Hackers Reveal Donors to Kyle Rittenhouse Defense Fund, Media Starts Knocking on Donors’ Doors
The donations were treated as though they were a criminal offense. ABC4 reporter Jason Nguyen stated of one donor that “the point here is that he shouldn’t have used his government email. He can donate, just like you or I to anyone he wants privately. “
Late last week, the Guardian published data given to journalists by the hacker group Distributed Denial of Secrets which, among other things, revealed the donor information of those who have contributed to the Kyle Rittenhouse defense fund.
Referring to the hackers as a “transparency group,” the Guardian reported the donor list included first responders and public officials. Some of them used their work email addresses to make their donations:
Among the donors were several associated with email addresses traceable to police and other public officials.
One donation for $25, made on 3 September last year, was made anonymously, but associated with the official email address for Sgt William Kelly, who currently serves as the executive officer of internal affairs in the Norfolk police department in Virginia.
That donation also carried a comment, reading: “God bless. Thank you for your courage. Keep your head up. You’ve done nothing wrong.”
The comment continued: “Every rank and file police officer supports you. Don’t be discouraged by actions of the political class of law enforcement leadership.”
Another Rittenhouse donor using an official email address was Craig Shepherd, who public records show is a paramedic in Utah. This donor gave $10 to Rittenhouse on 30 August.
Mainstream media outlets here in the states could have sat on the data to protect the privacy and safety of the donors and their families. But, of course, they didn’t.
ABC4 Utah investigative reporter Jason Nguyen was really proud of his “report” trying to track down the paramedic who donated $10 last summer to Rittenhouse’s defense fund. In a since-deleted tweet promoting his story, he talked about how he merely wanted paramedic Craig Shepherd’s “side of things”:
deleted, but the List comes for all, @FollowWIN.
✍🏼✍🏼✍🏼 pic.twitter.com/qCRmy6yZkr
— Siraj Hashmi (@SirajAHashmi) April 20, 2021
Watch the video below of Nguyen trying to track down Shepherd. Also, note how Nguyen’s Karening of Shepherd prompted the West Valley City fire department, his employer, to issue a statement pointing out that they were conducting an “investigation into this matter”:
Twitter ripped Nguyen to shreds for essentially performing a “name and shame” piece on Shepherd. Numerous Twitter users addressed their complaints to Nguyen directly and said they’d express their disgust directly to ABC4. That led to this exchange:
@FollowWIN wth is wrong with you? So@now we are confronting people for making a donation?! This was terrible journalism, let’s see now what your bosses have to say.
— Adam Brewer 🇺🇸 (@altruisticgerms) April 18, 2021
Nguyen tried to defend himself by saying that Shepherd’s supposed offense was that he used his work email when he made his $10 donation:
The point here is that he shouldn’t have used his government email. He can donate, just like you or I to anyone he wants privately. I appreciate you reaching out to let me know your thoughts.
— Jason Nguyen (@FollowWIN) April 18, 2021
Then he really stepped in it by comparing Shepherd to accused criminals:
Me going to his house is to get his side of the story. I do the same thing to those who have crimes alleged against them, that goes for both sides of the law. It’s so we make every attempt to get the otherwise so that we are balanced, and that there is video proof of it.
— Jason Nguyen (@FollowWIN) April 18, 2021
Nguyen’s hit piece on Shepherd was bad enough, but it was far from the only one done in response to the Guardian article.
13News Now, a Norfolk-based news outlet, framed their story on Norfolk police department internal affairs executive officer Sgt. William Kelly’s $25 donation with a graphic reading “Officer Accused,” as though Kelly had committed some grave offense.
They quoted Norfolk Mayor Kenny Alexander saying in a statement that he was “alarmed” by the report of Kelly’s donation and that it was “by all means not consistent with the values of our city or the standards set for our employees.” Alexander did not elaborate on what “values and standards” Kelly had allegedly violated with his donation. Kelly has been reassigned while the investigation is ongoing:
The media’s typical defense when they get criticized for reporting stories like these line up with Nguyen’s. They’re just trying to get “all sides” of a story in the interest of informing the public.
Considering the framing of both of these stories, the real issue here likely isn’t that these people used their work emails when donating. The “issue” is that they donated – period.
In running with the hacked information, the Guardian and news outlets here in America played right into the hands of the radicals at Distributed Denial of Secrets, Antifa, BLM, and other like-minded leftist groups who only believe in due process when it’s one of their own who stands accused.
These types of accusatory reports will have the chilling effect of making people think twice about donating to defense funds, especially when those defense funds are in support of anyone who stands accused of the assault or killing of a member of the so-called “Resistance.”
We live in dangerous times. We see reporters knock on the doors of people who have contributed to legal defense funds. Other media outlets argue against defendants being allowed to use online crowdfunding sites to raise money to pay for their legal fees.
Because liberal bias and woke dogma are so pervasive in newsrooms across the country, unfortunately, this type of “reporting” is only going to get worse.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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Comments
Privacy means nothing today.
I have to wonder if this hack could be tracked back to the NSA?
Or FBI or CIA or some government contractors.
Privacy means the difference between life, lust, abortion, and profit.
I’m so old I remember when America was so panicked about the rise of “cyber crime” that they made it a federal offense to invade other people’s computer systems without authorization… because it was our responsibility to give our stalwart boys in blue “the tools they needed to do their jobs.”
Now sit back and watch as the FBI does their jobs, in 3… 2…
I really, REALLY want to see something unpleasant happen to a member of the press when something like this happens. This is not to mention damage to station vehicles and equipment.
that is the only way to put a stop to it
They seem to think that because we don’t doxx, we can’t. Nguyen did this gladly, and is an accomplice in the suppression of speech and thought in the U.S.
The left is turning us into China with the help of Beijing Biden and his flying monkey, Fauxi. (this spelling deliberate)
If you don’t want irate strangers with questionable mental states showing up at YOUR house “to have a conversation” you probably shouldn’t show up at other people’s houses to do this.
This puts me in mind of the Veritas report from a couple years ago on a Democrat campaign director who proudly admitted he hired deranged homeless people to attend Trump rallies and cause incidents. I wonder if they could be trained to be “door-to-door pollsters” in Jason Nguyen’s neighborhood. Offer them $300, but only if they can get Nguyen to fill out the entire six-page poll form.
So does Nguyen know that using his work email to send a donation was a violation of anything? He says the guy shouldn’t have done it, but he doesn’t cite a code section. Apparently it’s his personal morality or political opinion here.
We shouldn’t have to put up with that. Nguyen should be fired by his employer, because what he did definitely was wrong.
Nah, it’s a general rule. You never use your employer’s resources for personal business. I’m old enough to remember when it was frowned upon to use your desk phone to call home.
An email address is not a “resource”. It doesn’t cost the employer anything when you use it on a form.
Depends, I agree to an extent but if there is a pattern of behaviour ie the employee is spending all there time at work doing non work related activities then sure that costs money in lost productivity time. Of course there is a balance, a personal email here and there is all good in my view.
Who says he made the donation while at work? How on earth could anyone know that?
@Milhouse, that’s a fair point. I don’t know if he did or did not? In terms of finding out the email would normally be time stamped; wouldn’t be too difficult to determine I would have thought but I’m no expert on that.
However, spending work time to write and send it DOES. Thus the policy.
Where did you get the idea that he wrote and sent it while at work, let alone that he used work time to do so?
And what policy? Where did you get the idea that the department has any policy against using one’s work email address for private purposes? Did anyone at the department say so? If so I don’t believe them.
Check. Money order. Envelope. Address. Send.
I know, it’s old-fashioned. However, the digital fundraiser is a very risky proposition nowadays.
It’s not just risky; your email address gets peddled to many sucker lists.
I have two hosting services, both of which can handle large numbers of unique incoming emails specific to vendor. When an email address is compromised, I just shut down forwarding.
That does not protect identity, but it does cut off their ability to contact me.
Left over gift card balance, leftest media reporter’s work email address. Problem solved. Of course you don’t get the confirmation for the donation but that’s just the cost of doing business in today’s world.
‘Reporter’ is being disingenuous. IOW, he’s a liar. He’s a political activist and he’d dox no matter where the email came from.
Social justice for progress: one step forward, two steps backward, wouldn’t you? #HateLovesAbortion
The reporter says he “wants to get his side of the story.” What? Using a government email address for a one-time unauthorized purpose is newsworthy? Must have been a slow news day. He’s a lying dog-faced pony soldier.
I personally welcome someone coming to knock on my door with their B.S. I will not be kind
Great Maker, and this is why I tell people to establish throw away email addresses with bogus personal information that cannot be traced back to you in any manner. Just make it all up and use it for donations and other purposes you don’t want to be traced back too. Yeah, in most cases that’s a violation of the email’s TOS but that’s only a problem if you’re caught.
This feels like the kind of story that should include details like the home address of the reporter and his personal phone line.
And, using their methods, names of children and spouse, schools, workplaces…
Grizzly,
Not suggesting it but…lots of public data out there: phone number, property tax records, ECT. One leads to another.
From property tax comes address which relates to school zones. Folks can figure out where your kids attend school. The school FB page shows events so they can figure out your kid is on the soccer team and has a match at x park on y date.
Lots more examples exist. Digital breadcrumbs from public data can lead to some very scary situations.
You are nasty! May I buy you a cuppa?
I’ll take a cup of tea. This example was one I used while trying to educate Soldiers and their Spouses about the dangers of social media.
The public ‘official’ records combined with social media content leave most folks way more vulnerable than they believe.
We had this exact scenario from some Westboro Baptist whacko. He took publicly available data and posted photos of kids with other screenshots from FB accounts and created a poster with the various data which showed that he knew where these kids lived, want to school, what their activities were, what their after school routine was, who their parents were and that Dad was deployed.
He didn’t make a threat or any statement beyond the poster. He simply made it clear that he scooped up the publicly available data and connected the dots.
Sent this crap to FB accounts of family of Deployed Soldiers. No threat no charges. Plus he used a BS registration and a VPN to impair tracking.
This was 2004 and most people have become a bit more security conscious since then. But not all.
Acquaintances and incidental relations, too.
50 shades of White Hispanic… Hispanic of White.
This may be a first for me: I *literally* got chills from that video, chills of fear and dread. The separation between Venn diagrams is now too large to bridge. I am speechless.
Scum, plain and simple scum
Hackers, maybe. It’s more likely another em-pathetic black hater (sic) of Google, Yahoo, Capital One infamy.
I’m continually baffled by people who use their work, private sector or government, email to do personal things like donate to a defense fund.
I of course have no problem with the donation. It’s legal. It’s his right. He just needs to be smarter about it. Use a private email.
It’s clear this reporter was looking to make trouble for this man. All this over $10? That reporter should have been fired by station management.
This was a warning to the Chauvin jury.
No, it wasn’t. The Chauvin jury was already sequestered and had no way to hear about it. For that matter, even most people at home haven’t heard about it.
Regardless, Joe’s statements are cause for an Appeal. Right after about six other things.
This is just another example of the failures of the 1965 Immigration Act. Worst piece of legislation in US history. Absolutely WORST. We’re VOLUNTARILY importing our destruction.
Huh? What has the immigration act got to do with this story?
For anyone that works in government, Open Payrolls has their name, job title, salary, etc. As such, people who work for law enforcement like me have to be very careful and donate anonymously if at all. Names can be cross-referenced easily, not counting social media.
This will continue until “reporters” and employees of the media are doxxed allowing citizen reporters to visit their homes to get “their side of the story”.
Just remember, any donation to the “wrong” politician provides a public record for this kind of harassment. Thanks, FEC!
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/megan-fox/2019/10/20/racist-watch-website-demonizes-trump-supporters-but-it-has-an-upside-n69823#comments
Totalitarianism arrives in 21-st century American, not forced upon us by a foreign power, but, by the vile, goose-stepping Dhimmi-crats who live among us.