In an effort to alleviate its political and publicity troubles, Dow hired Ketchum, a public relations firm. According to Mark Floegel of Greenpeace, Dow paid Ketchum roughly $500,000 annually for PR and espionage targeting Greenpeace and other environmental groups. Those operations included:
D-lines . BBI staff and contractors often conducted what they referred to as "D-lines," or obtaining Greenpeace's trash and recycling, to gain access to internal Greenpeace documents. According to a lawsuit filed by Greenpeace, between July 13, 1998 and July 18, 2000, BBI and its contractors conducted "more than 120 documented D-Lines at Greenpeace's offices." [17]
Mother Jones interviewed one participant in a D-line against Greenpeace:
Jennifer Trapnell, who was dating [BBI employee Tim] Ward in the late 1990s, recalls an evening when she accompanied Ward on a job in Washington D.C. "He said they were trying to get some stuff on Greenpeace," she says. Ward wore black clothes and had told her to dress all in black, too: "It was Mission Impossible-like." In Washington, Ward parked his truck in an alley, she remembers, and told her to stay in the truck and keep a lookout. In the alley, he met a couple of other men, whose faces Trapnell did not see clearly. Ward was talking on a walkie-talkie with others, and they all walked off. About an hour later, the men came back and placed two trash bags in Ward's car. Trapnell says she didn't know what they did with the bags--and Ward never explained. [18]
Use of police officers . To conduct D-lines against Greenpeace's Washington offices, BBI hired a subcontractor, James Daron, a District of Columbia police officer. [19] According to the Greenpeace complaint, Daron "was expected to use his official police badge to gain access to dumpsters that were enclosed by a locked fence." Daron participated in "at least 55" of the D-lines against Greenpeace. [20]
In an email discussing how to access the garbage and recycling of another nonprofit target, BBI's Tim Ward writes: " Maybe one of our BPD [Baltimore Police Department] guys can hit that one." [21]
Use of former Secret Service, CIA, military and police officers . BBI was founded and/or staffed by former Secret Service, CIA, military and police officers, including:
- David Bresett, former chief of counterterrorism for the Secret Service;
- Vincent Cannistraro, former director of counter-terrorism operations for the CIA;
- Philip Giraldi, former counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer of the CIA;
- Jay A. Bly, former Secret Service agent;
- Timothy S. Ward, former sergeant, Maryland State Police;
- Paul Rakowski, former Secret Service agent;
- Michael Mika, former Secret Service agent;
- George M. Ferris, former naval special operations officer; [22] and,
-
Harold "Jim" Grasman, former Secret
Service agent, currently Special Agent in Charge and Chief
Technology Officer, Office of Inspector General, US Department of
Homeland Security.
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