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THE BILDERBERG WEBSITE has been taken down by hackers identifying themselves as the HackBack movement and Anonymous.
The group’s homepage has been replaced with text, which states:
There is no equality between humans on world scale and so-called human rights are nothing more than an illusion. The globalisation and world order system is favouring this unbearable situation…This world order is conducted by the groups which are composed of wealthy 1% uber elite…
We will watch you.
The secretive nature of the Bilderberg group meetings – and the elite nature of the guest list – means they’ve long been the subject of criticism with accusations that the organisation is a mostly white, mostly male networking opportunity.
Right-wing critics have accused it of attempting to promote a world government.
The whole event runs in strict accordance with the Chatham House Rule, which in everyday English means that those in attendance are free to use the information shared by other attendees, but the identity and the affiliation of those who said it cannot be revealed.
As everyone is bound to this agreement, no minutes or notes are taken at the meeting – and the very few members of the media who are let into the inner circle can’t report on the event.
This means little is known about exactly what is said, beyond the broad discussion topics released to the public.
Hacked
This is not the first time the website has been hacked this year. The Sun reports the site was hacked back in June by the Anonymous group.
This year the Bilderberg conference was held in Dresden, Germany and was attended by 130 of the world’s leaders in finance, academia, industry, politics and media from 20 countries.
In the past, a number of Irish figures have attended the meeting.
In 2012, documents released to TheJournal.ie under the Freedom of Information Act shone a light on the event after details relating to Finance Minister Michael Noonan’s attendance were made public.
Noonan also attended this year and was accompanied by Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary.
Other big names at the event this year are former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble.
In previous years, a number of Irish politicians and business figures have attended, including the current Housing Minister Simon Coveney, former Tánaiste Michael McDowell, former attorney general Dermot Gleeson and ex-Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald.
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