Former CBS investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson gave Politico a video she says shows her computer being hacked by the government before her eyes. Attkisson was hacked in 2012, although the details of the hacking are still unclear and the video could merely be a computer malfunction.
In the video, a cursor moves around an open Word document deleting and highlighting things, while Attkisson cuts to the keyboard and says she’s not touching it.
In 2013, CBS confirmed that Attkisson’s computer was “accessed by an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions in late 2012.” This occurred while she was reporting on Benghazi, her interest in which would eventually lead to her resignation from CBS after they reportedly killed some of her stories.
Attkisson writes about the hacking in detail in her new book, “Stonewalled,” to be released November 4. In the book, she claims a security firm found “ an undeniable link to the U.S. government” in her computer, but when the Washington Post reached out to confirm, the security company said they were bound by a confidentiality agreement.
The government hacking a journalist’s computer would not be a huge surprise: in 2009 the Justice Department tracked Fox News reporter James Rosen, and looked into his personal emails while investigating a leak.
But the details Attkisson describes are shedding some doubt on her claims: she puts her computer making a noise–“Reeeeeeeeeee”—and the events in the video down as evidence of her hacking. Several media reports have expressed skepticism that the video demonstrates anything more than a computer glitch, and have wondered why the government would clumsily fiddle around with her computer while she was watching rather than simply delete the files or do something more difficult to catch.
Yet, as even the dubious Vox pointed out, the government is certainly prone to make absurd mistakes.
Watch the video for yourself below:
