Who did the Washington/Silicon Valley Cartel use to do their dirty work?:
GOOGLE, IN-Q-TEL, NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION, GAWKER
This is what happens to U.S. Citizens if they help federal investigators. The crew that engaged in the “hit-jobs” against reporters, citizens, Congress-people and agency staff that testified about the illicit activities were:Google:
Technology WALL STREET JOURNAL
Inside the U.S. Antitrust Probe of Google Key FTC staff wanted to sue Internet giant after finding ‘real harm to consumers and to innovation’
ENLARGE Google’s Eric Schmidt testified in 2011 about the Internet giant’s business practices and defended how it displayed search results. Photo: Getty Images By Brody Mullins,
The staff report from the agency’s bureau of competition recommended the commission bring a lawsuit challenging three Google practices. The move would have triggered one of the highest-profile antitrust cases since the Justice Department sued Microsoft Corp. in the 1990s.
Related
- How Google Skewed Search Results
- Digits: Excerpts from FTC Staff Report on Google’s Search Practices
- Google Dodges Antitrust Hit (Jan. 3, 2013)
- EU Prepares to Step Up Google Investigations (July 22, 2014)
The 160-page critique, which was supposed to remain private but was inadvertently disclosed in an open-records request, concluded that Google’s “conduct has resulted—and will result—in real harm to consumers and to innovation in the online search and advertising markets.”
The findings stand in contrast to the conclusion of the FTC’s commissioners, who voted unanimously in early 2013 to end the investigation after Google agreed to some voluntary changes to its practices.
It is unusual for the commissioners to not take staff recommendations. But in this case, they were wrestling with competing recommendations, including a separate report from the agency’s economic bureau that didn’t favor legal action.
AdvertisementThen-Chairman Jon Leibowitz said in a written statement at the time that Google’s voluntary changes deliver “more relief for American consumers faster than any other option.”
Google General Counsel Kent Walker said in a statement Thursday that the FTC ultimately “agreed that there was no need to take action on how we rank and display search results.” He added: “Speculation about potential consumer harm turned out to be entirely wrong. Since the investigation closed two years ago, the ways people access information online have only increased, giving consumers more choice than ever before.”
On one issue—whether Google used anticompetitive tactics for its search engine—the competition staff recommended against a lawsuit, although it said Google’s actions resulted in “significant harm” to rivals. In three other areas, the report found evidence the company used its monopoly behavior to help its own business and hurt its rivals.
ENLARGE The report undercuts Google’s oft-stated contention that the FTC found no evidence of wrongdoing. “The conclusion is clear: Google’s services are good for users and good for competition,” said David Drummond, Google’s senior vice president and chief legal officer, when the FTC closed the matter.
It could prompt new complaints from some Google competitors, such as Yelp Inc., who allege the company still engages in anticompetitive behavior, and renewed focus by antitrust authorities in Europe, who are pursuing their own look into Google.
“This document appears to show that the FTC had direct evidence from Google of intentional search bias,” said Luther Lowe, the vice president of public policy for Yelp.
ENLARGE The Wall Street Journal viewed portions of the document after the agency inadvertently disclosed it as part of a Freedom of Information Act request. The FTC declined to release the undisclosed pages and asked the Journal to return the document, which it declined to do.
“Unfortunately, an unredacted version of this material was inadvertently released in response to a FOIA request,” an FTC spokesman said in a statement to the Journal. “We are taking steps to ensure this does not happen again.”
Embedded in the document and in detailed footnotes are an array of previously unknown details about Google’s business, many of which come from senior officials such as Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, former executiveMarissa Mayer and co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
Data included in the report suggest Google was more dominant in the U.S. Internet search market than was widely believed. The company estimated its market share at between 69% and 84% during a period when research firm comScore put it at 65%. “From an antitrust perspective, I’m happy to see [comScore] underestimate our share,” the report quoted Google Chief Economist Hal Varian as saying, without specifying the context.
An antitrust suit against Google would have pitted Obama administration appointees against one of the White House’s closest corporate allies. Google was the second-largest corporate source of campaign donations to President Barack Obama’s re-election effort. Google executives have visited the White House scores of times since Mr. Obama has been in office, according to visitor logs.
“The FTC is an independent agency and we respect their independent decision-making,” said Jennifer Friedman, a White House spokeswoman.
In its investigation, FTC staff said Google’s conduct “helped it to maintain, preserve and enhance Google’s monopoly position in the markets for search and search advertising” in violation of the law. Google’s behavior “will have lasting negative effects on consumer welfare,” the report said.
Google has long disputed any characterization that it is a monopoly, saying that competition is “just a click away.”
In discussing one of the issues the FTC staff wanted to sue over, the report said the company illegally took content from rival websites such as Yelp, TripAdvisor Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. to improve its own websites. It cited one instance when Google copied Amazon’s sales rankings to rank its own items. It also copied Amazon’s reviews and ratings, the report found. Spokesmen for TripAdvisor and Amazon declined to comment.
When competitors asked Google to stop taking their content, it threatened to remove them from its search engine.
“It is clear that Google’s threat was intended to produce, and did produce, the desired effect,” the report said, “which was to coerce Yelp and TripAdvisor into backing down.” The company also sent a message that it would “use its monopoly power over search to extract the fruits of its rivals’ innovations.”
In its final agreement, the commission secured a promise that Google would allow websites to opt out of having their content included in its competing search products.
The staff said Google also broke antitrust law by placing restrictions on websites that publish its search results from also working with rivals such as Microsoft’s Bing and Yahoo Inc.
The commission made no mention of this issue in its final report, nor did it secure any commitments from Google to change its policies.
In a third area, the FTC staff said Google violated antitrust law by restricting advertisers’ ability to use data garnered from Google ad campaigns in advertising run on rival platforms.
The FTC report cited a Google employee who said the company once wanted to do away with the unnecessary restriction but was overruled by Mr. Page, who is now Google’s chief executive. A Google spokeswoman declined to make Mr. Page available for comment.
Ultimately, Google changed this policy voluntarily in 2013 at the behest of the agency.
On the most important issue, that of Google’s prized search engine, the FTC report said Google altered it to benefit its own services at the expense of rivals. The report said Google “adopted a strategy of demoting, or refusing to display, links to certain vertical websites in highly commercial categories.”
In what it termed “a close call,” the staff said the FTC shouldn’t issue a complaint against the company because of legal hurdles and Google’s “strong procompetitive justifications.”
‘[Google’s behavior] helped it to maintain, preserve and enhance Google’s monopoly position in the markets for search and search advertising’
—FTC staff report The “evidence paints a complex portrait of a company working toward an overall goal of maintaining its market share by providing the best user experience, while simultaneously engaging in tactics that resulted in harm to many vertical competitors, and likely helped to entrench Google’s monopoly power over search and search advertising,” the staff said.
On Jan. 3, the five FTC commissioners voted to close the investigation. A few months later, now FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez told a Senate committee that a majority of commissioners didn’t support a case against Google on any of the allegations under investigation.
Write to Brody Mullins at brody.mullins@wsj.com, Rolfe Winkler at rolfe.winkler@wsj.com and Brent Kendall atbrent.kendall@wsj.com
In-Q-Tel
Gawker Media
New America Foundation
The executives of Google, In-Q-Tel and New America Foundation and the investors and beneficiaries of the “CleanTech” cash and the organizers of the libel, slander and defamation attacks against competing applicants are IN FACT, all the same people. In-Q-Tel and New America Foundation staff strategized the attacks while Gawker Media and Google executed the attacks.
Google received numerous legal requests to cease the attacks and, not only, refused to cease the attacks, but, in fact, increased them. Google manually, malicious and intentionally locked the attacks into the top and forefront positions on their web control architecture in order to optimize and maximize the damage against applicants as a retribution tactic. Google deleted and down-ranked any media coverage which was beneficial to applicants in order to assert their damage against the applicants in favor of their investors. Because Google operates under federal cash contracts and is legally a “Monopoly” this is a felony.The personnel, financial relationships, investments, ownerships, assets and communications between all of these parties are deeply embedded, confirmed and quantified. NSA, FBI and other surveillance has documented their communications and interactions.
These are the groups that joined together to target those who spoke up. Let’s see what the media says about them:
PART A – About one of the Hit Squad Contractors: Gawker Media Group. You call them if your “official” press office doesn’t want to get their hands dirty..
Government sponsored character assassination delivered by Google, Gawker Media, IN-Q-Tel and New America Foundation; all of whom are financially, politically and operationally connected. Eric Schmidt ran and funded New America Foundation; Ran Google; Partnered and funded In-Q-Tel; hired, along with his associate: Elon Musk, In-Q-Tel executives; Worked with Gawker Marketers along with In-Q-Tel; was, himself and Google, funded by In-Q-Tel; funded the top 4 political campaigns, that all of those parties aggressively supported; and managed a business plan, that ran between all of those efforts, to ruin competitors and those who did not think like him, in any way possible.
Using the largest character assassination engine ever created. The Large Hadron Collider of defamation, Schmidt and his little Cartel went to work on enemies of his ideology. These were hit-jobs, using taxpayer dollars, against American born taxpayers, inside America, on U.S. soil because some politician or, campaign backer billionaire, wanted to hide their crimes.
VIDEOS:
DON’T MISS THIS ONE:
REFERENCE LINKS FOR DETAILS ON SOME OF THE PLAYERS:
What kind of company Google is:
http://www.whengoogleattacks.com
Where you should write to complain about these kinds of things:
http://www.opencongress.org/people/zipcodelookup
Who Eric Schmidt’s little hit-job spy buddies are:
http://www.inqtelcase.wordpress.com
How YOU can stop dirty politicians:
http://www.corruptionbusters.info
The details of their tactics:
http://www.paybackpolitics.org
How Eric’s Cartel Works:
ARTICLES CONFIRMING THE BACKGROUND:
Character assassination – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Character assassination is a deliberate and sustained process that aims to destroy the credibility and reputation of a person, institution, social group, or nation.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_assassination
Google Search Results Rigged? – Outside The Beltway
Is Google manipulating its search results to keep competitors down? … When Google was a pure search engine, it was easy to appear agnostic about search results, … Are Google’s results rigged? Heck yeah.
outsidethebeltway.com/google-search-results-rigged/More results
Character Assassination | Definition of character …
Full Definition of CHARACTER ASSASSINATION : the slandering of a person usually with the intention of destroying public confidence in that person See character assassination defined for English-language learners Examples ofCHARACTER ASSASSINATION None of those rumors are true. She’s been the …
merriam-webster.com/dictionary/character assassination
More results
Urban Dictionary: Character Assassination
Character Assassination is the act of attempting to influence the portrayal or reputation of a particular person, causing others to develop an extremely negative perception of him/her.
urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Character Assassination
PCWorld; Google Defends Against Claims of Rigged Search …Google Defends Against Claims of Rigged SearchResults. Google is aggressively defending itself against accusations it manipulates its search … or specialized image, shopping, flight, or movie results. And that’s not just Google; Bing, Yahoo and other search engines do the …
pcworld.com/article/257269/google_defends_against_cla…
Character Assassination Law & Legal Definition
Character Assassination refers to the slandering or vicious personal verbal attack on a person with the intention of destroying or damaging that person’s reputation or confidence.
definitions.uslegal.com/c/character-assassination/
Google Has Rigged It’s Search Results… …
The bclund Blog The Intersection of Markets, Trading, and Life! Main menu. Skip to content. Home; About Brian Lund; THE BEST OF bclund; Brian Lund In Media; Google Has Rigged It’s Search Results…Is Anyone Surprised? … To bolster its own listings, Google sometimes copied, …
bclund.com/2015/03/20/google-has-rigged-its-search-r…More results
character assassination – The Free Dictionary
character assassination n. The malicious denunciation or slandering of another person, especially as part of an effort to ruin the reputation of a public figure. character assassin n. character assassination n 1. the act of deliberately attempting to destroy a person’s reputation by defamatory …
thefreedictionary.com/character+assassination
Europe investigates Google: Rigged search rankings …Europe investigates Google: Rigged search rankings? More like this. Update: Google targeted by EU antitrust probe. Google Instant results: … it makes no sense. … Google is a searchengine. … It s their job. If they are not allowed to do this, they cannot serve their users. …
computerworld.com/article/2469754/e-commerce/europe-investi…
Character Assassination – Changing Minds
Character Assassination . Techniques > Propaganda > Character Assassination. Method | Example | Discussion | See also . Method. Attack the person, showing them to be bad and unworthy.
changingminds.org/techniques/propaganda/character_assassina…
Spies and Honey Traps: PW Talks with Jason MatthewsI don’t know if there still is an operating Sparrow School, but I imagine honey traps are still used. … which continues the narrative with the same characters (and some new ones). There are recruitments, double crosses, despicable traitors, assassination attempts, and a desperate …
publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/interviews/article/56…
EU competition commissioner ‘concerned’ Google is rigging its …… with competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager formally accusing the search giant of rigging its search engine and its Android smartphone . Jobs. Jobs; Cars. CarsIreland.ie; Used Car Search; Car Dealers; Deals. … EU competition commissioner ‘concerned’ Google is rigging itssearch engine …
independent.ie/business/technology/news/eu-competition-c…
Barbara Hartwell Vs. CIA: Honey Trap Trickster? Or CIA Assassin?… Honey Trap Trickster? Or CIA Assassin? … Here’s a little sample of Negri’s more recent character assassination regarding myself and my friends and colleagues Rayelan … But it’s getting late and this ‘Former CIA Assassin’ and ‘Honey Trap Trickster’ has grown tired of typing …
barbarahartwellvscia.blogspot.com/2006/11/honey-trap-trickster-or-cia-assas…
Julian Assange in the Honey Trap by Justin Raimondo …Julian Assange in the Honey Trap. How they snared him. by Justin … character assassination is an art, to be practiced with a fine attention to detail … One of the participants in the ensuing conversation describes her as “certainly an odd character,” who seemed out of …
original.antiwar.com/justin/2010/12/07/julian-assange-in-the-h…
Snowden Drip: Government Funded Character Assassination …Snowden Drip: Government Funded CharacterAssassination Squads Rampant Online From The Intercept: … the use of “honey traps” (luring people into compromising situations using sex) and destructive viruses. But, here, …
blog.agupieware.com/2014/02/snowden-drip-government-funded.html
By Bob Unruh
Journalist Glenn Greenwald, through whom document-leaker Edward Snowden previously rattled the entire National Security Agency, is now confirming Western intelligence networks strategize to place “trolls” on the Internet to undermine, discredit and destroy critics.
In an article posted on website Greenwald help create called the Intercept, Greenwald reports secret documents from the GCHQ – the United Kingdom’s version of the NSA – reveal “how western intelligence agencies are attempting to manipulate and control online discourse with extreme tactics of deception and reputation-destruction.”
He cites documents from the “previously secret” Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group in the U.K., which describe injecting “all sorts of false material onto the Internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets” and to use “social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable.”
“To see how extremist these programs are, just consider the tactics they boast of using to achieve those ends: ‘false flag operations’ (posting material to the Internet and falsely attributing it to someone else), fake victim blog posts (pretending to be a victim of the individual whose reputation they want to destroy), and posting ‘negative information’ on various forums.”
The document lists a “Disruption Operational Playbook” and subheadings titled “Infiltration Operation, Ruse Operation, Set Piece Operation, False Flag Operation, False Rescue Operation, Disruption Operation, Sting Operation.”
Regarding how to “discredit a target,” the instructions include, “Set up a honey-trap, change their photos on social networking sites, write a blog purporting to be one of their victims, email/text their colleagues, neighbors, friends etc.”
Sam Rolley at the Personal Liberty blog wrote that his organization for years has been “warning readers that the well-connected and ruling elite, displeased by this newfound proletariat freedom, have been prolific in attempts to undermine and marginalize information provided by any media outlet unwilling to obey the same unspoken rules that govern the content choices of major media outlets.”
“Now, thanks to the efforts of National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden and journalist Glenn Greenwald, readers no longer have to take the word of ‘paranoid’ bloggers who relate tales of paid government trolls lurking in comment sections and other concentrated top-down efforts to muddy the information provided by alternative media,” Rolley said.
He warned that the “most disturbing confirmation provided in the newly publicized intelligence documents is that spy agencies in Western nations with free speech guarantees have been given carte blanche authority from political leadership to target private individuals and organizations deemed uncooperative with the will of the state with ruthless online reputation-destruction efforts.”
Greenwald said the discussion of many of the techniques “occurs in the context of using them in lieu of ‘traditional law enforcement’ against people suspected (but not charged or convicted) of ordinary crimes or, more broadly still, ‘hacktivism,’ meaning those who use online protest activity for political ends.”
Rolley said it takes “no stretch of the imagination – even for those who have resisted considering the possibility of malevolent intent on government’s part – to assume that the mission of organizations like the NSA and GCHQ is ultimately more about quelling citizen dissent than stopping citizen bloodshed at the hands of terrorists.”
“The mere existence of documents like those published this week,” Rolley said, “provides that the nefarious and long-suspected Internet activities of Western propagandists are not just plausible – they have very likely occurred in the comment sections and social media posts of articles like the one you are reading now.”
WND columnist Eric Rush highlighted the outrageous idea of government agents trying to destroy the reputations of critics.
“It is worth noting that in 2008, Cass Sunstein, an Obama adviser and the White House’s former head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs … wrote a paper proposing that the U.S. government engage teams of covert agents and independent, ideologically kindred surrogates to employ precisely the aforementioned methods to achieve their objectives,” Rush said.
Greenwald said the “point is that, far beyond hacktivists, these surveillance agencies have vested themselves with the power to deliberately ruin people’s reputations and disrupt their online political activity even though they’ve been charged with no crimes, and even though their actions have no conceivable connection to terrorism or even national security threats.”
Greenwald said the British organization, GCHQ, in response to his questions, said only that it does not comment on intelligence matters.
“Furthermore,” the agency said, “all of GCHQ’s work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework which ensures that our activities are authorized, necessary and proportionate, and that there is rigorous oversight, including from the Secretary of State, the Interception and Intelligence Services Commissioners, and the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee.”
“Whatever else is true,” Greenwald wrote, “no government should be able to engage in these tactics: what justification is there for having government agencies target people – who have been charged with no crime – for reputation-destruction, infiltrate online political communities, and develop techniques for manipulating online discourse?”
WND previously has reported on leftist trolls operating online, including those with thousands of postings that would be unlikely to come from someone submitting comments during free time.
The report at the time said the trolls were performing a “disinformation” function typical of counter-intelligence efforts by intelligence agencies to confuse political enemies and refute or deflect opposing political views that are less susceptible to refutation by more traditional methods of debate and argumentation.
Typically, trolls operating on WND forums were defending Obama by posting specious and diversionary arguments with the goal of changing the subject and obscuring topics that could damage Obama, such as his birth records, life narrative, political history and policy preferences, including his current positions as president.
One was found to have posted nearly 4,800 comments over a two-year period. Another operated under different user names used various email addresses and nine different IP addresses to post 15,200 comments over 787 days on WND.com and FoxNews.com, as well as several smaller news websites, some of which had a local focus or interest.
The report confirmed many of the trolls banned from participating in WND forums appeared to have been operating on a professional level.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/02/govt-handbook-for-internet-trolls-uncovered/#lZFg1EdYRl9iTSC8.99
Who Is Gawker Media and Nick Denton? Let’s take a look at how the international news media answers that question:
Gawker Media: Hypocrites vs. Douchecanoes
by Matt Forney For TAKI MAG.com
In 2002, a failed British journalist named Nick Denton started Gawker, a bitchy gossip blog run out of his Manhattan apartment. Over 10 years later, Gawker and its sister sites have become the biggest names in clickbait “journalism,” pulling down millions of visitors a month and making its owner a millionaire several times over. The secret to Denton’s success? He took the aggressive, lynch mob mentality of British tabloids, which specialize in ruining people’s lives, and injected it into America’s comparatively placid, Oprahfied media market.
In particular, Gawker, Jezebel, Valleywag, and their sister sites specialize in witch hunts: digital vigilantism against those who fail to keep up with leftist orthodoxy. Geoffrey Miller, Pax Dickinson, Justine Tunney, Violentacrez: the list of people whom Gawker has garroted for “racism” or “misogyny” could fill a phone book. With an army of Twitter twits behind it, Gawker Media truly is the moral majority of the left, instigating mob action against those who sin against the religion of tolerance. Gawker’s provocations are even encouraging real-world violence now, as Valleywag’s overfed man-baby of an editor Sam Biddle eggs on attacks against San Francisco tech workers from the safety of the East Coast.
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“Which makes the revelation that Denton has been allowing trolls to terrorize his female employees all the more delicious.”
For the past few months, 4chan has been engaged in a trolling operation against Jezebel, posting pictures of rape and gore porn in the comments section. Despite the fact that these shocking and disgusting images are stressing out staffers to the point where they’re developing PTSD, Denton has steadfastly refused to do anything about the problem. Jezebel’s staff recently snapped and posted an open letter on the site demanding that Gawker Media do something, calling 4chan’s trolling “a very real and immediate threat to the mental health of Jezebel’s staff and readers.”
Fat chance of this happening, however. As others have pointed out, Gawker Media’s business model depends on getting clicks; indeed, their writers are paid according to how many page views their articles get. Since comments help drive traffic to websites, fighting 4chan’s rape porn trolling will reduce Gawker’s profitability. Not only that, Google itself ranks web pages according to how many comments they have, as comments are extremely difficult to fake. Fewer comments means a lower page rank, which translates into less search traffic and less money for Denton to blow on exotic vacations with his boy-toy hubby. If Gawker Media was willing to testify in federal court as to why they should be allowed to rip off their interns, you can bet your bottom peso that they aren’t going to do jack about this.
Gawker Media Attack Specialist Adrian Covert of San Francisco. Now under 24/7 electronic surveillance for “suspicious activities”
And there’s the punch line. Gawker Media, the company that gets people fired from their jobs for making “sexist” jokes, has been creating a hostile work environment for its women staffers for months. They’re the leftist equivalent of a priest who rails against homosexuality only to be caught molesting altar boys in the confessional booths. In staying silent on this for so long, Dodai Stewart, Lindy West, and Jezebel’s other star employees have shown themselves to be frauds. They don’t care about feminism, “fat shaming,” or whatever cause they’re screeching about today; all they care about is money and power. And now we have the proof.
Please share this article by using the link below. When you cut and paste an article, Taki’s Magazine misses out on traffic, and our writers don’t get paid for their work. Email editors@takimag.com to buy additional rights.http://takimag.com/article/gawker_media_hypocrites_vs_douchecanoes/print#ixzz3CCvoAIP4
Advertisers Ditch Gawker Media In Droves. “Brand Tainted” says Forbes Exec. Gawker’s Denton Sweats Over Decline in Web Ad Revenues – CBS NewsGawker Media’s Nick Denton has made a horrible prediction regarding internet adspend for the next year: … Gawker’s Denton Sweats Over Decline in Web Ad Revenues. Shares Tweets Stumble … But the web ad economy as a whole will be the beneficiary of falling budgets.
cbsnews.com/news/gawkers-denton-sweats-over-decline-i…
Nick Denton charged with ordering phone-hacking, helping Anonymous hackers, stealing Mitt Romney’s tax records, hiding money in Russia and Caymans and MORE…IS GAWKER MEDIA THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY’S “PLAUSIBLE DENI-ABILITY” HIT SQUAD? STILL MORE…‘Straight To Hell:’ Reflections On Annie, Gawker …I feel like I’m probably going straight to hell for all of this. But, given all the other shitty … Emily Ratajkowski entertainment expats facebook Gawker Gawker Media gender hipsters Hollywood Hugh Hefner inter-racial dating internet Jezebel Julia Allison korea liberalism …
migukin.wordpress.com/2014/08/06/straight-to-hell-reflections-o…
More from migukin.wordpress.com
Terror– John Cook of Gawker; now of Greenwald – NOT CIA’S FRIEND!Gawker Tries to Reveal Identity of CIA Agent Behind Bin Laden KillBy Jana Winter
May 1: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, along with with members of the national security team, receive an update on the mission against Usama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House.APThe Gawker website is under fire for trying to expose the CIA agent who may have helped lead the effort to kill Usama Bin Laden — despite efforts by the U.S. government and media to keep his identity secret for security reasons.
Using red arrows pointing to a full-length picture and close-up photos of the possible agent, Gawker reporter John Cook on July 6 wrote a piece under the headline “Is This the Guy Who Killed Bin Laden?” The story has since sparked an angry response from former intelligence agents — as well as Gawker’s own readers — who say Cook’s post was irresponsible and could have deadly consequences.
“This whole business of exposing people is a real serious matter. It’s not entertainment, some people may think it is, but it’s not … There are real people out there that are going to be killed because of this,” said Charles Faddis, a former CIA operations officer who spent 20 years working international hot spots and who headed the CIA’s Terrorist Weapons of Mass Destruction Unit before retiring in 2008.
“I don’t have a lot of patience for this,” added Faddis, speaking about attempts to out the identity of a CIA operative. “This is serious, this is really serious. It’s completely irresponsible.”
Some Gawker readers also weren’t amused. A commenter named “Myrna Minkoff” wrote in response to Cook’s story:
“If this is the guy who tracked down Bin Laden, I can think of no better way to thank him for his outstanding civil service than by outing him on a highly trafficked web site and putting his career, his life, the lives of his loved ones in danger. Hooray!”
Another commenter “joelydanger” wrote:
“Consider that the next time you decide to write another article that tries to glorify DEVGRU, the CIA, or anyone and anything else used on the mission. You’re causing harm and danger to the very people you’re claiming to be heroes.”
But Cook insisted he didn’t compromise anyone’s security by posting the photos.
“I do not believe my post put anybody in physical danger,” Cook said in an email response to several questions posed by FoxNews.com. “I do not believe that people whose photographs are distributed by the White House as part of its public relations efforts have a reasonable claim to ask that no one speculate as to who they are.”
Cook was referring to a series of official White House pictures taken from the Situation Room during the raid on Bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan. The most famous of those photos, seen on televisions, newspapers and websites around the world, showed President Obama, Vice President Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other officials watching a live feed of the raid.
Barely visible in that photo is the right jacket arm and the bottom of a necktie that appear to belong to a tall man standing behind Gates. Other pictures taken in the Situation Room during the raid, posted on the White House Flickr feed, show full-on shots of a tall man whose jacket and tie appear to match those of the man standing behind Gates in the earlier photo.
On July 5, the Associated Press published an extensive article on a CIA agent who led the hunt and eventual takedown of Bin Laden. The article referred to the agent only as “John,” explaining: “The Associated Press has agreed to the CIA’s request not to publish his full name and withhold certain biographical details so that he would not become a target for retribution.”
Later that same day, the website Cryptome, a Wikileaks competitor that publishes leaked, sometimes classified documents and information, used clues from the AP article to home in on photos from the White House Flickr feed and other AP photos that might show “John.” The article noted that “John” appeared just out of frame in the famous photo.
The following day, Cook picked up the Cryptome info and published the photos from the White House Flickr feed, beneath the “Is This the Guy Who Killed Bin Laden?” headline. Cook’s post also included an AP file photo of CIA Director Leon Panetta leaving a briefing on Capitol Hill, where the man who may be “John” is seen in the background.
“Of course, it could be a random staffer who happened to be in both locations with John,” Cook wrote. “Or it could be the guy who iced bin Laden.”
The New York Observer posted a story late Tuesday that claimed to have confirmed the identity of the CIA agent, starting with the AP article and the Situation Room photo, and it posted photos online of the man it said was the agent.
Cook said he and his Gawker editors discussed potential safety concerns before publishing the information and photos.
“We came to the conclusion that it is highly unlikely that the White House would distribute for publication a photograph of a man whose life would be endangered if his photograph were ever published. Likewise, we decided that it is highly unlikely that such a man would publicly accompany the director of Central Intelligence, in the presence of AP photographers, to Capitol Hill to testify.”
But those White House photos do not identify the man in question, only noting that the group of people are “members of the national security team,” numerous Gawker commenters pointed out.
“You seem to have not noticed that they took great pains to make sure his face wasn’t in the shot and he was never identified by name,” Myrna Minkoff wrote, when another commenter challenged her criticism of the Gawker post.
Other commenters chimed in.
“Sure it’ll put him, his friends, and his family in danger regardless of whether or not he’s actually the guy, but it’ll generate some pageviews and advertiser revenue, and that’s the IMPORTANT thing, right?” wrote someone using the name “dgoat.”
“You should still be ashamed of yourselves.”
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One Denton Bio | Gawker Media LLC and Nick Denton- The …The headquarters of Gawker Media, … (Ironically, it was one of the few things he’s ever done mainly for the hell of it.) … Blog at WordPress.com. Follow. Follow “Gawker MediaLLC and Nick Denton- The Killing of Babies …
gawkerhell.wordpress.com/2012/08/27/one-denton-bio/
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“Gawker is the most vile and evil example of the written word in history”, says employee. What Gawker Media Is Doing About Our Rape Gif ProblemOn Monday, we posted an open letter to the management of Gawker Media, our parent company, regarding an ongoing problem that we here at Jezebel could no longer tolerate: horribly violent rape gifs that were consistently appearing in our comments. For months, we asked Gawker Media HQ for help with
jezebel.com/what-gawker-media-is-doing-about-our-rape…
Jezebel calls out Gawker Media for failing to address …Jezebel calls out Gawker Media for failing to address incessant misogynist comments … we’d report the hell out of it here and cite it as another example of employers failing to take the safety of its female employees seriously.
salon.com/2014/08/11/jezebel_calls_out_gawker_media…
Gawker and the Rage of the Creative Underclass — New York …Everybody Sucks Gawker and the rage of the creative underclass. By Vanessa Grigoriadis; Published Oct 14, 2007 ; … Gawker made its debut under the leadership of Nick Denton, the complicated owner of the blog network Gawker Media, …
nymag.com/news/features/39319/
Gawker Sucks and Here is Why | The WritingsPerhaps you, like everyone else who uses the web, likes to visit gossip sites like Gawker. I have had it with those sites. Their trade is in lies, deception, … Gawker Sucks Even More | GawkerMedia. Leave a Reply Cancel reply. Enter your comment here …
neobiblical.wordpress.com/2011/04/07/gawker-sucks-and-here-is-why/
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Gawker Sucks – “Free Beacon” — Breaking News, Politics …Gawker Sucks. Share. Tweet. Email. … It is unclear to me how Gawker Media’s actions are materially different from, say, Napster circa 2000 when it was sued out of existence for facilitating the illicit downloads of copyright material. Who knows.
freebeacon.com/blog/gawker-sucks/
Who else hates Gawker Media? – Boycott-Gawker-And-GizmodoWho else hates Gawker Media? Nobody who works atGawker/Gizmodo/etc. should ever work again! Butt handed to Gawker; … http://juicedsportsblog.com/2008/05/gawker–media–sucks.html http://suckreport.com/search/gawkerhttp://tomsucks.wordpress.com/2008/05/14/gawker–sucks/
boycott-gawker-and-gizmodo.weebly.com/who-else-hates-gawker-media.html
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Why Digg Really Sucks and Gawker Media Probably Does Too …Right on. I won’t say that most of the stuff on Digg is bad. It’s just not that great. Meh. But I really agree with you that there are way too many “me too” blog posts out there.
imaginaryplanet.net/weblogs/idiotprogrammer/2007/06/why-digg-…
New Statesman | Reddit blocks Gawker in defence of its right …Links from Gawker are banned from /r/politics, after journalist threatens to reveal the identity of the man running Reddit’s “creepshots”, “beatingwomen” and “jailbait” forums.
newstatesman.com/blogs/internet/2012/10/reddit-blocks-gawk…
Gawker Sucks | Exposing “Gawker Medias” racist Slants one …Gawker Media gets traffic with copyrighted material? I find this bit even more interesting, … Follow “Gawker Sucks” Get every new post delivered to your Inbox. Powered by WordPress.com …
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Gawker Sucks – blogspot.comGawker Sucks Sunday, August 24, 2014. … Earlier today, Joel Johnson announcedGawker was disabling all image uploads in their comments. … And you can be sure the top guys at Gawker Media, like Joel Johnson, are now looking into it!
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Gawker Sucks: Finding MobutuGawker Sucks. Sunday, December 9, 2012. Finding Mobutu. Most people reading this are probably familiar with Gawker Media properties.
gawkersucks.blogspot.com/2012/12/finding-mobutu.html
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Gawker Mediaとは – goo Wikipedia (ウィキペディア)Gawker Media. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Vanessa Grigoriadis, “Everybody Sucks: Gawker and the rage of the creative underclass, New York magazine, October 22, 2007.
wpedia.goo.ne.jp/enwiki/Gawker_Media
Gawker Media – Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaGawker Media is a Cayman Islands1 corporation online mediacompany and blog network, founded and owned by Nick Denton based in New York City. It is considered2 to be one of the most visible and successful blog-oriented media companies.citation As of March 2012…
wikipedia.sfstate.us/Gawker_Media
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Gawker Writers Have to Work Weekends Now Too | New York ObserverNick Denton, for his part, said that the weekend plan is “nothing new,” and that in the first half of the year, … and said he thinks it “sucks.” Share this: Facebook; Twitter; Google; LinkedIn; Print; Email; Filed under: Alex Pareene, Gabriel Snyder, Gawker, Nick Denton, The Media Mob. Comment .
observer.com/2008/12/gawker-writers-have-to-work-weeke…
Nick Denton – Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaNick Denton, born 24 August 1966, is a British journalist and internet entrepreneur, the founder and proprietor of the blog collective Gawker Media, and the managing editor of the New York-based Gawker.com.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Denton
Shots In The Dark: Why Gawker SucksI was just googling “Gawker sucks” and this came up making a very clear point of why I was googling this phrase in the first place. They’re not even funny.
richardbradley.net/2005/11/why-gawker-sucks.html
Oh my! Gawker’s Nick Denton’s ex boyfriend is not happy with his new boy toy.
By Christopher Koulouris For http://scallywagandvagabond.com
Frankly there’s nothing more delicious than watching someone famous for ripping people’s alive (yes journalism sucks these days) apart become his own parody on manners and gossip. That said there was a twinkle of relish when I came across page 6‘s interesting expose on Nick Denton, the media zealot of Gawker media (which owns a smattering of salacious dribble including gawker, jezebel,deadspin,lifehacker and jalopnik)who has suddenly found himself the scorn of a former jealous and one imagines scorned lover.
page 6: Gadfly Gawker Media head Nick Denton recently changed his Facebook status from single to “in a relationship,” but not everyone seems to be happy about it.
Sources say an angry ex of his new boyfriend tossed a brick through the window of Denton’s SoHo loft building recently, and has been causing enough further trouble that the police have been contacted.
Not to drift too much from Nick but I too was quite aghast when I decided to publicly note that I was no longer single but in a relationship on Facebook (for some reason I was quite surprised by the number of people who responded to what I perceived to be something really quite arbitrary and of little consequence in the world scheme of things, but yes people do pay attention it seems) which perhaps might explain the sudden attention that Mr Denton received when he publicly decided to note that he was in fact now no longer a pedophile or single.
Of course who also noted one assumes is a scorned former lover of the media titan who felt compelled enough to go smashing bricks into his former lover’s abode. And perhaps with good reason as it appears Mr Denton’s attentions have now turned to presumably a nimble agile and quite pretty young man ( 28 year old Derrence Washington) who it appears is an English actor here in NYC on tour (permanent tour one supposes).
What perhaps make the intrusion even more charming (not to suggest they are ever charming) is Mr Denton’s own acknowledgment that he is now being served the same dish he is well known famous for serving up on a regular basis.
When we asked Denton about the incidents, he told us via e-mail: “After that Hulk Hogan sex tape on Gawker, I can hardly complain about intrusion into my private life!
“Yep, love is messy,” he added.
Indeed love and gossip are quite messy but that said I’m betting Mr Denton is loving every minute of it. If I could suggest one thing Mr Denton, perhaps if you were to send a bouquet to the former lover it may temper their ire. I know it worked for me once. Oh dear…
above image found here
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Who owns the Gawker Media company? – Ask questions, Find …… Who owns the Gawker Media company? : … Jossip founder David Hauslaib estimated Gawker.com’s annual advertising revenue to be at least $1 … but someone else will have better luck selling the advertising than we did.”[5] In a fall 2008 memo Denton announced the layoff of “19 of our …
askville.amazon.com/owns-Gawker-Media-company/AnswerViewer.do…
NICK DENTON SAYS, ON CAMERA, TO NBC, THAT HE MAKES A LIVING DESTROYING PEOPLE:http://jimromenesko.com/2012/03/06/gawkers-nick-denton-talks-to-nbcs-rock-center/
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