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General News    H2'ed 11/22/13

Spooky Business: Corporate Espionage Against Nonprofit Organizations- Part 2

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Fenton Communications

Fenton Communications is a public relations firm founded by David Fenton that supports public interest, environmental and other nonprofit groups. Mother Jones reported that:

  On December 8, 1999, a BBI operative, according to an internal report, "sat surveillance' at [David] Fenton's Washington home, beginning at 2:50 am. In the report, the operative noted the time of the morning garbage pick-up and that he returned to the office to "sort material' and "analyze.' BBI ran background checks on both Fenton and his then-wife. The company's files contained photographs of their house as well as client lists, billing information, and personnel information from Fenton Communications. Between July 1998 and February 2001, Fenton says, his firm experienced several break-ins, during which boxes of files and two laptops were stolen. The culprits were never caught. [1]

According to the Greenpeace complaint, BBI obtained confidential internal documents from Fenton Communications, including "billable time summary reports, reflecting the work performed for Fenton clients; internal fee memoranda, which provide instructions for invoicing particular clients; timeslip reports, which document the billable hours of each employee; and a check for the reimbursement of a health insurance claim for David Fenton, which was mailed to his home address." [2]


Greenpeace, CLEAN and the Lake Charles Project

From 1984 to 2001, CONDEA Vista manufactured vinyl chloride at a factory in Lake Charles, Louisiana. [3]   In 1997, CONDEA Vista was found guilty of "wanton and reckless disregard of public safety" and fined $7 million in punitive damages for leaks of ethylene dichloride, an intermediate compound in the production of polyvinyl chloride. [4]   For many years Greenpeace campaigned to expose the dangers of polyvinyl chloride and the pollution generated by CONDEA Vista. [5]

According to the Greenpeace complaint:

-       "On May 26, 1998, working at the behest of both CONDEA Vista and Dezenhall, BBI initiated the "Lake Charles Project' to secure confidential information about environmental organizations and campaigners." [6]

-       To assist with the Lake Charles Project, BBI hired Mary Lou Sapone, who hired Dick Rogers to infiltrate Greenpeace and CLEAN.   "Posing as a concerned citizen, Rogers managed to get elected to CLEAN's board.   From that position, he monitored the activities of Greenpeace, including communications between CLEAN and Greenpeace".Rogers sent more than 65 narrative reports and forwarded at least 150 confidential emails to Sapone.   Sapone, in turn, forwarded the confidential emails and reports, almost daily, to Ward between August 1998 and November 1999." [7]

-       "In 1998, Jay Bly traveled to Louisiana to surveil the offices and homes of activists working in Lake Charles.   He submitted numerous reports detailing his activities, which involved"collecting and sorting trash from various locations.   In 1999, Bly was reimbursed for supplies purchased in Maryland in connection with his CONDEA Vista investigations: AAA batteries, trash bags, a trash can and keys"the charge to CONDEA Vista for making "keys' further provides support for the conclusion that BBI was unlawfully gaining access to Greenpeace premises, or property related to Greenpeace, that it had no lawful right to access." [8]

North Valley Coalition

According to Mother Jones,

"In 1996 and 1997 in northern California, where Browning-Ferris Industries was engaged in a battle over the future of a garbage dump, BBI conducted what its records labeled "covert monitoring' and "intelligence gathering' on the North Valley Coalition, a citizens group opposed to the Browning-Ferris project. In September 1997, BBI received a payment of $198,881.05 from BFI." [9]

Nursing home activists

According to the Washington Post, BBI spied on nursing home activists who wanted improved conditions at a Maryland nursing home called Hebrew Home:

In 1997, at a community center in Montgomery County, activists held meetings to discuss Hebrew Home. The group, made up largely of residents' relatives, alleged poor medication controls and rough treatment of residents. As they strategized, an undercover operative was paying close attention. Her reports -- along with meeting agendas, license plate numbers and descriptions of advocates -- were relayed to Hebrew Home officials, the records show".Over a year, the nursing home paid BBI about $50,000 for investigative work, according to invoices addressed to chief executive Warren Slavin" [10]

Mary Lou Sapone and the Brady Campaign

From the mid-1990s through much of the 2000s, Mary McFate was a prominent volunteer for gun control groups.   She ran for a seat on the board of directors of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, and worked closely with other national gun control organizations, such as the Violence Policy Center.   She was director of federal legislation for States United to Prevent Gun Violence.   She was deeply knowledgeable about the plans and actions of these and other national gun control groups.   They, however, did not know that her other identity was Mary Lou Sapone, who since the late 1980s had been paid by corporations to spy on citizens' groups. [11]   For example, she had worked for Beckett Brown International to infiltrate the Lake Charles, Louisiana environmental organization CLEAN. [12]   For the U.S. Surgical Corporation, she had infiltrated animal rights activists who were protesting its use of dogs in medical training. [13]   In a 2003 deposition, Tim Ward, former president of BBI, said that the National Rifle Association had been a client of Sapone's. Billing records show that the NRA paid BBI "nearly $80,000" for services rendered between May 1999 and April 2000. [14]


US Chamber of Commerce/HBGary Federal/Hunton & Williams vs. U.S. Chamber Watch/Public Citizen/Public Campaign/MoveOn.org/Velvet Revolution/Center for American Progress/Tides Foundation/Justice Through Music/Move to Amend/Ruckus Society

In January 2011, an executive in the computer security firm HBGary Federal claimed to have identified the leadership of the hacker collective Anonymous. [15]   In response, the collective hacked the firm's email and other accounts, and released its files on the Internet. [16] This created a rare opportunity to review the recent internal workings of an important private investigative firm. [17]

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Gary Ruskin is the   Director of the  Center for Corporate Policy

  @garyruskin
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Spooky Business: Corporate Espionage Against Nonprofit Organizations- Part 1

Spooky Business: Corporate Espionage Against Nonprofit Organizations- Part 3

Spooky Business: Corporate Espionage Against Nonprofit Organizations- Part 2

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