0. In January 2012, Hastings published The Operators, a book that recorded his travels with General Stanley McChrystal and his team in April 2010. InsideEko is yet to confirm Michael Hastings’s cause of death as no health issues, accident or other causes of death have been learned to be associated with the passing. As Uygur further explained: “All the large media conglomerates have some tie to getting contracts from the government. The Los Angeles County coroner confirmed that the body found in a burning car Tuesday was that of journalist Michael Hastings, but said it will probably take weeks to determine the cause of death. He was 33. He comes from an affluent family as both of his parents are doctors, Dr. Molly (née Mahon) Hastings and Dr. Brent Hastings. In June 2010, Rolling Stone published The Runaway General, Hastings’ profile of U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal. There’s no way he would be acting erratic like that and acting that out of control.”. People who knew the writer described him as looking nervous and rattled in the days leading up to his death. His body was burned beyond recognition. And in some cases the engine drops down, so it doesn’t go into you.”. And in the case of Michael Hastings, his car was such a safe one that you could not guarantee a death in an incident with a semi, and also could not guarantee a death in a high speed crash. Hastings died when the car he was driving slammed into a tree and burst into flames early on Tuesday in a wreck that stirred unsubstantiated conspiracy theories on the Internet suggesting he was the victim of government efforts to silence the reporter. After the successful experiments were reported, Savage noted a huge response from manufacturers that spurred new innovations in cybersecurity for car computer systems. Hastings later wrote, “I wasn’t disturbed by the claim. Conspiracy theories being closed systems indifferent to probability and immune to evidence, the report did nothing to curtail speculation about the cause of Hastings’s death. The night of his death, Hastings had contacted Wikileaks attorney Jennifer Robinson and sent an email to his colleagues at the news site BuzzFeed, saying he was working on a big story and was “going off the rada[r],” citing fears over federal authorities interviewing his friends. What Happened to Julie Loncich? Uygur said there were a lot of private contractors who didn’t like Hastings. KBR’s showers electrocuted troops while their administrators forced gang-rape victims to sign mandatory arbitration agreements that prevented them from suing. Michael Hastings continued to write until he also died, in 1980. The Los Angeles Police Department said repeatedly it suspects no foul play. http://www.occupy.com/article/exclusive-who-killed-michael-hastings. WikiLeaks itself appeared to suggest Hastings’ death was the result of foul play. There are still a number of mysteries unresolved. There are at least two other authors named Michael Hastings (one born in 1938, another in 1958) and the three authors' works are sometimes credited to each other. Michael Hastings was pronounced dead after succumbing to the fatal accident. The media was not a fan of Michael, at all.”. I’d bet Hastings wore his seat belt all the time, and Dever did not, and the murderers would know these details before doing it. Is Danny Pippen Related to Scottie Pippen? Additional Information from June 20, 2013. One of the most popular theories is that his car was hacked by the CIA. “When Michael embarrassed [the media] by writing a story about what the military is actually up to, the universal refrain was, ‘How dare you!’” said Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks and a friend of Hastings. michael hastings death. From an early age, Michael Hastings was interested in journalism. He wrote columns for his school’s paper in high school. By: Ankita Lahon - Published: May 25, 2017 at 11:48 am, Photo: Paul Morigi / Stringer / Getty Images. This death has caused a lot of friends and family of Hastings so much hurt. Hastings’s last article, published on BuzzFeed, exposed Democratic Party leaders including President Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin for their support of the same domestic spying programs they had criticized during the Bush years, but which they worked to expand under the Obama administration. He had a good life to live. It related specifically to Brennan’s role as the administration’s point man tracking investigative journalists and their sources in Washington. Michael Hastings was hastily cremated against the wishes of his family, adding to the mystery surrounding the June 18 death of the Rolling Stone journalist. Discover the real story, facts, and details of Michael Hastings. with war and with loss, and that drove his reporting, and it made him fearless when he realized he had found something important that he could report." After the fiery crash, Hastings’s charred remains were quickly cremated, but not before the L.A. coroner released a report indicating the journalist had trace amounts of methamphetamine and marijuana in his system.  The Hastings family moved to Canada when Michael was just 11 years old. “He had a lot of friends and family that cared about him. Get the latest updates, action alerts, articles, and event invites. His body was burned beyond recognition. Hastings covered politics for BuzzFeed, and had written for Rolling Stone and Newsweek. Hastings’s pivotal article for Rolling Stone actually went beyond revealing Gen. McChrystal’s flawed leadership of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and his scorn for the Commander-in-Chief. And as facts go, the truth behind Michael Hastings’s death, whether he was intentionally killed and by whom, may be opening a much bigger, broader and more dangerous story than the Americans he was writing for are prepared to face. “Michael Hastings' death has a very serious non-public complication. (function($) {window.fnames = new Array(); window.ftypes = new Array();fnames[1]='FNAME';ftypes[1]='text';fnames[2]='LNAME';ftypes[2]='text';fnames[0]='EMAIL';ftypes[0]='email';fnames[3]='LGL_SAL';ftypes[3]='text';fnames[4]='LGL_ID';ftypes[4]='text';fnames[5]='MMERGE5';ftypes[5]='text';fnames[6]='MMERGE6';ftypes[6]='text';fnames[7]='MMERGE7';ftypes[7]='text';fnames[8]='MMERGE8';ftypes[8]='text';fnames[9]='MMERGE9';ftypes[9]='text';fnames[10]='MMERGE10';ftypes[10]='text';fnames[11]='MMERGE11';ftypes[11]='text';fnames[12]='MMERGE12';ftypes[12]='text';fnames[13]='LG22426';ftypes[13]='text';}(jQuery));var $mcj = jQuery.noConflict(true); This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. When journalist Michael Hastings died in a car accident in Los Angeles early on the morning of June 18, he left a trail of questions in his wake. Why Did She Retire from ABC7? We haven’t learnt if any of these are involved. Despite NBC Southern California plainly reporting that the drugs in Hastings’s body were ruled to have had nothing to do with the crash, it didn’t stop the media from smearing Hastings in its coverage. In a phone interview with Occupy.com, Savage described a series of experiments that he and his team conducted, in which they remotely hacked a car’s computer systems. “He was scared, and he wanted to leave town,” Thigpen said. Early in the morning on June 18, a brand new Mercedes C250 coupe was driving through the Melrose intersection on Highland Avenue in Hollywood when suddenly, out of nowhere, it sped up. He became even more wary, she said, when details about the NSA’s domestic spying programs emerged in early June through former contractor Edward Snowden. Mainstream media jumped on the angle, eager to dismiss Hastings’s complex backstory in favor of the simpler line: he was another young, talented, but out-of-control drug addict who had tragically ended his own life. Michael Hastings also told his closest friends that he was working on a big story and that he needed to go off the radar for a bit. On the other hand, Hastings’ autopsy reports revealed traces of drugs like amphetamine and marijuana in his system. Keybase is Offering Me Free Money–Is This a Scam? Hastings sent the email to staff at BuzzFeed, where he was employed, but also blind-copied a friend, Staff Sgt. Described as a person who “talked fast, smoked fast” and “vibrated energy”, Michael Hastings' aggressive demeanor and penchant for writing the truth with no regard for consequences may have prompted his untimely death. Joe Biggs, in an interview with Fox News’s Megyn Kelly one week after the crash. On a CNN segment broadcast shortly after Gen. McChrystal’s forced resignation, CBS chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan said, “Michael Hastings has never served his country the way McChrystal has.” Hastings’s “Runaway General” article had drawn Pentagon apologists out of the woodwork, who condemned him for breaking what anonymous sources for the Washington Post and ABC News called unspoken journalistic ground rules. In 2002, he started his journalism career as an unpaid intern for Newsweek. They were jealous of him, too. While covering the Iraq War, Hastings lost his then-fiancée Andrea Parhamovich in 2007. Although nothing has been proven, people still believe Michael Hastings’ car crash to be orchestrated. In Hastings’s 2012 book, “The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan,” Hastings wrote about being approached by one of Gen. McChrystal’s aides. This infographic shows the alarming amount of money—some $3.3 trillion—spent on private military contractors since 9/11. There have been many conspiracy theories associated with Hastings’ premature death. Even after private defense contractors committed gross and punishable offenses overseas, those same firms continue to receive no-bid contracts from the U.S. government with zero accountability for their crimes. Hastings seemed genuinely concerned for his own safety. As disclosed by Michael Hastings’ widow, Elise Jordan, he was working on a profile of CIA Director John Brennan at th… It’s only a matter of time.”. Whenever I’d been reporting around groups of dudes whose job it was to kill people, one of them would usually mention that they were going to kill me.”. “If you want to take it over and break it, that’s less complicated.”, Savage explained that all computers in a car are connected to one another, bridged by one component and compromised by that same component. Michael Hastings' death was ruled to have resulted from "traumatic injuries" sustained in the horrific car crash that likely caused "instantaneous death," according to the autopsy report. The story that Hastings was working on at the time of his death centered around CIA Director John Brennan, the chief architect of President Obama’s foreign drone program. He wrote the book, I Lost My Love in Baghdad: A Modern War Story, where he accounts the Iraq war and addresses the loss of Parhamovich. Hastings blind-copied his friend, the Staff Sgt. Hastings’ family then moved to Vermont, where he went to Rice Memorial High School. Two hours later, WikiLeaks tweeted more specific information. Is This What Cyber-Assassination Looks Like? Hastings was a frequent contributor to The Young Turks, and Uygur said when Hastings moved to Los Angeles, they often talked before and after each show. We will have more details later,” said the first. in journalism. Hastings continued to report stories that illuminated the darker side of U.S. military actions, including an investigation into the Army’s deployment of psyops, or psychological operations, on U.S. senators visiting combat zones in order to secure more war funding. The article contained remarks by McChrystal’s staff that were overtly critical and contemptuous of White House staff. L.A. Weekly interviewed Hastings’s neighbor, Jordanna Thigpen, who said Hastings was convinced that he was a target of surveillance after reading about the Department of Justice’s seizure of AP phone records in May. Michael Hastings was that rarest of breeds: a mainstream reporter who wasn’t afraid to rail against the system, kick back against the establishment, and bite the hand that feeds him. The driver in the fatal crash was Michael Hastings, a 33-year-old crack investigative reporter for Rolling Stone magazine, whose June 2010 article, “The Runaway General,” exposed the behind-the-scenes failure of top U.S. General Stanley McChrystal’s counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan—and, even more damagingly, revealed McChrystal’s mocking attitude toward the Obama administration, which ultimately led to the general’s resignation. He was 33. A witness, Jose Rubalcalva, whose house stood adjacent to the crash, told Ana Kasparian of The Young Turks news network that no one could approach the burning car because it kept exploding. Just south of the Melrose intersection on Highland Avenue, in Hollywood’s Hancock Park neighborhood, the palm tree where Michael Hastings’s car crashed and exploded in flames in June remains scorched black about 20 feet high. Civil Liberties Defense Center, 1430 Willamette St #359, Eugene OR, 97401 | © CLDC 2019, All Rights Reserved, Keybase, Zoom, and the Future of Dissident Crypto, Recommendations for Secure Video and Conference Calls. Michael Hastings died on June 18, 2013 in a single-vehicle automobile crash. Following Deal’s death, many on social media questioned whether there could be a dark motive behind the wreck. Although The Daily Beast called it a “book of great consequence” and The Wall Street Journal slammed it, The Operators became a New York Times bestseller. And you’re going to be surprised when they keep doing that with the same impunity they’ve always had? Michael Hastings' life and death: A brother's reflections Jonathan Hastings talks about the conspiracy theories surrounding Michael's death, and what he'd be doing today The revelation that Rolling Stone journalist Michael Hastings was working on a story about the CIA before his death and had contacted a Wikileaks lawyer about being under investigation by the FBI hours before his car exploded into flames has bolstered increasingly valid claims that the 33-year-old was assassinated. “They’ve spent millions of dollars on hiring new people, and acknowledged that [cybersecurity] is something they need to take seriously,” he said. “Anytime someone sticks their head up and doesn’t go along, they’re universally despised by the establishment. An autopsy showed that the cause of death was massive blunt force trauma consistent with a high-speed crash. In an era of unsanctioned drone warfare—where a man operating a joystick in New Mexico can carry out the remote-controlled assassination of any person worldwide who shows up on the President’s “kill list”—it may not be far-fetched to imagine that similar capabilities, and techniques, are being employed closer to home. And Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater/Xe, was himself implicated in a murder and has spoken of leading an anti-Muslim crusade through his company. In the last four months, amid heightened tensions over government spying and a widening pursuit of whistleblowers, many have speculated that Hastings’s death was the product of a conspiracy involving the CIA, NSA, FBI or other federal agencies. As disclosed by Michael Hastings’ widow, Elise Jordan, he was working on a profile of CIA Director John Brennan at the time of his death. FOIA Requests: An Important Tool for Activists, Update from San Francisco: Against Climate Capitalism. What did he mean? Questioned after Hastings’s death, the FBI confirmed that the journalist was not under any investigation. In a simulated full-frontal crash of a 2013 C250 coupe, the car doesn’t explode on impact nor does it launch its engine 200 feet. But never did those fears escalate the way they did during the final days and moments of Hastings’s life. Christine Cruz Ponce Leaving WSVN 7News: Where Is the Anchor Going? At 4:20 a.m. the following morning, Hastings died when his Mercedes, traveling at high speeds, smashed into a tree and caught on fire. A friend of Hastings said days later that the reporter believed he was being investigated by the government, and the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks said one of their attorneys was contacted by Hastings hours before his death. In 2013, Hastings died in Los Angeles in a high-speed automobile accident that some believe to be the world’s first cyberattack against a car. During an MSNBC broadcast, Rachel Maddow paid tribute to Hastings after his death, saying: "Michael was angry; he was also loving and thoughtful and constructive and brilliant, but he was angry about things that weren't right in the world . In fact, said Nael Issa, a Mercedes Benz dealer in Long Beach, “The car has a crumble zone, so when it crashes it goes in like an accordion. His candid Rolling Stone interview with the Afghanistan general in 2010 was only one of many of the 33-year-old’s accomplishments. Apparently, Hastings had medicinal marijuana prescription to ease his post-traumatic stress disorder after his assignments in Afghanistan and Iraq. . Posted: June 26, 2013 in Articles Tags: Government conspiracy, Michael Hastings. Michael Hastings was known as a no-nonsense reporter. Who Is Brooke Schofield? “If you’re talking about where people have arbitrary control of a car, that takes a significant amount of time,” Savage said. One of Hastings’s most remembered lines is this: “When writing for a mass audience, put a fact in every sentence.” And as facts go, the truth behind Michael Hastings’s death, whether he was intentionally killed and by whom, may be opening a much bigger, broader and more dangerous story than the Americans he was writing for are prepared to face. Whether Comcast needed approval for a merger, or GE needed a defense contract, every one of those giant corporations needs something from the government. But those statements were directly contradicted in September when redacted FBI documents surfaced following a Freedom of Information Act request by the news network Al Jazeera, which showed that Hastings was in fact under investigation for a story in which he had interviewed a U.S. soldier who had been captured in Afghanistan. Explore Michael Hastings's biography, personal life, family and cause of death. Michael Hastings died on June 18, 2013 in a single-vehicle automobile crash. (JSOC’s activities feature prominently in the book “Dirty Wars” by investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill, which was subsequently made into an award-winning film that premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. Journalist Michael Hastings, whose death in a fiery car crash earlier this year has become mired in conspiracy theories, had battled drink and drugs since he was a teenager, sources revealed. It included extensive material from over 20 hours of audio recordings of McChrystal and his inner circle. FACT CHECK: Dave Ramsey Made a Statement About America Online, FACT CHECK: CIA Director Gina Haspel Found Dead, FACT CHECK: Kwik Trip Launches “Kwik Strip” Gentlemen’s Clubs, FACT CHECK: Burisma Admitted to Paying Bribe to Joe Biden, Jeremy Meeks Wiki: Story, Wife, Modeling, Net Worth, & Facts to Know, Elise Jordan Wiki: Age, Wedding, Photos & Facts to Know about Michael Hastings’ Wife, Dusty Dvoracek Leaving Sports Animal’s “Monsters of the Midday”. I have no idea.”. Hastings friend and confidant SSgt. Vehicle left as molten metal, engine block ejected 50-60 yards away. Joe Biggs disclosed a macabre twist in the award-winning journalist s death in a suspicious single-car accident. So it’s become a synergistic environment—Comcast gives the government something, the government gives Comcast something else. The two lived in LA before Hastings died in a car crash. Halliburton overcharged the government by tens of millions of dollars. Born on January 28, 1980 in Malone, NY, Michael Hastings was a journalist, author, contributing editor to Rolling Stone, and reporter for BuzzFeed. The war correspondent and investigative journalist was killed when his car smashed into a tree and burst into a giant fireball in the early hours of June 18 2013. “His friends and family who know him, everyone says he drives like a grandma, so that right there doesn’t seem like something that he would be doing,” said Hastings’s friend, the Staff Sgt. Gradually, Hastings excelled in his profession and started contributing to major outlets like Gentlemen’s Quarterly, Buzzfeed, and Rolling Stone. Hastings, 33, was killed when his Mercedes coupe crashed into a tree just before 5 a.m. that morning, and details about the collision have been contested in the months since. As accounted by witnesses, Hastings’ car was traveling at a maximum speed when it crashed into a palm tree. Lawyer Response to ETP’s Reckless Mistreatment of Protesters at the L’eau Est La Vie Pipeline Resistance Camp, CLDC in Southern Oregon – Supporting the No LNG Fight, Know Your Rights for Activists Video Training, Veggie Libel Laws: Attempts At Silencing Animal Rights Advocates, Racketeer Influenced And Corrupt Organizations, Labeling Compassionate Citizens As Terrorists, The Other Side Of The Animal Research Debate. Hastings openly criticized the Obama administration (and its allies in the FBI and Department of Justice) for waging war on “transparency supporters, whistleblowers and investigative reporters.”. CLDC To Support Rise Against Climate Capitalism in San Francisco! According to L.A. Weekly, just hours before the deadly crash Hastings had asked to borrow his neighbor’s Volvo because he suspected his own car’s computer system had been hacked. Four months after Hastings’s so-called accident, and despite scant coverage in the mainstream media, new facts and evidence continue to emerge raising serious unanswered questions about whether the journalist was assassinated, the breadth of unconventional cyber-techniques that may have been used, and who might have been responsible. As a result, he said, “We could listen to conversations in the car, and could take over everything in the drivetrain, like acceleration and brakes, through a cellular network.”, In terms of range and power to manipulate a vehicle remotely, he said, “We found vulnerabilities from 1,000 miles away.”. The Los Angeles coroner has released the report on Michael Hastings’ untimely death, and it would appear the document will be milked for all the damage control propaganda it is worth. The untimely and violent death of award-winning journalist Michael Hastings sparked rumors for years that the CIA was somehow involved in the … Journalist Michael Hastings died in a car accident in Los Angeles on June 18. As accounted by witnesses, Hastings’ car was traveling at a maximum speed when it crashed into a palm tree. "Earlier today, WikiLeaks sent out a cryptic tweet that hinted they had more information about yesterday's tragic death of reporter Michael Hastings. This email from Stratfor, a CIA-connected private security firm whose emails were hacked and released to the public by Wikileaks in February of last year, reveals that Brennan was indeed behind the “witch hunts of investigative journalists.”. Joseph Biggs, on the message. Journalist Michael Hastings' cause of death was ruled accidental by the Los Angeles Coroner's office, which said the reporter had drugs in his system when he died. In addition it drew on McChrystal’s former role as the commander of Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, a covert elite unit whose kill operations are routinely unaccountable to government, resulting in scores of civilian deaths by U.S. hands in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere that have gone unexamined and unpunished. According to SSgt. Hastings died in a fiery early morning car crash, one that a growing number of conspiracy theorists say doesn’t add up. DeadDeath is yet to confirm the cause of the accident at this time. – Los Angeles Times, “Michael Hastings death: New video of crash emerges” A news article from 2015 actually mentioned that Hasting’s death was most like the result of … The Los Angeles County coroner’s department concluded its investigation of the fatal Hollywood car crash of investigative journalist Michael Hastings on Tuesday, ruling his death … Tik Tok Star Accused of Cheating with Tana Mongeau’s Ex. Digital Security Checklist for Political Activists! . There have been many conspiracy theories associated with Hastings’ premature death. #HarrisonDeal car exploded (witnesses heard the explosion over a mile away). According to an eye-witness, the car accelerated rapidly, bounced several times then fishtailed out of control before it slammed into a palm tree and burst into flames, ejecting its engine some 200 feet away. On the morning of June 18, 2013, he died in a fiery car crash. According to Stefan Savage, a computer science professor at the University of California, San Diego, any modern vehicle’s computer system made by any manufacturer can be hacked. The question that Hastings’s unexplained death poses is whether those same private, militarized forces may be bringing the war home as they deploy technology and battlefield-honed tactics to ensure that deeper truths remain unseen — and that nothing threatens the bottom line.