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General News    H2'ed 11/22/13

Spooky Business: Corporate Espionage Against Nonprofit Organizations- Part 2

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BAE vs. Campaign Against the Arms Trade

In September 2003, the Sunday Times of London reported that BAE Systems [56] -- the world's biggest weapons firm [57] -- had hired a private intelligence-gathering firm to infiltrate activists opposed to the global arms trade. [58]   According to the Sunday Times, BAE paid - 120,000 per year "for at least four years" to a consultancy led by Evelyn Le Chene to infiltrate the Campaign Against Arms Trade.   The group was infiltrated "by at least half a dozen agents in the 1990s."   During this time, CAAT opposed the sale of BAE's Hawk jets to Indonesia.   According to the Sunday Times, agents working for BAE

"downloaded computer files, rifled through personal diaries, conducted surveillance on campaigners and passed on bank account details. Letters to and from senior Labour politicians including Jack Straw when he was home secretary, the MP Ann Clwyd and David Clark while he was the opposition spokesman on defence, were copied and sent to BAE. Meetings with MPs were reported on." [59]

BAE's espionage operations were effective, in part because BAE secured the services of   "perhaps the most successful corporate spy of recent times, Martin Hogbin."   According to the Guardian, "In 2003 security consultant Evelyn Le Chene was alleged to have been receiving emails from Hogbin, 58, who had spent six years rising through the CAAT. So successful was the alleged operation that Hogbin became a target for Met surveillance . Officers were convinced he was a key "domestic extremist'." [60]

In 2007, the Campaign Against the Arms Trade took legal action to force disclosure of the spying.   It uncovered that Paul Mercer had been paid - 2,500 per month by BAE's security department to spy on CAAT.   According to the Guardian,

"Mr. Mercer obtained a CD with details of confidential legal advice received from the peace campaigners' lawyers and at the end of last year passed it to Michael McGinty, head of BAE's security department".The litigation revealed that Mr. Mercer, who had a history of infiltrating peace groups such as CND [Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament], had disguised his dealings with BAE from his home in Loughborough".The Mercer operation came to light because BAE passed the information to its lawyers, Allen & Overy, who decided they had to disclose it to the court. BAE then fought to resist disclosure of their agent's identity." [61]


Global Open

Several news articles report that Global Open conducts espionage against nonprofit organizations.   According to its website, Global Open (Europe) "advises our existing base of more than 90 clients" [62] and provides services such as intelligence gathering for "clients at a more serious level of threat from activism."   Such services include, for example, a "24-hour warning service indicating, wherever possible, if a company is about to be targeted," and "[i]mmediate circulation of new activist tactics," and "[c]irculation of the movement of activist groups." [63] According to the Guardian,

"The company best-known for monitoring protest groups is Global Open, founded a decade ago by Rod Leeming, a former special branch officer"[It] maintains "a discreet watch' on protest groups that could damage a firm's reputation. It is understood to have offered to employ several ex-police officers, including [Mark] Kennedy, who said he was hired by Leeming last year".Court documents reveal Global Open to be one of two companies involved in the monitoring of the Campaign Against the Arms Trade for arms manufacturer BAE." [64]


Inkerman Group and C2i vs. Plane Stupid

According to the Guardian, another company that conducts "monitoring [of] protesters" is the Inkerman Group.   According to its website, the Inkerman Group is an "international business risk and intelligence company." [65]   The Guardian reports that the Inkerman Group

" employs former Met commissioner Lord Imbert as a strategic adviser. A "restricted' report produced by the company three years ago warns of a growing threat of "eco-terrorism'. Under a section on "recent acts of eco-terrorism', the document lists a number of peaceful campaign groups, including the anti-aviation collective Plane Stupid . Some of those named in the Inkerman document were in fact spied on by Toby Kendall, who worked for another security firm, C2i International. He posed as "Ken Tobias' in an attempt to infiltrate the anti-aviation collective Plane Stupid . Activists became suspicious of him as he appeared so eager to take part in direct action. His true identity was discovered on a social networking website, Bebo". C2i has said Kendall was operating on his own." [66]


Brown & Williamson/Investigative Group vs. Jeffrey Wigand

In 1993, Jeffrey Wigand was fired by the tobacco company Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp.   He later became perhaps the most important tobacco industry whistleblower ever.   Wigand made a number of high-profile allegations against the company, including that B&W Chairman Thomas Sandefur lied to Congress under oath about nicotine addiction.

According to the Wall Street Journal, B&W responded by hiring a "formidable team" of lawyers and private detectives to investigate and discredit him, including:

" lawyers from the big New York firm Chadbourne & Parke and Atlanta's King & Spalding, and top New York public-relations adviser John Scanlon. They are working with the Investigative Group Inc., a leading Washington-based detective firm whose New York office is run by a former [and current] New York City police commissioner, Raymond Kelly. This is the firm Ivana Trump hired to investigate her rival Marla Maples and that Sen. Edward Kennedy used to check into an opponent in his 1994 campaign." [67]  

The Journal reported that

"Representatives of B&W offered the fruits of their investigation to The Wall Street Journal: a 500-page file bearing the title "The Misconduct of Jeffrey S. Wigand Available in the Public Record.' Subheadings include "Wigand's Lies About His Residence,' "Wigand's Lies Under Oath' and "Other Lies By Wigand.' A close look at the file, and independent research by this newspaper into its key claims, indicates that many of the serious allegations against Mr. Wigand are backed by scant or contradictory evidence. Some of the charges -- including that he pleaded guilty to shoplifting -- are demonstrably untrue."    


Shell/BP/Manfred Schlickenrieder/Hakluyt vs. Greenpeace

In 2001, the Sunday Times of London reported that the private investigative firm Hackluyt, which has "close links" to the British spy agency MI6, hired a spy named Manfred Schlickenrieder to infiltrate Greenpeace on behalf of oil companies, including Shell and BP. [68] According to the Sunday Times, Schlickenrieder " posed as a left-wing sympathiser and film maker" to "betray plans of Greenpeace's activities against oil giants". One of his assignments from Hakluyt was to gather information about the movements of the motor vessel Greenpeace in the north Atlantic."


McDonald's vs. London Greenpeace

In October 1989, McDonald's hired seven private investigators to infiltrate London Greenpeace.   According to the Los Angeles Times, the infiltrators " took notes, followed organizers to their homes, stole letters and, to demonstrate their bona fides, eagerly volunteered to distribute the fact sheet denouncing the company that had secretly hired them." [69]

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Gary Ruskin is the   Director of the  Center for Corporate Policy

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