New information emerges on anti-WikiLeaks plot

Justin Elliott writes for Salon:

Here's an update on the unfolding story of the trio of technology firms that hatched a plan to attack WikiLeaks and their supporters in the press -- including Salon's Glenn Greenwald. The plan was apparently prepared at the behest of Hunton and Williams, a large law firm working for Bank of America, which is worried because it is reportedly the subject of a future WikiLeaks document release.

The plan (.pdf) was outlined in a slideshow prepared by the three security firms; it was obtained and released online by the group of pro-WikiLeaks hackers known as Anonymous. One of the three firms, Palantir Technologies, just announced that it has put an engineer who was involved in the project on leave "pending a thorough review of his actions." 

When this story broke last week, Palantir was quick to deny any involvement in the anti-WikiLeaks plan and to sever ties with one of the partner firms, HBGary, that had masterminded the plan. One of several provocative items in the plan said that Greenwald's public support for WikiLeaks needed "to be disrupted."

Here's where a new wrinkle in the story comes into play. Anonymous has now published a new batch of thousands emails hacked from executives at HBGary. And the emails appear to contradict Palantir's claim that it had nothing to do with developing the anti-WikiLeaks plan.

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