{"article":{"id":120537,"heading":"Gang Stalking","author":"Stephen DeVoy","created":"2004-12-28 04:48:15","modified":"2013-11-11 00:31:49","last_modified":"Mon, 11 Nov 2013 07:31:49","article":"

Gang\r\nStalking\r\n\r\n<\/span><\/b><\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

I recently had a major breakthrough regarding the\r\nharassment campaign directed against me.  <\/span>During\r\nthe Republican National Convention a defamatory article was published on NYC\r\nIndyMedia.  <\/span>It featured another of\r\nthe many doctored images that my harassers have produced. \r\n<\/span>When I read the article, I was very busy and archived it, not bothering\r\nto take a close look at it.  <\/span>Recently,\r\nI released\r\na book about the harassment I’ve experienced and when I was looking for\r\nexamples of their defamation, I came across the article and noticed something\r\nvery odd about the doctored photo.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

In the\r\ndoctored photo I am wearing glasses.  <\/span>I\r\nonly wear glasses when I’m reading.  <\/span>I\r\nam far sighted and do not need glasses for anything other than reading. \r\n<\/span>The glasses were not added to the image. \r\n<\/span>They are my glasses.  <\/span>In fact,\r\nthey are glasses I have not worn since I left my former employer Cycorp in 2002. \r\n<\/span>If you look carefully at the glasses you can see that they are magnifying\r\nmy face behind them.  <\/span>That is because\r\nI am far sighted.  <\/span>Convex lenses are\r\nused by farsighted people.  <\/span>I add\r\nthis last fact to stress that the glasses were not added to the image.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

In the image my face is significantly fatter than it is\r\nnow.  <\/span>Due to the impoverishment\r\nimposed upon me by the harassers, I have lost much weight since working at\r\nCycorp.  <\/span>The photo, therefore, is\r\naround three years old, which is when the harassment started.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

The photo features a design on the shirt that has been\r\nsuperimposed.  <\/span>Three years ago, no\r\none was wearing such T-shirts.  <\/span>They\r\ndid not exist.  <\/span>The hat has been\r\nadded to my head to make me look freakish.  <\/span>Interestingly,\r\nthe image file, as posted on NYC IndyMedia is called heswearingacooliehat.jpg. \r\n<\/span>The word “coolie” is racist and reflects upon the attitude of the\r\nperson that doctored the photo.  <\/span>My\r\nex-wife is Vietnamese and I take great offense at the use of the word\r\n“coolie” to describe a Vietnamese hat.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

If you look closely at my wrists in the photo, you will see\r\nthat my wrists are resting upon the arm rests of a chair. \r\n<\/span>If you look at my legs in the photo, you see that they’ve been altered\r\nto make it appear as if I’m standing, by leaning against something. \r\n<\/span>This photo was derived from a photo of me sitting in a chair, wearing my\r\nglasses.  <\/span>The chair is an office\r\nchair.  <\/span>Therefore, this is a doctored\r\nphoto of me as I turn to the right to glance at someone that has come into my\r\noffice to take a photo.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

The office chair is not any office chair. \r\n<\/span>It is the office chair of my office at Cycorp. \r\n<\/span>Only two photos were taken of me while employed at Cycorp. \r\n<\/span>The first photo was taken of me at a Halloween costume contest. \r\n<\/span>I was dressed as Fidel Castro in that photo. \r\n<\/span>Fidel Castro does not usually wear glasses and I did not wear glasses for\r\nthe photo dressed up as Fidel.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

The other picture was taken in my office without my\r\nconsent.  <\/span>Cyndy\r\nMatuszek, daughter of major league AI researchers David L. Matuszek and\r\nPaula Andre Matuszek, both friends of Douglas B. Lenat, president of Cycorp,\r\nreported to me at Cycorp as my deputy.  <\/span>I\r\nwas the director of the programming department at the time. \r\n<\/span>Cyndy burst into my office, asked me to turn around and snapped my photo\r\nwith a digital camera.  <\/span>I have a\r\npleasant expression on my face in the photo, not because I wish to have my photo\r\ntaken, but because I personally liked Cyndy very much. \r\n<\/span>I did everything I could to help her advance at Cycorp. \r\n<\/span>Unfortunately, I did not know at the time that Cyndy was engaged in a\r\ncampaign of harassment against me.  <\/span>Her\r\ngoal was to have me removed for Cycorp and then rise in the corporation.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

That photo was never published online before the defamatory\r\ndoctored version of it posted on NYC IndyMedia. \r\n<\/span>That photo belongs to Cyndy Matuszek.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

I have mentioned Josiah Hagen as one of the members of the\r\nharassment campaign.  <\/span>He is a member\r\nof the harassment campaign.  <\/span>I have\r\nno doubt about that.  <\/span>There is an\r\ninteresting connection between Cyndy Matuszek and Josiah Hagen that goes beyond\r\nsimply being coworkers at Cycorp.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

I was never impressed with Josiah Hagen’s abilities,\r\npersonality or character.  <\/span>In fact, I\r\ncaught him stealing at Cycorp.  <\/span>Nevertheless,\r\nCyndy came into my office one day and asked me if I’d be willing to add Josiah\r\nto my staff as a deputy too.  <\/span>She\r\nexplained that Josiah was depressed and could use a boost. \r\n<\/span>She said he expressed interest in the idea. \r\n<\/span>Against my better judgment, in an effort to cheer up Josiah, I added him\r\nas a deputy.  <\/span>I thought it might\r\nimprove his morale.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

Josiah quickly began working to undermine me. \r\n<\/span>He’d disrupt meetings.  <\/span>He\r\ninterfered with my desire to move an Islamic woman into a position of\r\nimportance.  <\/span>He came into my office\r\nto show me a copy of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a fake work used to\r\nsmear Jews.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

The harassment against me began online just after Cyndy\r\ntook the photo.  <\/span>Josiah attempted to\r\nget me to use his brother’s D.C. Registry, a forum that Josiah would later use\r\nto publish forged articles in my name and to defame me. \r\n<\/span>At that time, however, I did not realize that Josiah was one of the\r\nInternet stalkers harassing me.  <\/span>He\r\neven had the nerve to come into my office one day and ask if I ever read a book\r\nabout how to ruin someone’s life.  <\/span>I\r\nasked him why he’d ask me that.  <\/span>“I\r\ndon’t know,” he said, “it might be useful.”<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

Cyndy would often come into my office to discus my\r\nphilosophy of management.  <\/span>My\r\nmanagement philosophy is based on the theory of complex adaptive systems, it is\r\ndecentralized and anarchist in nature.  <\/span>Cyndy\r\nwould tell me that she thought my beliefs about anarchism were dangerous.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

One week, Cycorp was holding a class on Cyc, their product. \r\n<\/span>Cyndy told me that there was someone she just “had” to introduce me\r\nto.  <\/span>It was her mother, Paula Andre\r\nMatuszek.  <\/span>Paula Matuszek, in\r\nCycorp’s lunch room, immediately began questioning me about my political\r\nbeliefs and about my position on the Arab\/Israeli conflict. \r\n<\/span>I was very kind to her.  <\/span>I\r\nthought she was a charming person and so I was taken aback when she ended the\r\nconversation with the statement, “You are a very convincing and persuasive\r\nperson.  <\/span>That makes you dangerous. \r\n<\/span>Someone should stop you.”<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

I was astonished by this statement and wrote it off as the\r\nramblings of an old woman that perhaps had begun to lose it in her old age.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

Shortly thereafter the harassment increased and I was\r\nremoved from my job as explained in the article Cycorp: Corporatist COINTELPRO. \r\n<\/span>The process included a visit from the Defense Intelligence Agency.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

Over the past three years of harassment, I have been\r\nsubject to ritual defamation, libel, slander and all kinds of threats, including\r\nthreats against my daughter and wife.  <\/span>I\r\nhave proved the connection between the harassment and various law enforcement\r\nagencies.  <\/span>The harassers have\r\nacknowledged the involvement of law enforcement agencies, and so this is not\r\nsome meandering path away from my previous assertions, this is a refinement of\r\nthem.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

There is an important observation to make here. \r\n<\/span>Douglas Lenat, Paula Andre Matuszek and David L. Matuszek are all part of\r\na much larger mutual admiration society, the old guard of artificial\r\nintelligence, who, in my personal opinion, have elevated themselves to a\r\nposition of importance based more on their public statements of mutual praise\r\nthan on anything they have accomplished.  <\/span>If\r\nthree AI researchers are involved in the harassment, then may it not be the case\r\nthat more are involved?  <\/span>This is not,\r\nas you will see, an unjustified inference.  <\/span>There\r\nis great reason to suspect this based on evidence.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

Looking at the character of the defamation, I began to\r\nthink back to my first experience working with another member of this mutual\r\nadmiration society.  <\/span>Much earlier in\r\nmy life, I worked for Ascent\r\nTechnology, a firm in \r\n\r\nCambridge\r\n, \r\nMassachusetts\r\n\r\n famous for its connection to Patrick Henry Winston, another member of the\r\nmutual admiration society and his wife, Karen Prendergas, president of the\r\ncorporation.  <\/span>Working for Ascent was\r\na nightmare.  <\/span>Let me explain why.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

Ritual defamation was common at Ascent. \r\n<\/span>The primary leader of this defamation was Karen Prendergas. \r\n<\/span>This defamation was aimed at many different individuals of whom I am but\r\none.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

When I began working for Ascent, I heard daily tales about\r\na previous employee, a man with the nickname “Saz”, who is responsible for\r\ncoming up with the name Ascent (a major contribution to the history of the\r\ncorporation, one for which you think they would be thankful).  <\/span>Saz\r\nwas not well liked by Karen, but he did not know it. \r\n<\/span>In fact, he would come back to visit frequently, thinking he was liked. \r\n<\/span>As soon as he left, Karen would go into an angry session about how his\r\nvisits were a waste of their time.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

Many stories were told about Saz. \r\n<\/span>All of the worst originated with Karen or Patrick. \r\n<\/span>Jan, another worker at Ascent, famous for her overuse of the word “Pongo”\r\nas an insult, recounted to me a story about what Patrick Henry Winston had said\r\nabout a term paper by Saz.  <\/span>I will\r\nnot recount the remarks, though I could, but what is significant about this is\r\nthat, to the best of my understanding, what goes on between a student and his or\r\nher professor, regarding education, is protected by law from public release. \r\n<\/span>Yet, Jan knew all about Patrick Henry Winston’s true thoughts about\r\nSaz’s paper.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

During a group lunch, one day at Ascent, Karen Prendergas\r\nbrought up a horrendous story, which I may add is a classic case of ritual\r\ndefamation, about Saz.  <\/span>The most\r\ndisturbing thing about this story is that the most important part of it is based\r\non her IMAGINATION and not on reality.  <\/span>Yet,\r\nher IMAGINATION was used to fatally smear him.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

According to Karen, she came to Ascent during off hours,\r\nunannounced.  <\/span>It was common for\r\nworkers at Ascent to work all night long, all weekend long, through holidays and\r\nall other kinds of obscene exploitation.  <\/span>Saz\r\nwas in the back of the office when she arrived. \r\n<\/span>According, to Karen, Saz called out asking her not to come back for a\r\nmoment.  <\/span>He had spent the night and\r\nwas changing.  <\/span>Note, he warned her\r\nnot to come back.  <\/span>That means he was\r\nattempting to protect her from a surprise and was not hiding it.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

Karen deduced, and stated to the group at lunch, that Saz\r\nwas wandering naked around the office when no one was there. \r\n<\/span>We have no evidence that this is the case. \r\n<\/span>Saz did not have a regular office.  <\/span>He\r\nhad a cubical.  <\/span>No one was there at\r\nthe time.  <\/span>She never saw him\r\nwandering around naked.  <\/span>He had\r\nworked all night long, for her benefit and was changing. \r\n<\/span>Her thanks to him for this sacrifice was to defame him behind his back as\r\nan office streaker.  <\/span>In my opinion,\r\nthis is outrageous.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

On another occasion, a man came by to visit. \r\n<\/span>I do not know his name.  <\/span>I was\r\nin my twenties at the time and this man was in his forties. \r\n<\/span>He came by because he was under the impression that Karen was a friend. \r\n<\/span>When he left, another session of ritual defamation began.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

Karen stated to everyone, at lunch, that the man was\r\nmanic-depressive and believed that the CIA was out to get him, which she\r\nasserted was a false belief.  <\/span>Now,\r\nlet’s examine this closely.  <\/span>How\r\ndid she know he was manic-depressive?  <\/span>Most\r\nmanic-depressive people keep their illness to themselves. \r\n<\/span>How did she know that he believed the CIA was out to get him? \r\n<\/span>Perhaps he told her.  <\/span>If he\r\ndid, how did she know the CIA was not out to get him unless she had inside\r\ninformation about who was out to get him?<\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

In another strange act of ritual defamation, the topic of Richard\r\nStallman somehow came up, once again at a public lunch.  Karen noted\r\nher opinion that Stallman, whom she characterized as an anarchist, did not\r\nbathe.  She then \"intimated\" to her large audience of coworkers\r\nthat Stallman had \"confided in her\" that he he suffers from a fear of\r\nbeing washed down the drain of the shower.  Of course, we all found this\r\nexplanation to be rather odd.  Karen then went on to explain that is is a\r\nmental illness.  \"Some children have this fear,\" she explained,\r\n\"but they get over it as they mature.  Some people, however, never get\r\nover it.\"  What was the purpose of this discussion?<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

While working for Ascent, I experienced a great deal of\r\nharassment.  <\/span>Everything I said or did\r\nwas analyzed.  <\/span>For example, if I\r\nbrought in a frozen dinner for lunch, Karen would make statements like,\r\n“that’s gross, what did they do, throw a whole chicken into a blender?” \r\n<\/span>Jan would criticize me for what I drank. \r\n<\/span>For a time I was trying to determine whether I was lactose intolerant. \r\n<\/span>I had been as a child and was getting sick frequently. \r\n<\/span>I switched over to drinking soy milk. \r\n<\/span>I was taunted with statements like, “what’s that, Baby formula?”<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

From an experience I will recount in a moment, I knew that\r\nPhillip, a vice president for the corporation, would spend some of his time\r\nlooking around workers’ personal files on the file system. \r\n<\/span>I wrote a program to encrypt my files in order to keep them private. \r\n<\/span>This sent him into a paranoid frenzy about what I was hiding, confirming\r\nthat he was trying to read my personal files (which, by the way, were philosophy\r\npapers I wrote on my own time).<\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

For a summer, Ascent employed an intern named Peter. \r\nPeter was a little strange, but not much stranger than anyone else there. \r\nOne day both Andy and Philip asked me if I had looked through the personal files\r\nof Peter on the server.  They remarked about all of the personal\r\ninformation about his life and how weird the things he had written were. \r\nThey even publicly harassed him over the contents of those files.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

Everyone at Ascent, it seemed, was looking for some\r\npsychological motivation behind everything. \r\n<\/span>When I went for my interview at Ascent, I wore a fake Rolex watch. \r\n<\/span>I wore it because someone had visited \r\n\r\nKorea\r\n\r\n and gave it me.  <\/span>It was the only\r\nwatch I had.  <\/span>Later, when Philip\r\ndiscovered it was fake, he accused me of deceiving him during the interview. \r\n<\/span>Is this not absurd?  <\/span>I had no\r\nidea anyone would be examining the fine details of my watch. \r\n<\/span>To me it was just a cheap watch and nothing more.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

Philip was unique in certain ways. \r\n<\/span>He was older then me by quite a few years and was still a virgin. \r\n<\/span>No woman lived up to us expectations, he would claim. \r\n<\/span>A beautiful woman working at the office, no longer employed by Ascent and\r\nsubject to torment herself, told me that she believed she had been hired by\r\nAscent as an attempt by Karen to find Philip a woman. \r\n<\/span>There were many attempts to set the two up. \r\n<\/span>Philip went on and on to me one day about how disappointed he was in the\r\nimmorality of this woman because she had dated a married man. \r\n<\/span>He claimed this was the reason for his lack of interest. \r\n<\/span>Once again, a coworker was being smeared behind her back.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

Over time, more and more bizarre things began to occur at\r\nAscent.  <\/span>Clearly, I was being\r\nharassed.  <\/span>I asked Philip about it\r\nand he said, “Everyone thinks you’re paranoid. \r\n<\/span>In fact, they removed the light above your cubical to make you feel\r\nsingled out.”  <\/span>I told him that he\r\nmust be joking.  <\/span>He told me that it\r\nwas true.  <\/span>It was done intentionally\r\nwith Karen’s consent.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

While working for Ascent, I was a socialist. \r\n<\/span>I sometimes wore a pin declaring myself to be a socialist. \r\n<\/span>For this I was harassed by Jan and another coworker Andy. \r\n<\/span>They went so far as to claim that my interest in socialism meant that I\r\nwas crazy.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

While working there, Andy came in depressed and told me he\r\nhad to leave the country.  <\/span>He had\r\nbeen cheating on his wife.  <\/span>They had\r\ntwo children.  <\/span>His new girlfriend was\r\n17 years old.  <\/span>His wife accused him,\r\nhe told me, of pedophilia and threatened him over something regarding his\r\ndaughter.  <\/span>I told him, and I was\r\nsincere, that I did not believe he was a pedophile. \r\n<\/span>I let him know how sorry I was that he was going through this. \r\n<\/span>Andy left the country and went to \r\nHong Kong\r\n.  <\/span>While this was happening, I ran\r\ninto Andy’s wife at a lecture at MIT.  <\/span>She\r\nhad her daughter with her.  <\/span>Her\r\ndaughter sat between us and scrunched up next to her mother, trying to put some\r\ndistance between us.  <\/span>Her mother said\r\nto the little girl, “It’s OK.  <\/span>He\r\nwon’t hurt you.”  <\/span>I took this to\r\nmean that she was now afraid of men.  <\/span>The\r\nimplication being that this had something to do with the accusations against her\r\nfather.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

A while after this happened, my nice and nephew drew\r\npictures for me.  <\/span>They were proud of\r\ntheir pictures.  <\/span>They were also very,\r\nvery young.  <\/span>My nephew could hardly\r\nwrite.  <\/span>In large letters he wrote,\r\n“I love you uncle Steve, especially…” \r\n<\/span>He ran out of space on the page when he hit the end of the word\r\n“especially.”  <\/span>I hung these up in\r\nmy office.  <\/span>Karen walked in one day,\r\nread the picture that my nephew drew and said, “What did he leave out? \r\n<\/span>Why didn’t he finish is?  <\/span>He\r\nloves you, especially WHEN WHAT?”<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

I could hardly imagine what she was implying. \r\n<\/span>Here I am, putting up a drawing by my beloved nephew and her mind comes\r\nto some bizarre inference about it.  <\/span>When\r\nI was a child, I too did strange things when writing. \r\n<\/span>I broke words off in the wrong places when I hit the end of the page and\r\nif I ran out of space, I too might just stop writing. \r\n<\/span>What kind of mind leaps to bizarre conclusions about such things? \r\n<\/span>My guess is that someone with the hobby of ritual defamation might just\r\ndo so.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

Patrick Henry Winston was no angel either. \r\n<\/span>I was considering taking up an offer to go to \r\n\r\nJapan\r\n\r\n for a year and work as a consultant with an associate of Karen and Pat’s. \r\n<\/span>I began to get nervous about it.  <\/span>I\r\ndidn’t feel I was experienced enough for the task at hand. \r\n<\/span>I went to Patrick for advice.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

For whatever reason, as I tried to begin the conversation\r\nwith Patrick, I stuttered.  <\/span>It\r\nisn’t something I often to do, but once in a blue moon it happens. \r\n<\/span>Patrick immediately went off mocking my stuttering by stuttering himself. \r\n<\/span>This was beneath contempt.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

Once that act of ritual harassment was over, I explained to\r\nPatrick my second thoughts about going to \r\n\r\nJapan\r\n\r\n and explained that I was not ready for it. \r\n<\/span>He remarked, “The key to looking like you know something is to\r\noccasionally pause, make some remark about a wild and interesting research idea,\r\nand pretend you working on it, but don’t say anything more. \r\n<\/span>Everyone will think you are more important than you are.”<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

On another occasion I went to Patrick for advice about a\r\ndifficult client.  <\/span>Patrick’s\r\nreaction was, “In this business you just have to accept that many of the\r\npeople you will meet are mentally ill.”  <\/span>Somehow,\r\nwithout any evidence, the client had gone from difficult to mentally ill.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

This went on until I could bear it no longer. \r\n<\/span>I found a job in \r\n\r\nCalifornia\r\n\r\n and left.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

One day, while working in \r\n\r\nCalifornia\r\n\r\n, I entered my office to find my personnel file sitting on my desk. \r\n<\/span>This is the only case in my life where my personnel file just showed up\r\non my desk for no reason at all.  <\/span>I\r\nwas curious so I opened it up.  <\/span>I\r\nfound my resume and noticed that there were notes on the back of it. \r\n<\/span>The resume had several names scrolled on the back with notes under each\r\nname.  <\/span>The names were names of\r\nprevious employers and\/or references.  <\/span>One\r\nof the names was Philip’s name.  <\/span>Under\r\nPhilip’s name was the quote, “Steve has marital difficulties.”<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

Now, while working at Ascent, I once entered Karen’s\r\noffice and requested to travel less because my frequent traveling was stressing\r\nmy relationship with my wife.  <\/span>Karen\r\nresponded, “have you considered speaking to a therapist?” \r\n<\/span>I was taken aback by this question and let her know it. \r\n<\/span>She responded, “Oh, I meant to say ‘marriage consular.’” \r\n<\/span>Ignoring the obvious swipe, the important thing to note here is that not\r\nonly was the comment about my wife under Philip’s name, but the information\r\ncame from Ascent.<\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

I confronted Philip about that note on my resume. \r\n<\/span>He was upset and claimed that he never said such a thing. \r\n<\/span>He was angry that the note was there and started making statements about\r\nlawyers.  <\/span>I leave you to make your\r\nown inferences.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

Nevertheless, shortly after that personnel file ended up on\r\nmy desk, my relationship with my employer went from fine to stressful. \r\n<\/span>Something had changed.  <\/span>Surely,\r\nit wasn’t that note for it had been added to the back of the resume before\r\nhiring me.  <\/span>I can only wonder if the\r\npersonnel file was left on my desk in order to give me a tip about something\r\ngoing on in the background.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

I had a few similar strange experiences over the years. \r\n<\/span>Things would go well at work and then suddenly I would have problems. \r\n<\/span>In one case someone faxed something to an employer.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

Two years ago, after I was fired from Cycorp, an individual\r\nusing the name “KOBE HQ” stated that he had successfully fucked up my\r\nemployment on more than one occasion in the past. \r\n<\/span>Several individuals have posted as “KOBE HQ.” \r\n<\/span>Whoever was responsible for this remark must have predated Cycorp.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

I now find myself in the middle of a long online smear\r\ncampaign.  <\/span>I can prove the\r\ninvolvement of Cycorp.  <\/span>However, what\r\nis interesting is the nature of the defamation and the potential connections\r\nbetween Ascent and Cycorp.  <\/span>Douglas\r\nLenat worked at MIT’s AI lab for a while. \r\n<\/span>Patrick Henry Winston has been the director of the same AI lab. \r\n<\/span>Mary Shepherd, Doug Lenat’s wife, worked in \r\n\r\nBoston\r\n\r\n as well.  <\/span>Lenat and Winston know\r\neach other personally.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

The current smear campaign has declared its intent to keep\r\nme unemployed.  <\/span>They have published\r\nlibelous articles using my name accusing me of all kinds of bizarre things, such\r\nas killing my grandmother, raping my grandmother's dead body, being an\r\nanti-Semite, being a terrorist and being a pedophile, all of which I have not\r\nonly never been involved with but find abhorrent. \r\n<\/span>I find the coincidences between my experience at Ascent and the\r\nharassment coming from, among other things, Cycorp to be too strong to ignore. \r\n<\/span>On the KOBEHQ website, they stated that they are not Cycorp (which is a\r\nlie).  <\/span>However, they stated that they\r\nprovided Cycorp with “certain information” that led to my dismissal. \r\n<\/span>Whatever that information is, it is bogus.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n<\/p>\r\n\n","contact":"","link":"","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/html","summary":"The web expands along another dimension.\r\n[This has been placed in the Raise The Fist section due to the fact that the gang stalking organization referenced takes credit for turning Sherman Austin in to the FBI.]","numcomment":5,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2004\/12\/120537.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[{"id":120539,"heading":"What a load of bollocks!","article":"A few days ago you told the world you would not be posting on IMC and now you spam us with this diatribe?\r\n\r\nGet help Stevie, or do the right thing for your family.......\r\n\r\nBoooooooommmmmmm!!!!!!!! (splatter......)","author":"Yawn","parent_id":120537,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-12-28 05:55:02","modified":"2004-12-28 05:55:02","fileurl":""},{"id":120548,"heading":"In this thread, Cycorp urges the suicide of an employee once again. Would they profit?","article":"Does your boss want you dead?\r\nadvertisement\r\nClick Here!\r\n'Dead peasants' insurance pays your employer a secret, tax-free windfall when you die. Insurers have sold millions of policies to companies such as Dow Chemical.\r\n\r\n By Liz Pulliam Weston\r\n\r\nRight now, your company could have a life insurance policy on you that you know nothing about. When you die -- perhaps years after you leave your employer -- the tax-free proceeds from this policy wouldn\u2019t go to your family. The money would go to the company.\r\n\r\nWhat\u2019s more, the company might use this policy to pay for retirement benefits and other perks not for you or your fellow workers, but for your company\u2019s top executives.\r\n\r\nSound outrageous? Such corporate-owned life insurance is also big business:\r\n\r\n * Companies pay a whopping $8 billion in premiums each year for such coverage, according to the American Council of Life Insurers, a trade group.\r\n * The policies make up more than 20% of the all the life insurance sold each year.\r\n * Companies expect to reap more than $9 billion in tax breaks from these policies over the next five years. The policies are treated as whole life policies. So, companies can borrow against the policies (though the IRS won't let them write off the interest). And the death benefits are tax-free.\r\n\r\nHundreds of companies -- including Dow Chemical, Procter & Gamble, Wal-Mart, Walt Disney and Winn-Dixie -- have purchased this insurance on more than 6 million rank-and-file workers.\r\nGet Online Insurance Quotes\r\n\u2022 Auto \u2022 Health \r\n\u2022 Home \u2022 Life MSN Money Insurance\r\n\r\n\r\nThese policies, nicknamed \u201cdead janitors\u201d or \u201cdead peasants\u201d insurance, soared in popularity after many states cleared the way for them in the 1980s. Congress recently tried to crack down on the practice, to the howls of the insurance industry -- which earlier this year managed to derail reforms.\r\n\r\nThe policies have generated lawsuits by survivors who got little or nothing when insured workers died. A couple of examples:\r\n\r\n Jane St. John had two children and was pregnant with a third when her husband, a butcher at a Winn-Dixie store, was killed in an auto accident. When the Killeen, Texas, woman called the company to ask about insurance, she said she was told about a $17,500 policy to which she was entitled. St. John said Winn-Dixie told her nothing about the $102,000 the company collected from a corporate-owned policy on his life. She found out about it this summer, eight years after his death, from a lawyer who researched court records. The idea that the company would secretly insure lives, and then not share the benefits with the families, "is sick," she said. "That is creepy."\r\n\r\n Mike Rice was a 48-year-old assistant manager when he died of a massive heart attack at the Wal-Mart store in Tilton, N.H. His widow, Vicki, became the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit against the company after she discovered Wal-Mart collected $300,000 from a life insurance policy it owned on him. Vicki Rice believes job-related stress contributed to the heart attack and says it is \u201ctotally immoral\u201d for Wal-Mart to profit from his death.\r\n\r\n\u201cIn a lot of circumstances, the families don\u2019t get anything,\u201d said attorney Mike Myers of Houston\u2019s McClanahan & Clearman, which represents survivors suing companies over corporate-owned policies. \u201cThe company tries its hardest to keep the policy a secret.\u201d\r\n\r\nLabor leaders and some lawmakers have denounced the policies as \u201cunjust\u201d and \u201crepulsive.\u201d The companies say profits from the policies can help offset the increased cost of employee benefits and enhance the businesses\u2019 bottom lines.\r\n\r\nCorporate-owned life insurance actually comes in two flavors:\r\n\r\n Executive or \u201ckey person\u201d policies that insure the lives of top executives. This coverage has been around for decades and has a clear business purpose, since losing the expertise, knowledge and contacts of top managers can be financially devastating for companies.\r\n\r\n Broad-based or \u201cjanitors\u201d policies that insure rank-and-file workers. Here the purpose is basically profit. The life insurance proceeds are tax-free. The policies have an investment component that allows companies to earn tax-deferred returns while the employee is still alive. And, of course, companies can take out tax-free loans on the policies. All these gains and income are used to fund operations, pay for executive compensation or boost other benefits.\r\n\r\nNo one knows how many corporate-owned policies are issued on executives versus rank-and-file workers. Wal-Mart alone had taken out about 350,000 such policies between 1993 and 1996. Nestle USA had policies on 18,000 workers in 2002, The Wall Street Journal reported. Enron had $500 million in policies on workers.\r\n\r\nSales of the policies came to a virtual standstill in September 2003, according to the insurer trade group ACLI, when the Senate Finance Committee approved legislation that would have taxed payouts made to companies if the employee had left more than a year earlier. That indicates that most policies aren\u2019t being sold to protect companies financially against the loss of key current employees.\r\n\r\nStrong insurance industry protests led the powerful committee to reconsider its action. Further work on the issue has been postponed until 2004, and indications are that the senators are \u201csoftening\u201d on the idea of greatly restricting the policies, said Jack Dolan, ACLI spokesman.\r\n\r\nCompanies insist that janitors policies have a legitimate business function, but the IRS has been cracking down, arguing that many of the arrangements are nothing more than tax shelters. The agency has been particularly harsh on once-popular \u201cleveraged\u201d policies, in which policy loans were used to pay premiums. In the mid-1990s, the tax agency began disallowing billions of dollars in interest payment deductions the companies had been taking on such loans. Companies\u2019 efforts to defend their programs have been largely unsuccessful; a U.S. Tax Court judge called Winn-Dixie\u2019s program \u201ca sham,\u201d saying it \u201clacked economic substance and business purpose.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe controversy helped convince Walt Disney and Wal-Mart, among others, to drop the policies. Winn-Dixie battled the IRS in court, but the supermarket chain recently lost its final round when the Supreme Court refused to review a lower court decision that backed the IRS.\r\n\r\nSo far, one company has prevailed against the IRS -- Dow Chemical, which took out the policies on more than 21,000 workers. A U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Michigan ordered the IRS to return $22.2 million plus interest to the company. The IRS has appealed the ruling.\r\n\r\nSurvivors\u2019 lawsuits, meanwhile, typically focus on two issues:\r\n\r\n * Whether the companies had an \u201cinsurable interest\u201d in their employees\u2019 lives.\r\n * Whether the companies were required to get the employees\u2019 permission for the policies.\r\n\r\n\u201cInsurable interest\u201d is usually a big deal for insurers. They want to make sure whoever is buying life insurance doesn\u2019t have an incentive for bumping off the insured. Insurers usually require purchasers have a strong familial or emotional connection to the people being insured, or that they would suffer significant financial losses if the insured people died.\r\n\r\n(It\u2019s that latter standard that was loosened in the 1980s, making it easier for companies to buy policies for all their employees, not just key executives.)\r\n\r\nMost states also have \u201cadvise and consent\u201d laws that technically require companies to get workers\u2019 permission before buying life insurance on them. But attorney Myers said many businesses circumvent these laws by purchasing the insurance in one of the states that doesn\u2019t require notice or consent, including Delaware, Georgia, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Vermont.\r\n\r\n"Executives fly to Atlanta to meet with the insurance company and its brokers, sign some papers, get on their respective corporate jets and fly home,\u201d Myers said.\r\n\r\nOther companies offered their workers small policies -- typically $5,000 to $10,000 -- as an incentive to allow larger corporate-owned policies to be issued on the workers\u2019 lives. The small policies can later be canceled, even if the company keeps up the premiums on the other insurance.\r\n\r\nAnger about these practices likely will keep the heat on Congress to make some reforms. It\u2019s possible that lawmakers will restrict severely companies\u2019 ability to write the policies on rank-and-file workers. At the very least, companies probably will have to get workers\u2019 consent before buying any new policies and clearly disclose that the coverage may extend past the time they leave the company, the ACLI\u2019s Dolan said.\r\n\r\nBut he rejected the idea that corporate-owned life insurance was immoral or a company bet against its workers.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s an important business planning tool,\u201d Dolan said. \u201cCompanies are using it for extremely valid reasons.\u201d\r\n","author":"Stephen DeVoy","parent_id":120537,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2004-12-28 16:07:36","modified":"2013-11-11 00:31:49","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2004\/12\/099-01.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2004\/12\/099-01.jpg"}},{"id":193381,"heading":"I worked for Cycorp","article":"I can believe that Cycorp would do such a thing.","author":"Ex","parent_id":120537,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2007-02-15 04:56:00","modified":"2007-02-15 04:56:00","fileurl":""},{"id":193413,"heading":"thank you.","article":"This scam is just one of many that corporations deal in as immoral, unaccountable institutions. They need to have their 'citizenship' stripped and their books opened, immediately after which, and resulting from the afore mentioned act,the boards of directors are arrested and their property seized for redistribution...\r\nOh. One more thing. The 14th amendment has never been granted on corporations except by fiat as an inserted footnote. By a clerk working for a corporation.\r\nThe frame work upon which corporations shield themselves is a spiderweb of deceit.\r\n","author":"Sheepdog","parent_id":120537,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2007-02-16 01:50:13","modified":"2007-02-16 01:50:13","fileurl":""},{"id":193415,"heading":"excuse me please...","article":"I made an error.\r\nIt was an inserted header to a adjudicated court ruling.\r\nwant to find out more?\r\n-An historic goof?\r\n\r\nWhat most people don\u2019t realize is that this is a recent agreement\u2014and it is based on an historic error. Only since 1886 have the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment been applied explicitly to corporations. For 100 years people have believed that the 1886 case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad included the statement \u201cCorporations are persons.\u201d But looking at the actual case documents, I found that this was never stated by the court, and indeed the chief justice explicitly ruled that matter out of consideration in the case.\r\n\r\nThe claim that corporations are persons was added by the court reporter who wrote the introduction to the decision, called \u201cheadnotes.\u201d Headnotes have no legal standing.\r\n\r\nIt appears that corporations acquired personhood by persuading a court reporter and a Supreme Court judge to make a notation in the headnotes of an unrelated law case. In Everyman\u2019s Constitution, legal historian Howard Jay Graham documents scores of previous attempts by Supreme Court Justice Stephen J. Field to influence the legal process to the benefit of his open patrons, the railroad corporations. Field, as judge on the Ninth Circuit in California, had repeatedly ruled that corporations were persons under the 14th Amendment, so it doesn\u2019t take much imagination to guess what Field might have suggested Court Recorder J.C. Bancroft Davis include in the transcript, perhaps even offering the language, which happened to match his own language in previous lower court cases.-\r\n\r\nhttp:\/\/solutions.synearth.net\/2003\/01\/03","author":"Me again..","parent_id":120537,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2007-02-16 02:08:22","modified":"2013-11-11 00:47:12","fileurl":""}]}