It's hard to know where to even begin with this story.
Yes, it's utterly horrible and scummy behavior. Let's just get that out of the way.
But who on earth could have thought that morals notwithstanding it was even a vaguely sensible thing to do from a personal perspective to undertake a campaign of harassment that you'd think they must have known if it got out would result (in a minimum) at them being run out the company and likely blackballed from the industry.
The article does suggest this may have gone pretty far up which, I suppose, says something about the entire leadership team if true.
It's like insane that this is a giant company full of people who should know better. Like how do you even talk to a single other person and have them not say something about how this seems like a bad idea.
As soon as they've told you what they're going to do, you're probably an accomplice if you keep it to yourself. Your career at the company is probably toast at that point anyway. At least a paper trail helps to protect you from criminal complaints.
IANAL, but I imagine it's generally hard to charge someone for simply turning a blind eye to illegal behavior. But if you come to me and say: "Hey, I've figured out a way to embezzle $100K from the company and I'll give you a cut if you help me," if all the facts come out at some point, you can be sure I'll be fired at a minimum whether or not there are any criminal charges.
Based on similar stories, I suspect that a lot of the people in these positions have the experience that they get away with almost everything (e.g. someone else is made the fall-guy, or things are swept under the carpet).
I think prison time is the minimum one should expect from this behavior. That's what astounds me about this story.
Ok, let's assume you're a sociopath or at least a bully and you believe this action is justified or appropriate in response to some offense. You're already well outside of normal behavior, but let's take that as as given.
We're still talking about six or more wealthy, middle-aged people with astoundingly good jobs (in the grand scheme of things) being willing to risk their livelihood, their reputation, their wealth and their freedom over "someone online said something bad about the company I work for"? Even if what the couple published in their newsletter was invalid (and there's no suggestion that it is), we're talking about throwing your life - and that of your immediate family - away to "punish" an Internet troll.
This wasn't just some rash decision, this was methodically planned and executed over several weeks or months. They bought plane tickets. Practice for crimes in the company parking lot. Set up fake social media accounts. Got pre-paid credit cards. Imagine sleeping on this decision 90 times over and still thinking it's a good idea?
And the icing on the cake is how could they remotely think they would be able to get away with this? Multiple _death threats_ over weeks or months over "don't say bad things about ebay" and they thought the police might _not_ take a good hard look inside the company?
I think it's worth going further down this line of thinking.
One possibility is that they thought that this was expected of them as part of their jobs, that this would help them in their careers, and that (based on observation of others and prior personal experience) they would not have any legal repercussions. They probably didn't jump into doing just this and then getting caught. Instead they probably got to where they were by doing things like this, and it had worked very well for them until this point. They may have even have learned their techniques from their mentors in the company. They very well may have gotten away with (and been rewarded for) worse. And there may well be many more like them who continue doing the same (and worse).
Alternatively, all 6 might be really stupid despite their apparent business success.
Which seems more likely? Personally, I think it's unlikely that they got to where they were by being stupid.
You don't have to be stupid to do stupid things. There have been through history occasional mass delusions. One numbering six individuals whose outcome was conspiracy to harass economic enemies would not be particularly notable among this set.
I mean, you could say the same thing about the CIA, FBI, etc. I agree with you it seems crazy, but it's not cult-like. It's just human-like. People identify with an in-group and demonize an out-group. They sometimes do crazy things in order to reinforce this distinction.
How do we do that? What you're saying is a common tenant of anarchism, but unfortunately, anarchy is unstable. Groups will merge and power will be concentrated until there exists an equilibrium.
The point is to be the counter-weight to the process you describe (which I agree is what happens). It's not that we can banish in-groups or concentration and power, it's rather that we /can/ put our efforts in preventing or mediating this. And this very effort is what leads to whatever equilibrium we end up with.
Consider the current discussion surrounding police brutality in te US, and the racial aspect of it.
I don't think anyone expects we'll have 'no police' or 'no racism'. But like in any negotiation, I think it's sensible for the starting point to be more than you hope for, which in the case of many protestors might be operationalized as 'abolish the police' (which sounds quite anarchistic), and in the case of 'the powers that be' might be limp-dicked stuff like "let's just put more camera's on cops' attire but no legal consequences if the footage is lost".
I can only imagine journalists clapping their hands with glee at the idea of a big company trying to intimidate them with high school antics, all for investigative reporting.
Yes, it's utterly horrible and scummy behavior. Let's just get that out of the way.
But who on earth could have thought that morals notwithstanding it was even a vaguely sensible thing to do from a personal perspective to undertake a campaign of harassment that you'd think they must have known if it got out would result (in a minimum) at them being run out the company and likely blackballed from the industry.
The article does suggest this may have gone pretty far up which, I suppose, says something about the entire leadership team if true.