Hi Barrett,

I'll be sure to keep you posted with new projects from Occupy Data.  It's an incredibly talented group of people. 

I saw your post on this story.  While I certainly appreciate your advocacy on our behalf, I must say -- right now, getting press is not actually my main concern.  It's really no trouble for me to put out a press statement or get a prominent reporter on the phone if I have some juicy tips to give him.

my primary concern right this minute is figuring out *anything* regarding what this is about. as your blog commenter notes (btw, when "history punk" first emailed me about this, the name on his account said "Robert Paulson" a la Fight Club -- so at first I thought he was a troll) -- but yeah .. wtf is this part about putting people's lives in danger?  frankly -- I don't really want to have put up with a bunch of speculation from reporters / the internet on this point, until I have the slightest clue what this is about.  hopefully your post will shake some of this info loose before it hits any news wires.

right now, my reaction is really not any different from a reporter -- "why is there an investigation?" 
all I can give them in return at the moment is speculation and / or demand more information from the administration on what this is about.  if the story starts to get legs on its own -- I guess I'll go down this route.  but ideally, I would be able to get a handle on this before the press -- which would allow me to call up a sympathetic reporter, and set up a solid piece with a good framing of the issues. 

I know that activist organizations are put "under investigation" for purely political reasons all the time.  It may also very well be that none of us in the public domain can figure out any additional information.  Heck -- for all we know the document is a forgery -- and some independent confirmation wouldn't hurt.  To the extent I can get a handle on this -- the better I'll be able to position us.


Thanks again for any insight you can provide. 

Cheers,

Zack


PS 

your intuition on NR feels right.  if it weren't for the very specific things he told me, I probably would have forgotten him by now. 
regarding any PV entry -- I would create it to fit in the mold of similar articles on the wiki -- well researched and linked.  I've basically been waiting for hearsay to become reporting before talking about it. 

  






On Sunday, July 01, 2012 at 3:03 AM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:

Zack:

Yep, Ayla e-mailed again to let me know she was referring to the 
TNR
reporter. I spoke to her for a while and got her in touch with 
House
via his MIT e-mail address, so presumably they've spoken by now.

Very interested in this Occupy Data project, which I hadn't heard 
of
before. Apps and schematics that can help to harness/direct the
talents and energy of information activists are going to be a very
necessary part of whatever comes next, in my opinion, and so I'll 
do
anything I can do to support, promote, publicize, etc.

As for Rauhauser, I consider him to be more trouble than he's worth
and generally ignore him these days. To the extent that he has 
useful
information on something, it's certainly worth listening to him, 
but
he's a massive liability. The problem isn't that he's made too many
enemies, but rather that he's made too many enemies for the wrong
reasons - organizing Twitter trolling shit, making bizarre 
accusations
about people's involvement in this Weingergate stuff, and even
engaging in/promoting persona management, which I didn't know about
until recently, and which I strongly disapprove of. As for that
particular congressman and Neal's legal issues, I'd be wary of 
taking
Neal's claims about that at face value; certainly there has been
attention to Neal for a while now by a number of conservative 
bloggers
who are looking at his connection to Kimberlin, and it's public 
record
that a number of congressmen have learned about the SWATing issue 
and
all that, but there's zero reason to believe that the legal action
comes from on high as opposed to being the natural consequence of 
this
giant squabble between him and whoever else on one side and these
bloggers on the other. On the other hand, he does sometimes have
actual, verifiable information that's of use.

I'm actually still kind of unclear on what Project Vigilant is/was,
although Neal once told me some stuff about it . Personally, I'd be
disinclined to have anything put up on the wiki about it if the 
info
is hearsay or otherwise unverifiable, especially since our focus 
is on
contracting firms and specific capabilities - "cyber-industrial
complex" issues, basically - that we can reasonably expect 
journalists
to cover. Not sure who Chet is, or this keysersoze fellow on 
Twitter.
If you're asking my opinion, I'd just note that there a lot of 
people
out there who are worth the time and energy of working with and who
are less shady, so I'd suggest that you refrain from pursuing 
anything
involving Neal and instead focus on this Occupy Data thing and
anything else like that.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about the factors that have to 
come
into play for crowd-sourced activism to get results, and I'm 
entirely
convinced that organizational platforms which facilitate the actual
work of activism, and particularly that portion of activism which
involves compiling and disseminating information, is the aspect 
that's
most lacking and most needed. So to the extent that you can get a 
tool
created, I'd do everything possible to get it used.

On Fri, Jun 29, 2012 at 12:59 PM,  <auto37959964@hushmail.com> 
wrote:

Hey Barrett,

Thanks for getting in touch. It seems as though Eliza has gotten 

in contact with you. And as you may have discovered by now, this 
was for the New Republic (not RT). Eliza and I spent the day 
together at Brad's hearing on Monday -- she's basically looking at 
various communities of support and what motivates them. I 
suggested she try to reach you because I felt you could provide 
some good insight, and because frankly, I'm personally interested 
to hear what you have to say too.

While we're at it, I saw the other day you had mentioned 

something on twitter about new information re: HB Gary. If that 
info is out there anywhere, I'd be interested to hear more.  
Especially of course given their targeting of dhouse.

Along those lines, I just thought I'd give you the heads up (in 

case you weren't already aware) that someone from Project 
Vigiliant has been quietly in touch.  I'm working with our new DC 
organizer Bailey / "Jack" Jeffers (do you know him? of him? he was 
recommended via ayla) to try to pull at the string here a little 
further. Any additional insights you might have on PV would be 
greatly appreciated. In return I'll promise that once we can get 
wiki2.echelon back online, I'll start working on a PV entry, 
adding info over time as I become better able to discuss what I 
know.  Some potentially critical information was provided to me 
and one other person via Neal Rauhauser. I know he's a shady 
character with an incredibly ridiculous background, but I'm not 
entirely convinced his intentions are nefarious or that the info 
was bogus. He seems to have a bone to pick with Rep Mike Rogers (R 
- MI) chair of the House Intelligence Committee.  I'm wondering if 
there is any overlap between

 that committee and/or Rogers and WL issues. If there is, it 

would appear to be below the surface. And if so, it would help 
explain our confluence of interests. Apparently Rogers is behind 
some sort of legal action coming down against Neal. He announced 
to us at an Occupy Data meeting in DC on Tuesday evening that he's 
going into hiding "out west" after July 1. I'm also trying to 
figure out if Neal has any personal problems / friction w/ Chet. 
All I've really come across are some money issues that seem 
relatively insignificant in the larger scheme of things. 
Basically, I don't think he's the kind of person who would try to 
take down PV for purely noble reasons.

He intro'd me to his friend @keyserxsoze -- who seemed like a 

nice guy -- as a way to stay in touch. But of course I have no way 
of knowing whether and how to trust these types of characters.

In all likelihood I've probably just told you a bunch of things 

you already know, but hopefully some of this was helpful. I 
sincerely appreciate the research your team has been able to dig 
up -- it's been incredibly valuable.  To the extent you can keep 
this information discreet, or at the very least, separated from 
me, that would also be helpful.

I would also be interested in brainstorming any sorts of new 

ideas with you, should they arise.  One potential project that 
we're working on with Occupy Data is setting up a useful 
crowdsourcing tool, using the Document Cloud model, but adding 
additional functionality, and making it more readily available to 
activists / journalists etc. OWS techops is offering considerable 
server space to hold it.  So at some point, we may be able to do 
some innovative work if, for example, we have some massive 
document that gets released that needs to be quickly scanned for 
relevant info by lots of people, etc.  Will keep you posted.

Finally, if you ever have any needs with regards to press 

outreach, I'm more than happy to be of service.

All the best,

Zack Pesavento
202-713-6981









On Wednesday, June 27, 2012 at 1:45 AM, Barrett Brown 

<barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi-

Ayla, the person who runs the OpManning twitter account, sent me 

a

message earlier advising me to get in touch with you; she said 

that

you were giving an interview to RT tomorrow and that she thought
that
I was also scheduled to participate or something of the sort, 

but I

haven't heard anything from RT about this so I'm not sure what 

the

deal is, if she's mistaken or something, so figured I should ask
you
if you know anything about this. Either way, good luck with
everything.

--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
940-735-9748

-- 
Regards,

Barrett Brown
940-735-9748