Exxon Lobbyist Investigated Over 'Hack-and-Leak' of Environmentalist Emails

America's FBI "has been investigating a longtime Exxon Mobil consultant," reports Reuters, "over the contractor's alleged role in a hack-and-leak operation that targeted hundreds of the oil company's biggest critics, according to three people familiar with the matter." The operation involved mercenary hackers who successfully breached the email accounts of environmental activists and others, the sources told Reuters. The scheme allegedly began in late 2015, when U.S. authorities contend that the names of the hacking targets were compiled by the DCI Group, a public affairs and lobbying company working for Exxon at the time, one of the sources said. DCI provided the names to an Israeli private detective, who then outsourced the hacking, according to the source.

In an effort to push a narrative that Exxon was the target of a political vendetta aimed at destroying its business, some of the stolen material was subsequently leaked to the media by DCI, Reuters determined. The Federal Bureau of Investigation found that DCI shared the information with Exxon before leaking it, the source said. Some environmental activists interviewed by Reuters say the hacking operation disrupted preparations for lawsuits by cities and state attorneys general against Exxon and other energy companies... The stolen material continues to be used today to counter litigation claiming the oil giant misled the public and its investors about the risks of climate change...

The investigation into the hack-and-leak operation comes amid growing concern among law enforcement agencies worldwide about how such cyberespionage schemes threaten to taint judicial proceedings. The FBI has been investigating the broader use of mercenary hackers to tamper with lawsuits since early 2018, Reuters has previously reported. The Israeli private detective hired by DCI, Amit Forlit, was arrested this year at London's Heathrow Airport and is fighting extradition to the United States on charges of hacking and wire fraud... Federal prosecutors have secured a related conviction: that of Forlit's former business associate, private investigator Aviram Azari. Azari pleaded guilty in 2022 to wire fraud, conspiracy to commit hacking and aggravated identity theft, which included targeting the environmental activists.

It's easy.

[DNS-and-BIND]

In the past six months or so, I've come to a simple conclusion. Whenever someone who is against the political or corporate establishment is subject to character assassination, that means it was enemy action. It's just that simple. Real people would explain how they were wrong, and make arguments against it. But "you're a crazy person" or "you cheated on a test in the second grade" aren't arguments and never will be. This razor works remarkably well and is repeatable everywhere. Personal attacks aren't arguments, and any time powerful actors can't make arguments and have to resort to character assassination, it's bullshit. Disregard it. Then, watch yourself get dogpiled in the comments with people saying, "But that's not fair to Exxon!" These are almost certainly paid social media consultants, there to derail and disrupt our conversations with each other. Block them on sight, and encourage others to do the same after pointing out what they're doing. The magician's trick doesn't work when people point out the wires.

Re:It's easy.

[VeryFluffyBunny]

George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-four" warned us all about these tactics back in 1949. The most common way to bring down people who are already in the public spotlight is accusations of sexual misconduct. They don't have to be true but all too often, among powerful men, they are. But it's selective justice, directed only at those who stand in the way of what even more powerful people want, e.g. Managing Director of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, in 2011 or order to replace him with the more "Washington friendly" Christine Lagarde, who was eventually forced to resign on charges of corruption.

Essentially, our legal systems are used as playthings by billionaires to tease each other with & also to crush any opposition to them. It's trivially easy for them to bankrupt any relatively normal individual or organisation in court with baseless & trivial lawsuits. Social media is also run by tyrannical billionaires so good luck with your blocking & pointing out the wires campaigns.

The game is rigged. This is what happens when we let capitalism loose on democracies.

Re:It's easy.

[Luthair]

GM tried it with Ralph Nader

Re:It's easy.

[VeryFluffyBunny]

Yeah, & more recently with Edward Snowden (i.e. going after his girlfriend, who turned out to be really cool so that backfired!) & Wikileaks' Julian Assange, i.e. prosecuting him for "the wrong kind of journalism" & charges of sexual misconduct that were initially a complaint that was dropped but then picked up again in a politically motivated attempt to extradite him. I deeply dislike Julian Assange as a person but what he & Wikileaks managed to achieve was some of the best investigative journalism for decades, putting Aaron Swartz's SecureDrop to good use. Oh, & there's another one; the FBI & Justice Department hounded him to suicide. A precocious kid who only wanted to make the world a better place.

Re:

[nightflameauto]

Oh, & there's another one; the FBI & Justice Department hounded him to suicide. A precocious kid who only wanted to make the world a better place.

And that's the lesson that the owner class want us to learn: DO NOT try to make the world a better place. You will suffer for it.

That's the problem with our current society. It's bought and paid for, and if you aren't one of the owners, the best you can hope is that you keep quiet enough to not gain their notice.

Re:

[VeryFluffyBunny]

Keeping quiet until we're negligently killed by one of their autonomous robots or one of their rockets/satellites crashes into your home, or one of their trains loaded with tar bursts into flames & incinerates your whole town, or... you just die of cancer from known carcinogens in the air, water, food, etc., because of regulatory capture.

Do you really want to go out with a whimper? Isn't it better to choose your time of death & go out in blaze of defiant glory?

Re: It's easy.

[kenh]

Assange made a mistake having consensual sex with a woman in a country where women can withdraw consent post-coitus and have her partner prosecuted.

The hacking charges are nuanced and have yet to be litigated in court (as I understand), but if you're going to argue a "greater good" defense for Assange's possible crimes, can't Exxon make the same argument?

So are the victims admitting the emails are real?

Do the emails support Exxon/Mobil's claims?

It is possible both parties are right and both are wrong - Exxo

Re:

[VeryFluffyBunny]

Nope. Exxon's got real, actual blood on its hands. A lot of it.

Re:

[Zak3056]

George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-four" warned us all about these tactics back in 1949... This is what happens when we let capitalism loose on democracies.

It's weird that you reference 1984 and then pivot to blaming capitalism. "Show me the man and I will show you the crime" is a phrase that was not coined by a capitalist. The real truth here is "powerful people will exercise their power to the detriment of others" and economic systems do not really move the needle either way.

Re:

[VeryFluffyBunny]

Capitalism sure has produced a lot of powerful people who are eager to exercise that power though.

BTW, not a pivot. Have you actually read any of George Orwell's works?

Re:

[gweihir]

True. But you know, there is even a well-established group of fallacies for this: AdHominem. Totally worthless as an argument, but many people cannot think clearly enough to see that. They just see something is claimed to be "bad", so everything in that fuzzy cluster must be bad.

If we had mostly clear-thinking people on this planet, the oil-mafia would not even exist anymore.

As to scum "media consultants", I think here we mostly get the "useful idiot" amateur variant these days.

Re: It's easy.

[drinkypoo]

"Whenever someone who is against the political or corporate establishment is subject to character assassination, that means it was enemy action. It's just that simple."

I agree. As evidence I provide my moderation history.

Oil company leak

[Powercntrl]

At least it wasn't oil for once.

Scum will be scum

[gweihir]

And it does not get any scummier than the oil mafia, with Exxon a leader among peers. These people are currently arranging the end of the human race, all for a few bucks more.

Re:Scum will be scum

[Luthair]

Don't worry the climate deniers will be along to unironically say "follow the money" on global warming topics.

Re:

[evanh]

And the money all vanishes in the end.

Re:

[gweihir]

Exactly.

Re: Scum will be scum

[flyingfsck]

Vanished money always reappear in Switzerland.

Anyone betting that EXXON will be done for this?

[Bruce66423]

In an ideal world illegally obtained material appearing in a court brief would result in a criminal charge against the plaintiff with a fine based on a whole number percentage of worldwide income, as well as against someone in the corporate hierarchy who signed off that the data had been obtained legally.

In the real world the best that we can hope for is a very small fine against EXXON, and even that isn't guaranteed.

Re:

[Luthair]

It would be nice they'd at least charge the folks at DCI Group under RICO as they undoubtedly knew what was being done here.

Exxon's Arthur Anderson moment?

[laughingskeptic]

This is conspiracy to commit hundreds of felonies -- some with the implicit intent of interfering with court cases. Unfortunately, the U.S. legal system is slow and Exxon can use Trump's playbook to make it even slower. However, it is conceivable that a half trillion dollar company could be liquidated in the coming years and if Exxon's stock is like the rest of the market its "value" will be found to be wanting.

Investor "faith" in the U.S. legal system seems to be causing this to have no impact on today's before-market stock price.

Re:Exxon's Arthur Anderson moment?

[drinkypoo]

If not propped up by governments, every fossil fuel corp would be going out of business. They have all had the opportunity to spend their obscene, government-underwritten profits becoming the leaders in renewables but instead of that have spent it on lobbying to prevent governments from taking action against them, which only delays their inevitable destruction. They could have spent that money becoming the largest producers of renewable energy, then lobbied for regulations which mostly affect smaller players to make it harder to get into the industry, protecting their profits without destroying our biosphere, but they chose to make a bigger fire instead.

Corporatism is killing us all, and half of us are cheering for it.

Re:

[laughingskeptic]

Of course Trump can just decide to not apply any more federal resources to this. And as we have seen, the states are often too slow to pick things up that are normally handled by the feds -- by the time the feds completely drop a case, the statute of limitations is often expired.

Apparentely inconceivable

[laughingskeptic]

And, yes I know the meaning of the term :/

This report (https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/files/Cyber-Threat-Report_UK-Legal-Sector.pdf) lists the sorts of organizations that might use targeted hacking to influence legal proceedings:
1. Cyber Criminals
2. Nation States
3. Hacktivists
4. Insider Threat
Notably missing: multinational corporations.

Yeah, but...

[kenh]

In an effort to push a narrative that Exxon was the target of a political vendetta aimed at destroying its business, some of the stolen material was subsequently leaked to the media by DCI, Reuters determined.

Did the stolen material establish that Exxon/Mobil was "the target of a political vendetta aimed at destroying it's business"?

The Federal Bureau of Investigation found that DCI shared the information with Exxon before leaking it, the source said.

Presumably Exxon paid for it, is it really surprising they got to see it first?

Re:

[XXongo]

The Federal Bureau of Investigation found that DCI shared the information with Exxon before leaking it, the source said.

Presumably Exxon paid for it, is it really surprising they got to see it first?

I think you have the chain of induction backwards. Having found that Exxon saw the information before it was leaked, we can assume that they presumably paid for it.

Re:

[Waffle Iron]

Did the stolen material establish that Exxon/Mobil was "the target of a political vendetta aimed at destroying it's business"?

It doesn't matter.

Creating a political vendetta aimed at destroying their business is not illegal. Infiltrating computer systems without authorization is.

What a shock: Oil industry is by and for crooks.

[Eunomion]

Not a mammalian species in sight of those boardrooms.

Not Admissable

[kwelch007]

Yes, hacking is bad and illegal and I'm against it. And yes, because any of the memos noted by TFA as obtained through hacking they are inadmissible in court (at least in the US,)

But, the article doesn't indicate the messages in those memos aren't true. It can be true that BOTH this firm illegally hacked and that there was a political motivation to dishonestly represent Exxon's actions. They are not mutually exclusive. I suspect that Exxon probably did what they are accused of, but that doesn't justify f