
How the National Enquirer Got Bezos’ Texts: It Paid $200K to His Lover’s Brother - danso
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-national-enquirer-got-bezos-texts-it-paid-200-000-to-his-lovers-brother-11552953981
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danso
Looks like WSJ's paywall now effectively blocks archive.org/archive.is

tl;dr: the leaked photos/texts came from old-fashioned theft, not from
government-assisted intrusion or fanciful hacking. Though the story never
states how Michael Sanchez exfiltrated the data from his sister's phone.

The lede:

> _Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos and his allies have publicly speculated
> about how the National Enquirer acquired racy texts he sent his girlfriend,
> including at one point hinting Saudi Arabia or the White House may have been
> involved._

> _The reality is simpler: Michael Sanchez, the brother of Mr. Bezos’ lover,
> sold the billionaire’s secrets for $200,000 to the Enquirer’s publisher,
> said people familiar with the matter._

Interestingly, The Enquirer apparently doesn't pay its sources until actual
publication. But Mr. Sanchez had negotiated to be paid upfront "regardless of
whether any story was published." And the Enquirer's general counsel (Cameron
Stracher) agreed to it without the publisher (David Pecker) knowing about it,
and Pecker ended up firing Stracher:

> _The Wall Street Journal couldn’t determine whether anyone at American Media
> briefed Mr. Pecker on the contract’s specifics before it completed the deal
> with Mr. Sanchez. People close to Mr. Pecker said he wasn’t aware the
> payment was made upfront and felt as if was being forced to run the story._

~~~
Gibbon1
This whole thing makes me wonder if we need to update the laws on criminal
invasion of privacy to the 21st century.

