Reporter Sharyl Attkisson’s new book, “Stonewalled: My Fight For Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington,” goes into detail about the insertion of viral monitoring software into her computer. It’s a problem she has only spoken vaguely about in the past. It turns out more than just her computer was compromised, as described in a lengthy summary by Erik Wemple at the Washington Post:
“[B]y November 2012,” she writes, “there are so many disruptions on my home phone line, I often can’t use it. I call home from my mobile phone and it rings on my end, but not at the house.” More devices on the fritz at Attkisson Central: “My television is misbehaving. It spontaneously jitters, mutes, and freeze-frames,” she writes, noting that the computers, TVs and phone all use Verizon’s FiOS service. At one point, “Jeff” inspects the back of Attkisson’s house and finds a “stray cable” attached to her FiOS box. That cable, he explains, could be used to download data.Here’s a bombshell story in which a veteran reporter accuses the Administration of hacking her computers, destroying her data, and setting her up to take the fall for a crime if she got too far out of hand. Her story merits due diligence, of course, but she isn’t coming to the table without evidence. She also speaks of increasing hostility from her superiors at CBS as she dug deeper into stories damaging to the Administration, which is pretty much the template for the Heroic Crusading Reporter narrative journalists have embraced for generations. Shouldn’t this be a huge story – at least big enough to require the usual ritual excuse from Obama that he knew nothing about Sharyl Attkission’s travails until he read about them in the newspaper?
Next big moment: Attkisson gets her computer checked out by someone identified as “Number One,” who’s described as a “confidential source inside the government.” A climactic meeting takes place at a McDonald’s outlet at which Attkisson and “Number One” “look around” for possibly suspicious things. Finding nothing, they talk. “First just let me say again I’m shocked. Flabbergasted. All of us are. 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.” That’s all coming from “Number One.”
