believed, a 26-year-old engineer went off on his own and -- without any supervision or direction -- participated in the development of proposals intended for two of the nation's deepest-pocket organizations (Bank of America and the Chamber), potential clients which the emails repeatedly discuss would be very lucrative. I'll leave it to others to decide how credible that version is, but I will note that several facts undermine it:

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But the real party here which deserves much more scrutiny is Hunton & Williams -- one of the most well-connected legal and lobbying firms in DC...

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[BanzaiBonnie]

1. Yeah, I watched "Damages" too

and all they have to do is have someone to pin this on and pay him off later. Think that will work?