Clinton Arkancide and Suspicious Deaths During The Obama Administration

[Phil Fiord]

There will be many who write her off as a widow in mourning and thats it.

[American Patriot]

Another one bites the dust....


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nati...icle-1.1376574

Writing about the NSA spying case. This is the guy who brought down McChrystal.

Award-winning journalist and war correspondent Michael Hastings killed in car crash

The 'fearless journalist' is credited with exposing Gen. Stanley McChrystal in a piece that led to the end of his military career. Hastings wrote for Rolling Stone magazine and BuzzFeed, and his employers expressed deep regret at his death Tuesday in Los Angeles.

Comments (25) By Nina Golgowski / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Wednesday, June 19, 2013, 8:33 AM

Blue Rider Press/REUTERS

Rolling Stone magazine and BuzzFeed reporter Michael Hastings, 33, died on Tuesday in a car wreck in Los Angeles, his employer said.


Award-winning journalist and war correspondent Michael Hastings died early Tuesday in a single car crash in Los Angeles, his employer and family said.
Hastings' groundbreaking reporting on Gen. Stanley McChrystal's candid criticism of the Obama administration is credited with ending McChrystal's military career and earned him a 2010 George Polk Award. He was 33.
The Rolling Stone and BuzzFeed reporter is being remembered by many of his colleagues as an unfailingly bright and hard-charging reporter who wrote stories that mattered.
Paul Morigi/Getty Images for The Guardian

Hastings, seen in early 2012, earned a 2010 George Polk Award for his reporting on Gen. Stanley McChrystal's criticism of the Obama administration which ended McChrystal's military career.

"Michael was a great, fearless journalist with an incredible instinct for the story, and a gift for finding ways to make his readers care about anything he covered from wars to politicians," said Ben Smith, BuzzFeed's editor-in-chief who described colleagues as devastated by the loss.
Smith said he learned of the death from a family member.
RELATED: MCCHRYSTAL TAKES BLAME FOR ROLLING STONE ARTICLE
KTLA

Hastings was killed in a fiery car crash in Hollywood, California in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

Around 4:15 am witnesses say Hastings' vehicle collided with a tree in the Hancock Park neighborhood of Los Angeles.
Authorities reported that the fiery crash killed a man, but coroner's officials could not immediately confirm whether Hastings was the victim.
"I was just coming northbound on Highland and I seen a car, like, going really fast and all of a sudden I seen it jackknife," witness to the scene, Luis Cortez, told KTLA.
KTLA

Authorities reported that a single passenger inside this vehicle had died but that their identity couldn't be immediately determined.

Another neighbor described hearing a huge explosion drawing him and several others outside their homes.
One man was seen using a watering hose in his best efforts to stifle the engulfing flames.
RELATED: HILLARY CLINTON SPOKESMAN TELLS BUZZFEED REPORTER TO ‘F--- OFF’
KTLA

In a terrifying display around 4:15 am witnesses say his vehicle collided with a tree in the Hancock Park neighborhood of Los Angeles before bursting into flames.

The vehicle's engine ejected 50 to 60 yards from the scene before landing near a telephone pole, according to neighbor and film maker Gary Grossman who said he couldn't have written a scene like this for a movie.
In Hastings' Rolling Stone cover story "The Runaway General," he quoted McChrystal and his aides mocking Obama administration officials, including Vice President Joe Biden, over their war policies.
At a Pentagon ceremony for his subsequent retirement in 2010, McChrystal made light of the episode in his farewell address.
KTLA

Residents woke to the explosion outside their homes, with at least one man seen trying to stop the flames with a watering hose.

The four-star general warned his comrades in arms, "I have stories on all of you, photos of many, and I know a Rolling Stone reporter."
When he died, Hastings was also a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, where Managing Editor Will Dana was quoted Tuesday saying Hastings exuded "a certain kind of electricity" that exists in great reporters whose stories burn to be told.
RELATED: MCCHRYSTAL SAYS CAREER DIDN'T END AS HE HOPED IN FAREWELL SPEECH
FRED PROUSER/REUTERS

A small bouquet of flowers lies next to a charred tree and glass fragments on Highland Avenue where Hastings, who had additionally worked as a war correspondent in the Middle East, tragically lost his life.

"I'm sad that I'll never get to publish all the great stories that he was going to write, and sad that he won't be stopping by my office for any more short visits which would stretch for two or three completely engrossing hours," Dana said.
Hastings was also an author of books about the wars.
"The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan" was published late last year and details shocking exploits of the military overseas.
In 2010, with the publication of "I Lost My Love in Baghdad," Hastings told the story of being a young war correspondent whose girlfriend dies in Iraq.
ngolgowski@nydailynews.com with wire services
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[American Patriot]

Rolling Stone Journalist, Author Believed to be Dead in Hollywood Crash

Wednesday, Jun 19, 2013 | Updated 8:05 AM PDT

[IMG]http://media.nbclosangeles.com/images/655*368/AP539500116343.jpg[/IMG]

Journalist Michael Hastings, whose blunt Rolling Stone profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal led to the resignation of the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, died Tuesday in a car crash in Los Angeles, according to the magazine and a website for which he worked. Angie Crouch reports for NBC4 News at 11 p.m. on Tuesday, June 18, 2013.



Journalist Michael Hastings, whose blunt Rolling Stone profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal led to the resignation of the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, died Tuesday in a car crash in Los Angeles, according to the magazine and a website for which he worked.


Officials with the Los Angeles County coroner's office could not immediately confirm if the 33-year-old Hastings was the person who died around 4:25 a.m. when a car smashed into a tree and caught fire on Highland Avenue near Melrose Avenue in the Hancock Park area.


The circumstances of the crash were under investigation, but a cameraman at the scene said the vehicle, a Mercedes, was being driven at a high rate of speed when the crash occurred. The car's engine ended up 200 feet away from the collision site, he said.


Lt. Fred Corral of the coroner's office said the body was burned beyond recognition, and the identity of the victim would not be known until at least Wednesday.
The Hancock Park crash was the only fatal car wreck in the city today, according to police.


However, Ben Smith, editor in chief of BuzzFeed.com, issued a statement announcing Hastings' death in a car accident in Los Angeles, saying the journalist's BuzzFeed colleagues were "shocked and devastated by the news that Michael Hastings in gone."


"Michael was a great, fearless journalist with an incredible instinct for the story, and a gift for finding ways to make his readers care about anything he covered from wars to politicians," Smith said. "He wrote stories that would otherwise have gone unwritten, and without him there are great stories that will go untold. Michael was also a wonderful, generous colleague and a joy to work with. Our thoughts are with Elise (his wife) and the rest of his family and we are going to miss him."


Hastings was perhaps most famous for his candid 2010 Rolling Stone interview with McChrystal, who was then commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan and was critical of the White House's oversight of the military. His comments resulted in the general being summoned to Washington, D.C., and his eventual resignation.


Hastings was still a contributing editor at Rolling Stone.


"Great reporters exude a certain kind of electricity, the sense that there are stories burning inside them, and that there's no higher calling or greater way to live life than to be always relentlessly trying to find and tell those stories," Rolling Stone managing editor Will Dana said in a story about Hastings' death posted on the magazine's website.


"I'm sad that he won't be stopping by my office for any more short visits which would stretch for two or three completely engrossing hours," Journalist Michael Hastings, whose blunt Rolling Stone profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal led to the resignation of the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, died today in a car crash in Los Angeles, according to the magazine and a website for which he worked.


Hastings wrote two books about war, including "The Operators" about Afghanistan, and "I Lost My Love in Baghdad," about Iraq. Dana said. "He will be missed."

[American Patriot]

Posted: June 20, 2013 Michael Hastings: Journalist’s Death Surrounded In Mystery, Conspiracy Theories

Michael Hastings died in a car crash in Los Angeles this week after his car hit a tree, but some people believe it may not have been an accident.


Within hours of his death, internet theories were spawned saying that Hastings may have been targeted because of his political reporting, which was touching on several controversial issues. At the time of his death, the BuzzFeed and Rolling Stone reporter was working on stories including the National Security Agency and the CIA. It was also his Rolling Stone cover story that brought down U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal.




After the car driven by Michael Hastings crashed on Hollywood’s Highland Avenue at close to 4:15 am Tuesday morning, witnesses said there was a loud explosion similar to a bomb exploding.


Twitter and Reddit were filled with conspiracy theories, but other publications chimed in. The International Business Times wrote that “some of the details surrounding the story [of Hastings' death] read like a poorly-written political thriller.”


BuzzFeed’s editor-in-chief, Ben Smith, remembered Hastings as a tough reporter who would take on the stories others were afraid to write.


Smith said: “He knew that there are certain truths that nobody has an interest in speaking, ones that will make you both your subjects and their enemies uncomfortable. They’re stories that don’t get told because nobody in power has much of an interest in telling them.”


It was dangerous work. In his book, The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan, Michael Hastings noted that he once got a death threat from a McChrystal staffer.


“We’ll hunt you down and kill you if we don’t like what you write,” the staffer threatened, according to Hastings, who responded: “Well, I get death threats like that about once a year, so no worries.”


WikiLeaks added to the conspiracy theories surrounding Michael Hastings’ death on Wednesday night, tweeting:

Michael Hastings contacted WikiLeaks lawyer Jennifer Robinson just a few hours before he died, saying that the FBI was investigating him.


— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) June 19, 2013

Conspiracy theories say that someone may have tampered with the car of Michael Hastings, who leaves behind a wife, Elise.

[MinutemanCO]

There's no doubt this thing stinks. Anyone who knows anything at all about cars can easily walk through some of the superficial facts. First of all, the car was traveling at a high rate of speed in what is primarily a residential neighborhood. He must have been really moving if the car struck the tree with enough force to eject the engine block some 200 feet down the road. Highland is an arterial having a 35 mph speed limit, parallel parking adjacent to the traveled way, with two lanes funneling traffic in either direction and a median planted with sod and mature palms. It's not difficult but dangerous to drive fast on this type of roadway in the early morning hours, but the question remains... why? He ran a red light at Highland and Santa Monica. Santa Monica is another arterial. Running that red light is suicidal. Again, why?

Secondly, he was driving a late model C Class Mercedes coupe. German engineered vehicles are designed with accidents in mind. Do you know how hard it is to cause a vehicle to erupt in flames, much less explode violently? It's very difficult. You have to be experiencing a major fuel leak. We're not talking about a Ford Pinto here. The Mercedes has fuel injection with a sealed fuel tank with monitoring technology for leaks. The tank is completely isolated from the passenger compartment for safety reasons. After a little checking, it seems that there isn't one recorded incident where a late model Mercedes has experienced a fuel leak leading to flames or an explosion in the US. Also, the vehicle impacted the tree, it appears, in the front driver's side quarter panel. There ain't no gas tank there.

Mercedes also incorporates a drive-by-wire throttle actuator system. You can use your imagination as to how much easier it would be to tamper with this system.

Just some seat of the pants analysis from someone who knows a little about cars. As for motive, that's someone else's game.

[MinutemanCO]

I just viewed a video immediately following the crash. The car is completely engulfed in flames from tip to tail. The flames burned to about 20 feet high. This is outside my area, but I'd love for some EOD guy with experience in incendiaries and accelerants to view the video.

The reporter interviews an eyewitness. The man didn't speak english well but saw the whole accident. He said the car was moving very fast, maybe 100 mph. It bottomed out through the intersection and seemed to be almost out of control. It was hard to tell, but he may have seen the car erupt in flames before it hit the tree.

A dash cam caught Hastings' Mercedes running a red light at a very fast rate of speed about six blocks before the accident scene. There is no sign of fire at the time of the video.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013...n-a-car-crash/

[Phil Fiord]

MMCO, the analysis you gave is excellent. It does bring up some rather interesting points. I saw the images of a car in flames and thought, no way. A gas tank is in front on few cars and they are much older.

[Ryan Ruck]

Yes, a big +1 to what Phil said MMCO. Interesting information to consider...

[American Patriot]

Someone tampered with his vehicle?

[American Patriot]

Evidence Indicates Michael Hastings Was Assassinated

Posted on June 21, 2013 by Mountain Republic — Leave a comment ↓
Rolling Stone journalist made enemies in FBI, CIA

Paul Joseph Watson
********.com

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.

[IMG]http://static.************.com/p/images/june2013/200613top5.jpg[/IMG]

Hastings died early Tuesday morning in Hollywood when his car allegedly hit a tree at high speed. The Los Angeles Coroner’s office has not yet been able to officially identify the body as Hastings because it is so badly burned.

Skeptics of the official narrative have highlighted eyewitness accounts which state that Hastings’ Mercedes “exploded”.

Images of the vehicle appear to show more damage to the rear, around the area of the fuel tank, than the front, leading to speculation that a car bomb which ignited the fuel could have been responsible for the incident.

“No matter how you slice this particular pie, a Mercedes is not just going to explode into flames without a little assistance,” writes freelance journalist Jim Stone. “Car fires in new cars happen for three main reasons — running the engine out of oil, or running the engine out of coolant, or after an absolutely huge car mangling accident, having the hot side of the battery short out against the frame before it reaches the fuse panel. And for all 3 of those normal reasons, which account for virtually all car fires in modern cars, the fire would have started in the engine compartment, progressed slowly, and scorched the hell out of the paint before ever reaching the gas tank. That clean paint is the be all tell all, Michael Hastings was murdered, and the rest is detail.”

Stone also questions why a white sheet has been draped over the vehicle in the image below.

[IMG]http://static.************.com/p/images/june2013/200613car.jpg[/IMG]

The questions surrounding the precise nature of the “accident” that killed Hastings are given more weight by the fact that the journalist had made enemies within both the FBI and the CIA.

“Michael Hastings contacted WikiLeaks lawyer Jennifer Robinson just a few hours before he died, saying that the FBI was investigating him,” the official Wikileaks Twitter account announced yesterday.

Hastings “had the Central Intelligence Agency in his sights” and was set to release an article exposing the agency, according to L.A. Weekly.

The Obama administration and the Justice Department have openly claimed the authority to assassinate American citizens anywhere in the world if they are deemed a national security threat. A number of American citizens have already been killed as a result of this policy. Is it really that crazy to suggest that Michael Hastings was merely the latest victim of this doctrine?

The New York Daily News highlights the fact that Hastings had received multiple death threats before his demise.

Following his role in bringing down Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, Hastings was told by a McChrystal staffer, “We’ll hunt you down and kill you if we don’t like what you write.”

“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,” said Hastings.

Hastings was renowned for being “only interested in writing stories someone didn’t want him to write — often his subjects,” according to Buzzflash editor Ben Smith, adding, “He knew that there are certain truths that nobody has an interest in speaking, ones that will make you both your subjects and their enemies uncomfortable. They’re stories that don’t get told because nobody in power has much of an interest in telling them.”

The fact that Hastings had made a plethora of enemies as a result of his hard-hitting investigative journalism has prompted a deluge of online comment speculating that the writer’s “car crash” was no accident.

“Hastings’ wreck might make sense on the freeway, but I doubt he’d be dumb enough to go 100 mph on Highland. He’s not some dumb college kid,” said one commenter on a local news site.

“A warning to other journalists to not dig too deep,” another Reddit user wrote. “Stick with the party line if you want a long, happy life.”

If this was an isolated incident then there wouldn’t be so many questions swirling about Hastings’ death. However, he’s certainly not the first individual to go up against the military-industrial complex and wind up in a coffin.

Other journalists who have proven to be a thorn in the side of the establishment have met the same fate, from Andrew Breitbart who was about to release damaging pre-election information about Barack Obama before he collapsed and died in strange circumstances, to Gary Webb, the Pullitzer prize-winning author who exposed the CIA’s involvement in the drug trade and subsequently committed “suicide” after apparently shooting himself in the head – twice.

More recently, Ibragim Todashev, friend of accused Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnev, was shot in the head six times by the FBI, who initially claimed Todashev was armed but later had to admit this was a lie. Speculation has raged that Todashev was assassinated because he had knowledge about the Boston bombings which the feds didn’t want to see the light of public scrutiny.

Despite his actions, the murder of Christopher Dorner, who was burned to death by LAPD officers while hiding inside a cabin, shows that authorities will not hesitate to resort to such methods.

It’s virtually inevitable that the true cause of Michael Hastings death will never be known and that the mainstream media will demonize anyone who questions the official narrative as a conspiracy theorist. Meanwhile, journalists and others who pose a threat to the military-industrial complex will continue to die in bizarre “accidents” that stink of foul play.

[American Patriot]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_3484118.html

Michael Hastings Sent Email About FBI Probe Hours Before Death

The Huffington Post By Melissa Jeltsen Posted: 06/22/2013 6:02 pm EDT | Updated: 06/23/2013 10:56 am EDT









This undated photo provided by Blue Rider Press/Penguin shows award-winning journalist and war correspondent Michael Hastings. Hastings, an award-winning journalist and war correspondent, died early Tuesday, June 18, 2013 in a car accident in Los Angeles, his employer and family said. (AP Photo/Blue Rider Press/Penguin)





Hours before dying in a fiery car crash, award-winning journalist Michael Hastings sent an email to his colleagues, warning that federal authorities were interviewing his friends and that he needed to go "off the rada[r]" for a bit.


The email was sent around 1 p.m. on Monday, June 17. 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. He was 33.


Hastings sent the email to staff at BuzzFeed, where he was employed, but also blind-copied a friend, Staff Sgt. Joseph Biggs, on the message. Biggs, who Hastings met in 2008 when he was embedded in his unit in Afghanistan, forwarded the email to KTLA, who posted it online on Saturday.
Here's the email, with the recipients' names redacted.

Subject: FBI Investigation, re: NSA
Hey (redacted names) -- the Feds are interviewing my "close friends and associates." Perhaps if the authorities arrive "BuzzFeed GQ," er HQ, may be wise to immediately request legal counsel before any conversations or interviews about our news-gathering practices or related journalism issues.


Also: I'm onto a big story, and need to go off the rada[r] for a bit.
All the best, and hope to see you all soon.
Michael

Rumors that the FBI was investigating Hastings began the day after his death, with a couple of mysterious WikiLeaks tweets.
In a rare move, the FBI issued a statement denying that Hastings was under investigation. The Los Angeles Police Department also said it had found no evidence of any foul play in his death.


Hastings, an accomplished war correspondent and sharp political reporter, was best known for writing a critical Rolling Stone profile of General Stanley McChrystal that led to his resignation.


It's unclear what "big story" Hastings was working on prior to his death, but it might have to do with yet another military bigwig, this time retired general David Petraeus.


The LA Times reported that Hastings was researching a story about a privacy lawsuit brought by Jill Kelley, the Florida socialite who took center stage in the Petraeus cheating scandal, against the Department of Defense and the FBI. According to a person close to Kelley, the paper said, Hastings had plans to meet a representative of hers to discuss the case next week.

[American Patriot]

FBI Denies It Was Ever Investigating Michael Hastings

Reuters | Posted: 06/21/2013 12:17 am EDT | Updated: 06/21/2013 5:23 pm EDT



By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES, June 20 (Reuters) - Police said on Thursday there was no sign of foul play in the fiery car crash near Hollywood that killed journalist Michael Hastings, whose 2010 magazine article led to the ouster of the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan.

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.

Hastings, 33, was alone at the time of the crash.

The online rumors were stoked by a Twitter posting from the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks on Wednesday saying Hastings had contacted a WikiLeaks attorney "just a few hours before he died, saying that the FBI was investigating him."

The FBI issued a statement denying WikiLeaks' assertion.

"At no time was journalist Michael Hastings under investigation by the FBI," agency spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said.

She said the FBI had been receiving a barrage of calls pertaining to WikiLeaks' message and "it was getting a little out of control."

Eimiller acknowledged it was "a departure from normal policy" for the FBI to go out of its way to deny an investigation.

Hastings' death was originally confirmed Tuesday by his employer, the online news outlet BuzzFeed.

His body was burned beyond recognition, and medical examiners identified his remains through fingerprint analysis, Ed Winter, the assistant chief coroner, said on Thursday.

Winter said the cause of the accident remained under investigation.

"We don't know if he was just speeding and lost control, if he had a medical issue, if he passed out or had a heart attack ... or if he had a mechanical failure," Winter told Reuters.

He said further tests would be necessary to determine whether alcohol or drugs were a factor.

But a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Police Department, officer Rosario Herrera, said, "We can confirm that there was no evidence of foul play in the accident."

Hastings was best known for his 2010 Rolling Stone magazine profile of then-Army General Stanley McChrystal, which quoted the military leader making disparaging remarks about President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.

The article led Obama to relieve McChrystal of his post as the senior U.S. military commander in Afghanistan and replace him with then-General David Petraeus, who later became CIA director.

Petraeus was forced to resign last November over an affair with Paula Broadwell, his biographer.

The Los Angeles Times reported Hastings had been researching a story about a privacy suit brought by Florida socialite Jill Kelley against the U.S. Defense Department and the FBI in the weeks before he died.

In her lawsuit earlier this month, Kelley and her husband claimed government officials willfully leaked damaging false information about the couple to the media after she became embroiled in the Petraeus scandal.

It was an FBI investigation into Petraeus' extramarital relations that led to publication of allegations that Kelley had exchanged embarrassing personal emails with another U.S. general, John Allen, one-time commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. (Reporting and writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Bill Trott)

[MinutemanCO]

And I'm certain that the FBI is telling the truth. They never lie. The current administration does not condone lying.

Okay, back to reality.

[American Patriot]

Reality? What the hell is that?

We're living in a Science Fiction thriller complete with evil people, evil politicians, a snooping overbearing 1984-ish government, and bad guys who are really good, good guys who are really bad and all the innocents and background characters are suspected - of everything.

[American Patriot]

new information in Hastings case.

1) He "drove like a grandmother"
2) He WAS driving "in excess of 100 MPH"
3) LAPD says "Nothing out of the ordinary" in the crash
4) Left a frantic email before he died stating he was being investigated.
5) FBI says "No we weren't"
6) It "is possible to hack into computers in cars to mess with the brakes" (I'm not going to report the source on that one, it will come out)
7) Friends felt "scared" when they received the email saying to "get a lawyer" if contacted by FBI
8) Toxicology report will "take at least two more weeks"

[American Patriot]

Ok, I'll post it now, it's out:

Was Michael Hastings' Car Hacked? Richard Clarke Says It's Possible

Posted: 06/24/2013 6:03 pm EDT | Updated: 06/25/2013 9:46 am EDT



























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Cybersecurity, Video, Michael Hastings, Car Hacking, Michael Hastings Car Accident, Michael Hastings Car Crash, Michael Hastings Car Hacked, Michael Hastings Death, Michael-Hastings-Conspiracy-Theories, Richard Clarke Car Hacking, Richard Clarke Cyber War, Richard Clarke Michael Hastings, Politics News


The peculiar circumstances of journalist Michael Hastings' death in Los Angeles last week have unleashed a wave of conspiracy theories.
Now there's another theory to contribute to the paranoia: According to a prominent security analyst, technology exists that could've allowed someone to hack his car. Former U.S. National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism Richard Clarke told The Huffington Post that what is known about the single-vehicle crash is "consistent with a car cyber attack."
Clarke said, "There is reason to believe that intelligence agencies for major powers" -- including the United States -- know how to remotely seize control of a car.
"What has been revealed as a result of some research at universities is that it's relatively easy to hack your way into the control system of a car, and to do such things as cause acceleration when the driver doesn't want acceleration, to throw on the brakes when the driver doesn't want the brakes on, to launch an air bag," Clarke told The Huffington Post. "You can do some really highly destructive things now, through hacking a car, and it's not that hard."
"So if there were a cyber attack on the car -- and I'm not saying there was," Clarke added, "I think whoever did it would probably get away with it."
Authorities have said that it may take weeks to determine a cause of death for Hastings, but that no foul play is suspected.
Hastings was driving a 2013 Mercedes C250 coupe when he crashed into a tree on Highland Ave. in Los Angeles at approximately 4:30 am on June 18. Video posted online showed the car in flames, and one neighbor told a local news crew she heard a sound like an explosion. Another eyewitness said the car's engine had been thrown 50 to 60 yards from the car. There were no other vehicles involved in the accident.

The fire was so all-consuming that it took the Los Angeles County coroner's office two days to identify Hastings' body, but Clarke said a cyber attack on the vehicle would have been nearly impossible to trace "even if the dozen or so computers on board hadn't melted."
Hastings practiced a brand of no-holds-barred journalism that tended to anger powerful people. His 2010 profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, published in Rolling Stone, was so damaging that it ostensibly prompted President Barack Obama to fire the general (the president denied that the article had a role in his decision).
In the days before his death, Hastings was reportedly working on a story about a lawsuit filed by Jill Kelley, who was involved in the scandal that brought down Gen. David Petraeus, according to the LA Times. KTLA reported that Hastings told colleagues at the news site BuzzFeed that he feared the FBI was investigating him. On June 20, the FBI denied that any investigation was under way.
"I believe the FBI when they say they weren't investigating him," said Clarke. "That was very unusual, and I'm sure they checked very carefully before they said that."
Clarke worked for the State Department under President Ronald Reagan and headed up counterterrorism efforts under Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. He also served as a special adviser on cyberterrorism to the younger Bush and published a book on the topic, Cyber War, in 2010.
"I'm not a conspiracy guy. In fact, I've spent most of my life knocking down conspiracy theories," said Clarke, who ran afoul of the second Bush administration when he criticized the decision to invade Iraq after 9/11. "But my rule has always been you don't knock down a conspiracy theory until you can prove it [wrong]. And in the case of Michael Hastings, what evidence is available publicly is consistent with a car cyber attack. And the problem with that is you can't prove it."
Clarke said the Los Angeles Police Department likely wouldn't have the expertise to trace such an attack. "I think you'd probably need the very best of the U.S. government intelligence or law enforcement officials to discover it."

[MinutemanCO]

"What has been revealed as a result of some research at universities is that it's relatively easy to hack your way into the control system of a car, and to do such things as cause acceleration when the driver doesn't want acceleration, to throw on the brakes when the driver doesn't want the brakes on, to launch an air bag," Clarke told The Huffington Post. "You can do some really highly destructive things now, through hacking a car, and it's not that hard."

I've commented on this a number of posts up. I'm certain the accelerator can be hacked. It's an electronic drive by wire system. I don't think it's possible with the brakes, though. Brakes are still actuated through a hydraulic system with a master cylinder, brake fluid and brake lines. There isn't much computerized about them. Unless you figure in the ABS system. Not much to keep them from functioning. Mechanically, that's another story.

[MinutemanCO]

Now that I've offered my opinion regarding hackable vehicle systems, I just remembered that some cars are now transitioning to a brake by wire system. So, it could be possible to apply brakes or restrict brake use remotely.

[MinutemanCO]

After a quick bit of research, Mercedes Benz has a wide range of computerized braking technologies for "safety" purposes. Interestingly enough, they aren't available for the C-Class coupe Hastings was driving.

[Phil Fiord]

It is so 'coincidental'. There are few real instances of coincidence this is all getting ridiculous.