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On Wednesday, WikiLeaks tweeted that Hastings had reached out to WikiLeaks lawyer Jennifer Robinson "just a few hours before he died, saying that the FBI was investigating him."
They added ominously that his death "has a very serious non-public complication," promising more details at a later date.
Hastings had reportedly been killed in a car crash in Los Angeles, after his car hit a tree early Tuesday morning. Following news of his death, many of his friends and colleagues reacted with both sadness and some sense of irony.
"He was incredibly tense and very worried and was concerned that the government was looking in on his material," said Cenk Uyger, host of "The Young Turks," following news of his friend's death. "I don't know what his state of mind was at 4:30 in the morning, but I do know what his state of mind was in general, and it was a nervous wreck."
Described as someone "who flung their bodies at the story, and often got hurt," Hastings' Buzzfeed colleague Ben Smith wrote in his remembrance,
Michael Hastings was really only interested in writing stories someone didn't want him to write -- often his subjects; occasionally his editor. While there is no template for a great reporter, he was one for reasons that were intrinsic to who he was: ambitious, skeptical of power and conventional wisdom, and incredibly brave.
Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson added that he will be "remembered for his enthusiastic breaches of the conventions of access journalism."
As noted by the Guardian's Glenn Greenwald, who largely broke the NSA spying story, Hastings' last published article for Buzzfeed was on the NSA spying scandal.
In the piece, he skewers Democratic leaders for their complicity calling them "two faced" and "leaders as a gang of civil liberty opportunists, whose true passion, it seems, was in trolling George W. Bush for eight years on matters of national security."
The piece continues, discussing the "transparency supporters, whistleblowers, and investigative reporters" who have been dogged by the Obama administration, the FBI, and the Department of Justice.
Hastings concludes:
The attitude the Obama administration has toward Manning is revealing. What do they think of him? "Fuck Bradley Manning," as one White House official put it to me last year during the campaign.
Screw Manning? Lol, screw us.
Perhaps more information will soon be forthcoming.
_____________________
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On Wednesday, WikiLeaks tweeted that Hastings had reached out to WikiLeaks lawyer Jennifer Robinson "just a few hours before he died, saying that the FBI was investigating him."
They added ominously that his death "has a very serious non-public complication," promising more details at a later date.
Hastings had reportedly been killed in a car crash in Los Angeles, after his car hit a tree early Tuesday morning. Following news of his death, many of his friends and colleagues reacted with both sadness and some sense of irony.
"He was incredibly tense and very worried and was concerned that the government was looking in on his material," said Cenk Uyger, host of "The Young Turks," following news of his friend's death. "I don't know what his state of mind was at 4:30 in the morning, but I do know what his state of mind was in general, and it was a nervous wreck."
Described as someone "who flung their bodies at the story, and often got hurt," Hastings' Buzzfeed colleague Ben Smith wrote in his remembrance,
Michael Hastings was really only interested in writing stories someone didn't want him to write -- often his subjects; occasionally his editor. While there is no template for a great reporter, he was one for reasons that were intrinsic to who he was: ambitious, skeptical of power and conventional wisdom, and incredibly brave.
Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson added that he will be "remembered for his enthusiastic breaches of the conventions of access journalism."
As noted by the Guardian's Glenn Greenwald, who largely broke the NSA spying story, Hastings' last published article for Buzzfeed was on the NSA spying scandal.
In the piece, he skewers Democratic leaders for their complicity calling them "two faced" and "leaders as a gang of civil liberty opportunists, whose true passion, it seems, was in trolling George W. Bush for eight years on matters of national security."
The piece continues, discussing the "transparency supporters, whistleblowers, and investigative reporters" who have been dogged by the Obama administration, the FBI, and the Department of Justice.
Hastings concludes:
The attitude the Obama administration has toward Manning is revealing. What do they think of him? "Fuck Bradley Manning," as one White House official put it to me last year during the campaign.
Screw Manning? Lol, screw us.
Perhaps more information will soon be forthcoming.
_____________________
On Wednesday, WikiLeaks tweeted that Hastings had reached out to WikiLeaks lawyer Jennifer Robinson "just a few hours before he died, saying that the FBI was investigating him."
They added ominously that his death "has a very serious non-public complication," promising more details at a later date.
Hastings had reportedly been killed in a car crash in Los Angeles, after his car hit a tree early Tuesday morning. Following news of his death, many of his friends and colleagues reacted with both sadness and some sense of irony.
"He was incredibly tense and very worried and was concerned that the government was looking in on his material," said Cenk Uyger, host of "The Young Turks," following news of his friend's death. "I don't know what his state of mind was at 4:30 in the morning, but I do know what his state of mind was in general, and it was a nervous wreck."
Described as someone "who flung their bodies at the story, and often got hurt," Hastings' Buzzfeed colleague Ben Smith wrote in his remembrance,
Michael Hastings was really only interested in writing stories someone didn't want him to write -- often his subjects; occasionally his editor. While there is no template for a great reporter, he was one for reasons that were intrinsic to who he was: ambitious, skeptical of power and conventional wisdom, and incredibly brave.
Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson added that he will be "remembered for his enthusiastic breaches of the conventions of access journalism."
As noted by the Guardian's Glenn Greenwald, who largely broke the NSA spying story, Hastings' last published article for Buzzfeed was on the NSA spying scandal.
In the piece, he skewers Democratic leaders for their complicity calling them "two faced" and "leaders as a gang of civil liberty opportunists, whose true passion, it seems, was in trolling George W. Bush for eight years on matters of national security."
The piece continues, discussing the "transparency supporters, whistleblowers, and investigative reporters" who have been dogged by the Obama administration, the FBI, and the Department of Justice.
Hastings concludes:
The attitude the Obama administration has toward Manning is revealing. What do they think of him? "Fuck Bradley Manning," as one White House official put it to me last year during the campaign.
Screw Manning? Lol, screw us.
Perhaps more information will soon be forthcoming.
_____________________