Richard Clarke Says U.S. Chamber May Have Committed A Felony With Hacking Plot
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on March 25th, 2011 4:37 am by HL
Richard Clarke Says U.S. Chamber May Have Committed A Felony With Hacking Plot
Earlier this month, Richard Clarke, who served for both Democratic and Republican Presidents, including a stint as the cyber security czar for the Bush administration, denounced the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for plotting with a group of military contractors to hack into progressive groups. Clarke was in DC speaking at a cyber security conference hosted […]
Earlier this month, Richard Clarke, who served for both Democratic and Republican Presidents, including a stint as the cyber security czar for the Bush administration, denounced the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for plotting with a group of military contractors to hack into progressive groups. Clarke was in DC speaking at a cyber security conference hosted by Symantec. Although Clarke focused his remarks about the growing threat of global cyber terrorism, ThinkProgress spoke to the longtime public servant about the ChamberLeaks story we originally broke.
According to documents first reported by ThinkProgress, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s attorneys began working with three military contractors — Berico, HB Gary, and Palantir — to come up with a proposal to discredit groups like ThinkProgress, the SEIU, StopTheChamber.com, MoveOn.org, and others. The tactics proposed included spying on families, using malware computer viruses to steal private information, using fake documents to embarrass liberals, and creating fake identities to infiltrate their targets.
Clarke denounced the scandal in no uncertain terms. Noting accurately that the Chamber “took foreign money in the last election,” a story also uncovered by ThinkProgress, Clarke said the Chamber’s attorneys had conspired to commit a “felony”:
FANG: Hi. You talked a lot about classifying and recognizing cyber security threats, but you mostly focused on foreign threats. I’m curious about a story that broke last month, that the US Chamber of Commerce, the world’s largest trade association, based here in DC, had contracted or attempted to contract military defense firms like HB Gary Federal, Palantir, and Berico, to develop proposals to use the same type of cyber warfare tactics normally reserved for Jihadi websites against left-wing activists, trade — labor unions, and left of center think tanks here in America. What do you think about that type of threat from a lobbyist or a corporation targeting political enemies, or perceived enemies here in the US?
CLARKE: I think it’s a violation of 10USC. I think it’s a felony, and I think they should go to jail. You call them a large trade association, I call them a large political action group that took foreign money in the last election. But be that as it may, if you in the United States, if any American citizen anywhere in the world, because this is an extraterritorial law, so don’t think you can go to Bermuda and do it, if any American citizen anywhere in the world engages in unauthorized penetration, or identity theft, accessing a number through identity theft purposes, that’s a felony and if the Chamber of Commerce wants to try that, that’s fine with me because the FBI will be on their doorstep in a matter of hours.
Listen here:
Clarke, the author of a new book called Cyber War, was right to point out the plot by the Chamber’s attorneys to hack into progressive groups constitutes a felony. There are a number of federal and state statutes that prohibit the theft of private computer information.
Recently, Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) formally requested documents from the NSA and Defense Department relating to contracts with two of the firms involved in this scandal, Berico and HB Gary. Nineteen other lawmakers have called for a wider investigation.
ThinkFast: March 24, 2011
The progressive advocacy group Color of Change is mounting a campaign to urge the Huffington Post to stop giving a forum to “notorious liar and race-baiter Andrew Breitbart.” HuffPo responded by claiming that Breitbart’s “first post on our site drew over 1,635 comments,” thereby “validat[ing] the premise and the decision to publish his blog post.” […]
The progressive advocacy group Color of Change is mounting a campaign to urge the Huffington Post to stop giving a forum to “notorious liar and race-baiter Andrew Breitbart.” HuffPo responded by claiming that Breitbart’s “first post on our site drew over 1,635 comments,” thereby “validat[ing] the premise and the decision to publish his blog post.” Color of Change notes that HuffPost is validating “someone who has repeatedly sought to harm” black leaders and institutions.
Speaking at Vanderbilt University Tuesday, President Obama’s former Council of Economic Advisers Chair Christina Romer slammed the administration for “not doing enough” about unemployment. Deeming the 8.9% unemployment rate “an absolute crisis,” Romer — a proponent of “more aggressive government action” — said we have tools “we can use, and I think it’s shameful that we’re not using them.”
In a two-page letter to President Obama yesterday, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said House members “are troubled that U.S. military resources were committed to war without clearly defining” the mission in Libya. While stating his respect for Obama’s authority, he demanded to know why the U.S. committed to “enforcing a U.N. resolution that is inconsistent with our stated policy goals and national interests.”
This weekend, Republican presidential hopeful Haley Barbour said he wasn’t involved in his lobbying firm’s efforts on behalf of the Mexican government to help promote a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. But the Los Angeles Times reports today that Barbour’s assertion is “contradicted by the firm’s own federal filings, which describe him as a leader of the team assigned to the account.”
The “House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has scheduled an April 5 hearing to examine postal workers’ pay and benefits.” “The Postal Service must show Congress and the American people that it can pay its own way, because the numbers do not seem to add up,” said committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA).
House Republicans voted to ban congressional earmarks last year, calling them the embodiment of everything wrong with Washington, but a new report shows Republicans left nearly half of that pork barrel spending in place. The Congressional Research Service report found $4.8 billion earmark spending left intact, most of it for defense-related spending.
In “one of the Obama administration’s most significant revisions to rules governing the investigation of terror suspects,” new rules allow the government to hold domestic-terror suspects longer than others without giving them a Miranda warning.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed an “aggressive” response to a bus bombing that killed one woman and injured dozens more, which came after Israeli strikes that killed numerous Palestinian civilians. Yesterday, Israeli jets struck a power plant in Gaza city, plunging much of the area into darkness.
And finally: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that she’s not interested in another term at State or any other prestigious political office, and yesterday she told People just how modest she wants to go. Her next dream job? “Closet cleaner.” “I’ve been on the highest tightrope of American and global politics,” she told the magazine. “I want to do other things.”
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