Michael Hastings - 911 callers and new video confirm large explosions | Hacker News Reader

Michael Hastings - 911 callers and new video confirm large explosions

sandiego6.com

125 pointsteamgb85 comments

Here's a data point. A street race on a street where I live got out of hand and a mid-size sedan went at an estimated 80mph into the trunk of a magnolia tree in the median. The car body was literally torn in half, and four of the five occupants were killed.

That magnolia has a chunk out of its bark about the size indicated in the quote. It is still very much alive, and five years later, people forget which tree to put memorial candles underneath.

I live about 150 meters from the site of that accident. It also sounded like an explosion (big "thump", that brought me and my neighbors out of our houses at around 10 or 11 at night).

I don't know one way or another about the specific crash in the OP -- just pointing out that armchair forensics is prone to error.

Second sentence: "A new surveillance video from a nearby business obtained by San Diego 6 News and posted by LA Weekly graphically shows multiple explosions consuming his 2013 Mercedes Benz." Did you see the video?

Did you? There really aren't multiple explosions visible, it's grainy and from pretty far away(not to mention, not actually newly released surveillance video). We see one continuous light source, consistent with an explosion and a fire recorded by a grainy, B/W COTS security camera at night.

I saw the video and it is about as clear as the videos that show "multiple explosions" during the collapse of the WTC towers. Maybe there is actually something there, but I don't think a layman can see it from the provided copy of that video.

I did see the video.

I'm not trying to explain all the facts surrounding the incident, I'm just taking issue with the interpretation of one fact, and extrapolating to say none of this is obvious.

Part of the reason I felt a need to chime in, is that I used to live not far from where the accident in the OP took place (north Highland in LA), and the accident I referred to in my comment happened very close to where I live now, again in LA, and the median and curb construction are quite similar.

Just for definiteness, here is a link to the crash that I saw (http://articles.latimes.com/2008/aug/29/local/me-fatalcrash2... ); one other person later died from their injuries bringing the total to four from the three reported in the article.

Even if we assume multiple explosions, that doesn't prove anything other than multiple explosions. Since we're playing with unlikely events anyways, how unlikely is it that a car violently slinging around gasoline and breaking fuel lines near a running engine and a very hot catalytic converter undergoes multiple explosions during a violent crash?

The surveillance video also shows the car driving at extremely high speed. Indeed, with a little work you could probably id the location and model of the surveillance camera and extrapolate the speed data from the footage. I don't find this especially convincing of anything new - cars don't blow up at the drop of a hat nowadays, but if you crash one fast enough explosion isn't an especially remarkable outcome.

Offhand that looks to me like 70mph+. I haven't done any measurements, and am just relying on my film industry experience, which has naturally entailed watching a great deal of footage from a variety of cameras over many years. I could be totally wrong.

I'm going to preface this by saying that I am very open to the possibility that the US government is assassinating people that cause it trouble. No, I'm not open to it per se, rather I am sure it is happening.

This Michael Hastings stuff is getting pretty silly though. A careful, transparent, investigation is probably warranted, but some of the stuff seemingly being used to indicate foul play is just silly. Take for example this:

"Inexplicably, the palm tree Hastings’ car hit has scorched bark and slightly wounded base --approximately 16"W x 4.5" H x 1"D-- seemingly minimal damage for a 3,538 pound car striking the tree at a reportedly 100 mph. Also pictures taken by San Diego 6 News show the curb has a small scratch, but no major chipping or fractures and the rear tires resting against the curb."

They are careful to not actually say it, but the implication here seems to be that perhaps the car did not actually hit the tree, or perhaps did not even burn there. Didn't I just watch video footage of the car smacking the hell out of the tree, and then bursting into flames? Even if we go with "radio controlled car with a fire bomb", it is very clear that a collision and fire did happen with that tree. You find it odd that a tree survived? It's a fucking tree.

If car accidents are the sort of thing that you don't mind viewing, you can google "Car split in half by a tree at high speed reddit". Car literally split in half by a tree. The bark was knocked off the tree and part of the car was wrapped around it, but otherwise it was fine (though the tree will eventually die without the bark)

I'm going to preface this by saying that I am very open to the possibility that the US government is assassinating people that cause it trouble. No, I'm not open to it per se, rather I am sure it is happening.

The current US administration is already on record as acknowledging that they already kill US citizens without trial.

In a drone-ish fashion, yes.

I am sure they are doing it in a more clandestine "ricin umbrella" way too, which to my knowledge they haven't admitted to. The sort of assassination that is being suggested here is the sort that I very suspect they are doing, but I cannot say that it is clear to me that it happened here.

The only thing I saw in that video was a car driving past and then exploding. Could you really make out a collision with a tree? Maybe I need to have my eyes examined.

People: don't speculate, don't buy into conspiracies, rely on hard evidence. The more you veer into conspiracy territory the more anything else you say will fail to be taken seriously. Remember that.

His life was repeatedly threatened. What conspiracy?

If a dozen people threaten to kill you over five years, and you die in an even remotely suspicious manner, where's the conspiracy in that? There's a line of people that apparently would have liked to kill Hastings.

Even being pedantic, that would be a conspiracy... now, does that mean it's the kind of conspiracy theory that belongs on David Icke forums or InfoWars? Maybe not, but right now there is no logical consistency behind the theory that he was killed in a hit given the time, place and manner it occurred.

His death should be treated as suspicious because he was under regular threat by people that apparently wanted him dead, some of which were very powerful people.

What it shouldn't be treated as, is an open and shut case. Skepticism given the circumstances, is in my opinion valuable here. There's very little to be lost from making absolutely sure that this wasn't foul play.

Sure, I agree, it's important to be skeptical. But, one wonders why they would choose to kill him in such an open manner, after he sent an email saying that he was being investigated by the FBI to Wikileaks' lawyers among other folks. Surely he could be dealt with in a much quieter fashion that isn't so open to being discovered. We can also confirm that he was indeed traveling very fast, certainly fast enough for things to go as wrong as they did very quickly.

Well, if we're looking at hits, a few things stand out historically.

Sometimes murders are done as an open warning. The mafia has used that approach forever.

Why did the Russians use polonium to kill Alexander Litvinenko? Surely there were better ways to kill him that wouldn't leave behind a radiated dying body. Were they trying to make a statement? Seems plausible.

What could be better than to publicly kill the target in a manner that can't be provably traced back, but stands as an open and dramatic point for everybody else to 'learn' from?

EXACTLY. He was a JOURNALIST. The point is to kill someone who might be about to disclose something you don't want disclosed, and create a chilling effect preventing others who might consider disclosing, whistleblowing, leaking, or simply reporting such things from doing so for fear they too would be murdered. This WORKS. Killing someone in secret only performs the first function. This is the essence of the idiom "killing two birds with one stone." In this case, it's killing 1,000 (or more) journalists with one rigged car.

> This WORKS.

Quoth the person who is apparently oblivious to the media shit-storm occurring right now.

There is really no media shitstorm about Michael Hastings. It's practically over now. What stays long afterwards is the chilling effect sensed by journalists and would-be-whistleblowers - the fear that by disclosing or reporting on the wrong story, they too might find themselves up in smoke.

If people threaten to kill you for years and you die in a suspicious matter that is far from proof that the two are even remotely related.

Let the evidence guide us to an understanding of what has happened, let us not put an interpretation on the events merely because we "feel" it must have happened a certain way.

Who was arguing that suspicion is proof?

I haven't claimed at any point that there is proof Hastings was murdered.

When someone gets an ample number of death threats, and they die in an even remotely suspicious manner, it is not a conspiracy to consider that one of those threats may have become actual. It's that simple.

McChrystal's staffer told Hastings directly: if you write something we don't like, we will kill you. Where's the conspiracy in suspecting that staffer of murder, given he threatened to murder Hastings?

San Diego 6 news report that Hastings was cremated even though his family did not request it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21WnsubYFps

Given it's a high profile case, surely something like this shouldn't happen?

Or is it quite common that the coroner or whoever with authority can dispose of the body however they wish?

Certainly odd, and I very much want as much investigation as possible, but it's not necessarily such a crazy thing to happen, in my opinion.

A burn victim is most likely to be cremated, I'd imagine. And it's possible that Hastings had a desire for cremation in his will or living will.

Let's wait and see what the evidence shows.

This is posted up thread, but the original "source" for the cremation story says it's bunk.

https://twitter.com/Rambobiggs/status/357352728499978240

Your language is rather imprecise. "Conspiracy theory" and "evidence" are not opposites. "Speculation" and "conspiracy" are not synonyms. Conspiracy is a particular act for which there may or may not be evidence. In fact, there are a variety of federal and state laws that criminalize different types of conspiracies--in order for individuals to be prosecuted under those laws, evidence of conspiracy is by definition required to be presented.

Excuse me for being pedantic, but I think that the tendency of people to equate "conspiracy theory" and "wild speculation" is too often taken advantage of by public relations types to discredit whistleblowers and critics of the status quo. Don't forget how many things we know for certain today that only five months ago would have been dismissed as "conspiracy theories".

It is good advice for people here to avoid speculation, but it's worth pointing out that if foul play were involved at all in this man's death, it most certainly would involve a criminal conspiracy. That's a very big if, though, in my opinion.

I say "conspiracy theory" because that's the category of thought that falls into a particular kind of rationality anti-pattern.

Here's a general formula for most "conspiracy theory" thinking:

Step 1: Characterize the "official theory" of some event or phenomenon, often in an overly simplistic manner.

Step 2: Identify some sort of inconsistency or counterintuitive result in the relationship between the "official theory" and the purported evidence.

Step 3: Use that inconsistency to leap to the conclusion that an alternate theory must necessarily be correct.

I've seen this pattern played out a million times in as many different scenarios.

For example, look at the moon landing denialists. They point out that the shadows look unusual in Apollo footage. THEREFORE THE WHOLE THING WAS FAKED ON A SOUND STAGE ON EARTH.

Or, look at the JFK conspiracy theorists. They point out that if you position JFK and Governor Connally in the seemingly most normal riding positions in the presidential limousine then the bullet alleged to have passed through JFK's neck and also to have injured Connally would have had to travel a very unlikely route. THEREFORE THE WHOLE THING IS A FRAUD AND IN REALITY JFK WAS ASSASSINATED BY THE CIA.

Or, look at the 9/11 truthers. They point out that the temperature that structural steel melts at is higher than the temperature that jet fuel burns at. THEREFORE THE WHOLE THING IS AN ELABORATE RUSE BY THE US GOVERNMENT AND THE BUILDINGS WERE DEMOLISHED USING PLANTED EXPLOSIVES.

And so on.

Here we have a perfect example of the beginnings of another conspiracy theory in progress. Hastings' car didn't appear to leave much damage on the palm tree he allegedly collided with. Logically the only conclusion is that a vast government conspiracy remote controlled his car to veer off the road and trigger the explosion of a fire bomb in order to prevent him from revealing secrets that they didn't want revealed.

It's just simple logic right?

Or, look at the Gulf of Tonkin Incident deniers. People alleged that Pres. Johnson made up his own pretext to initiate the Vietnam War.

Or, look at the people who alleged that the CIA had agents operating as journalists in domestic and foreign media.

Or, look at those loonies who said that the gov't listened to all our phone calls. They even had a name for that lunacy, they called it ECHELON.

Or, after ECHELON was disproven, the nutters continued to insist that the gov't was spying on citizens. Crazy eh?

Sure, conspiracies are rare. But, you can't dismiss them with hand-waving, and, your comment is the prototypical hand-waving ad-hom comparing anyone who dares admit consideration of a conspiracy to Flat-Earthers. It's a cheap tactic.

None of your examples follow the three step process InclinedPlane outlined.

And yet, they are all best described as "conspiracy theories". The process that InclinedPlane outlined needs a better label.

Not really, no.

I know, isn't it so weird how we know whether or not things are true based on evidence?

Such a complicated world we live in.

When was ECHELON disproven?

It wasn't. The whole post is tongue-in-cheek.

You need to come up with a new name for your thought anti-pattern, because in English, "conspiracy theory" technically means a theory that there is a conspiracy, and there _are_ conspiracies. Some conspiracy theories turn out to be correct.

By trying to re-use a pre-existing word, you not only incense people who are alleging conspiracies, you prevent wider recognition of the idea you are fighting to have recognized.

The point being made here is that isn't what conspiracy theories are. Conspiracy theories are about shadowy unknown cabals who create secret plans and execute them. They're not necessarily wrong, just usually.

You're equating leaps of logic with conspiracy theories. For example, saying "crystal power cured my cancer" is a leap of logic.

Saying that there's probably a consortium of Big Pharma, government officials and diamond mining companies who create astroturf groups that are tasked with publicly ridiculing crystal power in the popular press is a conspiracy theory.

It's not stupid because it's a conspiracy theory, it's stupid because it's stupid.

Wondering if Michael Hastings, a muckraking journalist who was claiming to have new muck who also died under strange circumstances may have been murdered, that's speculation. Speculating that this was the result of a secret plan hatched by more than one person would be a conspiracy theory. All should be judged on their merits.

Putting the possibility that a journalist may have had his car bombed on the credibility scale with "troofers" and fake Moon landing people is bizarre, though. I'm pretty sure that a journalist somewhere got murdered today to make sure he/she didn't report on something. It happens all of the time.

"It's not stupid because it's a conspiracy theory, it's stupid because it's stupid."

I'd say that an "anti-crystal" conspiracy is stupid not because it is stupid (which is just a tautology) but rather because there is no actual evidence for it. In order to not be written off as a "crazy conspiracy theory", you are going to need more than weak circumstantial evidence on par with newspaper clippings haphazardly pinned to a wall with spiderwebs of red yard.

"Step 1: Characterize the 'official theory' of some event or phenomenon, often in an overly simplistic manner"

...

" the moon landing denialists ... point out that the shadows look unusual in Apollo footage. THEREFORE THE WHOLE THING WAS FAKED ON A SOUND STAGE ON EARTH"

Ironically you are exemplifying the "overly simplistic" characterization of theories. E.g., the Kennedy assassination conspiracy theorists don't rely exclusively on the "path of the bullet" thing, they also talk about many other aspects that cast doubt on the Warren Commission's explanation.

Part of the problem with the "conspiracy theory" label is that those who use it in a pejorative way tend to lump together different views, as if to imply that they're all equally irrational. E.g., the idea that the Queen of England is a lizard-creature in a human-like disguise is commonly dumped in the same category with criticisms of the "911 Report" - and the "911 truth" people are treated as if they all held to a common set of claims.

Of course no one would have time to address all the myriad ideas out there. But that's no excuse for dismissing any whole subset of them. The only intellectually honest way to proceed is to address specific propositions, and always give fair consideration to the strongest, most plausible version of any claims.

There's nothing new here as far as I can tell. This video has been out for a while, and some of the claims made in the article are unsupported.

Also, the woman in the interview has been wrong about several things regarding the case, so personally I'd take what she says with a grain of salt. See these threads over on the popular debunking forum Metabunk:

http://metabunk.org/threads/debunked-michael-hastings-crash-...

http://metabunk.org/threads/michael-hastings-death-brings-ab...

It's still a quite mysterious case, sure, but it leaves one to wonder why some nefarious actor would choose to kill the guy after he'd already been in contact with wikileaks(among others) for some time beforehand.

Relevant:

"Gaining wireless access to a car’s network is old news. A team of researchers at the University of Washington and the University of California, San Diego, experimenting on a sedan from an unnamed company in 2010, found that they could wirelessly penetrate the same critical systems Miller and Valasek targeted using the car’s OnStar-like cellular connection, Bluetooth bugs, a rogue Android app that synched with the car’s network from the driver’s smartphone or even a malicious audio file on a CD in the car’s stereo system. “Academics have shown you can get remote code execution,” says Valasek, using hacker jargon for the ability to start running commands on a system. “We showed you can do a lot of crazy things once you’re inside.” [1]

[1] - http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/07/24/hackers...

"...just hours before his death Hastings sent the following email to close friends: “Subject: FBI Investigation, re: NSA -Hey (redacted names) — the Feds are interviewing my “close friends and associates.” Perhaps if the authorities arrive “BuzzFeed GQ,” er HQ, may be wise to immediately request legal counsel before any conversations or interviews about our news gathering practices or related journalism issues. Also: I’m onto a big story, and need to go off the rada[r] for a bit.

Notice the symmetry/irony of:

"...The SURVEILLANCE VIDEO ...captures the final moments of Hastings life and provides intriguing details of the "crash....

We should hope ES and Glen Greenwald have this.

Please take Kimberly Dvorak's analysis with a grain of salt. Her previous analysis cited the engine being behind the crash instead of being thrown forward and then citing that as suspicious (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=4uj...) and her other article cited Hasting's body as being cremated without consent as the lede, a fact refuted by her source (https://twitter.com/Rambobiggs/status/357352728499978240).

The 911 calls aren't necessarily indicative of an explosive device as she seem to be implying. Just because it sounds like an explosion doesn't mean it's an explosion, especially to initial responders. Think about the difference between shots fired and fireworks. This witness saw the entire event and per his interview, it doesn't seem like foul play (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fweyFCFKcp0).

Michael Krikorian (aka, the source of this surveilance video) wrote an article about the whole thing and it tracks closer to the eyewitness's telling of events(http://krikorianwrites.com/blog/2013/7/16/x9pujjqlzq6bbc0kvd...).

One valuable insight Krikorian mentions in his article pertaining to the behavior of the recording device:

“That type of surveillance camera has auto exposure so it can change what it sees based by the ambient exposure day or night,” Anderson explained. “This camera is set at night and anything that happens very quickly, be it a flash light or a big ball of fire, the camera won’t react fast enough, so the first flash of light is going to appear much bigger in the viewing. So the initial explosion would always look bigger than it is.”

He suggested a simple demonstration using a cellphone video app: Strike a match in a dark room and it will flare up on camera much more than in reality.

Just because it sounds like an explosion doesn't mean it's an explosion, especially to initial responders.

True that. I live near a busy intersection and they closed one lane of a main road that's also a freeway feeder for most of last year while they were upgrading light rail tracks. There were a lot of accidents thanks to the combination of impatient drivers, fewer lanes, and temporary traffic lights in a different position from usual - about one major crash (ie with at least one car on its side) every 6-8 weeks, so I learned more than I wanted to about being first on the scene of an auto accident. A high speed impact makes a hell of a bang just by itself; it's a big, big uncontrolled release of kenetic energy even if there's no fire.

Here's the metadebunk article....

http://metabunk.org/threads/debunked-michael-hastings-crash-...

1000lb Engine sure knows how to fly. Any physics majors here?

If someone in the government wanted to be rid of Hastings wouldn't it be far simpler to have him "just disappear"? You could always claim you didn't know where he was and there's nothing to investigate. Since he claimed to be going underground for a while, no one would even start asking soon enough to gather evidence.

So I'm skeptical of this crash being an assassination simply because it's one of the harder ways to pull it off and it's inviting investigation. This crash being a way for Hastings to disappear would be much more plausible.

This is exactly the sort of analysis that conspiracy theorists often never do.

"Drones the size of 747's and several tons of thermite"? Why not just actually hijack a plane?

"More reliable backup shooter on the grassy knoll"? Why not just put that shooter in the book depository in the first place?

"Pacifying the masses by systematically poisoning the air with 'chemtrails' and the water with fluorine"? Why not just reality television, and cushy lives?

Most of us here are software engineers and are used to analyzing a problem and finding the least complicated method of achieving a goal to solve that problem. Yet conspiracy theorists seem to think that no one else in the world solves problems. I think your examples above are perfectly reasonable "easier" solutions.

Hastings' "own baggage as a recovering drunk/addict/screw-up"[1] is free cover for late night car crash to not be properly investigated.

[1] http://trueslant.com/michaelhastings/2009/04/28/a-case-of-th...

It depends on whether people would talk more, and more inquisitively, about "disappear" as compared with talking about a "car crash" one. It also depends on the relative practical difficulties in orchestrating the two kinds of hits. Making a paranoid journalist vanish might be tricky, since they'd presumably be pretty cautious about meeting shady characters in out-of-the-way locations.

I suspect an orchestrated car crash, which provides lots of possible counter-conspiracy narrative bits to grab on to, and for which the practicalities might have been thoroughly worked out ahead of time, could be an attractive approach for eliminating a domestic "threat to national security".

HN just wouldn't be the same without a conspiracy theory on the front page.

What conspiracy? The US Government has the authority to assassinate US citizens.

I don't see how speculation about the circumstances of Hastings death need involve much of a conspiracy theory. It's not like we're talking about JFK here.

His life was directly threatened over and over again due to his previous writings; and it was threatened by someone close to McChrystal.

The circumstances of the crash are perfectly consistent with it being an accident, and every single article I've seen that says otherwise checks off every box of the Conspiracy Theorist Checklist (or it would if such a thing existed).

I'm going to need something more than "the USG could have assassinated him". Because even in the current climate, even with the threats, an accident is still the best explanation until shown otherwise. And none of the articles have come anywhere close to showing otherwise.

I didn't say the USG did assassinate him. I said they have the authority to.

What I have said however, is that Hastings was threatened with death repeatedly for his writings. I wouldn't find it the least bit surprising if someone did make an attempt on his life.

Indeed, I don't think the USG would bother with an official assassination of someone like Hastings. There are plenty of dark characters available for that type of simplistic grunt work. For example, the guy associated with McChrystal that directly threatened to murder Hastings.

You asked me, what conspiracy? And the answer is, the conspiracy theory that this crash was an assassination by the US government.

You may not find it surprising if someone attempted to kill him. I may not find it surprising either, I don't know. But what I do know is that nothing revealed about this particular case so far points toward an assassination, and all of the articles about it posted on HN have approached the crash with a conspiracy mindset, where they twist fairly mundane facts to try to support the idea that it was, in fact, an assassination.

When did suspicion become a conspiracy theory?

When you support that suspicion with wild interpretations of mundane facts, as every linked article on the subject that I have read so far has done.

A "nit" ...

the US Government "claims" to have the authority to assassinate US citizens.

My view of the Constitution says the US Gov't does NOT have the authority to execute someone without a trial.

I prefer your interpretation. Better: they have the extraconstitutional ability to execute someone without trial.

I think its important to say what is actually being claimed. In the case of al-Awaki(Aulaqi) their claim is:

"Such considerations allow for the use of lethal force in a foreign country against a U.S. citizen who is a senior operational leader of al'Qaida or its associated forces, and who is actively engaged in planning to kill Americans, in the following circumstances: (1) the U.S. government has determined, after a thorough and careful review, that the individual poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States; (2) capture is not feasible; and (3) the operation would be conducted in a manner consistent with applicable law of war principles."

With regard to the other three citizens that have been killed in a drone strike, their claim is that these individuals were not specifically targeted and were collateral damage.

The document (http://www.justice.gov/slideshow/AG-letter-5-22-13.pdf) does place emphasis on foreign country. So while not making any value judgement on the policy, I think its useful to see it in full, as currently understood.

One interesting corollary to look at is the Civil War, where U.S. citizens took up arms against their government and were killed by the government, where no declaration of war took place.

This is gotten tangential, but all I'm saying is current claims the U.S. has made do not seem to extend to extra-judicial killing of targets not engaged in active warfare on U.S. soil.

Edited: to add quotation marks.

So if there was one American serving in the Wehrmacht, or the Kriegsmarine, or the Luftwaffe during WWII, the U.S. government's military would have had no authority to shoot back at him without a trial first?

False context. The discussion is around domestic assassination (specifically of an unarmed journalist), not world war or war on a battlefield. Radically different concepts historically both from a legal and constitutional stand point. Your example couldn't be further away from the issue of assassinating an unarmed, non-threatening US citizen (whether domestic or overseas).

Wait, who are we talking about now? You can't seriously mean that al-Awlaki is "an unarmed journalist"?

LIBOR manipulation, PRISM, FBI deliverately poisoning alcohol during Prohibition Tuskegee Syphilis Study

all believed to be just "crazy conspiracy theories" and now proven to be the case.

In the case of LIBOR, anywhere from a few hundred to a couple thousand people kept the secret of the manipulation for about 10 years - it only came to light due to a slightly-related investigation of one of the banks involved.

They laughed at Einstein, but they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

Maybe this crash was an assassination. But if you want to not be called a conspiracy nut, you need evidence to back it up. So far there is none.

Without evidence, there's no way to distinguish between something like LIBOR and the idea that Apollo 11 was filmed on a Hollywood sound stage.

So far, every single article on this guy's crash has been of the fake moon landing genre, not the LIBOR genre.

Maybe it happened. But as long as people keep posting conspiracy theories about it, I'm going to keep calling them exactly that.

I'm getting a lot of replies that are confused as to just what a conspiracy theory is, so I thought it would be worth following up to elaborate on that.

People seem to think that a conspiracy theory is about what is being theorized. The moon landing was faked. 9/11 was an inside job. The NSA is recording every American phone call.

But that's not it at all. It's not about what you theorize, it's about how. A sane and considered theory that leads to a crazy-seeming conclusion is not a conspiracy. Similarly, an insane theory that leads to a correct conclusion is still a conspiracy theory.

Some examples. Saying that the moon landing was faked because the flag was "fluttering" and there are no stars in the photographs is a conspiracy theory. Saying that the moon landing may have been faked because, say, you managed to get ahold of a secret memo from JFK discussing the possibility of faking it, would not be a conspiracy theory.

Similarly, saying that the NSA is spying on everybody because of the testimony and documentation provided by a whistleblower is not a conspiracy theory. However, saying that the NSA is spying on everybody because all the numbers in your e-mail header add up to 666 is a conspiracy theory.

What it comes down to is how you interpret the evidence. If you interpret it sanely, then it's not a conspiracy theory. If you twist mundane things to build narratives that are not justified by the evidence, then it's a conspiracy theory.

That is what's happening with this story. Is it possible that this person was assassinated by the US government? Sure. Is that theory supported by the evidence discussed by this article and other similar articles posted to HN over the past few weeks? Not even a little bit. And that, not the supposed outlandishness of the conclusion, is what makes this a "conspiracy theory" that is not worth paying attention to and frankly not worth making it to the front page of HN.

If an article on this matter shows up that sanely analyzes the evidence and comes up with the conclusion that it was probably an assassination, I'd love to see it on the front page. So far, this has not appeared.

To say that this is extremely suspicious is an understatement. I'll be very interested to see what comes of this. If it comes out that someone carried out a hit on a fairly renowned journalist in order to cover up some dirty laundry, there will be hell to pay.

I would like to see how the White House press office would have responded if this had happened in Russia to a journalist critical of Putin, hours after he said he thought he was being followed by the KGB.

Doesn't this vehicle have a black box. Where is it? The black box might reveal if the vehicle was hacked.

It is with the government, and requests were made asking it to hand it over, the requests were ignored.

Is it really a surprise to anybody that this "loose end" was "tied up"?

Huge fucking surprise... This is fucking tragic. It shouldn't be happening in this damn country.

The US is becoming more like the USSR or East Germany every day.

edit: Dangerously going in that direction. I realize things are still way, way, way better.

A statement without any supporting evidence...

NSA's spy network, indefinite detention without a trial, considering anybody who reveals details of questionable government actions an enemy of the state, encouraging citizen spying and be on the lookout for "suspicious behavior", courts recently saying journalists have zero right to protect a source's anonymity, and having machines patrol the skies "for our safety" are among a few issues that kind of align us with the USSR's widespread spying. Our system is probably even more refined since most people still deny it, while it was well known in Soviet states.

Plus the fact that corporations and government are merging (especially in telecom, and if the trends continue, finance). That is _literally_ the Nazi model.

Yes.

It's a surprise there's a video of it.

When is the last time the US government was so much as credibly suspected of assasinating absolutely anyone - journalist or otherwise - on American soil?

You guys had me scared that something big was happening in San Diego until the name clicked.

I think it was the Mayflowers that were really behind it.

"But the most significant missing evidence was the absence of any skid marks—even though the car made a 60-degree turn into a palm tree.

Research of this topic reveals a new angle to this story, namely —Boston Brakes.

This theory was explained by a former Marine Gordon Duff who refers to the “Boston Brakes” technique, in which “drive by wire” cars, specifically a Mercedes Benz, can be manipulated remotely to simulate an out-of-control accident, according to his Veterans Today story (The 2010 story is a must read). The story details are eerily similar to Hastings fiery accident scene as there were no skid marks.

Adding credence to the possible car-hacking scenario is former U.S. National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism Richard Clarke. After news broke on the Hastings car accident, he confirmed the “drive by wire” concept.

Clarke told The Huffington Post that a single-vehicle crash is “consistent with a car cyber attack. There is reason to believe that intelligence agencies for major powers — including the United States — know how to remotely seize control of a car.”

Another significant detail pointed out by some members of law enforcement, is the intensity of the fire inside the car. It’s highly unusual since gasoline generally doesn’t burn that hot. Reviewing video footage from the scene, the intensity of the fire resembles a “thermite” burn.

Despite the LAPD’s categorization of the Hasting fatal accident as a “no (evidence of) foul play” accident, LAPD refuses to release the accident and toxicology reports, or make the Mercedes available for inspection which only fuels speculation.

LAPD on the case as usual."

from this: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-07-09/elusive-details-mic...

maybe he was onto the story that broke over the weekend about the DEA spying on people:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2013/08/05/more-survei...

What does the LAPD have to gain by denying all requests for information by the reporter? Seems suspicious imo.

Knowing nothing about the department, maybe just because they don't give statements on things they're investigating unless they're looking for the public's help.

It seems suspicious if you're inclined to find it so.

Lots of good reasons to deny requests such as not poisoning a potential jury pool in case charges might be made against someone. But, "because some Fed told us not to" is probably good enough too.

What would cause a car to blow up 3 times in such a short period of time? If there were any kind of explosive, they would probably know immediately.

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