Who’s spying on nonprofits for corporate America?
The Center for Corporate Policy recently released a report demonstrating how large corporations hire former law enforcement officials to spy on nonprofit organizations considered to be a threat to them. We added all of the firms in the report to a list in LittleSis–Corporate Espionage Firms–to take a closer look at some of the people behind these firms.
TrustWave, formerly known as NetSafe, was paid by the firm S2i, formerly known as BBI, to assist with electronic surveillance of Greenpeace for Dow Chemical. The report notes that TrustWave’s founder and a current director, Joe Patanella, formerly worked for the NSA. A quick look at TrustWave’s interlocks shows that Phil Smith, current SVP of Government Solutions, formerly worked at the Department of Justice and the Secret Service.
Total Intelligence Solutions was hired by Monsanto to infiltrate unknown nonprofits organizing against the company in 2008. The report highlights the role of Cofer Black, chair of Total Intel at the time, in establishing the firm’s relationship with Monsanto. Black was at the helm of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center until 2002, when he took over counterterrorism efforts at the State Department before leaving to join ACADEMI, formerly known as Blackwater, as vice chair in 2004. Total Intel was launched by Erik Prince, owner of Blackwater, in 2007. In addition to Black, he brought on Robert Richer as CEO, who previously worked at the CIA.
Stratfor worked for Coca-Cola and Dow spying on animal and human rights activists, according to emails released by WikiLeaks in 2012. Fred Burton, one of the emailers and Stratfor’s VP of Intelligence, came into the private sector from the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security. Stratfor’s interlocks show that another vice-president, Scott Stewart, also came from the State Department.
THE REST (with links):
http://blog.littlesis.org/2013/12/03/whos-spying-on-nonprofits-for-corporate-america/
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Posing as volunteers. Stealing documents. Dumpster diving. Planting electronic bugs. Hacking computers. Tapping phones and voicemail. Planting false information. Trailing family members. Threatening reporters. Hiring cops, CIA officers and combat veterans to do all these dirty deeds—and counting on little pushback from law enforcement, mainstream media or Congress.
These are some of the ways that many of America’s largest corporations have spied on nonprofits for years, according to a detailed new report from the Center for Corporate Policy tracing decades of corporate espionage where tactics developed for American intelligence agencies have been imported by a long list of corporate giants for use against progressives.
“The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Walmart, Monsanto, Bank of America, Dow Chemical, Kraft, Coca-Cola, Chevron, Burger King, McDonald’s, Shell, BP, BEA, Sasol, Brown & Williamson and E.ON have all been linked to espionage against non-profit organizations, activists and whistleblowers,” the report said, noting that its targets are “environmental, anti-war, public-interest, consumer, food safety, pesticide reform, nursing home reform, gun control, social justice, animal rights and arms-control groups.”
“There’s so many different tactics,” said Gary Ruskin, the center’s director and the report’s author. “It’s so important to talk about the effects on our democracy and privacy. Civic groups can’t work if they’re surrounded by serious espionage activities. And citizens don’t lose their rights to privacy if they disagree with corporations.”
Compared to Europe, where some of the same corporate players—and their staff or hired guns—have landed in court, been shamed in the media and even given jail terms, spying against non-profits has flourished with little legal consequence in America.
THE REST:
http://www.alternet.org/activism/corporate-espionage-against-progressive-nonprofits
