An amazing expose of the tools available to the rich and powerful to suppress the truth and get away with morally monstrous behavior. Remember that an individual like Harvey Weinstein represents the tiny tip of an iceberg of reprehensible abuse of power. If a Hollywood producer makes use of these kind of techniques, imagine what is possible for the heads of large corporations and the leaders of corrupt nation states.
> He began to hire private security agencies to collect information on the women and the journalists trying to expose the allegations ... One of the investigators pretended to be a women’s-rights advocate and secretly recorded at least four meetings with McGowan
This goes way beyond simple work place harassment. This is a predator taking advantage of his position of power to prey on others. Its reprehensible and deserve jail time.
I've read more than a few times lawyers claiming that "fixers" like the fictional "Ray Donovan" and "Michael Clayton" don't exist. This story seems to say they do.
> As recently as Friday, the firm had a bare-bones Web site, with stock photos and generic text passages about asset management and an initiative called Women in Focus
Too bad there’s no Oscar for Best Inadvertent Lampshading of a Covert Smear Campaign.
> Techniques like the ones used by the agencies on Weinstein’s behalf are almost always kept secret, and, because such relationships are often run through law firms, the investigations are theoretically protected by attorney-client privilege, which could prevent them from being disclosed in court. The documents and sources reveal the tools and tactics available to powerful individuals to suppress negative stories and, in some cases, forestall criminal investigations.
Reading this makes me think that we need new ethics rules for lawyers and ways to force disclosure of this kind of thing.
The story is rife with examples of egregious acts, from Weinstein's investigators interviewing and secretly recording victims under false identities to lawyer David Boies directing a PI firm to help stop a report on Weinstein that was being produced by NYT, a client of his own firm (Boies Schiller Flexner)!
And the story apparently isn't over as journalist said in a TV interview that there's more reporting to come.
It seems like a miserable way to enjoy your good fortunes in life. I'm sure many successful people can't get out of their own way, and this is just another case of never being satisfied.
Bracing for downvotes, but surely somebody has some unflattering nude shots of Harvey somewhere. Wouldn't be terrible (well, in some ways) if those surfaced.
I’m always amazed how quickly most people’s principles go right out the window the moment they’re angry. Publishing unauthorized nude photos is wrong, period. Doesn’t matter what a piece of shit he’s accused of being. He deserves prison if he’s guilty of these criminal acts. With the number of instances he would reasonably spend the rest of his natural life in prison, after being duly convicted. That’s what’s right, and that’s justice.
I'll concede you're a better person than me if you were a victim and took the more arduous high road of turning whatever evidence you had into a conviction. I would probably take the easier road, even it meant I was an unprincipled moron.
If I were a victim, I'd rather use whatever I had to retaliate without having to out myself and deal with the fallout. Perhaps not brave, but in my mind, not unreasonable.
Yes vigilantism is an affront to the rule of law. But if the rule of law demonstrably fails then it is necessary. (It shouldn’t fail but that’s a different matter.)
This is the ethical dilemma, deontology (rule of law) vs utilitarianism (best outcome). It is always easy to construct counter examples to supposedly perfect laws. Don't kill people. Sorry, I'm gonna kill Hitler. Ultimately everyone is a relativist.
His victims rightfully could have exercised their right of self defense (and perhaps did, I'm not following the story); but it's a far cry between someone engaging in self-defense and suggesting granting a pass for extra-legal, possibly violent, action against another... no matter how reprehensible the target.
I hope you're not actually making a call to extra-legal or violent action and, if so, I hope this community doesn't sanction it.
How the rich and powerful use spies and private investigators to track people seems to overlap with topics of interest to HN IMO. Just because it happens to also involve someone in mainstream news headlines doesn't make it less noteworthy.
He also took sheets straight from the Clinton handbook.
It's time to de-politicize sexism. I await the day when Hollywood celebrities rush to loudly criticize every Republican slimebag on the planet. And also every Democrat slimebag.
