Well, it looks like Sharyl Atkisson has gone full metal nutjob. Perhaps it's the company she keeps, these days? Heeding the Marketing 101 rule "know your audience," Atkisson is busy hyping her book -- Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington” [catchy title]-- to talk-radio conspiracy fans.
On Thursday, Atkisson sat down with Rick Wiles of Trunews which bills itself as "the only nightly newscast reporting the countdown to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ."
Atkisson and Wiles are a perfect fit. Atkisson's tale of persecution at the hands of the tyrannical Obama administration dovetails nicely with Wiles stated belief that Barack Obama is the "Antichrist" and a "stealth jihadist" who is planning a 9/11 terrorist style attack on American schools.
Furthermore, Atkisson agrees with Wiles [rather inarticulately for a major league news figure, I might add] that America is trending toward a "full-blown totalitarian dictatorship."
More below . . .
In keeping with that theme, Atkisson's book details the ways in which totalitarian dictators mess with your life. It all started while she was working on a blockbuster story on Benghazi! in 2012.
At that time, a coworker warned Atkisson:
I’ve been reading your reports online about Benghazi. It’s pretty incredible. Keep at it. But you’d better watch out.
That's when Atkisson's work and personal computers were "hacked."
As Erik Wemple reported in The Washington Post, a few days ago:
“[B]y November 2012,” she writes, “there are so many disruptions on my home phone line, I often can’t use it. I call home from my mobile phone and it rings on my end, but not at the house.” More devices on the fritz at Attkisson Central: “My television is misbehaving. It spontaneously jitters, mutes, and freeze-frames,” she writes, noting that the computers, TVs and phone all use Verizon’s FiOS service. At one point, “Jeff” inspects the back of Attkisson’s house and finds a “stray cable” attached to her FiOS box. That cable, he explains, could be used to download data.
At that point, Atkisson meets with the mysterious "Number One" a "confidential source inside the government" who confirms her suspicions that this is all "worse than Watergate" and that the attacks on her computer are coming from a "sophisticated entity that used commercial, nonattributable (sic) spyware that’s proprietary to a government agency: either the CIA, FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency, or the National Security Agency (NSA).” Not to mention the fact that a few "classified" docs had been planted deep into her file system where she could never find them. The reason? to frame her of course. And throw her into a FEMA camp, probably.
Certainly this breathless tale of true-life espionage is going to sell like hotcakes at a firehouse breakfast, right? She's certainly getting lots of pre-release hype from outfits like Breitbart.com, Glenn Beck's Blaze, Politico and Fox News about how badly Lamestream CBS is "smearing" poor Sharyl for pursuing her Benghazi story.
In fairness to CBS, Politico reports that:
CBS News executives see Attkisson wading dangerously close to advocacy on the issue [Benghazi]. Attkisson can't get some of her stories on the air, and is thus left feeling marginalized and underutilized.
But recent reports indicate that when the book is released [on election day, no less] it looks like there might possibly be a missing chapter, or two. See, in order to stoke book sales, Atkisson recently released video -- that she shot, herself, with her phone -- of her computer going flooey.
BIG.MISTAKE.SHARYL.
Atkisson alleges that this video was shot while the cyberattack on her was taking place -- on December , 2012.
Meanwhile, Media Matters asked a few computer security experts to take a look at the video and, they say:
. . . that a video released by former CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson appears to show her computer "malfunction[ing]," likely due to a stuck backspace key, not being hacked by government agents as she had suggested.
Said computer security experts further stated that they were easily able to reproduce the computer behavior on the video, in their office, by "sticking" the backspace key on their own computer. One of them actually said that it wouldn't surprise him to find the government hacking a reporter's computer but that, if that were case, the hackers would undeniably be using a more sophisticated method of deleting files:
. . . the government would be able to access the files on her hard drive and manipulate and delete them without having to remote control her screen and keyboard while she is sitting at the keyboard.
And then there's this . . .
Atkisson had to have shot this particular video on, or after, September 16, 2013 not a year earlier when the "attack of the backspace key" was taking place. She really should have shut off her TV while she was shooting the video, because, like the hostage holding up today's newspaper as proof of life, Atkisson had a 2013 episode of Dancing With The Stars playing in the background.
Woops! good luck with the book, Sharyl