Reporter's PC reportedly bugged by US government

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**whembly**

Ex-CBS reporter: Government agency bugged my computer

A former CBS News reporter who quit the network over claims it kills stories that put President Obama in a bad light says she was spied on by a “government-related entity” that planted classified documents on her computer.

In her new memoir, Sharyl Attkisson says a source who arranged to have her laptop checked for spyware in 2013 was “shocked” and “flabbergasted” at what the analysis revealed.

“This is outrageous. Worse than anything Nixon ever did. I wouldn’t have believed something like this could happen in the United States of America,” Attkisson quotes the source saying.

She speculates that the motive was to lay the groundwork for possible charges against her or her sources.

Attkisson says the source, who’s “connected to government three-letter agencies,” told her the computer was hacked into by “a sophisticated entity that used commercial, nonattributable spyware that’s proprietary to a government agency: either the CIA, FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency or the National Security Agency.”

The breach was accomplished through an “otherwise innocuous e-mail” that Attkisson says she got in February 2012, then twice “redone” and “refreshed” through a satellite hookup and a Wi-Fi connection at a Ritz-Carlton hotel.

The spyware included programs that Attkisson says monitored her every keystroke and gave the snoops access to all her e-mails and the passwords to her financial accounts.
“The intruders discovered my Skype account handle, stole the password, activated the audio, and made heavy use of it, presumably as a listening tool,” she wrote in “Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington.”

Attkisson says her source — identified only as “Number One” — told her the spying was most likely not court-authorized because it went on far longer than most legal taps.

But the most shocking finding, she says, was the discovery of three classified documents that Number One told her were “buried deep in your operating system. In a place that, unless you’re a some kind of computer whiz specialist, you wouldn’t even know exists.”

“They probably planted them to be able to accuse you of having classified documents if they ever needed to do that at some point,” Number One added.

In her book, Attkisson says CBS lost interest in her coverage of the deadly attack on the US Embassy in Benghazi, Libya, and killed her stories of the federal “Fast and Furious” gun-running scandal.

Both CBS and the White House declined to comment.

Now... Imagine if Alberto Gonzales had bugged Dan Rather's computer to combat against Rather's reporting on GW Bush's National Guard documents (aka, Rathergate).

**Frazzled**

Don't worry, the rest of the media will ignore this.

**Jihadin**

Those silly hackers

**streamdragon**

Bahahahahaha break out the tin foil everyone!

**Jihadin**

You don't think CBS is doing this for rating's right?.....wait....nvm.....former CBS reporter

**d-usa**

The hacker known as 4chan works for Obama?

**frgsinwntr**

streamdragon wrote:
Bahahahahaha break out the tin foil everyone!

this says it all

**Rusty Trombone**

Puhleez. She's selling a book. Source revealed...her fertile imagination(with a ghost writer credit to her publicist).

**Jimsolo**

Does anyone have any background on her reliability? Or lack thereof?

**Dreadclaw69**

I'm sure that the hard drives in use by the government entity involved have already crashed and been recycled.

**Jihadin**

Dreadclaw69 wrote:
I'm sure that the hard drives in use by the government entity involved have already crashed and been recycled.

Lost and found again and then lost again but if we check the NSA...

**whembly**

Jimsolo wrote:
Does anyone have any background on her reliability? Or lack thereof?

She's very respected...

Yeah, she's selling a book... but, also to use it as a vehicle to "whistleblow" this thing.

I'm not a big fan of what Snowden did... but, is fething gak like this that he does have a point.

**Ouze**

I call shenanigans. Is it the government, or "a government related agency"? It hijacked your Skype account? Well gee, what if you didn't have Skype installed or just looked at your usage records? Wouldn't that reveal the infection?

She's making a lot of claims and not showing anything at all. As a "computer whiz specialist", I want to know about this "special place buried deep in her operating system".

Maybe true, smells like horsegak

In her book, Attkisson says CBS lost interest in her coverage of the deadly attack on the US Embassy in Benghazi, Libya, and killed her stories of the federal “Fast and Furious” gun-running scandal.

You forgot Lois Lerner.

**whembly**

Ouze wrote:
I call shenanigans. Is it the government, or "a government related agency"? It hijacked your Skype account? Well gee, what if you didn't have Skype installed or just looked at your usage records? Wouldn't that reveal the infection?

She's making a lot of claims and not showing anything at all. As a "computer whiz specialist", I want to know about this "special place buried deep in her operating system".

Maybe true, smells like horsegak

Is it that far-fetched in this age of PRISM and dubious actions over the AP/Fox's James Rosen.??

Besides, since Windows 7... just try to edit/add files in the system32 or sysWOW64 folders. (you can't unless you are a TrustedInstaller, which has higher privilege than Administrators). You can definitely bury gak in there.

In her book, Attkisson says CBS lost interest in her coverage of the deadly attack on the US Embassy in Benghazi, Libya, and killed her stories of the federal “Fast and Furious” gun-running scandal.

You forgot Lois Lerner.

**Ouze**

Also, why is this a story now, suddenly? This was reported in September 2013 and apparently happened in 2011... a year after CBS won a reporting award for her coverage of Fast & Furious. That's weird, I thought CBS covered that up? Maybe they got hacked too?

Automatically Appended Next Post:

whembly wrote:
Besides, since Windows 7... just try to edit/add files in the system32 or sysWOW64 folders. (you can't unless you are a TrustedInstaller, which has higher privilege than Administrators). You can definitely bury gak in there.

You mean like the hosts files, which i edited all the time at work, located at %systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc\ , which only requires an elevated Notepad?

Similarly, I just created files in syswow64, no extra permissions needed. Deleting folders required elevating, but no changes of permissions.

**whembly**

A) She's trying to sell a book... duh.

B) If this is remotely true... this is an extraordinarily serious charge, and naturally one would like to see more evidence of it than the word of an anonymous source. But then, that’s how these things work, isn’t it? They do things so outrageous that if you find about it and report it, you sound like a nut. And they terrify anyone who comes forward, and leave a person with no place they can go.

I guess she could take her computer to the FBI — oh, right.

Well then, she could go to the Department of Justice — right, same problem.

Who do you go to when you can’t trust the people who are supposed to be protecting you? Where do you go when those people are the ones you need protection from?

Answer? Go public... hence the book.

You have to admit, she's been very judicious about it. So, naturally I'm extremely interested in hardcore evidence.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ouze wrote:

You mean like the hosts files, which i edited all the time at work, located at %systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc\ , which only requires an elevated Notepad?

Actually, depends on how your AD Group Policy is defined.

The default setting is that you can only read/write files in those folders (as it's MS' poor attempt to mitigate virus/malwares).

**Ouze**

whembly wrote:
Actually, depends on how your AD Group Policy is defined.

The default setting is that you can only read/write files in those folders (as it's MS' poor attempt to mitigate virus/malwares).

I just tested this, right now, on my home PC, which is not part of a domain, and no gpupdate has ever touched, and had no problem whatsoever doing so with no changes in permission. I think you're simply mistaken.

Anyone else want to test? Google "edit your hosts file" windows 7, or hell, try copying\pasting things into either directory. You'll get prompted to elevate to Administrator, but not some super secret boss level permissions.

Frankly, what she said was just gibberish. Perhaps if she said she had a rootkit.... but she didn't, she was really specific.

whembly wrote:
Is it that far-fetched in this age of PRISM and dubious actions over the AP/Fox's James Rosen.??

I'm not dubious that the government would spy on her, at all. The government does a hell of a lot of snooping and I am quite sure some of it is unlawful in the we-didn't-ask-a-judge-sense, but... I'm dubious that the government would spy on her in such a hamfisted, easily revealed way, that it would plant classified documents to discredit her but never use them, or hell, that it would even need her to execute a malicious payload at all - I mean, the government has access to just tap her lines directly - why install a keylogger to get passwords when you can just decrypt her packet stream, or hell, just send an NSL to her ISP\bank\whatever?

I mean the whole thing is just outlandish, but you know what is the most unbelieveable part? That a 20 year veteran reporter could have such a huge story and zero evidence at all and milk it for 3 years. Show me, don't tell me.

**Jihadin**

No thanks Ouze......you gave me enough info to make myself dangerous

**whembly**

Ouze wrote:

Similarly, I just created files in syswow64, no extra permissions needed. Deleting folders required elevating, but no changes of permissions.

Interesting... I guess you don't have UAC enabled?

By default the System32 directory can only be edited by the group TrustedInstaller. Normally, you'd have to literally "take ownership" of the folder, make you change, then give ownership back to TrustedInstaller.

I can putz around on my home WIn7 PC just like you did... but, I can't on my work Win7 device.

The only reason I know this is that I've ran into some clinical applications that likes to *write* to a custom folder in the system folders. Which gave me griefs until I scripted to take ownership of that folder, allowed authenticated users to write files and gave back ownership.

**Ouze**

Jihadin wrote:
No thanks Ouze......you gave me enough info to make myself dangerous

Well, in this age of software that dials home to Adobe or wherever to make sure that copy of Photoshop is genuine, being able to redirect those requests to 127.0.0.1 is a handy thing to know. Not that I'm endorsing software piracy, because that would be wrong.

**Jihadin**

Ouze wrote:
Jihadin wrote:
No thanks Ouze......you gave me enough info to make myself dangerous

Well, in this age of software that dials home to Adobe or wherever to make sure that copy of Photoshop is genuine, being able to redirect those requests to 127.0.0.1 is a handy thing to know. Not that I'm endorsing software piracy, because that would be wrong.

I got 50% that sentence

Though I myself forget myself to and throw in Acronyms and other military type of jargon

though right now my Google Fu is making a 6mm Monorail system for my mini version of Macross City

**whembly**

Ouze wrote:
whembly wrote:
Actually, depends on how your AD Group Policy is defined.

The default setting is that you can only read/write files in those folders (as it's MS' poor attempt to mitigate virus/malwares).

I just tested this, right now, on my home PC, which is not part of a domain, and no gpupdate has ever touched, and had no problem whatsoever doing so with no changes in permission. I think you're simply mistaken.

Nah... in certain environment (ie, corporate), trustedinstaller is the "owner" of those files preventing you to edit anything in the system folders:
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/what-is-trustedinstaller-and-why-does-it-keep-me-from-renaming-files/

Anyone else want to test? Google "edit your hosts file" windows 7, or hell, try copying\pasting things into either directory. You'll get prompted to elevate to Administrator, but not some super secret boss level permissions.

On my home PC, yeah... that worked. Can't do that on my work laptop though... and I'm an adminstrator.

Frankly, what she said was just gibberish. Perhaps if she said she had a rootkit.... but she didn't, she was really specific.

Yup... waiting for specifics... she's considering legal recourse, but we'll see.

whembly wrote:
Is it that far-fetched in this age of PRISM and dubious actions over the AP/Fox's James Rosen.??

I'm not dubious that the government would spy on her, at all. The government does a hell of a lot of snooping and I am quite sure some of it is unlawful in the we-didn't-ask-a-judge-sense, but... I'm dubious that the government would spy on her in such a hamfisted, easily revealed way, that it would plant classified documents to discredit her but never use them, or hell, that it would even need her to execute a malicious payload at all - I mean, the government has access to just tap her lines directly - why install a keylogger to get passwords when you can just decrypt her packet stream, or hell, just send an NSL to her ISP\bank\whatever?

Why do you think everything the government does is always the SMART thing? You and I know this... there's a bajillion things you can do to achieve the same thing.

I mean the whole thing is just outlandish, but you know what is the most unbelieveable part? That a 20 year veteran reporter could have such a huge story and zero evidence at all and milk it for 3 years. Show me, don't tell me.

You're right, it is outlandish... but I reserve judgement until I see more from her.

**Ouze**

whembly wrote:
Interesting... I guess you don't have UAC enabled? (snip)

By default the System32 directory can only be edited by the group TrustedInstaller. Normally, you'd have to literally "take ownership" of the folder, make you change, then give ownership back to TrustedInstaller.

I can putz around on my home WIn7 PC just like you did... but, I can't on my work Win7 device. (snip).

I do have UAC enabled. System32 by default on a stock Win7 deploy has write and edit permissions to SYSTEM, TrustedInstaller, and Administrators (and the placeholder CREATOR OWNER, if that counts).

I believe your job has locked down permissions via group policy, because that just makes good sense - but if system32 only had edit permissions from Trusted installer, then no 3rd party software would ever be able to be installed or patched other than Windows itself.

Anyway, TLDR she's kind of full of it IMO. I believe she has malware, I doubt it's from the government - it sounds more like she got hacked by either some overseas group stealing her info, or hoping to get pictures of her naked or snorting coke or something to blackmail her, or maybe just to jack her PC via Teamviewer and demand her credit card to remover her malwarez.

**Jihadin**

Ouze wrote:
whembly wrote:
Interesting... I guess you don't have UAC enabled? (snip)

By default the System32 directory can only be edited by the group TrustedInstaller. Normally, you'd have to literally "take ownership" of the folder, make you change, then give ownership back to TrustedInstaller.

I can putz around on my home WIn7 PC just like you did... but, I can't on my work Win7 device. (snip).

I do have UAC enabled. System32 by default on a stock Win7 deploy has write and edit permissions to SYSTEM, TrustedInstaller, and Administrators (and the placeholder CREATOR OWNER, if that counts).

I believe your job has locked down permissions via group policy, because that just makes good sense - but if system32 only had edit permissions from Trusted installer, then no 3rd party software would ever be able to be installed or patched other than Windows itself.

Anyway, TLDR she's kind of full of it IMO. I believe she has malware, I doubt it's from the government - it sounds more like she got hacked by either some overseas group stealing her info, or hoping to get pictures of her naked or snorting coke or something to blackmail her, or maybe just to jack her PC via Teamviewer and demand her credit card to remover her malwarez.

Was she arrested at anytime by California Highway Patrol?

**Ouze**

Lets put this differently and just pick one totally story-breaking element, shall we?

1.) Government wants to discredit her: check

2.) Government plants classified docs in a secret squirrel location on her PC: check

3.) The FBI/CIA kicks in her door, hauls her off to jail, and she is discredited forever with clear evidence of treason - never happened.

See the problem? What point were they planning to unleash their secret weapon, their master stroke, when she could have just found out about it 35 minutes ago, while in jail? Why not plant the docs while a tactical team is pulling some flashbangs off their vests outside, and getting stoked about maybe shooting a dog?

She has same problem that every 9/11 truther has: namely, that a government willing to kill 3,000 of it's own citizens because of... whatever is unlikely to suddenly feel too squeamish about pumping a few bullets in your just-asking-questions head.

**whembly**

Well.. She does calls-out by name the CBS News executives who are in the tank for bureaucratic progressivism in general and the Obama Administration in particular, and allow their political preferences to override any interest in reporting the truth:

Reporting on the many green-energy firms such as Solyndra that went belly-up after burning through hundreds of millions in Washington handouts, Attkisson ran into increasing difficulty getting her stories on the air. A colleague told her about the following exchange: “[The stories] are pretty significant,” said a news exec. “Maybe we should be airing some of them on the ‘Evening News?’ ” Replied the program’s chief Pat Shevlin, “What’s the matter, don’t you support green energy?”

I mean, she reinforces the idea how incestuous the relationship is now between high ranking media members to Obama's administration.

Potential conflict of interest... no?

**Unit1126PLL**

Wait, you mean that News Corporations don't report the truth and instead have political agendas?

Good grief, I'm glad she blew the whistle on this. I mean, it's not like we've seen something like this for over a century now or anything.

**Ouze**

I'm not going to deny some media outlets have been pretty laid back on President Obama, but that doesn't get me to "lets commit multiple felonies to frame someone, and then just drop the whole idea" land; which is the place you need a ticket to for her hacking to work.

If these CBS executives really wanted to cover for the Obama admin, why not just fire her? What they actually did was air her reports to the point she won 2 damn awards for the stories CBS doesn't want you to hear (but if you do, they're on CBS).

I believe her when she says she has malware, I believe she's probably right that there is someone at CBS just like Roger Ailes who helps frame stories in a partisan way, but I don't add 2 plus 2 and come up with "potato" the way she did. Of course, I don't have a book to shill either.

If Lois Lerner was empowered to do what you claim she did, why do you doubt that the entire might Eric Holder has at his fingertips couldn't come up with a few NSL's instead of this whole convoluted, easily detected scheme?

And why not show us her evidence? She's been a reporter longer than the average forum denizen here has been alive, surely she must understand this basic principle of reporting? Show us.

**Rusty Trombone**

Sounds like she had a compelling 'he said/she said' argument against her old news handlers and their motivations. Maybe she should have focused on that. Of course, liberal media acting liberally doesn't drive nutters to the book store as well as government conspiracies do.

This story still smacks of BS.

**whembly**

Ouze wrote:
I'm not going to deny some media outlets have been pretty laid back on President Obama, but that doesn't get me to "lets commit multiple felonies to frame someone, and then just drop the whole idea" land; which is the place you need a ticket to for her hacking to work.

Yeah... I think what's underpinning this subject matter is something that most folks (at least, the public at large) refuses to confront... and that is no media outlet is EVER unbiased. It simply isn’t possible.

That’s why every political reporter should be required to wear a lapel pin showing who they voted for in the most recent elections... go all NASCAR advertsing

. It should be published with every article, e.g., “In recent elections, Ms. Crowley has voted for Barack Obama (D), Terry McAuliffe, Mark Warner (D), and Tim Kaine (D).” Let’s not forget financial disclosures and campaign contributions. The information should be as complete as journalists expect it to be for their enemies, Republicans running for office. All this should be optional, of course, but any journalist who doesn’t participate should be treated with great suspicion — and they should be interrogated about it frequently. And politicians should feel free to call them out.

IMO, journalists have too much influence to be treated as private citizens. And they shouldn’t be allowed to conceal their ulterior motives with a veneer of false objectivity.

Let’s get past the warm, fuzzy notion that objectivity is an actual thing... shall we?

If these CBS executives really wanted to cover for the Obama admin, why not just fire her? What they actually did was air her reports to the point she won 2 damn awards for the stories CBS doesn't want you to hear (but if you do, they're on CBS).

She was under contract making good jack. She had to negotiate a termination settlement on her terms.

I believe her when she says she has malware, I believe she's probably right that there is someone at CBS just like Roger Ailes who helps frame stories in a partisan way, but I don't add 2 plus 2 and come up with "potato" the way she did. Of course, I don't have a book to shill either.

Lemme break it down for ya...

Ben Rhodes and David Rhodes...

Who are they?

Ben is a deputy national security advisor to Obama and writes speeches for him. In September 2012, Ben was “instrumental,” according to ABC News, in changing the White House talking points (the story) on what happened in Benghazi.

Ben’s brother, David, is president of CBS News. Attkisson was working for David. She was investigating all the changes (12) in the Benghazi talking points. She was shut down.

Potential for conflict of interests... no?

Nothing to see there, move along, eyes straight ahead, go back to sleep, zombie-zombie, it’s all good don’t worry, be happy, hope and change, the audacity of whatever.

If Lois Lerner was empowered to do what you claim she did, why do you doubt that the entire might Eric Holder has at his fingertips couldn't come up with a few NSL's instead of this whole convoluted, easily detected scheme?

You're referring to a government that gave us the Obamacare website.

And why not show us her evidence? She's been a reporter longer than the average forum denizen here has been alive, surely she must understand this basic principle of reporting? Show us.

Agreed... waiting to see what drops from this.