Chen reports: "Since the Occupy Wall Street protest began on September 17, New York security consultant Thomas Ryan has been waging a campaign to infiltrate and discredit the movement. Ryan says he's done contract work for the U.S. Army and he brags on his blog that he leads 'a team called Black Cell, a team of the most-highly trained and capable physical, threat and cyber security professionals in the world.' But over the past few weeks, he and his computer security buddies have been spending time covertly attending Occupy Wall Street meetings, monitoring organizers' social media accounts, and hanging out with protesters in Lower Manhattan."
Self-styled 'security expert' Thomas Ryan has been forwarding emails from the OWS movement to the NYPD and the FBI. (photo: AP)
OWS Communications Reportedly Hacked
18 October 11
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Over the last few weeks a self-styled 'security expert' named Thomas Ryan has been leaking OWS emails and passing along 'information' to both the NYPD and the FBI. -- JPS/RSN
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Meet the guy who snitched on Occupy Wall Street to the FBI and NYPD.
he Occupy Wall Street protests have been going on for a month. And it seems the FBI and NYPD have had help tracking protesters' moves thanks to a conservative computer security expert who gained access to one of the group's internal mailing lists, and then handed over information on the group's plans to authorities and corporations targeted by protesters.
Since the Occupy Wall Street protest began on September 17, New York security consultant Thomas Ryan has been waging a campaign to infiltrate and discredit the movement. Ryan says he's done contract work for the U.S. Army and he brags on his blog that he leads "a team called Black Cell, a team of the most-highly trained and capable physical, threat and cyber security professionals in the world." But over the past few weeks, he and his computer security buddies have been spending time covertly attending Occupy Wall Street meetings, monitoring organizers' social media accounts, and hanging out with protesters in Lower Manhattan.
As part of their intelligence-gathering operation, the group gained access to a listserv used by Occupy Wall Street organizers called September17discuss. On September17discuss, organizers hash out tactics and plan events, conduct post-mortems of media appearances, and trade the latest protest gossip. On Friday, Ryan leaked thousands of September17discuss emails to conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart, who is now using them to try to smear Occupy Wall Street as an anarchist conspiracy to disrupt global markets.
What may be much more alarming to Occupy Wall Street organizers is that while Ryan was monitoring September17discuss, he was forwarding interesting email threads to contacts at the NYPD and FBI, including special agent Jordan T. Loyd, a member of the FBI's New York-based cyber security team.
On September 18th, the day after the protest's start, Ryan forwarded an email exchange between Occupy Wall Street organizers to Loyd. The email exchange is harmless: Organizers discuss how they need to increase union participation in the protest. "We need more outreach to workers. The best way to do that is by showing solidarity with them," writes organizer Jackie DiSalvo in the thread. She then lists a group of potential unions to work with.
Another organizer named Conor responds: "+1,000,000 to Jackie's proposal on working people/union struggles outreach and solidarity. Also, why not invite people to protest Troy Davis's execution date at Liberty Plaza this Monday?"
Five minutes after Conor sent his email, Ryan forwarded the thread - with no additional comment - to Loyd's FBI email address. "Thanks!" Loyd responded. He cc'd his colleague named Ilhwan Yum, a fellow cybersecurity expert at the agency, on the reply.
On September 26th, Ryan forwarded another email thread to Agent Loyd. But this time he clued in the NYPD as well, sending the email to Dennis Dragos, a detective with the NYPD Computer Crimes Squad.
The NYPD might have been very grateful he did so, since it involved a proposed demonstration outside NYPD headquarters at 1 Police Plaza. In the thread, organizers debated whether to crash an upcoming press conference planned by marijuana advocates to celebrate NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly ordering officers to halt arrests over possession of small amounts of marijuana.
"Should we bring some folks from Liberty Plaza to chant "SHAME" for the NYPD's recent brutalities on Thursday night for the Troy Davis and Saturday for the Occupy Wall Street march?" asked one person in the email thread. (That past Saturday, the video of NYPD officer Anthony Bologna pepper-spraying a protester had gone viral.) Ryan promptly forwarded the email thread to Loyd at the FBI and Dragos at the NYPD.
Interestingly, it was Ryan who revealed himself as a snitch. We learned of these emails from the archive Ryan leaked yesterday in the hopes of undermining the Occupy Wall Street movement. In assembling the archive of September17discuss emails, it appears he accidentally included some of his own forwarded emails indicating he was ratting out organizers.
"I don't know, I just put everything I had into one big package," Ryan said when asked how the emails ended up in the file posted to Andrew Breitbart's blog. Some security expert.
But Ryan didn't just tip off the authorities. He was also giving information to companies as well. When protesters discussed demonstrating in front of morning shows like Today and Good Morning America, Ryan quickly forwarded the thread to Mark Farrell, the chief security officer at Comcast, the parent company of NBC Universal.
Ryan wrote:
Since you are the CSO, I am not sure of your role in NBC since COMCAST owns them.
There is a huge protest in New York call "Occupy Wall Street". Here is an email of stunts that they will try to pull on the TODAY show.
We have been heavily monitoring Occupy Wall Street, and Anonymous.
"Thanks Tom," Farrell responded. "I'll pass this to my counterpart at NBCU."
Did the FBI and/or NYPD ask him to monitor Occupy Wall Street? Was he just forwarding the emails on out of the goodness of his heart? In a phone interview with us, Ryan denied being an informant. "I do not work with the FBI," he said.
Ryan said he knows Loyd through their mutual involvement in the Open Web Application Security Project, a non-profit computer security group of which Ryan is a board member. Ryan said he sent the emails to Loyd unsolicited simply because "everyone's curious" about Occupy Wall Street, and he had a ground-eye view. "Jordan never asked me for anything."
Was he sending every email he got to the authorities? Ryan said he couldn't remember how many he'd passed on to the FBI or NYPD, or other third parties. Later he said that he only forwarded the two emails we noticed, detailed above.
But even if he'd been sending them on regularly, they were probably of limited use to the authorities. Most of the real organizing at Occupy Wall Street happens face-to-face, according to David Graeber, who was one of the earliest organizers. "We did some practical work on [the email list] at first - I think that's where I first proposed the "we are the 99%" motto - but mainly it's just an expressive forum," he wrote in an email. "No one would seriously discuss a plan to do something covert or dangerous on such a list."
But regardless of how many emails Ryan sent - or whether Loyd ever asked Ryan to spy on Occupy Wall Street - Loyd was almost certainly interested in the emails he received. Loyd has helped hunt down members of the hacktivist collective Anonymous, and he and his colleagues in the FBI's cyber security squad have been monitoring their involvement in Occupy Wall Street.
according to a New York Institute of Technology press release.
We contacted Loyd to ask about his relationship with Ryan and if any of the information Ryan passed along was of any use to the agency. He declined to answer questions and referred us to the FBI's press office. We'll post an update if we hear back from them.
We asked Ryan again this morning about how closely he was working with the authorities. Again, he claimed it was only these two emails, which is unlikely given he forwarded them to the FBI and NYPD without providing any context or explaining where he'd gotten them.
And he detailed his rationale for assisting the NYPD:
My respect for FDNY & NYPD stems from them risking their lives to save mine when my house was on fire in sunset park when I was 8 yrs old. Also, for them risking their lives and saving many family and friends during 9/11.
Don't you find it Ironic that out of all the NYPD involved with the protest, [protesters] have only targeted the ones with Black Ribbons, given to them for their bravery during 9/11?
I am sorry if we see things differently, I try to look at everything as a whole and in patterns. Everything we do in life and happens in life, there is a pattern behind it.
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Chicken Little
Stood around
Underneath a tree.
Something fell and
Hit her head.
She said, "Goodness me!"
"Oh my goodness!"
She did screech.
"The sky is falling!"
She ran around
Yelling out,
"We must tell the king!"
Goosey Loosey
Was the first
To hear Chicken's tale.
I think they both
Must have been
Drinking too much ale.
Goosey Loosey,
Chicken, too,
Saw Ducky Lucky.
They told him, and
Then he said,
"That is quite sucky."
I'm just tired of the "sky is falling" kind of journalism when it comes to the republican party. It is not. The republicans are indeed divided but they know how to come together when they needs. Sadly, the same cannot be said for democrats, whose divisions are really driving the party into national political irrelevance. OK, the republican lost in Alabama, but the was a terrible candidate who'd lost twice for governor and was removed from the supreme court.
The republican party is not the party of Trump. It is the party of big money and of winning. It will use whatever wedge issues it needs to win. And it has mearly perfect the techniques to voter suppression and vote rigging.
The Trump-Gillibran d spat is something both want. Before this most people never heard of Gillibrand. And Trump get to be seen as standing up to a liberal.
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/47306-time-for-a-fundamental-break-with-the-world-order
In contrast the Dems, rather than being divided as you claim, appear to be presenting a united political alternative to Trumpism, and in this respect is the direct and forceful opposite of sliding into "national political irrelevance" as you maintain.
Indeed, the Dems defining opposition to sex harassment will energize women voters from the independent group, as well as chip away at the 15 percent or so of GOP voters who still seem to have a brain.
In short, the GOP has made such a mess for their own party's outlook that all the Dems need do is avoid any big mistakes -- the rest of the work and all the heavy lifting has been done by the GOP on behalf of the Dems.
Why not talk about the 1000 elected offices that democrats have lost to republicans just since Obama took office. Here's a map showing how much of the nation is controlled by republicans:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/14/1598918/-Republicans-now-dominate-state-government-with-32-legislatures-and-33-governors
An honest assessment shows the democratic party in collapse. This is what I care about. The republican party is the party of big business and banks. In the 1980s, the Democratic Leadership Council decided that if the Democratic party could also become the party of big business and banks, it would begin to win elections again. It has only lost steadily.
If the Democratic party were an honest progressive or democratic socialist party and gave up its support for war, the CIA, and the like, it would easily be the majority party in the US.
That's what I care about. You can't change the democratic party by telling people the republicans are about to collapse. That is as much as to tell democrats that they don't need to change. They are fine.
"The strategy repudiates many of the security and foreign policies of the former President Barack Obama who sought to subordinate American power and influence in seeking greater comity with foreign states and international organizations.
The strategy reflects many of Trump's presidential campaign statements and promises that brought him to power, such as the need for tighter immigration controls, including a border wall, adopting trade policies more directly favorable to U.S. interests, increasing defense spending, and for the first time since the end of the Cold War, aggressively promoting American ideals such as liberty, constitutional democracy, and free trade."
I've worked with adolescents as a high school teacher for almost 40 years and am confident that, while they may do foolish things occasionally, they are not so dumb as to sacrifice their futures to the stupidity of the Cheeto Mussolini.
We are looking to the Democrats to produce a sensible alternative that inspires hope and action. Defending and extending the New Deal looks to me the next step forward.
I think the article is one of the best analysis of where we find ourselves that I've seen. A realistic take on strengths and weaknesses of both sides. I think the midterms will be devastating for Republicans but as the article points out, Democrats could still screw it up.
Trump is the biggest motivator of Republican opposition I've seen. Once he's gone, Republicans will regain their strength unless Democrats do something to move in a progressive direction, I don't see that happening.
Living in the south, I've always been mystified by Republicans strength here. Huge percentages of African Americans, a growing immigrant population. Parts of my city are beginning to look like California when I lived there, very diverse. Almost every urban area votes 'blue', reflecting a decent percentage of white liberals.
Virginia and Alabama revealed that there are enough more liberal voters but they don't vote normally. We can rightfully blame Democrats but I think we can rightfully blame voters also. If we did put Democrats in office, we could challenge the establishment in the primaries with progressive candidates. That's what the Tea Party has done, that's how Trump won the nomination.
I think most feared Cheney as much as many now fear Pence, but that can not be allowed to prevent real investigation (actually impeachment like all the previous ones that did not result in direct removal from office, just one resignation).
"People have to know whether or not their President is a Crook." ~ Richard Nixon ~
The impeachments did force major changes in behavior.
Even though they did not result in the conviction (and removal directed by the Senate) of Andrew Johnson, Nixon (who technically admitted guilt with the Pardon he accepted after resigning), nor Bill Clinton, they did very much to change future behavior of (only elected as Vice President succeeding Lincoln when he was assassinated)An drew Johnson in particular, and many others under Presidents who's certain behaviors they could not risk legal consequences or moral dilemmas in continuing to serve while meeting their oaths.
There is a credible case to be made for removal for impaired Mental Health, too (which in cases like Woodrow Wilson, and perhaps Warren Harding, could apply under Mental or Physical Health limitations for however long required).
And no, I do NOT want President Pence! He would be able to do all the horrible stuff that Trump has been unable to. He looks respectable, and the country would be so relieved that we would give him free rein.
Yes, his tirades against black people, his utter contempt for women. Had NBC released just a tiny bit of the outtakes at the Apprentice, Trump would not be president right now.
Instead they are attempting to pass large tax cuts for their donors, They pay for it by running up the deficit and extracting
wealth from the underclass. They have no problem removing millions from
health insurance, but say thy are 'pro-life'.
As they run up debt, they will work to cut back Social Security, Medicare, and other programs that vulnerable depend on.
Because their agenda is unpopular they need to suppress voters, gerrymander, and in a variety of ways suppress democracy.
They deserve to lose big time.
http://gopiswrong.com/democracy.htm
Is the president getting ready for a twinkie defense if he is ever held accountable for ordering an irresponsible military action, such as starting a nuclear war?
constitution.
" President Trump is just a man that believes in the majority of U.S. constitutional issues, common sense issues, U.S. sovereignty, real authentic science, a strong growing U.S. economy and America exceptionalism, but to many Americans and Western leaders Trump is the devil and the anti Christ who is a super threat to all secular globalist aspirations and a threat to global elitist and their power grab for a global tyrannical rule."
follow the money and expect war.