By Andrew Kreig / Director's Blog
A secretive hacker’s group has exposed what appears to be a shocking plan by a well-connected security company to defame and otherwise harm human rights advocates, unions and bloggers who have offended powerful companies. A security contractor developed the plan to sell to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce via one of its law firms, Hunton and Williams. The hacker group Anonymous exposed the scandal, described below.
A security company named HBGary Federal that is well-connected to U.S. government and major business clients was exposed as creating a shocking, dirty tricks plan to hurt bloggers, unions and activists who defend Assange and criticize the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The hackers group Anonymous learned that it had been targeted by HBGary and responded by purloining from the company a trove of what it calls some 50,000 emails and similar documents apparently showing how the security firm has been developing an illegal disinformation plan for potential sale this month to the law firm Hunton and Williams. The latter works for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and was recommended by the Justice Department to Bank of America for the latter’s defense against WikiLeaks exposure.
More generally, our reporting at the Justice Integrity Project makes this scandal especially relevant to us, our colleagues and courageous sources. We have published cutting-edge stories on Sweden’s prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who remains in the news because of his strange extradition hearing this week in the United Kingdom. Sweden wants him for questioning about two sex affairs gone bad last summer that haev resulted in controversial claims of sexual misconduct by him. Sweden initiated a global manhunt for him but denies his claims that the questioning is a ruse to hand him over to the United States for spy charges. Human rights advocate Dr. Marcello Ferrada de Noli, right, a medical school professor in Sweden who also works in Italy, is among those who have been drawing heavily on our work this week. He requested an update, published simultaneously on his Professors Blogg and below, with several updates here to include breaking news.