Former CBS News investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson is once again opening up about the much-discussed intrusion into her computer last year. And once again, she continues to be vague when it comes to the possible hacking suspects.
In a video posted earlier this month to promote her forthcoming book, Attkisson recounted what sounds like a scene befitting of Hollywood.
She said that while working from home on a “Benghazi-related story” — one she said “the Obama administration was unhappy with” — “the data started wiping kind of at hyper-speed being deleted, as if my computer had been hijacked and I had no control over it.”
The mysterious incident first came to light in May 2013, when Attkisson, still with CBS at the time, told radio host Chris Stigall that both her home and work computers had been “compromised” multiple times in the last two years. A month later, CBS said that a private security firm had determined that her “computer was accessed by an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions late in 2012.”
Attkisson speculated at the time that the intrusion might be linked to the government’s surveillance of Fox News reporter James Rosen. She also said that she had a hunch who was behind the intrusion. CBS, meanwhile, simply said it was “taking steps to identify the responsible party and their method of access.”
The mystery has persisted since then, even as Attkisson has spoken more about it publicly following her resignation from CBS earlier this year. She told Fox News media critic Howard Kurtz in April that there were “a number of investigations going on right now,” but she demurred when asked if she thought the “NSA or some outside organization” was responsible.
“I’m still at the point where I’m letting my lawyer only speak to this, and he’s not ready to speak to it yet,” Attkisson told Kurtz. “But I do think there will be more information about this before the end of the year.”
Attkisson was similarly evasive in the promotional video for her book “Stonewalled,” which is set to be released on Nov. 4 and promises to tell the story of how she “has been electronically surveilled while digging deep into the Obama Administration and its scandals.”
She said in the video that computer experts told her the intrusion was “purely an attempt to let me know that they could do that and that they were watching and that they were in my computer.”
So who are “they”? Attkission didn’t say, though she did claim to be one of their biggest targets.
“So I think in general I’m just one of the reporters top on the list of those that they watch and that they disagree with and that they fight,” she said at the conclusion of the video.
The clip did yield one noteworthy detail: Attkisson said she managed to “get a tilted picture of a little bit of the data being deleted” with her phone.
Damn, this is like a bad case of herpes. Just keeps coming back. Will someone please get her into some treatment. There are good drugs for treating paranoia.
Wasn’t this the plot of Sandra Bullock’s 1995 movie ‘The Net’?
OMFG, that’s too sad to be as hilarious as it ought to be.
likely the cia… afterall benghazi was their operation. and they are known to infiltrate offices (senate committees as an example) to spy on their investigations.
BTW, I googled the phrase “computer was accessed by an unauthorized, external, unknown party” and every RW website out there is screaming about this.
Too funny and too predictable.