Official campaign announcement
McAfee releases his official campaign announcement video.
It is near certain that the authors of The Declaration of Independence and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address — texts of agonizing beauty in the face of today’s harsh realities — could not have anticipated a world in which spy cameras are hidden in cactuses; the government surreptitiously parses our verbal communications; and the concept of privacy is fast approaching extinction. They could not have anticipated a world in which information is the prime commodity of exchange, at the expense of grace, compassion, solitude, and the remaining fragile components of the besieged human heart. What they did anticipate is that governments, no matter how powerful, will always hunger for more power, and that power inevitably corrupts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=5&v=4-ZZw5vylx4
Reddit AMA
McAfee conducts a Reddit AMA, where he talks about society:
Here’s what I’ve learned. People will be people, you can trust no one. It’s not a bad thing/cynical. I trust people to be people, to act in their own self-interests. If you understand that, you can use that! People will be disloyal, I’ve heard there are wives that sleep around, etc. We are disloyal, but loving, kind, gracious. We are a contradiction, the negatives are not bad if you see them for what they are. You cannot trust people, big deal, you CAN trust them to be self-interested, and I use that all the f-cking time.
About Belize:
The most beautiful in the world. It has a barrier reef, 2nd in the world. I had 5 boats on the beach on the ocean, you try that anywhere else. It has jungles and ruins that haven’t even been explored. The problem is that it has people there, people descended from pirates. There is nothing illegal that the government there is not into. The government is smart if you just go there as an American you will not be bothered. I lived in the jungles where I was the only white person, and they were on to me. They asked me for $2M, weeks later 40+ armed men stormed my house, shot my favorite dog, and held me in the sun with my hands tied. The next day the congressman came and apologized asked for the $2M again. I should have done that rather than tell him to get the f-ck off my property.
And life:
Money corrupts. Once you have enough money, you have no friends, none, even the most dedicated friend you had cannot stop thinking about his mortgage, or new car, or new wife, and friendship ends. Second, your life becomes a nightmare. I was getting 1000/day asking for help, or asking for me to invest (the best was rocket-power roller skates, I almost invested). Money now has become information, how does Google live? They gather information on smartphones and their services. This is far worse than paper. Paper doesn’t try to get into your head, to find out who you’re f-cking, etc. We are all jealous, hopeful and ambitious, and as long as that exists we’ll all have chaos.
Obamacare ‘A hacker’s wet dream’
In an interview with Cavuto, McAfee says that Obamacare is a hacker’s “wet dream”
Well, here’s the problem — it’s not something software can solve. I mean, what idiot put this system out there and did not create a central depository? There should be one website, run by the government, you go to that website and then you can click on all of the agencies. This is insane. So, I will predict that the loss of income for the millions of Americans who are going to lose their identities — I mean, you can imagine some retired lady in Utah, who has $75,000 dollars in the bank, saving her whole life, having it wiped out one day because she signed up for Obamacare. And believe me, this is going to happen millions of times. This is a hacker’s wet dream. I cannot believe that they did this.
Not dead
After rumors of his death hit the Internet McAfee tweets that is alive and well.
I felt fine when I went to bed last night. I had such great plans.. “RIP John McAfee" #allinclusivevacationdownsouth http://t.co/UEy8T1AUxo
— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) September 9, 2013
Followed by:
For those wondering if im dead the answer is… "The Media is killing me, but somehow im still tweeting" #NotDeadYet pic.twitter.com/9qvNLBoFsg
— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) September 9, 2013
Supports Edward Snowden
McAfee is interviewed by Cavuto on Fox News declaring his support for Edward Snowden and drawing comparisons to his own time on the run.
From my perspective he revealed something that we all knew. We are being spied on by our government. It’s simply that Mr Snowden has put a quantitative value on it…To that extent he’s a hero in telling us what we already knew and making us all face that fact.
Claims he carried out spying operation
McAfee blogs that he organized a massive spying scheme to infiltrate the digital lives of the rich and powerful in Belize as revenge for a police raid on his home last year. He says that he gifted 75 laptops with keystroke spying software pre-installed to “government employees, police officers, Cabinet Minister’s assistants, girlfriends of powerful men, boyfriends of powerful women.” He claims that he hired 29 operatives to install similar tracking software on computers that targets already owned, sometimes getting close to them with sex. He also supposedly had lackeys join the ranks of two national phone companies to tap phones and get lists of contacts from Belizeans he wanted to keep his eye on. McAfee also arranged to have recorders “hidden under a bed, behind a piece of artwork, inside a pillow, in an old shoe” of government ministers. He claims to have evidence of numerous sexual affairs, the ordering of a murder by the nation’s prime minister and, above all, a Hezbollah trafficking plot to smuggling Lebanese men into the U.S.
Belize is clearly a central player in a larger network whose goal is to infiltrate the U.S. with individuals having links to terrorist organizations.
Describes escape
McAfee says he planted a lookalike (“my double — a man I have known for over 30 years and who years ago legally changed his name to John McAfee”) and had him picked up by authorities in the northern Belize-Mexico border, while he and a group of friends and reporters loaded up a truck and headed in the opposite direction, to a southern town called Punta Gorda. With the news that he’d been arrested broadcasting on a local news station, McAfee figured that checkpoint security would relax. McAfee followed another friend who was driving one of his pickup trucks to avoid checkpoints on the highway. This was another decoy:
If they stopped the truck, I knew the checkpoint officers would be swarming all over it. Subsequent traffic would be likely to be waved through.
McAfee made sure that his dash happened on a rainy day.
In Belize, no checkpoint officers will ever stop a car in the rain.
He says he blew through all three highway checkpoints on that early December day without ever being stopped. From Punta Gorda, he and his 20-year-old girlfriend Samantha Vanegas and two Vice reporters sailed into Livingston, Guatemala. A few days later, he was arrested.
Illness a ‘ruse’
McAfee says he faked the illness in order to buy some time for a judge to hear his case and stay his deportation to Belize.
It was a deception but who did it hurt? I look pretty healthy, don’t I?
When asked whether he believes Belize officials were inept.
I was on the run with a 20-year-old girl for three and a half weeks inside their borders and everyone was looking for me, and they did not catch me. I escaped, was captured and they tried to send me back. Now I’m sitting in Miami. There had to be some ineptness.
McAfee also answers critics who called his adventures a publicity stunt:
What’s a better story, millionaire mad man on the run. You [the media] saved my ass. Because you paid attention to the story. As long as you are reporting, it is hard to whack somebody that the world is watching.
Wants to return to the U.S.
In a phone call to Reuters from the immigration facility where he is being held for illegally crossing the border to Guatemala with his 20-year-old girlfriend, McAfee says he wants to return to the U.S.
My goal is to get back to America as soon as possible. I wish I could just pack my bags and go to Miami. I don’t think I fully understood the political situation. I’m an embarrassment to the Guatemalan government and I’m jeopardizing their relationship with Belize.
Intends to stay in Guatemala
McAfee says he plans to settle down in Guatemala.
I have a passport. I am in no trouble with the U.S. I can return any time I like. I have been back to America many times since I have been in Belize. I have no interest of going this month or next but … I can come and go freely to America any time I want. I am not concerned because I have not been charged with a crime, so there is no basis for extradition. No one has blamed me for the murder. I have not been charged, I am not a suspect…They merely want to question me…I like Guatemala. I think the legal system in Guatemala is superior to the legal system in Belize.
Belizean police:
He’s really gone out of his way to make the country look bad, and we just believe he should, if he’s innocent as he’s saying he is, he should bring in his lawyer, and let’s get to the bottom of this and say what he needs to say and let’s move on.
Claims he faked photo info
McAfee claims he manipulated the Vice photo info.
I openly apologize to Vice Magazine for manipulating their recently published photo… I, for my own safety, manipulated the xif data on the image taken from my cellphone, and created a fake emergency so that the urgency of movement led, as I knew it would, to the hasty posting on their website. I felt that our tenuous situation demanded action, and that was the action that I chose.
Photo metadata shows McAfee in Guatemala
In the photo in their post announcing that they shadowing McAfee, Vice leaves exif data in the image that allows it to be pinpointed to a location in Guatemala.
Say he is ‘safe’
McAfee writes that he has not been arrested, saying that he will return to Belize, and that the Vice story will make everything clear.
I am currently safe and in the company of two intrepid journalist from Vice Magazine, and, of course, Sam. We are not in Belize, but not quite out of the woods yet.
Blog: McAfee arrested
A message on McAfee’s blog said that he has been arrested. The news is picked up in other media, but there is no confirmation.
We have received an unconfirmed report that John McAfee has been captured at the border of Belize and Mexico.
Police: McAfee not arrested
Belize national police confirm that the whereabouts of the multimillionaire software developer are still unknown. Additionally, authorities have issued no arrest warrant in the murder of McAfee’s neighbor.
Claims police planted cocaine in weapons donation
According to McAfee’s blog the reason for the raid is that one of the cases containing the weapons he donated to the police contained a bag of cocaine. McAfee denies that he takes or deals in drugs.
I would indeed have to be the stupidest man in the world to donate stuff to the police that contained cocaine.
Apologizes to Wise
According to a previous post by McAfee, Wise had come to New Mexico to write about McAfee’s flying adventures for Wired magazine, and had spent the night with a woman who was not his wife. Their public display of affection had prompted McAfee to say to the other guests, “somebody get pictures of this to send to his wife in case we get a bad story from him”. According to McAfee, despite this being a joke pictures were actually taken and some of those did find their way to Wise’s wife. McAfee says Wise blamed him for sending the pics and apologizes on his blog:
I have erroneously accused Jeff Wise of improper behavior on a reporting trip that he did to my flying ranch in New Mexico. I finally received the photos from that trip and was going to publish them, and when I looked at them, to my horror, it was a different reporter (whose name I will obviously not release) from a different magazine, on a different trip. I wish that I could excuse myself due to the fact that I did dozens of interviews and appeared in dozens of magazines during my flying times in New Mexico, and could be expected to be confused, but that is no excuse. Jeff’s trip did not even include a campfire session…I was wrong. I apologize. I know that that does not help, but I am truly sorry.
John McAfee apologizes to me on his blog. http://t.co/cbeZWeI8 Wasn't expecting that!
— Jeff Wise (@ManvBrain) November 26, 2012
Accuses former employeee of trying to kill him
McAfee publishes a transcript of an alleged conversation he claims to have obtained through secret recording devices kept in the grounds of his property between an ex-employee and a younger man who works for him. The transcript, taken from a recording posted on November 20, appears to implicate the older man in a plot to frame and murder McAfee, possibly in retribution for firing him. The employee is supposed to have said:
You and I we are going to plan how to make a bomb so that it explodes on that m—– f—–. I am going to wait and as he come out am going to shoot him. Because I was a BDF (Belizean Defence Force) I now have something that’s round. I could give it to you. you pull the pin like this. You walk pass the gate and when no one notices then you pull out the pin you turn it then a lot of them are going to get f—–. “
The current employee is then quoted as describing a wider conspiracy involving the local police, who would be called to the scene of the crime when the bomb was planted, potentially framing McAfee for possessing explosives.
With the white men [McAfee] we are going to plant the thing there then we are going to call the higher officials and tell them were the thing is planted. And then tell them about Noel as well, then there are both going to get f—–.”
Noel is a close friend of McAfee’s and a bar owner in Carmelita, a village in north Belize. The transcript is paired with a handwritten letter McAfee received containing a death threat.
Claims Stuffmonger drug story was hoax
McAfee describes a story on Bluelight drug forums: A user named Stuffmonger had claimed to have re-discovered a legendary drug that appeared a dozen years ago, was praised as the drug of drugs, and, after a few months, was then lost to history. The resulting discussion goes on for more than 1,000 pages, many devoted to those trying to recreate the technique that Stuffmonger described. As Stuffmonger stated he lives in Belize, speculation arose that McAfee was Stuffmonger and had the secret drug recipe. McAfee says that, in fact, he is Stuffmonger, but that he does not do drugs, and that the thread was an elaborate hoax.
I bet a close friend that I could create a thread in Bluelight and get 1,000 posts, not counting mine. I won the bet. I believe it is the longest in Bluelight history.
Disguises himself with tampon
McAfee describes steps he has taken to elude capture in Belize, including an elaborate disguise that includes shoving “a shaved down tampon deep into [his] right nostril.” The tampon, dyed brown at the end, leaves McAfee’s nose with “an awkward, lopsided, disgusting appearance,” he wrote. Aided by “ragged brown pants” and broken English “with a pronounced Spanish accent,” McAfee has apparently spent some time pretending to peddle “small wooden carvings” to tourists. He says he has adopted other personas as well: a native vendor, selling tamales and burritos (presumably to tourists); and an inebriated German tourist, “with a partially bandaged face and wearing speedo swimming trunks and a distasteful, oversized Hawaiian shirt and yelling loudly at anyone who would listen – ‘Leck mich umausch!’