From CIA To Silicon Valley: Intelligence Roots Of eBay Cyberstalking Scandal
UPDATE 4-9-25
As eBay cyberstalking case continues, execs seek to lift protective order blocking discovery of Senior Security Director Jim Baugh's alleged CIA past.
Liz Morton
Recently released documents expose new details about the eBay cyberstalking scandal, Senior Security Director Jim Baugh's alleged CIA past and how the revolving door between Big Tech and the US national security apparatus threatens free speech and press freedom.
The bizarre corporate plot unfolded in the summer of 2019, targeting Ina and David Steiner for their reporting on eBay at EcommerceBytes and seeking to unmask the identity of unsuckEBAY (also known as FidoMaster/Dan Davis) an anonymous source and commenter who also sparked the ire of top executives at the company.
Court records revealed sordid details of the harassment that included disturbing deliveries of live insects, bloody pig masks and funeral wreaths as well as threatening messages, doxxing that ultimately escalated to in-person stalking and an attempted break-in at the hands of high-level eBay security personnel.
Liz Morton
Baugh, Director of Global Resiliency David Harville, Security Manager Philip Cooke, Sr Manager Special Operations Brian Gilbert, Sr Manager Global Intelligence Stephanie Popp, Global Intelligence Manager Stephanie Stockwell, and Security Analyst Veronica Zea contracted through security company Progressive F.O.R.C.E Concepts all pleaded guilty and have been sentenced for their roles in these crimes.
The ongoing ~$500 Million civil lawsuit names the seven criminal defendants plus eBay, ex-CEO Devin Wenig, ex-Communications Chief Steve Wymer, ex-SVP Global Operations Wendy Jones, and security company Progressive F.O.R.C.E Concepts (PFC), claiming direction and support for the harassment came from the very top of eBay's c-suite.
Executive frustration with EcommerceBytes and Fidomaster/unsuckEBAY grew exponentially in 2018-2019 with commentary on corporate issues being of particular interest to eBay - such as mass layoffs and management shakeups, an article about Wenig's oversized compensation package and revelations that Wenig had built an on campus pub, Walker's West which resulted in Jones allegedly telling Baugh to "deal with the issue off the radar since comms and legal couldn’t handle it.”
When activist investor Elliott Management took a stake and publicly called for changes at the company in early 2019, Wenig, Wymer, and Jones put increasing pressure on Baugh to handle perceived negative coverage with orders to "take down" Ina Steiner and unmask unsuckEBAY....Whatever. It. Takes.
At her criminal sentencing, Security contractor Veronica Zea called the culture at eBay under Baugh cult-like, toxic and abusive, weaving a stomach-churning story about how a carefully selected group of mostly young female analysts (nicknamed "Jim's Angels") were systematically broken down through coercive control techniques, sexual harassment and assault, sleep deprivation, and routine exposure to graphically violent content.
Liz Morton
Aside from these disturbing videos, Baugh required mandatory viewing of movie and tv clips that he thought were particularly instructive for the security team - like a scene from The Wolf of Wall Street where employees refuse to cooperate with federal law enforcement, the "circle of trust" from Meet the Fockers, a clip from the tv show Billionaires about loyalty, and a scene from American Gangster where Denzel Washington's character casually executes a man in front of a crowd to prove a point.
An investigator with the FBI Boston Division's Cyber Crimes Squad even said he believed Baugh used the movie Body of Lies as inspiration for what the government would call the "White Knight Strategy".
The White Knight Strategy was so named because Baugh and his team planned to threaten the Steiners anonymously with the goal of being able to ride to the rescue in their official eBay capacity with an offer to "assist" with the harassment in hopes of creating goodwill to get them to reveal the identity of Fidomaster/ unsuckEBAY.
Liz Morton
While Zea's letter to the court contains the most shocking revelations about the toxic culture at eBay, Baugh's sentencing letter gained even wider attention due to explosive claims that he had previously served in the National Clandestine Services - the undercover arm of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Baugh's letter to the judge was surprisingly candid about his government intelligence background - including claims that he worked for the CIA after a stint at Microsoft and that he assisted the CIA and FBI with intelligence gathering activities on a voluntary, unpaid basis after returning to the private sector as an independent security consultant on high-profile protection details including guarding then-Vice President Joe Biden at the 2016 Oscars.
The letter also revealed Baugh's supposed CIA and FBI code names as well as claims that during his private sector career, he assisted with recruitment of
foreign agents and electronic surveillance of foreign leaders; reported observations from international travel and business meetings; and recruited colleagues (including a CEO) to assist the government by allowing the use of their private sector resources.
The details in Baugh's statements raised serious questions about what role this background may have played in his hiring at eBay, whether the executives involved knew about his history and how that might have contributed to the criminal events unfolding in the manner in which they did.
Strangely, after this letter was initially filed on the public docket, the Department of Justice stepped in to request to have the document sealed, insisting that it contained classified national security information.
Since then, the DOJ has continued to insert itself into discovery and depositions in the civil matter, shutting down most lines of inquiry regarding Baugh's alleged intelligence history - which has only fueled further speculation about whether or not his claims are true.
The Steiners have continued to fight to have the information unsealed and to be able to pursue further discovery into eBay, Wenig, Wymer and Jones' knowledge of Baugh's past government service, arguing this information is crucial to their claims of alleged negligent supervision.
Other documents from the criminal sentencing which have not been sealed show that Baugh contends he was hired by eBay specifically for his prior government experience which demonstrated an "ability to solve difficult problems through unconventional means" and that this practice is not uncommon in corporate America, citing a New York Times article about a former CIA officer who was employed by Uber as one example.
Baugh's attorneys also argued that imposing the maximum sentence would send a message of impunity to corporate executives that they can distance themselves from the actions of their security personnel by carefully maintaining enough distance from operational specifics.
While Baugh's sentencing letter remains sealed, personnel file documents recently released from discovery in the civil case shed new light on his purported CIA past and career path that brought him to eBay in 2016.
The resume Baugh submitted when applying to eBay confirms many of his claims about his prior work history - including that he was part of the Microsoft Executive Protection Unit directly responsible for the safety of then Chairman Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer from April 2002 to September 2006.
It also confirms he returned to work at Gates' personal services company and think tank bgC3 (later renamed to Gates Ventures/Gates Notes) providing protection for CEO Larry Cohen in August 2007, where he "coordinated with foreign and domestic law enforcement and intelligence agencies."
Before transitioning to lead bgC3, Cohen was CVP Corporate Marketing at Microsoft from 1995-2007, likely making him one of the other "designated executives" Baugh's unit protected during his time at the company.
Another section of Baugh's resume listing "specialized training" shows that while he was employed at bgC3, he completed training in protocom physical defense, combative pistolcraft, and active shooter situations in 2007 and 2008 from Progressive Force Concepts - the company he would later hand-pick to provide contracted security personnel to eBay GIC under his command.
During the time between Microsoft and bgC3 in which Baugh claims to have been working for CIA Clandestine Services, his resume shows he was a Strategic Planner at defense contractor Northrop Grumman, lending plausibility to the idea that he may have at least been contracted to the CIA during this time, if not directly employed by the agency.
Shortly after Baugh joined Microsoft in 2002, his department came under new leadership when the company hired 20+ year CIA operations veteran Mike Howard to manage all physical security operations as Chief Security Officer.
In a recent appearance on The Team House podcast, Howard revealed that his final assignment at CIA was in National Resources, a division whose main function is to conduct voluntary debriefings of US citizens who travel overseas for work or family, and to recruit foreign students, diplomats, and business people to become CIA assets when they return to their countries.
...then my last assignment in the agency was...national resources. So national resources for those of you who don't know...it's the domestic arm of the agency.
The agency has no remit to conduct [domestic] intelligence operations per se...
So what we do is we work with the Bureau [FBI] on possible targets and we work with business...if there are business people that are willing let's say in their travels and they have access to different information, to give us information or atmospherics of personalities, we kind of report on that.
The CIA working with the FBI to recruit executives to provide information from their foreign travels and business dealings? That sounds exactly like what Baugh said he was doing on a voluntary basis - including when he worked at eBay.
That history adds significant credibility to Baugh's claims and raises the question - did Howard recruit him to work for the CIA during his time at Microsoft and/or connect him with National Resources when he moved back into the private sector?
Before Baugh took a plea deal in the criminal case, he filed a motion to compel discovery which sought records of his government service from 2014-2018 - which would indicate he was still engaged in these activities while working at eBay.
However, just because that is the time period for which Baugh requested records for discovery, that doesn't necessarily mean his government service only occured during that time.
In fact, the now sealed letter said Baugh's voluntary work with the CIA and FBI went on for a longer period, which could have potentially stretched back to his time at bcG3 or other private security firms where he worked before joining eBay.
That apparent discrepancy could raise questions about the credibility of Baugh's claims, but unfortunately, the protective order currently prohibits either the Steiners or any of the defendants from taking discovery or depositions to determine when exactly Baugh's intelligence work began and whether it was still ongoing through 2018.
Coincidentally, Bill Gates, Larry Cohen and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar all attended the annual EDGE Billionaire's Dinner in 2009 - an event where Baugh could have possibly been present or involved at the periphery as part of Cohen's personal protection detail at that time.
The Gates Foundation and Omidyar's various philanthropic endeavors have considerable overlap in many areas, including partnerships with USAID like the 2012 Better Than Cash alliance which called on governments and NGOs in Peru, Kenya, Colombia, and the Philippines to adopt the use of electronic payments for programs that support people living in poverty.
Baugh's sentencing memo also included a signed letter from then Vice President Joe Biden, thanking him for his patience and professionalism as part of the security team working the 2016 Oscars.
Pierre Omidyar and eBay's first president, now producer and philanthropist Jeffrey Skoll were also in attendance at the 88th Annual Academy Awards at Hollywood & Highland Center on February 28, 2016 - 6 months later, Baugh was hired at eBay.
Angely Montilla
Yasha Levine, author of Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet, explains how eBay turned into an arm of the US National Security State very soon after going public, as Omidyar's utopian ideas of a self-regulating marketplace didn't scale with the massive popularity of the platform and couldn't handle the influx of fraud and scams which proliferated across the site.
Yasha Levine
This transformation — from cybernetic dream into a police-backed big money machine — started in 1999, not long after eBay’s IPO. That year, the company hired a law-enforcement power couple to run its new policing division: Angela Malacari and her husband Rob Chesnut.
Angela was poached from the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Immigration and Naturalization Services, where she spent her time “kicking down doors of New York tenements and brothels.”
Her husband Rob came to eBay after serving as a U.S. Assistant Attorney General in the eastern Virginia District, where he handled high profile cases, including the trial of double agent Aldrich Ames who spied for the Russians while working at the CIA.
The two had deep ties to America’s intelligence and law enforcement apparatus and they assembled an internal policing team that looked like it had come straight from some kind of private spook mail-order catalogue.
Shortly after news of the cyberstalking scandal went public, current CEO Jamie Iannone issued an internal memo on corporate ethics encouraging employees to "see something, say something" - and also hosted an all hands event bringing Rob Chesnut back to eBay as a guest speaker to provide a company-wide presentation on corporate ethics and integrity.
Since I rejoined eBay earlier this year, and particularly over the last couple of months, the eBay Leadership Team has frequently discussed how openness, honesty, respect and doing business with integrity drives our success...
...And, here's the thing...ethics is everyone's responsibility. We all need to see ourselves as being personally accountable for our commitment to doing business ethically.
That's why I strongly encourage you to join me, Marie Oh Huber, Chief Legal Officer, and Molly Finn, Chief Compliance Officer in conversation with Rob Chesnut, an eBay alum and highly-regarded ethics and integrity expert.
When eBay moved Molly Finn to VP Deputy General Counsel M&A and looked for someone to replace her as Chief Compliance Officer in the wake of this scandal, they settled on Ryan Jones - who just happened to work directly under Chesnut for 5 years as Chief Compliance Officer Payments at AirBnB.
Liz Morton
Omidyar's decades long connection to the US security state has also been well documented by MintPress News, revealing there is far more to the billionaire recluse than the auction site he is famous for founding.
Alexander Rubinstein, Max Blumenthal
While it's not clear exactly what brought Baugh to eBay in 2016, the corporate security and surveillance apparatus in place at eBay at that time didn't just appear overnight or in a vacuum - it was the intentional result of years of corporate decision-making at the highest levels of the company.
Notably, Omidyar was still an active member of eBay's Board of Directors when these criminal events occured.
He stepped down in September 2020, 3 months after the scandal became public, but is still a major shareholder and retains the honorary title of Director Emeritus
That title may not come with voting rights, but that doesn't mean Omidyar no longer has any influence at the company as there are still 4 current Board members who were serving alongside Omidyar when the scandal happened, including current Chairman of the Board, Paul Pressler.
More directly, Shripriya Mahesh was appointed to eBay's BOD in 2023 after previously rising to VP Product Management and Product Strategy in 2006, then joining Omidyar's First Look Media as Head Of Product in 2013 and later becoming Partner Emerging Tech at Omidyar Network.
While serving on the eBay Board of Directors, Mahesh has actively maintained her position as Founding Partner of Spero Ventures - a for-profit venture fund spunout from Omidyar Network in 2018 with Pierre Omidyar as its sole limited partner at the time.
In yet another twist of irony, Omidyar also founded the Intercept, which became famous for publishing Edward Snowden's NSA leaks before halting research on the files and locking them down from any further public access in March of 2019.
Margot Williams, Henrik Moltke, Micah Lee, Ryan Gallagher
Given that history, one might think Omidyar would have some interesting thoughts about journalists being harassed and threatened in an attempt to influence their reporting and uncover the identity of an anonymous source.
However, he has never made any public statements about the eBay scandal and mainstream media has apparently not seen fit to ask where the elusive founder was when everything went off the rails at the company which enabled him to amass the vast fortune he now spends on various "world-shaping" endeavours.
Omidyar also has tangential ties to the studio and team which produced a documentary about the eBay cyberstalking scandal called Whatever It Takes, which debuted at the South by Southwest Film Festival last year and features exclusive interviews with the Steiners.
The film was produced by Allyson Luchak and Ben Travers, who had previously worked with the Steiners' original attorney in the civil case, Rosemary Scapicchio, on Trial 4, a documentary series about the fight to free Sean Ellis from wrongful conviction.
Whatever It Takes had backing from Concordia Studio, which is funded by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs' widow, Laurene Powell Jobs, who has previously collaborated with Omidyar on various philanthropic and media endeavors.
Whatever It Takes executive producers Jonathan Silberberg and Nicole Stott from Concordia Studio both worked directly with Omidyar's Luminate Media in 2020 to produce A THOUSAND CUTS - a documentary about CEO/Founder of news site Rappler, Maria Ressa, and press freedom in the Philippines.
Ex-Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte's government targeted Ressa and Rappler, alleging they were part of CIA-backed regime change efforts in the region with funds funneled through USAID, the US State Department, and National Endowment for Democracy through Omidyar Network and other organizations.
The Committee to Protect Journalists and other press freedom organizations (many of which receive grants and other financial support from the Gates Foundation, Larry Cohen, Omidyar Network, and George Soros' Open Society Foundations and other left-leaning billionaire backed sources) stepped up to defend Rappler, saying the accusations were "lies being propagated by persons allied with President Duterte to discredit independent journalism."
Shawn W. Crispin/CPJ Senior Southeast Asia Representative
At issue was Omidyar's major investment in Rappler starting in 2015 which lead the Philippine government revoked Rappler's operating license in 2018, citing concerns that "foreign ownership" of the company (Omidyar's investment) violated the country's constitution.
Philip Wang,Helen Regan
Strangely, the Omidyar Network website removed all links and mentions of their financial involvement and support for Ressa and Rappler in July 2024, just a few weeks before Rappler won their appeal to have their license reinstated.
Omidyar dropping Ressa and Rappler down the memory hole is even more interesting in light of the recent spotlight which has been placed on USAID corruption by former US State Department official Mike Benz and others.
In a big blow to the conspiracy theory that Maria Ressa and her global Internet censorship advocacy were being backed by the State Dept, CIA, USAID, NED network, she was recruited to join Columbia’s SIPA spook institute alongside Hillary Clinton, Mike Pompeo & Victoria Nuland https://t.co/Z9sJmCXUMG pic.twitter.com/8odPGeQ5p0
— Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) March 6, 2025
And ironically, when Wenig leaned heavily into the fidget spinner fad in 2017 to get a short term boost in Active Buyers for eBay, he tweeted a picture of one of the toys emblazoned with the seal of the US Central Intelligence Agency, saying "I'm sure it's fine to leave this on my desk during meetings."
I'm sure it's fine to leave this on my desk during meetings pic.twitter.com/OsEO7UTGBe
— Devin Wenig (@devinwenig) September 20, 2017
Baugh was originally hired in August 2016 as a Director Global Protective
Services reporting to then Senior Director Safety & Security James Fussell.
After Fussell departed the company in 2017, Baugh was promoted to Senior Director Safety and Security reporting directly to SVP Global Operations Wendy Jones.
Baugh led a significant overhaul of eBay's Global Security and Resiliency operations, including creating a new Global Investigations and Threat Management unit and introducing new intelligence products like Person of Interest Reports - which would later play a significant role in the cyberstalking events when the security team was instructed to create fake POI reports as part of the White Knight Strategy.
Jones praised Baugh's continuing efforts in creating and maintaining POI files and GSOC intelligence collection and dissemination in 2018.
However, she also noted that Baugh needed to focus on working better with other departments, executive presence (including a specific callout that Wenig had commented about Baugh making him nervous), situations which should have been handed off to legal or HR and a general sense that incidents were handled as individual issues rather than part of a structured approach - all of which should have been giant red flags for the criminal behaviour which eventually occurred.
Source: Excerpts Jim Baugh 2018 Performance Review - Steiner et al v. eBay Inc. et al 1:21-cv-11181 Doc 503-31
Despite those concerns about Baugh's leadership, the Board apparently felt there was no problem with allowing both Wenig and Jones to take overlapping sabbaticals in August 2019 - leaving a gaping hole in oversight and chain of command during the exact time when most of the criminal activity occurred.
The overlapping sabbaticals are just the tip of the iceberg of corporate governance issues brought to light by this case, as specifics about how Wenig's "resignation" and severance were handled, Jones' separation letter non-disparagement clause, and other decisions made by the Board of Directors in the wake of the scandal raise serious questions about historic and ongoing compliance, disclosure and ethics failures at the company.
Liz Morton
Baugh was also not the only member of eBay's security department with a background in government intelligence, military service or law enforcement.
Director of Global Resiliency, David Harville was commissioned on active duty as a US Army Second Lieutenant assigned to the Military Police Corps at Fort Hood, TX in 1995, then was promoted to Captain and served as a Specialist in Operation Desert Storm.
After leaving active duty, Harville became a Subject Matter Expert on Weapons of Mass Destruction for the Department of Justice Office of Domestic Preparedness before moving on to pursue jobs in private security.
Security Manager Philip Cooke and Senior Manager Special Operations Brian Gilbert both had careers with the Santa Clara Police Department, where their paths had significant overlap - including both being heavily involved in providing security for San Francisco 49ers events at Levi's Stadium.
Gilbert took on many roles in his time at SCPD including undercover narcotics, leading the Strategic Response Team, and protective duty for President George W. Bush in 2003 before becoming a robbery/homicide detective in 2006, being hand-selected for the role of Intel Sergeant in 2008, and then chosen to spearhead the department's work with Levi's Stadium.
The criminal cases against Cooke and Gilbert revealed troubling details of how the pair planned to use connections from their time with SCPD to help cover up their crimes by creating a fake Person of Interest dossier for a Samoan gang member and potentially enlisting the help of a local "friendly" cop to influence the investigation into the purchase of prepaid gift cards which were used to purchase items used in the harassment campaign.
The civil suit also alleges Cooke and Gilbert were involved in creating a "plan B" which included the idea of enlisting a Samoan gang member to potentially harm or even possibly kill the Steiners.
Cooke and Gilbert were allowed to keep their $200,000+ Santa Clara Police Department pensions, despite pleading guilty to multiple federal felonies, after an investigation determined there was no link between their criminal activity at eBay and their previous police careers.
Inexplicably, the investigation said it found no evidence that Gilbert or Cooke used their positions within SCPD to gain post-retirement employment at eBay, even though court records clearly show both men ended up at eBay due to connections they made while working with the San Francisco 49ers on behalf of the department.
The man responsible for conducting that investigation, Howard Jordan, was a former Oakland Police Chief who retired in 2013 to start a private consulting firm.
This 2021 investigation into Cooke and Gilbert's employment at SCPD wasn't the first time the city had used Jordan's services - he was also paid $90,000 in 2018 to evaluate public safety at Levi’s Stadium, which should have been flagged as a glaring conflict of interest, given the details of this case.
Carolyn Schuk
After the criminal campaign unraveled, eBay hired outside counsel at Morgan Lewis to assist in conducting an internal investigation and creating a presentation for the US Attorney's Office.
As part of that investigation, eBay moved the security unit from Global Operations (which was still under Wendy Jones at the time) to Legal under then Chief Legal Officer Marie Oh Huber, outsourced POI work to an unnamed third party vendor, and promoted Dan Cory to take over Baugh's old position as Senior Director Safety and Security.
Cory previously served 4 years as a Commando in the Royal Marines and 12+ years in the London Metropolitan Police as a Specialist Firearms Officer and Instructor for Scotland Yard conducting covert counter terrorism operations in counter terrorism before becoming VP Security for the San Francisco 49ers.
He was connected with Jim Baugh through a mutual associate in the industry and offered a job at eBay in 2017.
When he left in 2021, his LinkedIn profile shows he returned to the 49ers as Chief Security Officer, while also founding his own security company, Nickel Group.
In his position as Director of Global Security at eBay during the criminal events, Gilbert and Cooke both directly reported to Cory, putting him in the middle of the chain of command between them and Jim Baugh.
Cory may have even been responsible for recruiting Gilbert, who was particularly proud of his work with the San Francisco 49ers after retiring from SCPD and credits connections he made at Levi's Stadium with landing him the eBay gig after being approached about the job in 2019 by an unnamed eBay executive with whom he had previously worked.
His LinkedIn profile, multiple LinkedIn posts, and media guides from 2021-2024 all publicly and proudly show Dan Cory as being employed by the San Francisco 49ers as Chief Security Officer after leaving eBay.
Source: LinkedIn and 49ers 2022 Media Guide
In fact, 49ers General Manager John Lynch called Dan Cory "our director of security" in a September 6, 2024 article about wide receiver Ricky Pearsall being shot in an attempted robbery.
Joaquin Ruiz
When asked to confirm this information while being deposed in the cyberstalking suit that same day, Cory hedged his answer, saying he wasn't sure how much he could reveal about his security company's clients due to confidentiality while also explicitly stating he is not employed by the San Francisco 49ers - despite all the publicly available information seemingly to the contrary.
That deference to confidentiality stands in stark contrast to the Nickel Group LinkedIn page which apparently has no problem revealing that they are contracted to provide security for the 49ers - so why did Cory play coy during his deposition?
Source: Nickel Group LinkedIn
While depositions do not take place in front of a judge or jury, they are still considered testimony sworn under oath and subject to perjury charges if it is discovered the person being deposed lied.
The fact that Cory appears to have stopped himself to carefully choose the words "not employed" suggests he may not be directly employed by the 49ers and his position as Chief Security Officer could be contracted through Nickel Group, which would make his statement technically accurate.
But if he is directly employed by the 49ers, not only could it potentially be perjury - it could also be used to discredit any testimony he might give if he is called as a witness at trial.
A deeper look into Cory's security firm reveals that Nickel Group's COO is Scott Pugh, who in his previous position at Progressive F.O.R.C.E Concepts was the person directly responsible for Veronica Zea and other contractors PFC had deployed at eBay.
As Zea's supervisor at Progressive F.O.R.C.E Concepts, Pugh would visit eBay every few months to check in with the contractors assigned there and was also the point of contact to whom Zea would send her expense reports for the PFC company credit card she used in her job at eBay - including for purchases which ended up being used in the commission of these crimes.
Nickel Group also employs several other ex-PFC employees, including Manager Operations Caitlin Weaver who was a contractor at eBay working under Cory when the criminal events occured.
After Cory's departure, eBay hired Eric Donelan to take over Global Security and Resiliency.
Donelan spent almost 15 years in various roles with the US State Department, then 2 years leading security at Korean ecommerce giant Coupang before joining eBay in 2022.
Under Donelan's leadership, eBay has continued their long history of public/private partnerships with various government and law enforcement agencies, including hosting a recent fireside chat with the US State Department Overseas Security Advisory Council, instructing Diplomatic Security Service special agents on concepts and best practices of Executive Protection.
OSAC Pan-Asia members convened at @eBay headquarters in San Francisco last month for a hybrid fireside chat on #ExecutiveProtection. Diplomatic Security Service special agents from the San Francisco Field Office led over 60 public and private sector OSAC members in a discussion… pic.twitter.com/KeiD9QNmRE
— OSAC (@OSACstate) February 25, 2025
Considering eBay is still under DOJ-mandated compliance monitoring and involved in ongoing civil litigation due to their ex-CIA agent led security department committing multiple federal felonies using corporate resources in response to executive directives, one might think they are in no position to be instructing anyone on best practices for Executive Protection - except maybe to serve as a cautionary tale.
The scandal and subsequent ongoing brand damaging debacle should have been seen as an opportunity for eBay to chart a different course for how the company, under new Chief Communications Officer Gigi Ganatra Duff, will handle press relations going forward.
Unfortunately, a recent Crisis Comms job posting shows that eBay doesn't appear to have learned much from this situation, as they are actively seeking to hire someone with "a history of developing, pitching, preventing and securing high-impact media coverage" - a chilling thought considering what happened the last time eBay became overly concerned with preventing high-impact media coverage.
Liz Morton
A truly free and independent press is crucial for holding power of all kinds to account - which is why governments and corporations alike pour vast resources into controlling and countering media narratives, often employing "catch and kill" practices to prevent information from going public.
Thus it's not surprising that much of Omidyar's philanthropic work has centered around funding "pro-democracy" journalism around the globe, just as it's no coincidence that Omidyar Network "supports" tech whistleblowers or finances "tech accountability" organizations like Accountable US and Accountable Tech - who, oddly enough, never seem to find any reason to mention eBay.
Extra credit - search for said accountability org & eBay to see how often co Omidyar founded (where he made the 💰he uses for "philanthropy") gets even a fraction of the scrutiny other Big Tech players receive. 🔍
— Liz Morton ~ Value Added Resource (@ValueAddedRS) March 11, 2025
Odds are you won't find much🧐 - see also @accountabletech pic.twitter.com/2AiS3mYaW2
The public narrative around the eBay scandal has largely focused on the bizarre nature of the harassment campaign, painting a picture of a rogue security director going too far in a twisted quest to "protect the company."
But the criminal and civil cases in this matter have revealed a much deeper story of historic and ongoing systemic corporate governance failures and a shockingly reckless disregard for free speech, press freedom, and the rule of law by a private security force largely trained by and still in public/private partnership with government intelligence, military and law enforcement agencies.
This history is not unique to eBay of course - it is endemic to much of Silicon Valley and, as Levine's Surveillance Valley, THE CODE: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America by Margaret O’Mara and others have revealed, it underpins the very creation of the internet itself.
The Steiners' suit has called eBay's presentation to the DOJ a "sham" investigation which allowed them to spin their own narrative to law enforcement, presenting the situation as nothing more than "inappropriate communications" from a few executives which were taken out of context by a rogue employee, and pay a $3 Million fine as a slap on the wrist to avoid any further criminal prosecution of the company.
Liz Morton
Information which has since been revealed through discovery and depositions in the civil case would absolutely warrant reopening the criminal investigation against eBay in this matter, but that seems unlikely given the government's repeated and heavy-handed intervention to prevent any further exploration of the role that Baugh's CIA past, and the degree of eBay's knowledge about it, may have played in the crimes that were committed.
That likely leaves the civil courts as the last hope for the Steiners to receive justice - and hopefully a judgement large enough to act as a deterrent not just for eBay, but for other tech giants like Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Meta who have even greater security and surveillance power at their fingertips and even closer ties to the US security state.
Investors also play an important role in encouraging and enforcing good governance and compliance, when properly incentivized, and significant monetary consequences for companies which either allow or fail to prevent corporate security run amok could shift the risk landscape enough to spur shareholders into action.
Shareholder rights firm Wolf Popper opened an investigation in 2020 to explore potential claims against members of eBay's Board of Directors related to this criminal conduct - including specifically calling Wenig's $57M exit package as "outrageous considering his potential role in these activities."
Wolf Popper LLP
If the DOJ refuses to reopen the criminal case in this matter, Wolf Popper and others absolutely can and should still continue their own investigations to demand accountability and rein in corporate malfeasance.
