24 ms·
'If anything happens, it's not suicide': Boeing whistleblower before death
- Sebb767 3y agoJohn Barnett appears to be the recently deceased Boeing whistleblower, in case anyone else wonders.
- latexr 3y ago“Appears to be”? It’s right there in the article’s original title: > 'If anything happens, it's not suicide': Boeing whistleblower's prediction before death
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ImpassionataVox 3y ago[flagged]
- ImpassionataVox 3y ago[flagged]
- ImpassionataVox 3y ago[flagged]
- blackhawkC17 3y agoThen watch the economy tank when the state now owns everything.
- itake 3y agoA lot of people would lose their homes if $1m usd was the limit.
- promiseofbeans 3y agoMate that's everyone with a house
- anon-sre-srm 3y ago$2m+ for San Jose retirees with Prop 13. $300m houses and every billionaire are absurd and policy failures. Correct without over correcting/ping-ponging between anarcho libertarianism and communism should be the goal.
- Rebelgecko 3y agoThe easiest way to have equality is to make everyone homeless
- toast0 3y agoHow are we supposed to pay for our own healthcare if we can't have 1M in assets? You'll make us all slaves, you will.
- com2kid 3y agoThat is every farmer. That is almost every small business owner. That is most people with a house in large cities. I need to save up $350,000k for my kid's college before he heads off to keep him from having any loans, that means people with two kids who fully fund college for their kids will have $700k in assets just in college savings[1]. Saving for retirement takes 3-4 million. 1 million was a lot of money back when I was a kid in the 90s, now not so much. [1] College prices are truly obscene.
- _puk 3y agoDr Evil has entered the room [0]! "Don't you think we should ask for maybe more than a million dollars" 0: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EJR1H5tf5wE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EJR1H5tf5wE
- lionkor 3y agoI dont think you're being reasonable, which sucks because I believe you gave a good point underneath all that
- ImpassionataVox 3y ago[flagged]
- colechristensen 3y agoIf you had a point that you expressed without rambling anger, you might have a place. Go somewhere else if you want to express yourself like that, plenty of other places for that kind of attitude.
- ImpassionataVox 3y ago[flagged]
- silisili 3y agoThis happens way too often, and I'm genuinely curious why. The easy answer is that paranoid people with a vendetta say exactly this to throw guilt onto the other party. The hard answer is harder to swallow. What can we do about it?
- gruez 3y ago>This happens way too often 1. What some other recent occurrences? 2. What's the baseline rate of suicides we should expect for people in high stress positions, like being a whistleblower? How many people could plausibly be categorized as "whistleblowers"?
- silisili 3y agoI knew this would come up, but couldn't think of specifics other than I've seen it go by on social media seemingly yearly. I vividly remember one two or three years ago, of an Asian man I think in NYC who kept videoing the police calling them corrupt, telling the world if he died it was the police. Well, he died. The police said it wasn't the police. Sadly, I can't find this Googling. I'd say it's happened enough to become a meme. When people post controversial things about big companies or politicians, people will reply telling them to make a video to say they aren't suicidal. * Well some people aren't happy with my handwavy answer, so here are a few https://fresnopeoplesmedia.com/2016/01/2829/ https://fresnopeoplesmedia.com/2016/01/2829/ https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/home-explodes-washington-dc-arlington-virginia-man-rcna128159 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/home-explodes-washingto... https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/who-was-james-yoo-paranoid-conspiracy-theorist-who-triggered-blast-at-his-virginia-home-presumed-dead-101701830291337.html https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/who-was-ja... (same case, some context) https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/jeffrey-epstein-s-final-days-smirking-he-said-i-am-not-suicidal-and-i-would-never-be-1.4737335 https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/jeffrey-eps...
- publius_0xf3 3y agoThe Asian victim you're thinking of is Sunny Sheu. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Sun-Ming_Sheu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Sun-Ming_Sheu
- jraby3 3y agoWouldn’t the time to have killed him be before he testified?
- vnchr 3y agoHe was killed between pre-trial deposition interviews pertaining to a trial that is still upcoming.[1] One might speculate he was killed immediately after it was confirmed in a deposition that he had knowledge damaging to Boeing, and he intended to testify in that upcoming trial. [1] https://au.news.yahoo.com/boeing-whistleblower-john-barnett-found-104622297.html https://au.news.yahoo.com/boeing-whistleblower-john-barnett-...
- Kluggy 3y agoI believe in certain cases, a judge may allow the deposition to be entered into evidence in the trial. The time to disappear someone is before their testimony is recorded.
- Hikikomori 3y agoThe deposition was ongoing.
- topspin 3y agoIANAL. However: SC civil law Rule 32 USE OF DEPOSITIONS IN COURT PROCEEDINGS: (a)(3) The deposition of a witness, whether or not a party, may be used by any party for any purpose if the court finds: (A) that the witness is dead; or etc... This aligns very closely with the Federal rule on the same: Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 32. Using Depositions in Court Proceedings (4) Unavailable Witness. A party may use for any purpose the deposition of a witness, whether or not a party, if the court finds: (A) that the witness is dead; etc... I can't tell which jurisdiction applies here because the news stories on the case itself are all hot garbage, I'm not trying that hard and IANAL, but my guess is it's the latter. Either way, the deposition(s) will likely get in. Now, anything can happen, but it's hard to imagine Boeing or whomever, knowing that the deposition(s) is likely admissible in the event of the death of Barnett, would then assassinate him. The cynic in me wonders if Barnett had recently learned his case was about to fall through for some reason we haven't learned of yet. [1] https://www.sccourts.org/courtReg/displayRule.cfm?ruleID=32.0&subRuleID=&ruleType=CIV https://www.sccourts.org/courtReg/displayRule.cfm?ruleID=32.... [2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_32#:~:text=A%20deposition%20lawfully%20taken%20and,taken%20in%20the%20later%20action https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_32#:~:text=A%20d....
- geek_at 3y agoWhile I can't see "Boeing" (as a whole command structure) can be blamed for his death I do see the possibility of some corrupt person in a high position fearing what he had on him personally and ordered a strike against him.
- KingOfCoders 3y agoI worked for an eBay Inc. company as an executive, never thought that could happen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBay_stalking_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBay_stalking_scandal
- DonHopkins 3y agoI could certainly believe Boeing would do something like that before I'd ever imagine eBay would, yet eBay did what they did. The stakes are MUCH higher for Boeing, and we already know quite well that Boeing decided to put many human lives at risk to save money, and that's already resulted in many deaths. And they have a long history of making products designed specifically for killing humans. https://www.boeing.com/defense https://www.boeing.com/defense >This trusted partnership continues as defense customers once again look to Boeing to help them solve their toughest challenges. Faking a suicide isn't a particularly tough challenge.
- themoonisachees 3y agoBoeing also has very privileged relations with various three letter agencies.
- echelon_musk 3y agoIndeed. https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/bnd-intelligence-scandal-puts-merkel-in-tight-place-a-1031944.html https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/bnd-intelligenc...
- johnnyanmac 3y agoI could never imagine eBay doing this in 2019. 2 bloggers really got a CEO this hot and bothered? Were they really causing that much of a hit to ebay's sales or rep? This sounds like one of those early 2000's trolling moments before such commentary conformed into a blob on modern social media. But given the rest of the events of the '20's I shouldn't be that surprised.
- kromem 3y agoIt seems like that's said very often before whistleblower or journalist deaths subsequently ruled a suicide.
- eastbound 3y agoThey don’t even know the details of the weapon, but in the minute of it being published, they claimed to know it was “self-inflicted”.
- gruez 3y agoMaybe the authorities do know and it's simply not published/released? After all, assuming he shot himself and the gun is right there, it seems fairly reasonable to tentatively presume it's self inflicted.
- defrost 3y agoAssuming he shot himself, yes, it would generally follow that it's self inflicted. I'm unable to think of anyway in which someone can shoot themselves and not have it described as "self inflicted", even an accidental self shooting would be described by some in either form. However, in general, with a gunshot wound and and a gun discarded right there some people might not assume that it was self inflicted and perhaps check for handedness, gunshot angle, residue, etc. before leaping to any premature assumptions or conclusions.
- Gumbledore 3y agoThat wouldn't matter. If they really want to send a message, you get suicided with two shots to the back of the head. Having the entire media apparatus complicit in gaslighting the public into accepting absurdity is all part of the demonstration of power and demoralisation ritual.
- gruez 3y agoSo which one is it? So far as I can tell he didn't get "suicided with two shots to the back of the head", but despite that you still think the media is complicit in "demonstration of power and demoralisation ritual"?
- ixaxaar 3y agoOh so in Russia its jumping out a window and in the USA its some random method of suicide? Why not be specific, and consistent, like Russia?
- wordhydrogen 3y agoJust speculating here but isn’t jumping out a window in Russia usually an implication it was ordered by the Russian state (ex: FSB) while in the US a framed suicides are assumed to be done by numerous non-associated actors. So in one place a single entity is responsible and in another it’s multiple entities. It doesn’t seem surprising to me that there would be an affinity towards a particular method within entities.
- dijit 3y agothat's what the parent is saying.
- lostlogin 3y ago> jumping out a window Or a poisoning with a ludicrously rare poison, a strange car crash, a plane falling out the sky, dying at a gulag when you were fine a few days earlier etc etc. It’s a very unsafe place when you don’t toe the line.
- card_zero 3y agoTechnically I don't think Navalny was fine a few days earlier, I understood that he had ongoing poor health due to, uh, being previously poisoned.
- tim333 3y agoHere's video of him the day before looking not exactly on deaths door https://youtu.be/pUwOYeei5MU https://youtu.be/pUwOYeei5MU
- pydry 3y ago>It’s a very unsafe place when you don’t toe the line. Very much like America, apparently. The part where plenty of people express skepticism that theses death were really suspicious seems to be similar too.
- anon-sre-srm 3y agoPerhaps: A. Most people dismiss an actual conspiracy to murder a whistleblower witness as a conspiracy theory automatically. Such a cliché seems possible. Remember, Boeing is run by MD dickhead bros who traded in camel fucking magazine covers. B. He wanted additional scrutiny on Boeing, and was willing to die for it. C. Friend is seeking attention. It will require honest and diligent investigation to be sure it was truly suicide because none of us know from afar. C seems most likely.
- vmttmv 3y agoAny other alternative should surely be dismissed immediately in the land of the brave and home of the world police, the bonafide benefactors.
- XorNot 3y agoOption 0: people tend to be blindsided when someone in their life suffering from depression kills themselves. This is because if you see it coming, usually you go all out to intervene. It is ridiculously common for people to report that someone who seemed like they enduring mental hardship "was doing better" in the days before their suicide. I'm finding the immediate "it was an an assassination" rhetoric gross and unproductive here, because what it's dismissing is a very real problem: becoming a whistleblower tends to ruin people's lives between the media scrutiny, the legal scrutiny, the career jeopardy and being in and out of court rooms. Marriages breakdown, and people get depressed or develop substance problems. "He was assassinated" is just casually ignoring the fact that Boeing can kill this man dead completely legally through the normal shitshow which is the legal wringer whistleblowers get put through.
- anon-sre-srm 3y agoDuh. I mentioned A to dismiss it rather than invite inevitable conspiracy theories. His lawyers came out almost immediately claiming he seemed in good spirits. Perhaps this was a superficial assessment or he was hiding his true feelings. Like I said, wait until the investigation is complete because we don't know. It seems like the friend and media are grabbing attention rather than doing anything constructive.
- sundvor 3y agoConsidering how many deaths Boeing are responsible for through their blatant ineptitude, I wonder how far a stretch it would be that this one was indeed intended.
- windowshopping 3y agoThis is kind of mind-blowing to me. First case in my lifetime where a US corporation appears to have murdered someone for political reasons. Has this happened before? I assume it has but it's very rare.
- pulse7 3y agoThe mafia took over the Boeing Corporation...
- dotancohen 3y agoMcDonnell Douglas are hardly the Mafia.
- cpursley 3y agoNo, way worse - they’re MBAs.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- gruez 3y ago>First case in my lifetime where a US corporation appears to have murdered someone for political reasons Is there anything supporting this theory other than the fact the death benefits Boeing?
- tsimionescu 3y agoThe article we're commenting on, where a friend attests he was told explicitly that any "suicide" is fowl play. Sure, it's nowhere near "beyond a reasonable doubt", but it's plenty, together with the obvious motive, to form an opinion.
- pdpi 3y ago> fowl play You probably meant foul play. "Fowl" means chicken-y (galliformes) or duck-y (anseriformes) birds.
- dukeofdoom 3y agoManaging complexity is complex. I can't imagine how complicated building an airplane is. If the top people are not being retained, then problems will follow. Sometimes it's just one genius (Von Braun) that moves an entire field forward.
- dijit 3y agointeresting that Sinclair media would run this story. That ironically means its less likely to be US gov related.
- ImHereToVote 3y agoThat isn't how manufacturing consent works. The journo that published this will just silently harder go at it in the future.
- pulse7 3y agoMaybe Boeing is part of "National Security" and they are allowed to do anything with anyone...
- darkhorn 3y agohttps://youtu.be/YjVdq5tJSto?si=3u16AEx9tll_uga9 https://youtu.be/YjVdq5tJSto?si=3u16AEx9tll_uga9 > Obama: I'm Boeing's second biggest salesman
- justinzollars 3y agocould be foreign meddling too.
- ImHereToVote 3y agohttps://quod.lib.umich.edu/f/fc/images/13761232.0043.314-00000002.jpg https://quod.lib.umich.edu/f/fc/images/13761232.0043.314-000...
- jack_riminton 3y agoIf he suspected he was going to be knocked off I wouldn't be surprised if he had recorded or wrote down somewhere all the damming evidence he had
- avereveard 3y agoif he suspected he was a target why didn't he buy some home surveillance equipement
- dotancohen 3y agoMaybe he did? He was found dead in a vehicle in a hotel parking lot.
- hilux 3y agoMaybe he was killed by the agents of whoever. I have no non-public knowledge about this. On the other hand, if you were obsessed with some conspiracy theory, were feeling suicidal, and wanted to create maximum effect with your death ... "it's not suicide" is exactly what you'd say.
- d--b 3y agoOk there are conspiracy theories, making claims about things that are unlikely. And then there is the key witness that dies in a parking lot by gunshot wound the day before he is to testify on the case he spent decades building. And then there is his friends who swears that he wouldn’t commit suicide. Call me crazy all you want, but murder is the most probable theory here. The money interests are massive. People kill for tens of thousands of dollars. We’re talking millions of dollars here.
- gruez 3y agoThe "case" in question is a defamation suit he initiated against Boeing. This has nothing to do with the recent 737 MAX incidents, and the 787 issues he did whistleblow on was litigated to death years ago.
- michaelmrose 3y agoBillions. Its annual profit not revenue is 7.7B a 10% decrease in revenue this decade is worth 7.7B and a 10% decrease in valuation is worth 11B
- carabiner 3y agoYeah a single employee's testimony against an aircraft, the 787, that has safely flying every day since then, does not have that effect. Especially when all of that Barnett testified on years ago. Boeing does not make $7B from the 787. If you want to take someone out, make it a 737 MAX whistleblower.
- 317070 3y agoThey didn't know who was going to be the 737 MAX whistleblower. The whistleblower might not have known himself. But the 737 MAX whistleblower was also taken out yesterday.
- littlestymaar 3y agoHow could Boeing make sure to limit the amount of whistleblowers on the 737 MAX case? Killing former whistleblowers is a great way to send a message to everyone considering the option right now.
- dustedcodes 3y agoJohn Barnett, Jeffrey Epstein, Alexei Navalny, those suicides and bad health episodes always happen when it suits powerful people.
- sedatk 3y agoNo. If you’re concerned that you might get murdered, and want to make it clear that you have no intention of killing yourself, telling your one friend about it in a conversation in the midst of moving a sofa with no records to prove it whatsoever is the worst possible way of doing it. Tweet it, send it in a message, leave a note in your home. But, “hey push that side, and let’s lift this in 3..2…. oh by the way I have no intention of killing myself… 1… go! There you go”. No. That doesn’t check out. Even if that conversation actually took place, it’s not helpful at all because it’s so easy to dismiss as hearsay. That’s actually a curse you put on your friend if it really happened. EDIT: Apparently, the aforementioned help in the article was being a pallbearer at the friend’s father’s funeral. That turns out to be a less and less proper conversation for the occasion.
- Jomus 3y ago[flagged]
- switch007 3y agoWhile evaluation of someone's behaviour to work out the truth is a valid endeavour, I find people have a tendency – and I notice it often in our community – to expect perfect rationality in humans at all times. I guess as it makes it easier to criticise them. People who are stressed, sick, anxious, depressed etc often operate more on emotion and in aa reactive way rather than with foresight, clarity and rationality.
- sedatk 3y agoI mean, yes, but when we take irrationality into account, we can't discount the irrationality of saying "if it's suicide, it's not me" to a friend, and then committing suicide right after. My point isn't about what he supposedly did made sense or not, but what he did was completely useless if true, and even debating it is useless now because of the way it was done. That's why I mentioned how he cursed his friend with that.
- xeornet 3y agoSo you’ve never made a comment about something in passing that turned out to be true? Completely reasonable for this to be said in conversation with a friend but not taken seriously enough to write it down.
- aydyn 3y agoEvery single person in the previous thread who ridiculed others for saying that suicide was _not_ the most likely explanation needs a serious re-evaluation of their priors.
- hoffs 3y agoStress and pressure can lead to performing actions that you thought you couldn't do. They don't specify how early this event took place but mentions that deposition was yet to take place. So a lot could have changed after that as there's kind of no turning back.
- DonHopkins 3y agoAre you talking about John Barnett killing himself, or Dave Calhoun ordering the hit? Your argument applies to both.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- b-side 3y agoI don't think people are misaligned on the P(suicide) it is just due to the recent behaviour of Boing that P(murder|Boing) is elevated.
- aydyn 3y agoNot the probability of suicide prior, the probability of being murdered as a whistleblower prior.
- code_runner 3y agoalso everyone saying they wouldn’t avoid certain planes and there is so much redundancy that little simple non-aviation folks shouldn’t worry themselves. We’ve got a fishy death, no documentation on the door plug, and more incidents.
- zer00eyz 3y agoYea... SO if you really feel this way you say this to every reporter you see. You write it down and give it to your lawyer. Your wife. Your kids. You put copies in the safety deposit box. You give notarized copies to every 3rd homeless person you meet. You don't just tell one friend.
- mort96 3y agoI mean he could just not have expected to be murdered? If you're a whistleblower and truly expect there to be a high chance you get suicided, sure, you tell as many people as possible, but if it's not something you think is likely to happen, just telling one friend seems reasonable.
- pindab0ter 3y agoThis is the rational thing to do, yes. I'm not sure I would've thought of getting that notarised myself.
- politelemon 3y agoThis is a poor take. People don't find themselves in this situation normally and we should not be expecting them to have TV-murder-mystery style hypervigilance.
- zer00eyz 3y ago>> TV-murder-mystery style hypervigilance. The tv-murder-mystery plot where Boeing killed him and he told ONE friend is much more likely? Anxiety, PTSD, and a hand gun. This is a recipe for a suicide attempt that succeeds from a purely statistical point of view.
- lukan 3y agoMost people do not like to be drama queens, that might also be a possible reason, he did not shouted it out to the world. Also, it is of course possible, to plan suicide and still tell people it won't be suicide. We all lack the details here. But since Boeing is involved with military and intelligence work who do not like traitors(whistleblowers) in general and have the expertise in covert murder, I think murder is a valid theory that should be really investigated by a neutral agency.
- notorandit 3y agoThey need to investigate among investors. They will find surprises... A lot of surprises.
- johnohara 3y agoThese kinds of things happen and the waters immediately get murky. Even those closest to the person in question are never really 100% sure. Reminds me of the death of journalist Michael Hastings in 2013. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Hastings_(journalist)#Death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Hastings_(journalist)#... Richard Clarke's assessment seemed to carry the weight of truth. But only to a point. Just enough to engage the suspicions of family and friends, but no more. Same for John Barnett.
- whimsicalism 3y agoIn my view, almost all of these are accidents or suicides and people watch way too many hollywood films. The Hastings thing is classic mania for those of us who know people who have experienced that.
- yieldcrv 3y agoyeah the other issue with these things are that they are unlimited statements and indefinite in length "look this person wrote on twitter 2 years ago that it won't be suicide" hm. a solution I imagined for this was some sort of point cloud emitting off of everyone's body, so we would have a point cloud based rendering of what happened near someone, could reveal a lot about human interactions
- regentbowerbird 3y agoBut people _do_ die when exposing corruption of the rich. Such as Daphne Caruana Galizia and Ján Kuciak for the Panama papers. Would you call their deaths "hollywood films"? And it'd be natural to think killers would try to hide their traces, such that most such deaths would look like an accident or suicide.
- asdfgjkl 3y agoJust a correction, Kuciak wasn't killed for Panama Papers, but regular investigative journalism into the corruption of the rich (your point still stands).
- 3y ago
- treprinum 3y agoIt's pretty brutal if nobody cares about the optics of this anymore, just kill off whoever is inconvenient. I guess after Epstein's "two cameras malfunction" nobody cares about any public backlash and there is "normal day in Russia" to be inspired from...
- hnfong 3y agoWhat public backlash? It seems people here are content to call those who suspect Epstein suicide "very gullible"... It's interesting how the English language labels people "conspiracy theorists", like how the totally batshit crazy ones gets lumped together with those that actually seem to be suspect.
- logicchains 3y agoIt's not the "English language", the term "conspiracy theorist" was literally invented by the CIA to smear people who alleged the CIA was conspiring against the public.
- defrost 3y agoThat's a conspiracy theory: The term "conspiracy theory" is itself the subject of a conspiracy theory, which posits that the term was popularized by the CIA in order to discredit conspiratorial believers, particularly critics of the Warren Commission, by making them a target of ridicule. [..] The idea that the CIA was responsible for popularising the term "conspiracy theory" was analyzed by Michael Butter, a Professor of American Literary and Cultural History at the University of Tübingen. .. and that analysis concluded "yeah, nuh". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory#Origin_and_usage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory#Origin_and_u...
- AtlasBarfed 3y agoIt is appalling that as many details as possible are immediately leaked (or were they outright released by the police) about it being a suicide: gunshot to head in a remote location, "there is a note", "family said he had PTSD and was under stress". A major whistleblower dies in any non-natural manner should be a major investigation by the highest levels of the FBI, not immediately handled and released by the podunk no-resource local police that don't want to touch the case with a ten-foot pole. That's what is most galling. The media and police work in lockstep to immediately brand it a suicide. The only headline should be "Boeing whistleblower found dead, FBI is investigating".
- max_ 3y agoReading the comments here is now making me even more skeptical about society. It really looks like; It is a waste of time to take risk yourself and expose unethical practices conducted by the powerful. Because, A) The masses don't really care (I expected riots and protest). B) You may mysteriously die. C) Your death instead of sparking an outrage will mostly be labeled a "conspiracy theory". Given these three items, I can very confidently predict this in the future. 0. We shall have less exposés. 1. Corporations and other powerful entities will engage in more unethical behaviour. Due to majority of worker being spinless and complicit to corner cutting and other unethical practices. 2. Powerful entities will know they can get away with evil if they leave enough blanks in the engagement. Since the masses will label these as conspiracy theories. And they will be stuck in these academic "plausible deniability" kind of foggy minds. With this, I expect powerful entities to get away with more evil deeds. In a crowd of a hundred, 50 percent of the wealth, 90 percent of the imagination, and 100 percent of the intellectual courage will reside in a single person—not necessarily the same one. — Bed of Procrustes
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- sebstefan 3y ago> Due to majority of worker being spinless and complicit to corner cutting and other unethical practices. I think companies that might end up doing that kind of stuff first off cultivate that culture. Either in their entire company, or with the people who are going to engage with criminal activities. Security people, upper management, ... Like in the ebay case linked above https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBay_stalking_scandal#Stalking_and_harassment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBay_stalking_scandal#Stalking... I'm not sure we can deduce that most employees of the corporate world are cynical and unethical from just individual cases like this
- eternauta3k 3y ago> Due to majority of worker being spinless Are you seriously accusing most employees of being pions?
- vsnf 3y ago
- dylan604 3y agoMight be a good idea to make these kinds of statements in a more public manner on the socials. @ing the company your commenting against as well as any local police, FBI, or other pertinent TLAs. Let the opposition know they are no longer operating in the shadows. Of course the TLAs won't actively do anything about it proactively, but maybe it'll give more credence than the grieving friend's say-so later??? Have it in writing notarized, and on display in the video you post. This isn't a Grisham novel from the 90s. It's much easier to document things today.
- ChooseClawBroad 3y ago[flagged]
- epolanski 3y agoOn one side I agree with you, on the other, such statements are far from conclusive proof of anything. Let's make a small mental exercise: - you end up being a whistleblower against your company - every of your former friends hates you, your family isn't super supportive either for what you caused to the rest of the family (in reputation, attention, possibly financially) - you decide to end it - you leave such statements before ending it to clear your name / further punish the company I am not saying that this has happened, but people can have millions of motivations and victims being vengeful or lying is actually a surprisingly common phenomenon even though they may really be the victims of the whole situation.
- baja_blast 3y ago> every of your former friends hates you Ah yes, people hate it when people call out corruption that results in the planes they fly to kill people! >your family isn't super supportive either for what you caused to the rest of the family (in reputation, attention, possibly financially) Again, I agree their neighbors and friends must have been super pissed when he called out Boeing for building dangerous planes that can kill people! Nothing makes regular people more upset when you put integrity over the profits of some corporation! And I am sure the family were super pissed when pursuing a civil lawsuit that would benefit them. I am sure they were so upset about the negative repercussions to Boeing! I guess we can all agree that he killed himself for the benefit of friends and family something that you always hear when a father kills himself! /s
- codetrotter 3y agoThe OP link https://abcnews4.com/news/local/if-anything-happens-its-not-suicide-boeing-whistleblowers-prediction-before-death-south-carolina-abc-news-4-2024 https://abcnews4.com/news/local/if-anything-happens-its-not-... has two different cookie consent banners on top of each other and on iPhone using Safari I can’t scroll down to click any buttons to dismiss the banners which cover the screen. Screenshot of unreadable page: https://i.imgur.com/LNjbgK5.png https://i.imgur.com/LNjbgK5.png I’m in Europe, maybe that’s why they are serving me the page with these overlays. Thankfully however, archive.today is able to identify those kinds of overlays in many cases and remove them, including for this page. Readable archive link: https://archive.is/lgFFJ https://archive.is/lgFFJ
- MaxikCZ 3y agoThats an easy signal from the page to me that they really dont want me to read their content, so I just dont. There is 0 need for a cookie for me reading an article, so 0 need for a cookie disclaimer/consent box.
- jl6 3y agoAs a conspiracy theory, this still lies beneath the surface of hard evidence, but perhaps is now upgraded from benthic to pelagic.
- IncreasePosts 3y agoThese statements would only be meaningful if suicidal people couldn't say them. No one ever seems to invest in a security system, or a gun, when they make these statements. Why?
- User3456335 3y agoBro, where do you get your food? Do you grow it in your house? Where do you get your water from? Hell, where do you get your air from? How do you think getting a security system fixes it?
- IncreasePosts 3y agoA security system wouldn't necessarily stop Boeing assassins from breaking into your home, killing you, and making it look like a suicide, but it certainly would increase the chances that they were caught, or at least increase the chances that police would consider it a homicide instead of a suicide.
- usednet 3y agoWill a gun protect you when your car accelerates to 150 mph directly into a tree? A couple micrograms of toxin being sprinkled into your coffee? The CIA had a heart attack gun 50 years ago. Not difficult to imagine the capabilities they have today.
- IncreasePosts 3y agoNope, but it would probably help in the instance here, where I guess according to you, Boeing assassins broke into his home, and forced him to commit suicide with a gun(or, killed him with their own gun and staged it perfectly to look like a suicide).
- whoitwas 3y agoGiven the context, I don't think the easiest explanation is he killed himself. There's a pattern of whistleblowers dying.
- alecco 3y agoGary Webb vibes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Webb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Webb > Webb is best known for his "Dark Alliance" series, which appeared in The Mercury News in 1996. The series examined the origins of the crack cocaine trade in Los Angeles and claimed that members of the anti-communist Contra rebels in Nicaragua had played a major role in creating the trade, using cocaine profits to finance their fight against the government in Nicaragua. It also stated that the Contras may have acted with the knowledge and protection of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The series provoked outrage, particularly in the Los Angeles African-American community, and led to four major investigations of its charges. > Webb was found dead in his Carmichael home on December 10, 2004, with two gunshot wounds to the head. His death was ruled a suicide.
- tootie 3y agoYup. Webb also killed himself many many years after telling his story. His story that was generally considered unreliable and inaccurate.
- sieste 3y agoNote to self: Get safe hiding place, hire personal security, only then become a whistle blower against a big company.
- redeux 3y agoMany people become wealthy because of their willingness to engage in criminal behavior, but once they make it they want to be seen as legitimate business people. They go to great lengths to launder both their money and reputation. Their money, willingness to engage in criminal behavior, and the other malintents they picked up along the way make them particularly dangerous to expose.
- AndrewKemendo 3y agoEverybody understands that corporations use cartels to do their dirty work, right? Go work high level at an international commodities company and you’ll find that doing business with “the underworld” is required and that comes with connections to other capabilities I often see people say corporations arent as big of a problem compared to government because government has the ability to arrest and kill people. The idea that corporations are some gentle thing that don’t have murderous coercive capacities is beyond outdated Go and look at how corporations have co-opted local police forces to protect their businesses as the first order requirement of the police force. Best Buy, Walmart etc all have hired “off duty” cops for decades. The goal of the existing global economic and political structure is to protect business - full stop. https://money.cnn.com/2015/12/09/news/shell-companies-crime/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2015/12/09/news/shell-companies-crime/... https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/philmatier/article/Businesses-hiring-real-SF-cops-on-OT-to-keep-14365181.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/philmatier/article/Busin...
- ryanwaggoner 3y agoIt’s a huge jump from “Walmart hires off-duty cops for security” to Walmart having “the cartels” murder whistleblowers. And neither of your links have anything to do with major corporations.
- AndrewKemendo 3y agoWalmart is way too careful for any of that so they’re not playing in those realms. The point you should take away is that there is no actual distinction between the coercive capabilities of corporations and those of the state or in absence of a state, the ruling landlord/gang/dictator Smedley Butler wrote about this in detail in the 1930s (1) This is well documented in the Banana wars States are, and have always been, the corrcion arm of the largest employer in a sovereign territory https://archive.org/details/WarIsARacket https://archive.org/details/WarIsARacket https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Fruit_Company https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Fruit_Company
- koonsolo 3y agoThere is also another thing that comes into play: rich people go to rich places and come into contact with other rich people. Not all those rich people are honest business men, so to speak. So connections into shady things is not that difficult if you hang around in those social circles.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- boringg 3y agoDon't love the source but this doesn't look great.
- kylebenzle 3y agoThere would be revolution in the streets tomorrow if the average person understood where money comes from and how it works. Once a group of people is wired into the free money pipeline they will do ANYTHING to make sure their supply is not cut off. The USA has been printing and giving away free money for 30+ years now. The recipients of those funds have proven again and again, they will and do commit heinous crimes to maintain their position. 1) The legislature - Law makers have been captured through campaign contributions. In MOST cases a law maker has no say in how they vote, they are told by their campaign managers. 2) The judicial - Similarly judges tend to run for their seat every 4 years. In family court any divorce attorney worth their salt is donating the maximum amount to every judge every time they run. Then when they are in front of the judge in court just a thumbs up and a nod is enough to remind the judge who REALLY got them elected. 3) Corporations are DONE paying taxes and have been for a long time. Successful corporations have figured out how to siphon money from not only their customers but their employees and the federal government as well. 4) The money supply and system in general is fucked beyond repair and anyone willing or able to point that out is going to be on the "kill list".
- nso95 3y agoDid the news agencies bother to confirm whether this woman knew John Barnett?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- adolph 3y agoAt some level it is hard to contemplate a conspiracy to silence a whistleblower, but on the other hand: https://www.wcvb.com/article/ebay-employees-who-sent-live-spiders-cockroaches-to-natick-couple-massachusetts/46353042 https://www.wcvb.com/article/ebay-employees-who-sent-live-sp...
- salawat 3y agoNo it isn't. Snitches get stitches is as true in the boardroom as it is on the streets. Y'all just haven't seen the wrath of a psychopathic type with something to lose scorned. Perceived betrayal starts wars, divides families, and gets people killed. We're talking killing 1 guy to prevent or forestall millions to billions in damages, and years in prison for very rich, high profile, powerful people with stakes in one of the biggest money printers in the U.S. If you think there aren't people who'd gladly make that trade through a proxy that'd whack somebody for a cool 100,000 in a Cayman island or virgin island bank somewhere, taxed and covered by a faked up janitorial contract for a real, yet infrequently occupied warehouse somewhere, you're only deluding yourselves. You'd qualify as, what's the phrase? "Disney adults." Doesn't mean the whistleblowing wasn't worth doing. Give 'em hell Barnett.
- ghotchaii 3y agoThey are only too happy to delude themselves here. Hacker news is filled with blue pilled dweebs.
- goodSteveramos 3y ago“a book about surviving the loss of a spouse show up at their door“ Corporate America is a lot more thuggish than its defenders want you to know.
- yrallperverts 3y agoThe silicon valley CIA squad really showing up for this one.
- recursivedoubts 3y agoarea man who believed he was as cynical as humanly possible discovers a whole new level of cynicism he wasn't even aware existed
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- krunck 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Barnett_(whistleblower) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Barnett_(whistleblower)
- the_shivers 3y agoI am incredibly skeptical of the hypothesis that this might be a murder. Asking a few key questions makes it clear how dubious it is: Most importantly, who's gun was it? If it was someone else's gun, sure, it's a murder, but I think we'll find that the gun was Barnett's. And if so, we have to ask, how did the murderer manage to kill Barnett with his own gun? How did the killer get into the truck? We can assume the killer had to be in the truck, since the alternative (killing Barnett elsewhere and dragging the body through a Holiday Inn parking lot into the driver's seat) is absurd. Did they get lucky and try the door, finding it to be open? If so, wouldn't there be signs of a struggle when a stranger enters your vehicle? Or did they get in because they know Barnett, and he let them in (in which case, they won't have an alibi)? Why commit a murder in a public location? I won't be surprised if the Holiday Inn parking lot was being surveilled. The fact that the gun was found in his hand, and the timing of the murder, do seem like pretty big coincidences. But I think it's easier to chalk these up to coincidences than it is to answer the above questions. Additionally, per his Wikipedia page, he suffered from PTSD and anxiety attacks. These don't guarantee that he's suicidal, but it's not the picture of perfect mental health either. I'm very interested if anyone thinks they have a good explanation of how this could have taken place as a murder.
- reaperman 3y agoI’m skeptical too and I’m glad that rank speculation is being deranked well below FP. But someone else wondered if it’s almost worse than murder that even successful whistleblowing can lead to experiences so awful you want to kill yourself. Like “Boeing won’t kill you, they’ll make your life so terrible that you’ll do it for them”. I don’t think thats a completely reasonable interpretation either — but if we as a society value valid whistleblowing, what can we provide whistleblowers to help them navigate these incredibly difficult times? (financially, emotionally, socially, and spiritually) That said, if the cameras were off or not covering where the truck parked, I don’t think it would be very complicated for a highly paid individual to steal someone’s non daily-carry gun from their home or hotel room and walk up to their window when they get in their truck, shoot them at point blank, and wipe some gunpowder residue on their hand. I just don’t think it’s responsible to posit this as the clear reality. We don’t know what happened, and HN has been terribly wrong about the details of various recent high profile deaths - Tony Hsieh and Bob Lee. This type of speculation always causes more pain for the families and is almost always wrong-headed.
- ars 3y agoWhat would be the point of killing someone to silence them after they already spoke? The timing makes no sense.
- exadeci 3y agoIt was only the first part, he hadn't really given much yet. Killing him after the first part tells everyone else that if they're thinking of doing the same they'll be killed, if they had "suicided" him before people could have though he did actually killed himself.
- goodSteveramos 3y agoIts very telling that the major corporate news site chose to frame it as suicide “after” testifying when in fact he was found dead just hours before he was scheduled to give more testimony. They just as easily could have said he was found dead before scheduled testimony.
- ars 3y agoMaybe I'm remembering wrong, but it said he did most of his testimony already, and had just one session left to finish. Seems pointless to kill someone at that point, not to mention how public his name is. If you were going to kill him, doing it a month ago makes way way more sense.
- goodSteveramos 3y agoIf testifying in court is stressful enough to cause suicide, it seems pointless to wait until you are almost finished to do it. The message other whistle blowers will get is that people who blow the whistle on corporate America will be found dead in their cars one way or the other.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- GaryNumanVevo 3y agoBoeing always had trouble delivering things on time
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- llmblockchain 3y agoHonestly, if I was going to off myself and I was in a semi-newsworthy situation I'd tell everyone I knew if I die it's not suicide... just to mess with everyone.
- IIAOPSW 3y agoSee, he even left a suicide note. Clearly he was thinking about suicide. Case closed. /s
- yard2010 3y agoMaybe it's an old trick used by law enforcement - play dumb, let the suspect make stupid mistakes
- gustavus 3y agoThis is as much a suicide as Epstein was.
- freefreepal 3y ago[dead]
- burnished 3y agoFeels kind of gross to include the nieces observation that he had been stressed as some kind of counterpoint to the statement in the title.
- TaylorAlexander 3y agoYeah I’d be pretty stressed if I felt like I was going to be killed.
- dist-epoch 3y agoYeah, way to raise doubt about a nice narrative.
- throwawaaarrgh 3y ago[flagged]
- burnished 3y agoThat is not evidence. This is actually my problem - the lot of you treating that tidbit as if it was indicative of an actual suicide are only doing so because it was offered as it, which has more to do with sentence structure than your reasoning faculties.
- dang 3y agoYou've unfortunately been breaking the site guidelines a lot lately - not only in this comment but others such as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39719417 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39719417 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39681453 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39681453 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39681364 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39681364 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39616844 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39616844 If this keeps up, we're going to have to ban you. I appreciate your good comments, but they don't make it ok to break the rules. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
- glenstein 3y agoI feel like when there is financial malfeasance, we find enough cases of it in the wild to document that it has really happened. Whether it's Enron, or stories of lobbyists and politicians acting in self interest in ways that break the law, or even just municipal officials embezzling, we have known cases of that. So if you ever have the feeling that big financial transactions might be ethically questionable, you can at least know that such things have happened in the wild. I think the same is true of war crimes in wars - enough of the worst type of things have really happened, and been documented, so there's nothing on the face of it that is outlandish if you heard a new report of such a thing. But how about deaths in suspicious circumstances like this one? Is there a historical record of these kinds of things being carried out, especially in the western world, in circumstances where the motive is corporate self-interest? What's the most clear cut case we have of something falling in that falls into (for lack of a better term) the Michael Clayton category?
- MeatBro 3y agoTommy Chui, cigarette smuggling. [1]: https://www.icij.org/investigations/big-tobacco-smuggling/bat-finds-partner-asias-most-notorious-criminal-organization/ https://www.icij.org/investigations/big-tobacco-smuggling/ba...
- runeofdoom 3y agoKaren Silkwood https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Silkwood https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Silkwood
- superb-owl 3y agoIt reminds me closely of Gary Webb's death, though the circumstances are different: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Webb#Death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Webb#Death But more to your question, I think a great example of corporate self-interest leading to serious crimes is the Ebay stalking scandal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBay_stalking_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBay_stalking_scandal
- unyttigfjelltol 3y ago
- throwawaaarrgh 3y ago[flagged]
- pests 3y agoWhat? There is like 8 other comments right now and none of them are making any guesses to what happened?
- jjtheblunt 3y agoI don’t think the armchair detectives were born when Columbo was on tv.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- tim333 3y agoThe Onion's take https://www.theonion.com/boeing-promotes-mysterious-employee-known-only-as-the-1851333169 https://www.theonion.com/boeing-promotes-mysterious-employee...
- throwaway1492 3y agoWhenever people say about someone “they would never kill themselves” it reminds me of a deeply disturbing depression episode I had, thankfully only once, that lasted about 8 hours. It was the blackest morass of misery, I couldn’t bear to be in my own skin. After experiencing that I came to understand how people can do it, and the sudden onset also made me understand how inexplicable it can be.
- rowlandrose 3y agoWas there any identifiable trigger, like a highly stressful situation or something you ingested? I am curious due to depression in my family.
- 99catmaster 3y ago+1
- mandeepj 3y agoHe was such a key witness, not sure why he wasn't given police protection and hospitalization
- 1970-01-01 3y agoThis kind of veritas belongs on Twitter, and not just with friends. Doing so completely removes hearsay from the equation.
- kylecazar 3y agoI'm not saying one thing or another happened, I don't know. But surely we know enough about suicide to not use 'he seemed so happy and full of life' to support a murder argument. If it was an assassination, this is some Michael Clayton level stuff.
- _heimdall 3y agoMy dad once worked for a pet supply company, I don't remember his exact title but he reported to the owner. He was introduced to an individual that worked for the mob, only went by his first name, and was introduced as the guy who can take care of whatever is needed. He heard later (obviously hearsay at that point) that Big Mike had indeed killed a guy that was causing problems for the owner. There's no way of knowing for sure obviously, but my dad's read on both Big Mike and the story was that it was absolutely true. If a small pet supply company has connections to clean up a mess, as it were, I can only assume a company the size of Boeing could as well.
- zer00eyz 3y ago“He was suffering from PTSD and anxiety attacks as a result of being subjected to the hostile work environment at Boeing, which we believe led to his death,” the brother said. FROM: https://apnews.com/article/boeing-whistleblower-death-apparent-suicide-south-carolina-f7c8b8a614b069942a5f2e4773b99487 https://apnews.com/article/boeing-whistleblower-death-appare... He is also known to have quit Boeing on the advice of a DR who said if he stayed he was going to have a heart attack. PTSD+Anxiety+Gun = suicide from a statistical point of view. Without the gun it is much more likely to be an "attempt". The family wasnt shocked, and they still blamed Boeing...
- fhsm 3y agoIndeed one would hope and yet… https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19026258/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19026258/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33687121/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33687121/
- giantg2 3y agoI would think that if you were concerned about this sort of thing and proving it wasn't suicide, you would have some sort of measures in place - hidden video, hidden audio, trace powders, etc.
- FireBeyond 3y agoDefinitely not a Boeing apologist, but as a paramedic, I'd take this with a grain of salt, too. I have been on calls for a non-trivial number of patients who've sworn black and blue that they're "no longer suicidal", "no longer a threat", "if anything happens to me, it wasn't suicide" who, you guessed it, went on to attempt or commit suicide in very short order.
- bzmrgonz 3y agoSo the MO is, when your plan to pay professionals to make it look like suicide fails, pay family members some cash to say he was under major stress!!
- nojvek 3y agoPlaying devil’s advocate - even if this is related to a Boeing executive, it needs to be proved in court. Allegations and heresay is easy. Pricing in court with evidence is a much steeper climb. Don’t see much talk of evidence in the article.
- jweissman 3y agoPlanes always sucked of course but corporate wetwork squads take it over the line, I think
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- juanani 3y ago[dead]
- rajnathani 3y agoJohn McAfee said the same thing, though he was a bit out of his mind at the time.
- Slava_Propanei 3y ago[dead]
- yannick1976 3y agoOn iOs, use two fingers to scroll through the cookies consent pop up to the Submit button :)