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from the smoking-gun-found-next-to-skeleton-in-closet dept.
PandoDaily's Mark Ames has published a paywalled article [archive] entitled "Shillers for killers: Revealed: How the tobacco industry paid journalists, scientists, activists and lawyers to cover up the most deadly crime in human history." The article draws upon a new round of documents that was recently added to the University of California San Francisco's Legacy Tobacco Documents Library. The library contains 14 million documents and is growing, as noted on the Library's blog. Some bits are more relevant to our community.
In 1994, marketing director at the RJ Reynolds tobacco company wrote to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) to discuss topics related to protecting tobacco advertising on the Internet. Later that year, EFF's executive director sent a proposal to RJ Reynolds's direct marketing manager, Peter Michaelson, soliciting money to fund an EFF project that would oppose government regulations on commercial tobacco advertising on the Web. An alternative plan is suggested:
"We are also prepared to pursue a legal test of this alternative approach to regulation. For example, if MARC [RJR's direct marketers] or RJR decided to put one or another sponsored on-line service up on the Internet or via America-on-Line or other on-line service, the white paper could become the basis of a legal brief challenging the constitutionality of any governmental effort to block the programming on the basis of current advertising bans in electronic media... We have not budgeted for this alternative at this point."
Years before Glenn Greenwald teamed up with Laura Poitras and whistleblower Edward Snowden to expose the NSA, he worked as a lawyer for Wachtell Lipton, a law firm that sued ABC-TV for $10 billion and helped to gag smoking industry whistleblowers. This had a chilling effect on CBS, which prevented the airing of a 60 Minutes program covering Merrell Williams and Jeffrey Wigand until the next year. These events were covered by the 1996 Frontline documentary "Smoke In The Eye" [Internet Archive] and Wigand's story inspired the 1999 film, The Insider.
It's reasonable to assume Greenwald—ever the diligent researcher—must have joined Wachtell fully aware that they were helping gag whistleblowers and threatening journalists: Greenwald says that he chose to work for Wachtell in 1994 after being recruited by over a dozen top law firms. But of course that doesn't necessarily mean he worked on the specific Philip Morris case. Except that a billing ledger discovered in the tobacco library shows Greenwald's name in a Wachtell Lipton bill to Philip Morris... Other Wachtell Lipton memos show Greenwald's name prominently displayed on the letterhead in aggressive, threatening letters against ABC-TV, against whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand, and against whistleblower Merrell Williams...
[...] Again, in the two decades since, whistleblower champion Glenn Greenwald has never said a single word about this case or about the role his law firm played in crushing TV investigative journalism. As far as our research can tell, Greenwald has never taken a position on tobacco laws or spoken about the horrific death toll smoking is taking.
Original Submission
(Score: 1) by Eunuchswear on Monday July 13 2015, @11:01AM
So you've got Greenwald off the hook with your "youthful indescrection" argument.
Now explain the EFF.
Watch this Heartland Institute video [youtube.com]
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @11:37AM
The EFF isn't on the hook for anything. They needed a test case to challenge advertising restrictions, which basically limits it to tobacco and alcohol advertisers. The ACLU defends neo-Nazis for displaying flags. Same thing. They can't legally oppose laws without a case to bring.
And let's face it, Greenwald is an opportunistic, self-interested whore. He doesn't give a shit about the Snowden files except insofar as he gets to control their release. Didn't he basically leave The Guardian so that he wouldn't have to share any of the files or glory with the other reporters there?
(Score: 1) by Eunuchswear on Monday July 13 2015, @01:27PM
Why? Who, when told of the EFF's fight against the hacker crackdown thought it was all about freedom to advertise?
Watch this Heartland Institute video [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @02:22PM
The EFF is not a single issue organization.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @02:20PM
> And let's face it, Greenwald is an opportunistic, self-interested whore. He doesn't give a shit about the Snowden
> files except insofar as he gets to control their release.
Which is why Snowden picked him in the first place. That guy really didn't really think it through, did he?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2015, @03:14AM
Didn't he basically leave The Guardian so that he wouldn't have to share any of the files or glory with the other reporters there?
Actually, it was The Guardian that pushed him out because they (understandably) didn't like the pressure from the politicos' mob - such as being forced to destroy evidence (computers, hard drives, etc). The topic just got too hot for The Guardian. Greenwald had to figure out the best way to make the info available, and well, what we have is what he settled on. I personally think the 'control' issue comes more from (justifiable) paranoia & a desire to see it done correctly & effectively than from a selfish ploy for 'glory' or whatever.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @11:37AM
They stand up for my right to smoke. I think I'll chip for them some more.