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General News    H2'ed 11/22/13

Spooky Business: Corporate Espionage Against Nonprofit Organizations- Part 2

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-       "Submit fake documents and then call out the error." In other words, forging documents, giving them to WikiLeaks, and then exposing them as false, to undermine Wikileaks' credibility;

-       Execute "[c]yber attacks against the [WikiLeaks] infrastructure to get data on document submitters".   Palantir, HBGary and Berico believe that this would "kill" WikiLeaks.

-       An implicit threat to ruin the career of Glenn Greenwald, a prominent journalist, if he continues to support WikiLeaks. [30]

In other documents presented to Hunton & Williams, for its client Bank of America, HBGary Federal boasts of its "IO [Information Operations] Mission Expertise." Information Operations is a military term for electronic warfare. HBGary Federal also offered its expertise in "Computer Network Attack", "Custom malware development", "Computer Network Exploitation", and "persistent software implants". [31]  

The U.S. Department of Justice appears to have played a key role in these events.   The Tech Herald reported that " Hunton and Williams were recommended to Bank of America's general counsel by the Department of Justice, according to the email chain viewed by The Tech Herald." [32] If this is true, it raises the question of whether the Justice Department assisted Bank of America in its battle against WikiLeaks, and how much Justice Department officials knew of and even supported corporate espionage against WikiLeaks and its allies.


Chevron/Kroll in Ecuador

In August 2010, a journalist named Mary Cuddehe wrote about the efforts by Kroll, [33] a giant private investigations firm, to recruit her as a "corporate spy" for Chevron. The company has been trying unsuccessfully to stave off a $9.5 billion fine arising from a lawsuit alleging that Texaco [34] spilled 330 million gallons of oil around Lago Agrio, Ecuador.   The spill brought cancer and other diseases to local residents.   According to Cuddehe, Kroll offered her $20,000 to pose as a journalist while conducting interviews to undermine a study of the health effects of the oil spill.   She wrote, " If I went to Lago Agrio as myself and pretended to write a story, no one would suspect that the starry-eyed young American poking around was actually shilling for Chevron." Cuddehe turned down the money, and instead penned a charming article about her experience in The Atlantic. [35]


Walmart vs. Up Against the Wal

For years, Walmart has maintained a robust corporate intelligence and security department, staffed by a "team of former officials from the C.I.A., F.B.I. and Justice Department," according to the New York Times. [36]  

In March 2007, Walmart's " Threat Research and Analysis Group" fired Bruce Gabbard, a computer technician, for unauthorized recording of conversations between Walmart and a New York Times reporter, Michael Barbaro, and intercepting Walmart colleagues' text messages. After leaving Walmart, Gabbard disclosed some of Walmart's surveillance practices, including targeting citizens groups and critics.   According to the Wall Street Journal,

"In late spring 2006, Wal-Mart learned that several anti-Wal-Mart groups might protest at the annual shareholders meeting in June. Company executives were concerned the civil-rights group Acorn (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) and local Up Against the Wal members would disrupt its meeting. Wal-Mart sent a long-haired employee wearing a wireless microphone to Up Against the Wal's Fayetteville, Ark., gathering, and eavesdropped from nearby, says Gabbard. "We followed around the perimeter with a surveillance van," he says.'" [37]

Ã"°lectricità © de France vs. Greenpeace

On November 10, 2011, the French utility Ã"°lectricità © de France was fined 1.5 million Euros for hacking into the computers of Greenpeace France.   EDF was also required to pay an additional 500,000 Euros in damages to Greenpeace France. EDF hired the private intelligence firm Kargus Consultants, which in turn illegally obtained a copy of the hard drive of Yannick Jadot, the former campaign director of Greenpeace France.   Thierry Lorho, the head of Kargus Consultants, was sentenced to three years in prison, two of which were suspended.   EDF's former head of nuclear production security, Pascal Durieux, was also sentenced to three years in prison, with two suspended.   His deputy, Pierre-Paul Franà §ois, was sentenced to three years in prison, with 2 - years suspended . [38]  

The story of the hacking and its discovery is magnificently convoluted.   In 2009, a French investigating judge named Thomas Cassuto accidentally uncovered that Ã"°lectricità © de France had spied on Greenpeace France, and apparently other Greenpeace offices in Europe as well.   EDF is the world largest operator of nuclear power plants.   It is 85% owned by the French government.   Greenpeace has long campaigned against the use of nuclear power. [39]

According to the International Herald Tribune, the French judge's investigation of a separate hacking operation was

" picked up by a special cybercrime unit of the French Interior Ministry, [and] led to a French computer specialist, Alain Quiros"..As the French authorities delved more deeply into Mr. Quiros's computer, they found a copy of the hard drive of Yannick Jadot, the former campaign director of Greenpeace France, as well as that of Frà ©dà ©rik-Karel Canoy, a French lawyer and shareholder rights activist who has battled some of the country's largest companies, including Vivendi and European Aeronautic Defense & Space, the parent of the aircraft manufacturer Airbus".Mr. Lorho [a former French intelligence agent and head of Kargus Consultants] also admitted that he had collected data on Greenpeace . His client that time, he said, was Ã"°lectricità © de France, which had paid him for "strategic intelligence' on anti-nuclear campaigners. Mr. Lorho has said his contacts at E.D.F. were "perfectly aware' of the hacking and that such activities were understood to be included under the two one-year contracts he signed with the company".The investigation found that in addition to information on Greenpeace in France, E.D.F. obtained data on the environmental organization's activities in Spain, Belgium and Britain, where E.D.F. last year agreed to buy the largest nuclear power company there, British Energy". In an interview with an intelligence Web site, Lerenseignement.com, Mr. Lorho said he assumed "full responsibility' for hacking into the Greenpeace computer, but he added that ''I would like to see E.D.F., which sponsored the operation, take responsibility for its part.'' [40]

There is evidence that EDF not only spied on Greenpeace France, but other Greenpeace offices in Europe.   According to the Guardian,

"A French investigation into allegations that France's state energy giant EDF spied on Greenpeace has taken a new turn after a suggestion in court documents that the company may have monitored environmentalists across Europe , including Britain".[The] French news website Mediapart, which has seen documents from the investigation, this week published extracts of the testimony by an EDF security executive and former police commander who is under investigation for conspiring to conduct illegal surveillance".Asked about a CD-rom of information from detectives that was found in his office safe, he said it contained information about environmental group structures and summaries of meetings. "It was a question of the [Greenpeace] non-governmental group's organisation in Belgium, Spain, perhaps Britain, let's say Europe,' he added." [41]


E.ON/Scottish Resources Group/Scottish Power/Vericola/Rebecca Todd vs. the Camp for Climate Action

The Camp for Climate Action ("Climate Camp") is a climate activist group that started in the UK.   It supports decommissioning of coal-fired power plants to mitigate carbon dioxide emissions that cause climate change. On October 17-18, 2009, approximately 1,000 activists from Climate Camp and other groups gathered to conduct civil disobedience to shut down the Ratcliffe-on-Soar coal plant. [42]

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Gary Ruskin is the   Director of the  Center for Corporate Policy

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