◼ Besides Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, most Democrats abandoned their civil liberty positions during the age of Obama. With a new leak investigation looming, the Democrat leadership are now being forced to confront all the secrets they’ve tried to hide. - Michael Hastings/Buzzfeed
For most bigwig Democrats in Washington, D.C., the last 48 hours has delivered news of the worst kind — a flood of new information that has washed away any lingering doubts about where President Obama and his party stand on civil liberties, full stop.
Glenn Greenwald’s exposure of the NSA’s massive domestic spy program has revealed the entire caste of current Democratic leaders as a gang of civil liberty opportunists, whose true passion, it seems, was in trolling George W. Bush for eight years on matters of national security....
Transparency supporters, whistleblowers, and investigative reporters, especially those writers who have aggressively pursued the connections between the corporate defense industry and federal and local authorities involved in domestic surveillance, have been viciously attacked by the Obama administration and its allies in the FBI and DOJ.
Jacob Appplebaum, a transparency activist and computer savant, has been repeatedly harassed at American borders, having his laptop seized. Barrett Brown, another investigative journalist who has written for Vanity Fair, among others publications, exposed the connections between the private contracting firm HB Gary (a government contracting firm that, incidentally, proposed a plan to spy on and ruin the reputation of the Guardian’s Greenwald) and who is currently sitting in a Texas prison on trumped up FBI charges regarding his legitimate reportorial inquiry into the political collective known sometimes as Anonymous.
◼ Michael Hastings conspiracy theories: Web goes wild after NSA, CIA reporter killed in crash... - NY Daily News
Less than a day after the BuzzFeed and Rolling Stone reporter died in a fiery car crash at age 33, conspiracy theorists are speculating that there is more than meets the eye over Hasting's demise.
News of reporter and writer Michael Hastings´ death at the age of only 33 has shaken the journalism community across the nation, as well as fans of the writer´s hard-hitting reporting.(Snip)conspiracy theorists are speculating that there is more than meets the eye over Hasting´s demise. Twitter, Facebook, and sharing site Reddit were abuzz Wednesday, with some users commenting that it was suspicious that Hastings, who famously brought down U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal in a Rolling Stone cover story, died while in the middle of covering several hot-button topics like monitoring by the National Security Agency and the CIA.
...As the International Business Times notes, "some of the details surrounding the story [of Hastings' death] read like a poorly-written political thriller."
...A community board on Reddit has already begun delving into possible conspiracy theories, from opinions that the car was either rigged to lose control or burst into flames at a certain time to brake wires being frayed.
"A warning to other journalists to not dig too deep," one Reddit user wrote. "Stick with the party line if you want a long, happy life."
◼ Michael Hastings’ Chilling Final Story - Bryan Preston/PJMedia
Journalist Michael Hastings was killed early Tuesday morning in a bizarre car incident in Los Angeles. Hastings, 33, was best known for writing the Rolling Stone story that ended in Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s resignation as head of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
Hastings’ final story, “Why Democrats Love to Spy on Americans,” was a searing take on the NSA snooping scandal, which Hastings described as “North Korea-esque.” Hastings pulled no punches as he linked the NSA scandal to the Department of Justice’s spying on reporters and the IRS abuse scandal. Hastings built a case that the same Democrats who turned Bush-era anti-terrorism techniques into wedge issues that helped them capture Congress and the White House in 2006 and 2008 were now defending much worse and more widespread spying on American citizens by the Obama administration....
At the end of the story, Hastings mentions by name several Americans who have come under questionable government scrutiny in the Obama years. Several are household names, but some are not.
Hastings died in a fatal single-car crash at 4:25 on Tuesday morning. A witness said his car “suddenly jackknifed” before crossing the median and hitting a tree, causing a ferocious explosion that reportedly threw the engine block of the brand new Mercedes Hastings was driving 30 or 40 yards from the car. Mercedes engine blocks typically weigh between 290 and 540 pounds. It would take tremendous speed or force to throw one nearly half the length of a football field.
“It sounded like a bomb went off in the middle of the night,” another witness told the TV station. “The house shook, my windows were rattling.”
Hastings’ body was burned “beyond recognition,” according to reports.
◼ WikiLeaks says Michael Hastings contacted it just before his death. Are they implying he was murdered? - Telegraph
◼ WikiLeaks: Hastings Said He Was Being Investigated By FBI - CBS LA
Questions persist following the death of Michael Hastings Tuesday, after reports that the award-winning journalist told WikiLeaks the government was watching him.
WikiLeaks tweeted a message to their millions of followers Wednesday stating that the 33-year-old author and war correspondent had contacted the organization’s lawyer to say he was being watched by the FBI.
