Sharyl Attkisson

Untouchable Subjects. Fearless, Nonpartisan Reporting.

Sharyl Attkisson

Facebook said to be working on major settlement over privacy issues

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook
Photo by Anthony Quintano

Facebook is said to be negotiating a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over alleged privacy violations. That could include an agreement for the federal government to oversee Facebook practices for two decade, according to reports.

The FTC has been investigating Facebook since at least March when it was revealed that the social media site gave information on 87 million users to a research firm: Cambridge Analytica. Only 270,000 of the users reportedly gave permission for their data to be used.

Facebook has stated that it expects a multi-billion dollar fine. However, some U.S. lawmakers have stated that Facebook should face greater consequences.

Facebook has faced heavy scrutiny in the past year amid increasing criticism over its data sharing and privacy practices.

Facebook claims it has not violated a prior FTC agreement in which it agreed to obtain permission from users before sharing their data, according to CNET.  

Read Annie Palmer’s article in the Daily Mail here.

Read more in Reuter’s here.

Fight improper government surveillance. Support Attkisson v. DOJ and FBI over the government computer intrusions of Attkisson's work while she was a CBS News investigative correspondent. Visit the Attkisson Fourth Amendment Litigation Fund. Click here.

Are "obstruction" allegations actually signs of desperation?

Support independent journalism. Donate to SharylAttkisson.com by clicking here.

A friend of mine who is — I’ll just say it — a devoted Trump-hater recently was talking about President Trump’s obstruction and asked what I thought.

After listening to his views, I told him there’s plenty about which to criticize the president, as is true of any political leader. But the obstruction charge doesn’t make logical sense. I used an analogy to explain why. When I finished, this friend still hated Trump — but surprised me by saying, “Nobody’s ever explained it that way. That makes sense. You should write about it.”

Obviously, I don’t kid myself that this analogy will “make sense” to everyone. But after listening to both sides and looking at the publicly available evidence, here’s how I see it:

If you were a person of some authority and murdered someone, and prosecutors set out to investigate, and if you spoke publicly against the investigation, proclaiming your innocence and calling the probe a “witch hunt,” and if you worked behind the scenes to use your influence to fire the lead investigator on the murder case — that would seem to be a pretty clear case of obstruction of justice. You, as a guilty man, would be trying to stop authorities from finding out the truth.

But imagine, on the other hand, that you are innocent — accused of a murder you didn’t commit. Not only that, imagine you knew there was no murder to begin with because you saw the victim walking around after the supposed murder. Then, imagine you found yourself the target of the murder investigation by a team that included people who had declared you to be their sworn enemy and expressed strong desires to take you out. Then, imagine this team that included biased investigators began leaking false information to the national media to implicate you in this crime that you knew you didn’t commit. (Continued...)

Read the rest of my article in The Hill by clicking the link below:

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/445353-why-obstruction-and-cover-up-charges-smack-of-desperation

Fight improper government surveillance. Support Attkisson v. DOJ and FBI over the government computer intrusions of Attkisson's work while she was a CBS News investigative correspondent. Visit the Attkisson Fourth Amendment Litigation Fund. Click here.

Senators ask about alleged abuse of illegal immigrant minors

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)
Photo by Gage Skidmore

There's a bipartisan push in Congress to get answers about alleged abuse of illegal immigrant children.

Senate Finance Committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R – Iowa) and the committee's lead Democrat, Ron Wyden, are looking for answers regarding serious accusations of physical and sexual abuse of migrant children. The abuse reportedly happened at federally funded housing facilities for the children.

The reports outline “horrific and intolerable” accusations of sexual abuse, as well as abuse of federal funds. Grassley and Wyden are asking for an accounting of exactly how the taxpayer funds were used, and whether or not the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement was negligent in its duties to keep the children healthy and safe.

For more information, and to read the full letter from Grassley and Wyden, click here: https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/wyden-grassley-demand-answers-misconduct-and-abuse-federally-funded-facilities

Fight improper government surveillance. Support Attkisson v. DOJ and FBI over the government computer intrusions of Attkisson's work while she was a CBS News investigative correspondent. Visit the Attkisson Fourth Amendment Litigation Fund. Click here.

Poll results: Americans say "strict" state abortion laws are good way to bring issue to Supreme Court

In our latest unscientific poll at SharylAttkisson.com, a majority of respondents, 60% said that "strict" state abortion laws are a good way to get the issue before the Supreme Court again.

Those who agreed on this issue include respondents on both side of the abortion debate.

Eleven percent found "strict" state abortion laws "outrageous," but said they were a good way to get the issue before the Supreme Court again.

Sixty-seven percent found the laws reasonable, and also said they provided a good vehicle to the Supreme Court.

The full results are below.

Don't forget to vote on our new poll now in the black box on the home page sidebar, or scroll down on your mobile device.

Support independent journalism. Donate to SharylAttkisson.com by clicking here.

"Strict state abortion laws are..."

7% Outrageous

28% Reasonable

18% A good way to get the issue to the Supreme Court

4% A and C

38% B and C

3% I don't know

Fight improper government surveillance. Support Attkisson v. DOJ and FBI over the government computer intrusions of Attkisson's work while she was a CBS News investigative correspondent. Visit the Attkisson Fourth Amendment Litigation Fund. Click here.

Clinton email records were found in Obama White House

Bill Priestap, former assistant director of FBI counterintelligence

It's been a decade since Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State and used a private server for government business, transmitting sensitive and classified information in the process.

It's been exactly three years since the Inspector General said Clinton's actions were improper.

It's been a couple of years since the FBI under Director James Comey more or less cleared Clinton of criminal prosecution after granting immunity to her top aides, despite the destruction of subpoenaed emails.

So it's entirely possible you thought the case was closed.

But the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch has continued its court pursuit to expose secrets surrounding Clinton's case. The group recently revealed that a senior FBI official admitted, in writing and under oath, that "the FBI found Clinton email records in the Obama White House, specifically, the Executive Office of the President."

Support independent journalism. Donate to SharylAttkisson.com by clicking here.

Judicial Watch says the new disclosure was made by E.W. (Bill) Priestap, who was assistant director of the FBI Counterintelligence Division until 2018. The information came as part of court-ordered discovery into the Clinton email issue.

Now, under the District Court's order, Priestap and other Obama administration senior officials, lawyers, and Clinton aides must answer questions under oath in writing or in person.

According to a news release from Judicial Watch:

Priestap was asked by Judicial Watch to identify representatives of Hillary Clinton, her former staff, and government agencies from which “email repositories were obtained.” Priestap responded with the following non-exhaustive list:

  • Bryan Pagliano
  • Cheryl Mills
  • Executive Office of the President [Emphasis added]
  • Heather Samuelson
  • Jacob Sullivan
  • Justin Cooper
  • United States Department of State
  • United States Secret Service
  • Williams & Connolly LLP

A complete copy of Priestap’s interrogatory responses is available here. Priestap, is serving as assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division and helped oversee both the Clinton email and the 2016 presidential campaign investigations. Priestap testified in a separate lawsuit that Clinton was the subject of a grand jury investigation related to her BlackBerry email accounts.

Priestap was said to have been responsible for overseeing both the Clinton email investigation and the controversial FBI Trump-Russia counterintelligence probe, which itself is under investigation after Special Counsel Robert Mueller found no coordination between any American and Russia.

Last year, Priestap told Congress that it was primarily FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI analyst Jonathan Moffa who were “driving the train" in the Trump-Russia probe. Strzok had key meetings with the number two FBI official at hte time, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, that Priestap seemed to know nothing about.

Read more about Judicial Watch's efforts here.

Fight improper government surveillance. Support Attkisson v. DOJ and FBI over the government computer intrusions of Attkisson's work while she was a CBS News investigative correspondent. Visit the Attkisson Fourth Amendment Litigation Fund. Click here.

"Wikipedia is...broken," controlled by special interests and bad actors, says co-founder

I've done quite a bit of reporting about how Wikipedia is definitely not "the encyclopedia anyone can edit." It's become a vehicle for special interests to control information. Agenda editors are able to prevent or revert edits and sourcing on selected issues and people in order to control the narrative.

Watch Sharyl Attkisson's TedX talk on Wikipedia and other Astroturf tools

My own battle with Wikipedia included being unable to correct provably false facts such as incorrect job history, incorrect birth place and incorrect birth date.

What's worse is that agenda editors related to pharmaceutical interests and the partisan blog Media Matters control my Wikipedia biographical page, making sure that slanted or false information stays on it. For example, they falsely refer to my reporting as "anti-vaccine," and imply my reporting on the topic has been discredited. In fact, my vaccine and medical reporting has been recognized by top national journalism awards organizations, and has even been cited as a source in a peer reviewed scientific publication. However, anyone who tries to edit this factual context and footnotes onto my page finds it is quickly removed.

What persists on my page, however, are sources that are supposedly disallowed by Wikipedia's policies. They include citations by Media Matters, with no disclosure that it's a partisan blog.

Another entity quoted on my Wikipedia biographical page to disparage my work is the vaccine industry's Dr. Paul Offit. But there's no mention of the lawsuits filed against Offit for libel (one prompted him to apologize and correct his book), or the fact that he provided false information about his work and my reporting to the Orange County Register, which later corrected its article. Obviously, these facts would normally make Offit an unreliable source, but for Wikipedia, he's presented as if an unconflicted expert. In fact, Wikipedia doesn't even mention that's Offit is a vaccine industry insider who's made millions of dollars off of vaccines.

Meantime, turn to Dr. Offit's own Wikipedia biography and-- at last look-- it also omitted all mention of his countless controversies. Instead, it's written like a promotional resume-- in violation of Wikipedia's supposed politics on neutrality.

Watch Sharyl Attkisson's TedX talk on Fake News

These biographies are just two examples of ones that blatantly violate Wikipedia's strict rules, yet they are set in stone. The powerful interests that "watch" and control the pages make sure Offit's background is whitewashed and that mine is subtly tarnished. They will revert or change any edits that attempt to correct the record.

This, in a nutshell, exemplifies Wikipedia's problems across the platform as described by its cofounder Larry Sanger.

Sanger recently spoke to 150Sec. The following is an excerpt:

Reading a Wikipedia entry about Wikipedia itself seems strange. But where else on the web would an average internet user go for digestible, encyclopedia-style content? 

With its entries almost always topping Google search results, Wikipedia receives around 33 billion page views per month, according to studies carried out by thinktank Pew Research in 2016. In line with statistics from the website itself, it also changes at a rate of 1.8 edits per second and the number of new articles per day averages 578.

Watch "Wikipedia: The Dark Side," a Full Measure investigation

The multilingual free online encyclopedia was established in 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, originally under the name of Nupedia. It is now the fifth most popular website in the world.

Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger. Image courtesy of LinkedIn.

150Sec spoke to one of Wikipedia’s original co-founders, Sanger who — despite leaving the project in 2002 — shared his thoughts on online knowledge platforms on today’s internet, ahead of this month’s Pioneers conference in Austria.  

As an open source, Wikipedia can be added to or edited by anyone in the world through knowledge base websites called wikis, which allow users to collaboratively modify content. However, Sanger claims that this has become one of Wikipedia’s biggest downfalls.

In its early days, “Wikipedia itself had special challenges,” he explained. “One was simply to teach everyone who arrived at the wiki, which was basically a blank bulletin board that could have become whatever we wanted it to become, that we intended to build an encyclopedia. A lot of people didn’t seem to know what that meant, or maybe they just didn’t care,” he said.

“Wikipedia itself had special challenges,” Larry Sanger, Wikipedia co-founder.

“Another hurdle was to figure out how to rein in the bad actors so that they did not ruin the project for everyone else. Unfortunately, we never did come up with a good solution for that one,” Sanger added. 

“Wikipedia is a broken system as a result,” he said.

It is this flaw that has earned Wikipedia its reputation as an often untrustworthy source of information, particularly during times of discussion around misinformation and ‘fake news,’ a term which Sanger finds problematic.

Read the rest of the article in 150sec by clicking the link below:

“Wikipedia is a broken system,” says co-founder Larry Sanger

Fight government overreach and double-standard justice by supporting the Attkisson Fourth Amendment Litigation Fund for Attkisson v. DOJ and FBI for the government computer intrusions. Click here.

Two scenarios with Trump-Russia investigators. Neither is good.

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper

As the investigations into the Trump-Russia investigation proceed, it’s not too difficult to figure out a few of the theoretical starting points.

The first and most obvious theory is the one largely promulgated in the media for the better part of two years. It goes something like this: The sharp, super-sleuth investigative skills of top officials within the Justice Department and our intel community enabled them to identify Donald Trump and his campaign as treacherous conduits to Russian President Vladimir Putin himself.

That theory was summarily dismissed by special counsel Robert Mueller’s conclusion that there wasn’t so much as even coordination between Russia and Trump, or any American. So that leaves several other possibilities … and none of them is good:

They knew

One possibility to be considered is that top Obama administration officials knew all along there never was any real collusion or crime at play, but they manufactured the false Russia premise in order to justify their political spying.

Under this hypothetical scenario, they wanted to get inside information on the Trump campaign and, perhaps, gather dirt against the competition for blackmail or political purposes.

This effort included surveillance using paid spies and wiretaps on multiple Trump associates, as reported in the press.

The Obama officials had lots of help from foreign players such as the United Kingdom and Russia’s nemesis, Ukraine. Ukrainian-linked Democrats assisted with an early effort to gin up negative press coverage about key players, such as Trump associate Paul Manafort, who had been hired by the pro-Russian Ukrainian government prior to the anti-Russian Ukrainian government taking over in 2014. There were other Ukraine entanglements, such as the lucrative position earning millions of dollars that then-Vice President Joe Biden’s son got in 2015 to serve on the board of a Ukrainian energy company under the anti-Russia Ukraine regime.

(Continued...)

Read the rest of the story in The Hill by clicking this link. https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/444508-two-scenarios-on-trump-russia-investigators-and-neither-is-comforting

Gowdy: FBI has important evidence in Trump-Russia probe of investigators

Former Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.)

Former Congressman Trey Gowdy, a Republican from South Carolina, says he's seen evidence with his own eyes that even opponents of President Trump will find "persuasive"-- if it's ever made public.

Gowdy says the information has to do with "exculpatory" evidence that the FBI improperly withheld from a court.

Exculpatory evidence is that which supports the notion that the accused is not guilty.

In an interview on Sunday, Gowdy said the FBI has a transcript of a conversation between former Trump adviser George Papaopoulous and an "informant" assigned to spy on him.

Gowdy was a member of the House Judiciary and Oversight committee that investigated the Justice Department and FBI actions during the 2016 campaign in which they surveilled or spied on Trump associates. Ultimately, the officials accused Trump of being a Russian agent. However, an exhaustive investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded no American conspired, colluded or coordinated with Russia.

Click the link below to read more about Gowdy's statements in the following article in Epoch Times.

Epoch Times: "Game Changer" Evidence