While working on the Ed Schultz radio show yesterday, one of the stories covered was based by ThinkProgress on how a law firm representing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Hunton and Williams, hired private security companies to undermine their political opponents, including ThinkProgress, Change to Win, the SEIU, US Chamber Watch, and StopTheChamber.com, with a sabotage campaign. The security firms, which went by the code name “Team Themis” hoped to obtain $200,000 for initial background research, then charge up to $2 million for a larger disinformation campaign against progressives.
What is even more amazing is how ThinkProgress learned of the political dirty tricks. The same hackers, that are part of “Anonymous” hacker community that took down websites for oppressive regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, and American corporations that have censored WikiLeaks, hacked into the website of one of the security companies, HBGary Federal, and found the damning emails. “Anonymous” hacked into HBGary executive Aaron Burr’s email and published some 40,000 company e-mails. Read ThinkProgress.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has denied any involvement: “The U.S. Chamber never hired or solicited proposals from HBGary, Palantir or Berico….HBGary’s proposal, which has been written about by ThinkProgress, was not requested by the Chamber, it was not delivered to the Chamber, and it was never discussed with anyone at the Chamber. The leaked e-mails appear to show that HBGary was willing to propose questionable actions in an attempt to drum up business, but the Chamber was not aware of these proposals until HBGary’s e-mails leaked.” Read more.