Tracking the cyber attack on Sharyl Attkisson's computer by US government

Sharyl Attkisson:

I’m frequently asked about the status of my lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice over the secret, unlawful intrusions into my computers, exposed in 2013. As my federal case moves slowly through court system, there is a new development: ongoing forensic work of my computer laptop system has revealed a second government Internet Protocol (IP) address used in the illegal cyber-attacks on my computer laptop system.

The IP addresses don’t belong there.

In a new affidavit filed in federal court last week, cyber-security expert David Scantling states, “[T]he presence of these USPS addresses on [Attkisson’s] computer is not a mistake; it is not a random event; and it is not technically possible for these IP addresses to simply appear on her computer systems without activity by someone using them as part of the cyber-attack.”

Scantling served as a contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and as a Department of Defense (DoD) civilian employee. He’s familiar with “Advanced Persistent Threat” (“APT”) cyber-attacks. In fact, he developed and deployed similar APT cyber-attacks against foreign government, commercial, insurgent and terrorist targets. He also developed and deployed cyber-security countermeasures in the private sector to defend against such attacks.
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Interestingly, both government IP addresses found embedded deep in my computer system trace to the U.S. Postal Service (U.S.P.S.), which has been known to cooperate with intelligence agencies on various levels. The U.S.P.S. refused to cooperate with me, prior to my lawsuit, after my forensics expert recovered evidence of an IP address mysteriously residing in my computer. At the time, an agency official dismissed the forensics evidence as some sort of unexplainable mistake, and refused to help us learn how its IP addresses are maintained and accessed so we could identify the perpetrators.

Tracing the evidence of the government-related intrusion to individual participants hasn’t been easy. The attackers attempted to erase their tracks once they were discovered. And neither the U.S.P.S. nor the Department of Justice (DOJ) are voluntarily cooperating. But experts familiar with the tools and tradecraft that are proprietary to government intelligence agencies have painstakingly recovered and pieced together compelling forensic proof as to attribution.
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These intrusions happened after Attkisson reported on events surrounding the Fast and Furious scandal tied to Obama's DOJ.  I suspect there was an attempt made to try to discover her sources for her reporting.  I further suspect that it is another indication of the misuse of government resources and intelligence operations to attack people seen as political adversaries by the Obama administration.

Like the current scandal of the unmasking of Trump campaign officials by administration officials using intelligence agencies to spy on domestic political adversaries, it is an indication of the Obama administration's abuse of power.