Peter Thiel was an FBI informant
businessinsider.com
businessinsider.com
Seems like a lot of words to leave this comment buried in the middle of. The story seems like a soup of hopeful political operators trying to sow chaos, and since they're all on the same side, the publisher is happy to oblige. Talking to the IC at all gives them the unlimited option to call you an informant if you ever get involved in something counter-establishment anyway.
One gets the impression that part of America's new class system is whether you are connected to the intelligence community somehow, as if you have a certain level of responsibility at all, someone who knows someone always seems to be in touch or within a degree of separation.
Beyond being a gay man who got outed as a confidential source, Thiel is also one of the most powerful people in the world. He is a billionaire who bankrolled multiple people's campaigns for federal office in the last few years. Your average HN commenter does not approach that level of power and influence and never will.
The problem I see is that these people think that "telling" on criminals and international intelligence operations is wrong, for some reason. That's weird and really negative for our country.
What arm wrestling? It's pretty simple: anyone "taking shots" at him on Hacker News is definitionally punching-up because Thiel has more power and privilege than anyone here, power and privilege he routinely exercises on local and national stages. I don't have any issue with his actions working with the FBI here for what it's worth.
It's the palling around with fascists and having massive reach into the political and defense spheres that makes people dislike him.
Then again, since when MBS care about staying in anyone’s good graces?
That's he gay is only relevant to you in this conversation, the person critiquing the critique. Why does that somehow give him extra victim status? Thiel is not subject to the power or cultural dynamics individuals in marginalized groups often are. He's being treated like Charles Koch would be were he to do the same thing - that's equality, baby.
what
'Punching down' is fits that description, as it's slang for taking easy shots at weaker people or those who can't fight back. How does criticizing someone in a greater position of power involve drift from ethics?
If you are looking for something to get upset about, try looking at people who send non-metaphorical threats of violence to librarians, schools, and the like on the regular.
If you think it's weird, you must have grown up very sheltered. Every child knows what happens to snitches. It was common practice to punish both the offender and the tattletale when I was growing up, because "nobody likes a snitch". The vast majority of the population has the same or similar cultural context here.
"Snitches get stitches" works for perpetuating a gang's control through violence but doesn't really help people in a community. It's a terrible norm.
What on earth has Thiel's sexuality got to do with this?
And the whole trope about Gawker "outting" Thiel has to stop:
1. Don't want to be "outed" as gay? Perhaps don't fill your social media with pictures of you partying on gay cruises.
2. Whether you agree or not, billionaires are considered public figures by the courts, because of their "outsize influence on public opinion and politics".
It sounds logical, consider this news item from yesterday: "Five Eyes intel chiefs warn China's IP theft program now at 'unprecedented' levels"
https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/18/five_eyes_china_espio...
Should people here really just accept other nations blatantly stealing and "infiltrating"?
It pretty much is a textbook definition of an FBI informant. I think the issue is people seem to put some kind of moral value on the term.
Can you please make the point you were trying to make more explicit? I don't understand your perspective on the impact of what was omitted.
"Thiel has publicly called on the FBI to investigate a company that several of his compete with, using information he is giving the FBI himself..."
> In a written statement to Insider, [...] Johnson said that he was exposing Thiel's work as a CHS as retribution [...]
They actually wrote "retribution". Sounds like an additional hint that outing might not be OK.
Can a seasoned journalist say what the professional guidelines are here?
Best guess is they see the harm as minor as 1. It is not revealed who Thiel was informing on and 2. To the extent a target could guess, Thiel is very well equipped to protect himself from physical threats. Further, it doesn’t seem Johnson is implying physical retribution, it seems more like (arguably) he’s trying to expose what he sees as some sort of ideological hypocrisy. So any harm would be reputational (and debatable) if that’s the case.
Many sources for news articles act out of self interest, whether to benefit themselves or hurt an enemy, so that would not be inherently disqualifying.
(Not endorsing the presumed logic just describing it.)
> They actually wrote "retribution". Sounds like an additional hint that outing might not be OK.
Charles C. Johnson has a very colorful history. Rep. Matt Gaetz (also in the news lately) invited him to the State of the Union in 2018 after which multiple outlets reported on Johnson's Holocaust denier past and his other activities.[0][1]
In my opinion, I wouldn't trust Johnson or let him know any real secrets – damaging or not – about me. I'm a bit surprised Thiel would trust him – seems like a blunder that he typically doesn't make.
The rest of the article is a hit piece with a bunch of guilt-by-association attacks against Thiel, but Johnson is curiously spared from having his past brought up.
[0] https://floridaphoenix.com/blog/matt-gaetz-once-again-hangs-...
[1]https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2018/02/09/spurned...
> Neither Thiel nor the FBI commented to Insider about the report. And one of Insider’s sources is Charles Johnson, a far-right political figure and blogger that Insider acknowledges has spread a mix of accurate and false information in the past.
How would Johnson know about a long term relationship between Thiel and Buma, if all he did was introduce them? Is the implication that the FBI leaked a confidential source, or that Thiel told him about it, or... and stay with me here... should we assume this person who has spread false information in the past is doing it again?
He’s scum!
And there's Charles C Johnson who the NYT called "A troll on steroids" https://web.archive.org/web/20230204213533/https://www.nytim...
Insider's source is the second, Charles C Johnson, which instantly makes me think this whole think is marlarkey.
P.S. Charles F Johnson absolutely loathes Charles C Johnson.
They concentrate so much power it's the logical thing to do.
On the other hand, I don't think the tech community talks honestly enough about the dangers posed by a small number of powerful tech people with fringe ideologies.
>Deadspin floated an old college rumor that Johnson had once defecated on a dormitory floor at Claremont. When Johnson tweeted on Friday that he’s considering a run for Congress, the first reply suggested his campaign slogan could be “Outing rape victims and pooping on the floor since 2014. Vote for me.” Of course, I had to ask him about the allegations. “For the record, I did not shit on the seventh floor, but I wish I did,” he told me.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/12/charles-chuck-j...
... as well as regular military.
P.S. Palantir was founded by the CIA (In-Q-Tel):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palantir_Technologies#2003%E2%...
Based on that article specifically.
>> The only early investments were $2 million from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's venture capital arm In-Q-Tel, and $30 million from Thiel himself and his venture capital firm, Founders Fund.[6][7][13][14][15]
Sounds like the CIAs investment arm funded Palantir and didn’t found it, the funding amount also seems pretty inconsequential given the overall funding.
Two lessons became cemented in unbreakable stone for me.
1) Enough money will eventually bend any justice system to your will.[b]
2) Threats to news orgs' existence will bloom after press gives a pass to the previous threats.[c]
[a] https://www.techdirt.com/2016/06/13/peter-thiels-plan-to-des...
[b] https://www.techdirt.com/2016/08/16/billionaire-backer-palan...
Not "any." The US legal (don't call it justice) system happens to be extremely corruptible, in a sort of "de facto" sense, because securing representation in court is extremely expensive, and everything secondary to representation -- depositions, expert witnesses, investigations, etc. -- is also extremely expensive. In the end, virtually all civil cases become wars of financial attrition.
But it's possible to imagine different systems that avoid this sorry outcome.
It's as simple as making trial lawyers, still called "officers of the court," actual employees of the court. Assign them at random to litigants or defendants, just as judges are assigned. What one litigant gets (e.g. should one side request depositions or expert witnesses) the other also gets on an equal basis.
You could pay 'em out of taxpayer dollars, and it would hardly register a blip in civic/state/federal budgets. We'd all benefit from a more even playing field before the law.
But it'll never happen, because legislators are virtually all lawyers, and they rather like the old status quo, which works very well at enriching lawyers.
Do people stop talking to him in fear of saying something bad? Do his old friends stop contact because of what he might have told FBI? Does he stop getting invited to parties?
Or will all of this blow over in a couple weeks and it's business as usual? My thinking is that his social life will change quite a bit (even accounting for him being a billionaire) and he is done with politics. I don't think any politician will want to involve themselves with Thiel now.
Also, this is a pattern with the US law enforcement agencies for decades. If you read this article on Hank Asher you will probably get what I'm talking about: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/22/magazine/hank-asher-data....
I think it is concerning when law enforcement develops close, symbiotic relationships with wealthy business figures who have shady pasts. This can easily lead to conflicts of interest, lack of oversight, and preferential treatment.
And for those "libertarian" folk in the discussion, why do you care about Peter Theil so much? Why go to the chat section and defend him so ardently?
More discussion earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37941881
Or a violent coup, something which is much more feasible within his lifetime.
Even if it were true, what exactly constitutes an informant? Answered some questions once or deliberately worked his way into things with the express intent of informing on the activities?
According to The Intercept[1], there's thousands and thousands and thousands of FBI Informants today. Everyone in a powerful position with access to the greatest and latest technology is likely an informant on some level.
[1] https://theintercept.com/annotation_sets/how-the-fbi-recruit....
Peter Thiel had his fair share of detractors before Trump.
Disclaimer before discussing the following: I'm not saying Gawker was not trash media. That is orthogonal to Thiel's involvement.
That being said, Gawker never "outed" Thiel. The man's social media profile pictures and galleries were full of him shirtless on gay cruise liners. And whether you agree or not, courts have repeatedly held that billionaires are considered "public figures" by virtue of their "outsized influence and impact on public affairs".
These are reasons Gawker was never successfully sued by Thiel.
A fundamental concept of our legal system is the right to face your accuser. Thiel and his lawyers manipulated Hogan like a puppet:
* Hogan had already settled with the person who leaked his video (for 1/5000th of the amount he would later claim from Gawker).
* Hogan had reached a tentative settlement with Gawker that would include part ownership of Gawker, and entitlements to profits.
Then along come Thiel, and he offers to pay for lawyers, or use his lawyers (how that's not a conflict, I don't know - what if what Hogan wants conflicts with what Thiel, the person paying the bills, wants, how does your lawyer ethically reconcile that?)
And when they do, damages were upped to ridiculous levels. Financial/economic (note: NOT emotional distress, which was claimed separately) damages of fifty million dollars.
Fun fact: Hogan's net worth in 2007 at his divorce was $30M, and at the time of the video publication, $8M.
I'm not sure how someone whose career earnings were estimated at $15M could claim, with a straight face, that the video being published cost him $50M in purely economic damages... from what? Did networks stop re-running old Wrestlemania episodes as a result? His burgeoning retirement celebrity endorsement income?
And when everything was settled, Thiel's lawyers had Hogan withdraw the one claim that would have allowed Gawker's liability insurance to kick in.
Weird, huh? You're interested in owning a part of a media company, and getting a share of their profits, but "your" lawyers tell you to withdraw a claim, knowing that the only possible outcome of doing so will be immediate insolvency and bankruptcy.
However reprehensible Gawker was in this, there absolutely a wide crevice where there are perfectly valid ethical questions about Thiel's involvement and motivations in this whole debacle.
1) So what would motivate him?
2) How often do these type of "exchanges" go on, and we have no idea someone's (e.g., politician, journalist, industry titan, etc) actions were dictated by the Intelligence Community? This isn't a conspiracy theory. It's IC 101.
As far as what would motivate him: look at what's happening to Musk right now as an example. I'm not saying he doesn't comply and cooperate with law enforcement, but he's certainly being made a big example of right now from all sides.
Not uncommon in rest of the world. Once upon a time, it was American journalists who enthusiastically did this:
1. C.I.A. Established Many Links To Journalists in U.S. and Abroad: https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/27/archives/cia-established-...
2. Correspondence and collusion between the New York Times and the CIA: https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/aug/29/corres...
"Thiel publicly called on the FBI to investigate Google's ties to the Chinese government" kinda ignores the fact that Google competes with several of his company, and their 'ties' are allegations that come from... Thiel.
> starts a billion dollar company that helps the government spy on people, become FBI informant
Ironic.
A lot of us are simply interested in promoting and continuing to evolve and understand that well-reasoned ideology. We feel its application can improve the human condition.
The term "libertarian" changed a lot over time, from socialist libertarianism to far-right libertarianism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_libertarian_thinke... Here we are talking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism and check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism#Analysis_an...
The "bad apples" phrase is often (usually?) misused. The whole saying is: "One bad apple spoils the barrel". In general, it refers to corruption, and especially bent coppers. Here in the UK, we recently had the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police saying that the rash of rapists in the Met is just "a few bad apples".
It's not just a question of taint; if you leave the "bad apples" in there, you'll end up with no good apples at all.
Hypocrisy is not limited to certain groups, pretty much all people are hypocritical at times.
But you have reminded me to do a self-assessment, find all of the hypocrisy I can, and correct it.
All groups have hypocrisy where people push for others to aim for lofty goals, but fight tooth and nail to not have their local community pay the costs. Left, right, authoritarians, anarchists, etc.
Most folks already know that, but I just want to point it out since I personally identify as left libertarian.
> ruins press outlet that used too much free speech by burning them with lawsuits
Is it your honest opinion that all libertarians are supposed to be ethically okay with outing someone's sexuality or posting revenge porn tapes? If so, why?
It is my honest opinion that Thiel is a hypocrite and is a libertarian only if and when it's convenient to him.
In this quote, he's letting himself off the hook for undermining the First Amendment protection of the press, which he also did covertly, btw, by claiming that his targets were not journalists when they were.
I'm not saying they weren't scumbags for publishing what they did, but he doesn't get to have it both ways. That's the point.
"Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences"?
Not all libertarians are anarchists, that is a faction but not the majority IMO.
I would overhaul the law enforcement apparatus in my ideal society. But their current existence would not prevent me from providing information to them and asking for assistance if the reason was justified.
People calling Peter Thiel a hypocrite are wrong.
Because history has proven our people in power seldom demonstrate benevolence nor competence to solve the average citizens problems.
Or maybe, simply, just more impulsive.
When stuff looked a bit iffy, he bought citizenship in New Zealand as a bolt hole. The free market dictates that such things are possible.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/indepth/national/how-peter-thiel-...
So there's no hypocrisy here. However, the Insider article is clearly designed as an attack piece on Thiel, and is probably written by people who don't understand what libertarianism is - a very common issue with those who attack it.
Don’t libertarians usually want less gun control?
I think if you want to argue hypocrisy that's still a better place to start than with being an FBI informant, but the article isn't about gun control.
I agree, but have a clarification I'd like to make: many forms of anarchism are in a superset of libertarianism.
FBI does counter intelligence as its primary mission anyway (as opposed to just law enforcement) and Thiel seems to be concerned with China, not using the gov as a weapon against citizens domestically.
Does that make taxation a core part of being a libertarian as well? To pay for vital government services?
Colloquially, anarcho-capitalism is sometimes also referred to as libertarianism. Those who subscribe to anarcho-capitalism believe in stateless societies, of which taxation would be incompatible. However, Thiel purports to be a libertarian in the stricter sense. This usage is not applicable here.
That's not necessarily antithetic. Although you could make the rationale that doing such a company reinforces the power of the government, and therefore creates a bigger government which would be against libertarian ideals
That's solidly in "info on foreigners" territory. :(
Ah ah, PT had contact with China investors as well so I am sure it was both groups.