Private Spooks and Corporate Persons: The American Experiment Takes a Hit

[unhappycamper]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Private-Spooks-and-Corpora-by-Move-to-Amend-Corporate-Fascism_Corporate-Personhood_Corporate-Rule_Corporate-Sponsored-Congress-140131-317.html

Private Spooks and Corporate Persons: The American Experiment Takes a Hit
Exclusive to OpEdNews:
OpEdNews Op Eds 1/31/2014 at 11:08:30
By Laura Bonham

Ruskin reveals how the private surveillance industry has grown off the expansion of the Homeland Security Department, producing 265,000 former spies and security operatives, more than willing to put their skills to work in the private marketplace, damn the consequences. A revolving door exists between the national apparatus and the private one, much like the door between Congress and "K' St, through which money and information flow.

Because these organizations have the capacity to win over public opinion on a host of policy issues, corporations have engaged in immoral, unethical, and illegal behavior in order to silence them. Like all corporations, non-profits do have strategies and plans we would prefer to avoid sharing with the opposition. We also maintain private information about our members, who possess an inherent Constitutional right to their privacy.

Knowingly breaking the law is a frequent tactic used by some non-profits and many individuals as an act of civil disobedience --for which we accept the consequences. We do not employ spooks, provocateurs and rabble-rousers, trained in their fields of espionage and security with taxpayer dollars, for the express purpose of quashing dissent.

Ruskin offers a list of suggested reforms to end this nasty practice, which if it is allowed to continue, will have profoundly negative effects on the American democratic experiment. Social justice organizations representing the public interest are an important counterbalance to "corporate persons," who exist only to increase profits for their shareholders, with no thought or care for social, economic or environmental justice.