Harvey Weinstein's Army of Spies | Hacker News Reader

Harvey Weinstein's Army of Spies

newyorker.com

91 pointsdanso31 comments

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.

Thankfully, this strategy didn't work. I wonder how often it does though.

Such tactics apparently worked for decades.

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.

They're called "Public relation firms"

In this case it was apparently a law firm.

> 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.

Flagged into oblivion by the self-appointed thread police.

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.

Happens a lot to human rights orgs and NGOs also

Disgusting. If he doesn't go to jail, vigilante action would be justified.

Vigilante justice is an affront to the rule of law and is never justified. Even in heinous crime such as those committed by Weinstein.

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.

Simple explanation is that most people don't have principles.

Simpler and probably better explanation: We don't all have principles neatly aligned.

Your principle going out the window may be me expressing a deeply held opinion.

Well, I would agree that many people treat self interest as a principle. I don't think many people have principles beyond that though.

Maybe mild preferences.

Most people I know have fairly decent work ethics, standards how to treat other people, honesty up to a point.

Not that I don't share a large part of your cynicism.

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.

suggesting that sexual harassment is an appropriate response to sexual harassment is completely moronic

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.

No, it doesn't.

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.

[edit for clarity]

What does this have to do with hacker news?

Being on the frontpage is what it's got to do with HN.

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.

Seriously, not relevant here on HN, guys.

Of course Weinstein had Al Gore's lawyer.

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.

Only then will progress be made.

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