7th Former eBay Employee Charged In Cyberstalking Campaign Targeting Natick Couple

A seventh former eBay employee is now facing federal charges in connection with a cyberstalking campaign that allegedly targeted a Natick couple who wrote critical content about the company in its newsletter. From a report: Philip Cooke, 55, of San Jose, Calif. is charged with conspiracy to commit cyberstalking and conspiracy to tamper with witnesses. Cooke, who was a former Santa Clara police captain and was supervisor of security operations at eBay's European and Asian offices, is expected to be appear in Boston federal court at a later date. James Baugh, 45, of San Jose, California, eBay's former director of safety and security and former eBay director of global resiliency David Harville, 48, of New York City, was among the first six charged.

Re: This one was really bizarre

[Way Smarter Than You]

Not bizarre. The book is a direct threat. These assholes all need jail time.

Official statement

[ISayWeOnlyToBePolite]

U.S. Attorney’s Office District of Massachusetts https://www.justice.gov/usao-m... [justice.gov] (does anyone know where you can find a copy of the charges without using pacer and paying for the privilege)?

Re: Official statement

[iroll]

The answer is no, we donâ(TM)t. The courts are at the whim of the legislative branch for any funding that they canâ(TM)t make up with fees.

Re:

[weilawei]

A properly funded court system that can provide equal representation is a necessity (though I don't believe this is legally required; I'm saying it should be), because anything else is going to result in a continual string of Consitutional violations of the right to due process.

Oh, wait, it already does that and we don't care about equally representing people in court. Plead out, plebe.

The only "people" who get "equal representation [wikipedia.org]" are the 1%.

Re:

[ISayWeOnlyToBePolite]

It seems wrong that we pay taxes to support these services, and yet we are charged access to our court system.. legal fees out the ass, practically requiring lawyers, charging to even get simple information on legal proceedings that are "public" information. Well, if they're public, didn't we pay for the systems to record and publish them already?

With a little digging I've always found the filings and opinions of the higher courts, I wouldn't rule out their availability just because I spent 3 min searching and couldn't find the charges. As some people practically require a hairdresser to cut their hair I'm not all that surprised that going to court generally entails getting a lawyer.

Re:

[the_B0fh]

Republicans have been defunding the court system for years. This is why the courts keep raising fees, etc.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep an eye on this link. The docs should appear there soon. [courtlistener.com]

Re:

[imidan]

I don't know how much experience you have with Pacer, but in case it's not much, you can get a certain amount of documents from Pacer for free. You still have to give them a credit card number, but they only charge you if you go over some usage threshold per quarter year. I think it's $30 worth that you get for free. You have to mind what you're requesting, because the system doesn't warn you when you're about to do something expensive, but if you pay attention, you can get what you want for free from Pacer

That's fantastic...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I wonder how much of Mr. Cooke's time with the Santa Clara PD is work a second look? It's possible that he didn't get into witness tampering until hitting the private sector; but that wouldn't be my first guess.

Re:

[sjames]

Agreed. It seems unlikely that he just woke up one day after leaving the police force and decided to turn crooked.

Super weird priorities

[TomClancy_Jack]

I can't believe that they spend all this special time and committed literal crimes harassing ONE blog. I mean, there must be thousands of blogs, videos and news-sites about selling on ebay and other marketplaces. Maybe they knew these people? Was it a random sampling of eBay detractors that they decided to threaten to spread the word mafia-style to not talk about eBay? This all feels like small, petty kind of behavior that happens all the time at small solely owned companies run by shitty people I've worked

Re:

[rldp]

Do you think it was just one?

This is what "cancel culture" looks like.

This is just eBay.

How much shit do you think an exec at a company like Amazon or Google gets away with?

Na tick ?

[hawk]

so, are these sodium ticks more, or less, dangerous than the ones that carry West Nile?

Chloriding minds want to know . . .

Where is this newsletter?

[BobSteinVisiBone]

We need to read this newsletter, if only to create a Streisand Effect.

Unfortunately, from the June 15 NPR article: "Authorities do not disclose the name of the newsletter, nor the couple who were the subject of the alleged harassment campaign."

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/15/877659807/feds-former-ebay-employees-sent-newsletter-writers-roaches-spiders-and-pornograp