Extortionography: Executives Recorded Bragging of Cozy Government Relationships

Top executives hoping to blast open North America's largest gold and copper mine were secretly recorded describing in detail their cozy influence over US lawmakers and regulators. 

They also revealed their intentions to go far beyond what they were saying on applications for federal permits to work near the headwaters of Bristol Bay, Alaska -- one of the last great wild salmon habitats left on Earth.

"I mean we can talk to the chief of staff of the White House any time we want, but you want to be careful with all this because it's all recorded," said Ron Thiessen, CEO of Northern Dynasty Minerals, of official communications to the White House, as he himself was recorded unknowingly. "You don't want to be seen to be trying to exercise undue influence." more

What is Extortionography? You need to know. 

“Son, go for it...I will kick your (expletive) (expletive).” An Extortionogrphy Win

FL - The president of Wichita’s teacher union has lost his defamation lawsuit against the makers of hidden-camera videos that captured him admitting to threatening a student with physical violence. 

A federal judge in Florida ruled against Steve Wentz, president of United Teachers of Wichita, and in favor of Project Veritas in connection to videos that were secretly recorded at a Florida hotel bar and a Panera restaurant in Kansas. Project Veritas describes its work as non-profit journalism that investigates and exposes corruption.

In the video, Wentz describes an episode with a former student in which he asked the student to stay after class, locked the door and pulled the shades down.

“You want to kick my (expletive)? You really think I’m a (expletive)?” Wentz says in the video. “Son, go for it. I’ll give you the first shot. But be sure to finish what you start because if you don’t, I guarantee you, I will kick your (expletive) (expletive).” more 

Corporate Security Alert:
Extortionography can be as devastating as audio eavesdropping, especially when targeted against private sector businesses. 

Tip: Conduct searches for electronic surveillance devices (Technical Surveillance Countermeasures, aka TSCM) on a regular basis. At the very least, have a written Recording in the Workplace Policy in effect.

Extortionography: Hilton Facing $100 Million Lawsuit Over Spycam Incident

A Chicago woman says she's traumatized for life because of what happened to her inside an Albany hotel room. That woman is suing the hotel chain for $100 million. 

The alleged incident happened in July 2015, but the alleged victim didn't find out about it until about two months ago. Now, she's scared for her life.

The woman had just graduated from Albany Law School. She was staying in town so that she could take the New York State Bar Exam.

Inside her hotel room, someone allegedly placed a hidden camera in her bathroom that recorded her taking a shower. The video was then posted on numerous X-rated websites.

Later there were blackmail attempts. The emailer wanted thousands of dollars to remove the video from the internet. more

Note to Hilton: A proactive due diligence defense costs about $25.00 per hotel, a price Hilton cannot afford... to pass up.

This Fortnight in Spycam News

WA - A pastor and teacher at a Christian school in Washington state was arrested earlier this week and charged with filming hundreds of voyeurism videos of female staff and students. more

UK - A voyeur was locked up after being caught with 169 video clips taken by a spy camera set up to film an unsuspecting woman. The penalties were imposed when he appeared before magistrates in the city. They were told the offence came to light when the camera was discovered and police were alerted. more

ID - A Ketchum man has been charged with one felony count of video voyeurism. A recording device found in the bathroom of a residence at the Wildwood condominium complex. The recording device was found by a guest who was staying at the residence at points between April and June, with her daughter.    The woman told Lundergreen that the device was located in the bathroom wall outlet and disguised as a USB charger. more
Japan - The secretary general of a local assembly in Yamagata Prefecture, northwest Japan is fired for voyeurism in a women's bathroom at town hall. more

PA - A West Chester University student was arrested after police said he hid a cellphone in public bathrooms in several locations, including one at West Chester University, and recorded women in various stages of undress. more

LA - A former WAFB employee who secretly recorded two female station employees using the restroom in 2017 was sentenced to four months in prison Tuesday. He was immediately handcuffed and led to prison. more

New Zealand - The man who filmed women using the shower in his Airbnb homestay then uploaded the videos to a porn site has lost name suppression and has been sent to prison for four years and four months. more

New Zealand - A home handyman who used his position of trust to spy on a female friend in her bedroom has been sentenced to three months of community detention. The offending...involved Williamson hiding a camera inside a toolbox that he left in the woman's bedroom, which he left there after performing maintenance duties in her home. The device was discovered by the woman, who contacted the police. more

FL - In a case involving allegations that a man placed hidden cameras in his adult stepdaughter’s bedroom, an appeals court Friday overturned a conviction on video-voyeurism charges because police improperly obtained evidence from a laptop computer. more

CT - A man who entered a neighbor's home through an unlocked door and allegedly installed video cameras in four spots in the home has been arrested by police. An investigation revealed that Pelgrift had entered the home and installed the videos cameras while the woman was not home. She happened to notice a camera and called the police, state police said. more

FL - Investigators say they have uncovered an extensive amount of videos and images of under-age students secretly filmed while undressing by a Bloomingdale High School teacher who was arrested last month on a video voyeurism charge. Mark Ackett, 50, who resigned as a fashion design teacher, now faces an additional 353 charges. He was first arrested on Sept. 11 — the same day a 17-year-old student in his class discovered two cell phones hidden in the classroom changing area where she and her classmates disrobed for fashion assignments. more

 S. Korea - South Korea is in the grip of a 'spycam' epidemic, with covert footage of sex, nudity and urination posted online in what amounts to a "social death penalty" for thousands of women forced to live with a pornographic shadow. The footage may be taken surreptitiously by boyfriends or captured on covert devices as small as car keys. Daily camera checks are now part of life for cleaners in many public toilets. more

FL - A massage therapist was arrested over the weekend and charged with video recording a female customer disrobing prior to an appointment. ... Further investigation indicates that Scott had placed a cellphone in the massage room to video record the customer while she was undressing. more

NM - A Dona Ana County man is facing time behind bars for hiding video cameras in bathrooms and capturing video of victims using the restroom, showering, and changing clothes. ... Police say Ikard's face was even seen on some of the videos as he worked to set up the cameras. more

UK - A retired company director who covertly filmed a young woman getting changed at his luxury home has been jailed for eight months. Allan Austin, 66, installed a hidden spy camera at his home in Cheshire because he 'liked the figure' of the victim. When officers searched Austin's £500,000 detached house in the village of High Legh, near Knutsford, Cheshire they found the hidden camera which was linked to his computer and iPad. more

The above cases represent only the failures, the ones that got caught. The problem is much larger. Learn how to protect yourself and your children.

A video spycam (with audio recording) we found last Friday at a corporate location...

 

Now, on to the Extortionography cases. Hey, the elections are here, and the tech fists are flying.

ND - James O'Keefe's Project Veritas released a new undercover video on Tuesday night showing vulnerable Sen. Heidi Heitkamp's (D-ND) campaign staff exposing her as being a far-left candidate while she has tried to portray herself as being centrist, saying, "when she gets elected she's going to be super liberal." more

VA - A conservative group that creates undercover “sting” videos infiltrated the campaign of Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat in a tight race with Rep. Dave Brat in Virginia’s 7th District. more

AZ - A right-wing operation that creates secretly recorded videos targeted Democratic U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, who's running a tight race for U.S. Senate, releasing a video Monday with several clips of the representative and her campaign workers making candid off-the-cuff comments. more

MO - An undercover video exposed a Democrat senator's re-election campaign for secretly taking donations from Planned Parenthood. The video, from conservative activist group Project Veritas, shows campaign workers for Democrat Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri talking about how Planned Parenthood funnels money to McCaskill's campaign through other organizations. more

CA - New undercover video appears to show signature gatherers pitching falsehoods to voters get them to sign petitions that would force the massive Newland Sierra development to a public vote. more

Thanks for subscribing to Kevin's Security Scrapbook (see top right column). ~Kevin 

Extortionography: Group Planted an Intern to Take Covert Video

The American Phoenix Foundation — a now-defunct conservative activist group known for attempting undercover stings of lawmakers and lobbyists — planted an intern in a Texas state lawmaker’s office during the 2013 legislative session in an effort to expose misdeeds, testimony in federal court revealed Thursday.

Shaughn Adeleye, testifying in Houston in the federal fraud case against former U.S. Rep. Steve Stockman, said in court Thursday that he was planted in the office of state Rep. James White to obtain footage of the Hillister Republican engaged in “fraud and abuse” and also in more mundane activities like cursing or failing to tidy his messy car... more

What is Extortionography?

Extortionography and the Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens Felony Indictment

Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, who was once considered a rising star in the Republican Party, has been under siege since January, when accusations emerged that he threatened to use a nude photo to blackmail his former hairstylist, with whom he was having an extramarital affair.

Greitens had allegedly threatened the woman by saying he would distribute a nude photo he had secretly taken of her if she exposed their relationship.

The accusations stemmed from a covert recording by the woman’s ex-husband published by KMOV in St. Louis, in which the woman is heard describing how Greitens invited her to his home in 2015 and, with her consent, taped her hands to exercise rings and blindfolded her. He then allegedly took a photo of her naked. more

What is extortionography?

Security Director Alert - Conference Call Eavesdropping

A conference call between Scotland Yard and the FBI has been intercepted and published by a member of the computer hacking group Anonymous.

The hacker apparently managed to access the call after getting into an FBI email which gave details of the call. The email was also posted online. (more)

Murray Associates advice:
Conferencing numbers and passwords are often posted on cubicle walls, sent via email and sometimes written underneath the table-top speakerphones themselves. This is a common, but dangerous, employee habit in many of the companies we visit. Conference call information should be held confidential and distributed on a need-to-know basis. To do otherwise, invites unauthorized call participants.

Teleconferencing Checklist
• Change all current passcodes.
• Tell employees they should not email or post the new passcodes.
• Switch to a conference call system where:
-- each participant is given a unique passcode,
-- the passcode is changed for each new conference call,
-- only the pre-authorized number of callers may be admitted,
-- and a record of all call participants is available to the call leader.

Think this is a rare problem?

Think again...

More Conference Call Intercepts & Advice

http://spybusters.blogspot.com/2008/10/question-of-week-secure-conference.html

http://spybusters.blogspot.com/2008/10/when-private-conference-calls-go-public.html

http://spybusters.blogspot.com/2008/12/extortionography-private-conference.html

http://spybusters.blogspot.com/2009/09/business-espionage-nintendo.html

http://spybusters.blogspot.com/2010/02/business-espionage-famous-last-words.html

http://spybusters.blogspot.com/2010/10/state-republican-party-staff-members.html

http://spybusters.blogspot.com/2011/06/when-board-members-phone-it-in-one-anti.html

http://spybusters.blogspot.com/2011/06/beef-board-admits-ceo-eavesdropped-on.html

Extortionography - Turkish Tacky Video Changes the Course of a Nation

Turkey - Just weeks before general elections in Turkey, six leading members of an opposition party were forced to resign from Parliament on Saturday after sexually explicit videos of one of them were posted on the Internet.

The Web site that posted the videos had threatened to release others that it said showed the five other members who resigned.

The resignations could severely weaken the Nationalist Movement Party, the second largest opposition group in Parliament, which is struggling to win the minimum of 10 percent of the vote required to be seated in Parliament.

Four members of Parliament from the same party resigned earlier this month after similar videos were posted on the same Web site.

The Web site, farkliulkuculer.com, has cast itself as part of a breakaway ultranationalist group aiming to cleanse and reform the nationalist movement in Turkey. The site’s administrators are anonymous. (more)

Snitch Culture Rule Switch

MD - A Maryland delegate is proposing changes to state wiretap law after he was inspired by two filmmakers who claimed to be a pimp and prostitute seeking tax advice while surreptitiously taping ACORN staffers in Baltimore.

Delegate Richard Sossi, an Eastern Shore Republican, wants to provide immunity for people who intercept a wire, oral or electronic communication that provides evidence of the commission of a felony.

Right now in Maryland, it is illegal to record private conversations unless both parties consent to the taping. (more)

This is one way to deter James O'Keefe from showing up at your political headquarters with a team of fake telephone technicians with hidden cameras.

Pssst... (BARTNICKI v. VOPPER (99-1687) 200 F.3d 109) already accomplished this in a 2001 Supreme Court ruling. 
 "Privacy of communication is an important interest. However, in this suit, privacy concerns give way when balanced against the interest in publishing matters of public importance. One of the costs associated with participation in public affairs is an attendant loss of privacy."  
See Extortionography.

Extortionography: Activists vs. Planned Parenthood

AZ - An anti-abortion group's hidden-camera video is raising questions about whether Planned Parenthood facilities in Arizona are meeting their legal duty to report sexual abuse of minors.

Planned Parenthood Arizona says its commitment to the health of women remains its guiding principle. It calls the videos "edited propaganda."...

But the question of accountability is unclear. The videos are based on a fabrication. The women in the videos are adults, not young teens, and they're not pregnant. (more) (Extortionography)

Extortionography: Edison Carter's or TVigilantes?

Australia - A former Sydney mayor has told a court he will plead not guilty to soliciting the murder of a male prostitute last year.

The 71-year-old former mayor of Waverley, James Robert Markham, was secretly filmed by Channel Nine's A Current Affair program, allegedly explaining his motives to hire a hitman to carry out the murder...

The alleged hitman, Channel Nine producer Andrew Byrne and reporter Ben Fordham have been charged with breaching the Listening Devices Act. (more)

SpyCam Story #500 - 500 Failures & Counting

Welcome to the SpyCam Story 500 milestone.
Here, we feature news stories about video spying.

This Scrapbook feature started when a security director asked me, "How can I show my boss electronic eavesdropping is real and I am not just being paranoid?" Interesting problem. There are no 'illegal eavesdropping statistics' to quote.

Keep in mind, the media only reports spying failures; the one's who got caught. Successful spying is totally invisible. Like commercial airline stories; you never read about the successful landings.

The solution to the security director's conundrum...
• Track sales of eavesdropping devices.
• Track eavesdropping failures as reported by the media.
• Factor in... Most spycam, bug and wiretap failures are handled privately. They never make it to the lawsuit level, and media attention.• Factor in... Not all media stories make it to my attention.
• Factor in... Many spycam stories are in such bad taste I exclude them.
Now, we see the tip of the spyberg.

Security directors use this proof to substantiate their Eavesdropping Detection Audit budgets.

And now (drum roll)...
SpyCam Story #500
Extortionography - From Winehouse to the Big HouseUK - The man who sold video footage to a London tabloid showing Amy Winehouse engaged in what appeared to be drug use was sentenced to jail on Friday... Johnny Blagrove, and his girlfriend, Cara Burton, had filmed Ms. Winehouse, without her knowledge and sold the footage to The Sun for about $75,000. Mr. Blagrove and Ms. Burton admitted that they had offered to supply drugs to Ms. Winehouse and other celebrities. The police said that the couple had kept a list of celebrities they planned to record taking drugs. A judge sentenced Mr. Blagrove to two years in prison; Ms. Burton was ordered to perform two years’ community service. (more) 

Extortionography: The 'private' conference call

Canada - A budding coalition between New Democrats, the separatist Bloc Quebecois and Liberals is an exercise in nation building, NDP Leader Jack Layton told his caucus in a conference call covertly recorded by the government.

Layton's national unity musings were secretly recorded Saturday by the Conservatives. They held the tape for a day and then had an official from the Prime Minister's Office deliver it to various media on Sunday. (more) (extortionography)

Alert - The Wikileaks.org ruling affects you, too.

Quick review...
(from Jan. 9, 2008)
"WikiLeaks.org is developing an uncensorable version of WikiPedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis."

Every coin has it light side and dark side.
The flip side of this coin is extortionography.

"What is Extortionography?"
Using audio / video / photographic or other evidence for personal or monetary gain, or to force a desired result or outcome.

"Do [insert demand here] or I will send [insert audio, video or other info-leak here] to WikiLeaks!"
------------------------
First blowback...
(from Feb. 20, 2008)
Recent days have brought two federal court decisions with disputed First Amendment legitimacy.

In San Francisco, District Judge Jeffrey White acceded to a request by a Cayman Islands bank to shut access to the Web site Wikileaks.org, which "invites people to post leaked materials with the goal of discouraging 'unethical behavior' by corporations and governments," as the New York Times reports.

In this case, the bank, Julius Baer Bank and Trust, accused "a disgruntled ex-employee" of giving stolen documents to Wikileaks in violation of banking laws and a confidentiality agreement. (more)
------------------------
This weeki...
Free speech advocates immediately hailed as a victory the decision on Friday of a federal judge to withdraw a prior order turning off the Web address of the site Wikileaks.org ...

“Maybe that’s just the reality of the world that we live in,” Judge White said. “When this genie gets out of the bottle, that’s it.” (more)
------------------------
"What does this mean to me?," you ask yourself.
- The court has given extortionography the green light for now.
- Don't assume your business information is protected from leakers.
- Reassess your information security procedures, today.
- The most damning leaks are always the audio and visual leaks.
- Conduct eavesdropping and spycam detection audits frequently.
Need help? Call us.

Leaked Info Dampens First Amendment

Recent days have brought two federal court decisions with disputed First Amendment legitimacy.

In San Francisco, District Judge Jeffrey White acceded to a request by a Cayman Islands bank to shut access to the Web site Wikileaks.org, which "invites people to post leaked materials with the goal of discouraging 'unethical behavior' by corporations and governments," as the New York Times reports.

In this case, the bank, Julius Baer Bank and Trust, accused "a disgruntled ex-employee" of giving stolen documents to Wikileaks in violation of banking laws and a confidentiality agreement. (more)

First Amendment vs. Creeping Extortionography.
You decide. In the meantime, keep your information from leaking in the first place. Need help? Call us.

Extortionography finds a home...

"WikiLeaks is developing an uncensorable version of WikiPedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis." (more)

Every coin has it light side and dark side.
The flip side of this coin is extortionography.

What is Extortionography?
Using audio / video / photographic or other evidence for personal or monetary gain, or to force a desired result or outcome. "Do [insert your demand here] or I will send [insert your eavesdrop, wiretap or leak here] to WikiLeaks!"

The Oprah Extortionography Plot

Man accused of seeking money for tapes about her...

Oprah Winfrey was the victim of an extortion attempt after an Atlanta man threatened he had potentially damaging audio tapes he'd publicize if he wasn't paid off, according to federal charges.

Keifer Bonvillain of Atlanta is charged in Chicago federal court with illegally taping telephone calls he had with a Winfrey employee he befriended at a party.

Over a series of weeks, Bonvillain allegedly asked the employee many questions about Winfrey and her business. He later told a second person, described as Winfrey's "business associate," that he recorded 12 hours of those conversations and ultimately asked for $1.5 million to destroy the tapes and his notes, according to charges.

At various times, Bonvillain threatened to sell the information to tabloids, to use the tapes to write a book or to simply sell them to Winfrey's representatives, according to federal charges.

Bonvillain's name came up in a separate legal case in New Jersey recently. According to court records, he was hired as a consultant by one of the parties to that case and involved in tape recording conversations while probing claims tied to an insurance dispute. (more) (update)