No, I Will Not Accept Your Fake Anti-Semitism Charge, Mr. Giller

A response to a smear job from Clearview.AI's opposing counsel

Hoan Ton-That and yours truly in happier days

I am currently being libeled by Ron A. Giller, the opposing counsel in the Clearview.AI lawsuit, as an “anti-Semite” and a “conspiracy theorist” after I posted a heartfelt piece the other day surviving child abuse and how it affects my support for Clearview and other companies with which I am associated.

Giller, for those who don’t recall, worked for Rudy Giuliani, who is currently under all kinds of federal investigations. One wonders how far back Giuliani’s criminality goes — and how complicit several of the Clearview.AI counsel and founders are in it.

The recent news about Giuliani, who FBI Special Agent Johnathan Buma investigated and for whom opposing counsel and one of the defendants worked, as well as the sustained deaths in the Middle Easts make me wish I had done still more. Indeed Giuliani’s excusal for Israeli and Ukrainian oligarchic bad behavior could well explain why America is distracted by not one but two wars at present. Special Agent Buma also was investigating the hack against Clearview.AI, allegedly by Middle Eastern hackers. When he reached out to Hoan Ton-That about that hack Ton-That refused to talk to the FBI. I wonder why.

By smearing me privately and publicly Giller and those he represents are trying to silence me while my court case is working its way through the courts and as the U.S. government is — at this very moment — deciding what the policy ought to be as concerns facial recognition.

If my cofounder Hoan Ton-That is meeting with government officials and the media I will be meeting with government officials and the media. Naturally I’d prefer to handle this matter in the courts but Hoan is giving me no choice. I will not allow American public opinion to be shaped by frauds even if it costs me everything.

The public has every right to know what’s going on with Clearview.AI, especially as this very moment Hoan Ton-That is lobbying government officials about AI use.

I normally don’t address such disgusting claims. I prefer to let others speak for me or to let my work do the speaking for me but Giller has tried not once, not twice, but three times to claim I am an anti-Semite.

This lie is shocking to me as my blessed mother went to Tel Aviv University, my grandfather monitored the cease fire between the Egyptians and the Israelis, my girlfriend in high school made Aliyah (and opposes Netanyahu) and my best friend from high school is Israeli-American.

I have always believed that all peoples of all faiths are deserving of dignity, equality, and justice. Ironically my work exposing foreign spy operations against Jewish organizations actually makes me a great hero to the Jewish people. My friends in and out of government know this.

I do not, however, support the apartheid government in Israel which harms people all around the world, including here in the United States. After they failed to recruit me to be their help this gangster government sees me as their enemy and indeed the feeling is entirely mutual.

My great teacher Harry Jaffa was an American Jew who taught me about the timeless principles of our great Republic. It was from Jaffa that I learned that President George Washington was the first secular leader to refer to Jews as his countrymen.

The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

I wrote a whole book about Calvin Coolidge who called the “Jewish faith is the faith of liberty” in large part because of Jaffa’s mentorship.

Jaffa was rightly disgusted at the criminality of Benjamin Netanyahu… in 2015. Jaffa had a formative effect on me and I have tried my best to live up to my Jewish teacher’s admonitions to support the natural rights of all people.

When I was a federal informant I often took attacks on me on the chin but I will no longer tolerate campaigns against me to libel me, malign me, or harm me financially based upon claims of foreign intelligence, foolishness or rank greed.

My beloved sister, who I love beyond measure, is married to a Jew. My business associates are Jews. My ex-lovers are Jews. A woman I asked to marry me is part Jewish. She said no in large measure because of this sustained campaign against me. I joke that I hate Jews so much that I can’t help but be around them. It is a blood libel to equate opposing fascism to anti-Semitism.

These smearing tactics are mob tactics and I have ever since my Boston childhood taken an oath to defeat the Mob wherever I find it. Unfortunately no human is exempt from its temptations… or beyond the power of redemption, Jews and Israelis included. It is because I love my Jewish and Israeli friends that I battle the Netanyahu government.

I will not tolerate the Mob defaming or harming defenseless people. Yes, this includes Palestinians as well as innocent Americans and Israelis targeted by Likud operations.

Like my great uncle before me who infiltrated the Klan for the FBI, I was advised to keep my cover among foreign-funded anti-Semitic organizations and to keep tabs on them. I did so at great danger to myself. I have continued to do so despite efforts by those foreign-funded operations to target me. There is, in fact, a whole industry of Israeli intelligence officers that penetrate and run some of these anti-Semitic organizations in much the same way that Netanyahu has funded Hamas.

We have allowed Israel to be our sole interpreter of many movements, including into Hamas itself with utterly disastrous consequences for Israel and global peace.

In my private life I am a supporter of Yad Vashem and of Jewish educational efforts. I do not, as a rule, discuss my private charitable giving so I hope my friends can excuse me.

Of course what’s really going on here is that we are top siding foreign intelligence operations within the United States and rather than admit culpability or face justice, our oppressors are implausibly claiming that they are the victim — as the Mob so often does.

Fortunately we are equipped with something extremely powerful: the courts, science, forensics, paper trails and the hope that no matter the lies, no matter their ferocity, good people will see what’s really going on. And indeed they are — all around the world, of all faiths and no faith at all. To them I say, Mazel tov! and L’chaim!

As for Hoan and Clearview.AI it’s time to settle up and get to the real task ahead of us.

You and I have both suffered a lot for having created Clearview.AI but it’s time to put your own personal desires behind what the world needs of us right now.

The challenges ahead are great. I hope you’ll do the right thing — as you promised me and I promised you in Coronado.

This is bigger than us and your need for recognition.