Pentagon Contractor Admits to Online Attacks on Journalists [View all]

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Pentagon Contractor Admits to Online Attacks on Journalists
By Lindsey Kratochwill


In a press release Thursday, Camille Chidiac, former president and current minority owner of Leonie Industries admitted that he was behind the orchestrated smear attacks on two USA Today journalists.

Leonie has received $120 million in Pentagon contracts since 2009. Chidiac claims that none of that $120 million made its way into paying for the Internet misdeeds, in which fake Facebook and Twitter accounts were created for the two writers in an apparent attempt to discredit them. Use of Pentagon funds might have constituted a violation of the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, which regulates the dissemination of propaganda domestically.

No such restrictions exist for propagandizing overseas, however, and Leonie is one of the chief producers of "information crafting" services for the Pentagon. The smear campaign began in February, when writers Tom Vanden Brook and editor Ray Locker began reporting a USA Today series examining oversight and efficiency (or lack there of) associated with funds given to the Pentagon's information operations sector. The series criticized the "poorly tracked marketing and propaganda campaigns" in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries, on which $580 million was spent in 2009.

Vanden Brook began noticing the false web presence soon after he interviewed Chidiac about Leonie. New York Magazine reports that the websites, RayLocker.com and TomVandenBrook.com were created during the reporting process. The websites were bought along with a proxy to conceal the identity of the owner. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/ittlist/entry/13262/former_president_of_pentagon_contractor_leonie_admits_to_online_attacks_on_/