State Dept. whistleblower has email hacked, deleted

WASHINGTON — The personal e-mail account of a State Department whis­tle­­blower was hacked, and four years worth of messages — some detailing alleged wrongdoing at the agency — were deleted, The Post has learned.

The computer attack targeted the Gmail account of Diplomatic Security Service criminal investigator Richard Higbie, his lawyer, Cary Schulman, confirmed.

State Dept. whistleblower has email hacked, deleted

How interesting, all of the damning emails of a whistle blowing deleted, from a google gmail account no less! NSA & google are in bed together...

Do you believe in coincidences?

The e-mails included evidence about misconduct by top officials at the department, communications with other potential whistleblowers there, and correspondence with members of Congress who are investigating the allegations, Schulman said.

The hacking of Higbie’s e-mail follows a mysterious break-in at Schulman’s Dallas law firm in July, shortly after the whistleblower allegations came to light. The burglar sawed a hole through the wall from an adjoining office and stole three computers, but left behind other valuables.

Swills

WASHINGTON — The personal e-mail account of a State Department whis­tle­­blower was hacked, and four years worth of messages — some detailing alleged wrongdoing at the agency — were deleted, The Post has learned.

The computer attack targeted the Gmail account of Diplomatic Security Service criminal investigator Richard Higbie, his lawyer, Cary Schulman, confirmed.

State Dept. whistleblower has email hacked, deleted

How interesting, all of the damning emails of a whistle blowing deleted, from a google gmail account no less! NSA & google are in bed together...

Do you believe in coincidences?

The e-mails included evidence about misconduct by top officials at the department, communications with other potential whistleblowers there, and correspondence with members of Congress who are investigating the allegations, Schulman said.

edit on 30-12-2013 by Swills because: (no reason given)

Well...if he was any good at what he did then there are backups somewhere. You don't just assume your email is safe, especially when using a public cloud email system.

Doubt Google had anything to do with it....more likely the NSA was able to hack the account and delete it. Now if Google gets involved and says that there are no records or backups of that email on their systems that is a different story all together.

reply to post by Vasa Croe


Obviously anything connected to net isn't really secure but there's a pattern developing here and an agenda.

People do not want this investigation to go anywhere, people in government.

Did google personally get involved? Probably not but since they're in bed with the NSA/CIA they've already given them full access. Richard Higbie's mistake was using a gmail account. Maybe now he'll learn to use a more secure, non NSA affiliated email service.

Swills
reply to post by Vasa Croe

 

Obviously anything connected to net isn't really secure but there's a pattern developing here and an agenda.

People do not want this investigation to go anywhere, people in government.

Did google personally get involved? Probably not but since they're in bed with the NSA/CIA they've already given them full access. Richard Higbie's mistake was using a gmail account. Maybe now he'll learn to use a more secure, non NSA affiliated email service.

I doubt there is a non NSA affiliated email service. Anything travelling digitally will be able to be "seen" by the NSA. Only thing he could do is print numerous copies and save them in multiple places along with a thumb drive with them on it.

Either way...my guess is they were saved already and they are breaking this story to let the media know what is going on.

reply to post by Vasa Croe


Sure there is, what was the email provider Snowden was using? Remember that provider ended up being hassled by some US authorities?

Either way, it's best to stay of the main stream email services because we all know for sure they'll be watched, stored, & cataloged.

Pfft. Those emails aren't gone. The hacker just destroyed the public copies. Now if it were Al Qaeda, those emails would be recovered, printed, and filed in less than half an hour. They are "gone" because the people who can retrieve them are being paid not to. I would bet you a hundred bucks that even now, digital backups of those emails are currently sitting in the Utah data center, if not dozens of servers scattered across the world. Will they be released? Hell no.

reply to post by AfterInfinity





Something like that

reply to post by Swills

NSA & google are in bed together...

Got my gmail hacked twice in last 4 years. The last one was by a hacker from Romania.

Google doesn't need to be in on it...just saying.

reply to post by MarioOnTheFly


Clearly we all know anything on the net isn't totally secure but what's fishy is the on going investigation Higbie is involved with & his office was already broken into, the thief only taking his computers.

But obviously the US gov't isn't corrupt, just sayin....

reply to post by Swills


Its more than just hacking...

It is intentionally destroying evidence of potential criminal wrong doing...

Xcathdra
reply to post by Swills

 

Its more than just hacking...

It is intentionally destroying evidence of potential criminal wrong doing...

What wrong doing? There's no evidence of any wrong doing!

Doesn't make sense at all, why would a lawyer use his personal account for work related matters, especially considering it is a law firm he works for?

1. not only is it less secure
2. doubt it would have all the legal jargon required in the footer
3. its considered highly unprofessional to use free services in business
4. no backups

doesn't sound right at all to me this one.

reply to post by Xcathdra


Bingo.

Haven't seen ya in awhile, good to have ya posting in my thread.

reply to post by oxford


Lawyer?

oxford
Doesn't make sense at all, why would a lawyer use his personal account for work related matters, especially considering it is a law firm he works for?

1. not only is it less secure
2. doubt it would have all the legal jargon required in the footer
3. its considered highly unprofessional to use free services in business
4. no backups

doesn't sound right at all to me this one.

Because, for the most part, public officials E-Mail are subject to FOIA requests. Personal accounts, for the most part, are not and would require a warrant.

I have held onto official emails by forwarding copies to a personal email account. One previous employer would auto archive emails, making it difficult to access once archived. Also public officials emails, again for the most part, can be accessed by admins for the network.

Not saying this is the case but there is the other side of the coin so to speak.

It becomes extremely problematic, imo, when the information tampered with possibly includes documentation of wrong doing. To me this seems like an amateur and not professional. Its one thing to counter accusations.. Its something else entirely when the action does nothing but draws more attention to it, as in this case.

Even if the info deleted contained nothing improper / illegal wrong doing this action only lends to the mindset of something illegal trying to be swept under the carpet.

Since this is a conspiracy website -
Maybe the responsible party is the agent himself.. Maybe the action was done for nothing more than to start a fishing expedition in hopes of something illegal being snagged.

Swills
reply to post by Xcathdra

 

Bingo.

Haven't seen ya in awhile, good to have ya posting in my thread.

That pesky thing called life has been getting in the way recently.

A friend of mine works for the State and has her gmail account hacked at least once a year. They send out messages and alert those they know to not open anything from them until fixed.

Who holds the NSA and government officials accountable? Need a different system that assures they face the same penalties for cover ups and fraud. Until we demand that this will just keep on happening. And they need to have the same consequences as anyone else would.

As a side note - was something wrong with ATS about 4 hours ago. When I opened a thread to read it my computer began to go nuts - bleeping in and out really fast (screen on off; on off - with jumbled script). The last time I experienced anything like that was when I accidently got into what I assume was a confidential area of Camp Lejeune.

There really should be a reward system for whistleblowers and reporting corruption.

"See something, say something, and get paid to report on corruption."

The DEA has no problems paying narcs for getting drug related arrests. The government has marque and reprisal at their disposal on the people... yet the people are under duress to whistleblow and report bad things the government is doing?

Things are so wrong =(

With the revelation that a three letter agency intercepts orders online (Computers other devices) pre plants them with warez and other hidden goodies to track individuals and spy on their every move, it does not surprise me at all.

I think most people at this point should not be concerned about privacy, because more than likely it is a successful deception if you believe such a thing as privacy even exists.

Intelligence gathering seed money (black budgets) is used for all sorts of things, fake store fronts, companies, honey pots if you will, just waiting to catch people up to no good or up to nothing at all.

The last place I would expect any sort of privacy would be in the public domain, especially data being transmitted via public and private network infrastructure, stored on a server in a private company , or worse "in the cloud" that data is such a high value target and an asset for the Google's and Yahoos of the world that are working hand in glove behind the scenes with the ravenous information sifters, aka "Big Brother" aka " The Wizard of Oz", aka Uncle Samael to find out more about you!


They are Legion and they are many, and unfortunately they are capable of much more damage than the script kiddies hiding behind the Guy Fawkes masks, oh wait, that just might be another one of their made up bogey men as well, so they can hack everything on the internet in the name of locating anonymous.

reply to post by Swills


It's a strange case. What's called a "sophisticated" hack preceded by sawing a hole in the wall in order to make off with computers.

It doesn't seem to accomplish anything. Bizarre. Enjoyed the story.

luxordelphi
reply to post by Swills

 

It's a strange case. What's called a "sophisticated" hack preceded by sawing a hole in the wall in order to make off with computers.

It doesn't seem to accomplish anything. Bizarre. Enjoyed the story.

Its because they dont know the password is why they use this "sophisticated" attack. If they knew the password, it wont make it to the news.

Imagine, disabling the camera, lockpicking the door, then sawed through the wall, then identify the computer, hauled it to van/truck, drive back to basecamp, disassemble the computer to get the hard disk, slave the hard disk and look for the data, crack the password, login to gmail

...and delete that guy spam messages...why nobody want to do that to me ?