Corporate spying on non-profiits is worse than you imagined

A 2013 report called "Spooky Business" from the Essential Information organization, throws some much-needed light on this corporate spying:

The corporate capacity for espionage has skyrocketed in recent years. Most major companies now have a chief corporate security officer tasked with assessing and mitigating "threats" of all sorts -- including from nonprofit organizations. And there is now a surfeit of private investigations firms willing and able to conduct sophisticated spying operations against nonprofits.

Here's a list of a few corporate espionage firms:

Many of the world’s largest corporations and their trade associations -- including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Walmart, Monsanto, Bank of America, Dow Chemical, Kraft, Coca-Cola, Chevron, Burger King, McDonald's, Shell, BP, BAE, Sasol, Brown & Williamson and E.ON -- have been linked to espionage or planned espionage against nonprofit organizations, activists and whistleblowers.

“Corporate espionage against nonprofit organizations is an egregious abuse of corporate power that is subverting democracy,” said Gary Ruskin, author of Spooky Business. “Who will rein in the forces of corporate lawlessness as they bear down upon nonprofit defenders of justice?”

The victims of this spying, and the methods employed, are varied:

Many different types of nonprofits have been targeted with espionage, including environmental, anti-war, public interest, consumer, food safety, pesticide reform, nursing home reform, gun control, social justice, animal rights and arms control groups.

Corporations and their trade associations have been linked to a wide variety of espionage tactics against nonprofit organizations. The most prevalent tactic appears to be infiltration by posing a volunteer or journalist, to obtain information from a nonprofit.  But corporations have been linked to many other human, physical and electronic espionage tactics against nonprofits.  Many of these tactics are either highly unethical or illegal.

Most of the report is devoted to describing some of the high-profile surveillance operations that have come to light so far.

James Love is the Director of Knowledge Ecology International, an organization that works to improve access to essential drugs, to reduce pharmaceutical drug prices worldwide, and to protect consumers in copyright. Love is an award-winning advocate; in 2006, KEI won a MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions, and in 2013, Love won a Pioneer Award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Shortly after the passage of the Affordable Care Act, Love says he received a visit in his offices from a man who said he was recently let go from his job at Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). "He said his job involved monitoring what I was doing, every day." Love said.

"He told me that PhRMA had hired a private investigator to investigate us, from the West Coast." Separately, from 2007 to 2008, Love says that PhRMA and some companies in the copyright sector funded efforts to investigate the sources of funding for NGOs working on intellectual property issues, and to press those foundations to end their support of consumer advocacy.

Around 2008 or 2009, General Electric, Microsoft, Pfizer and other firms funded an effort by the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) to provide intelligence on NGOs working on intellectual property issues. Love says, "They approached someone we knew, with a proposal to provide information on Knowledge Ecology International and other NGOs working on intellectual property issues, as part of a program to counter NGO advocacy efforts on behalf of consumers."

Eventually, Love says, the NFTC contracted with the Romulus Global Issues Management, an "international policy consultancy" that advises "several members of the Fortune 100." The managing partner of Romulus is John Stubbs, whose wife is Victoria A. Espinel, a former Romulus employee. Espinel was U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IP czar) for the Obama administration, and is currently the CEO and President of the Business Software Alliance (BSA).

One key fact to emerge from this litany of dubious activity, is how closely it is related to the other kinds of surveillance, and the groups that carry them out:

One of the troubling aspects of recent corporate espionage against nonprofits is the use of current and former police, current government contractors, and former CIA, NSA, FBI, military, Secret Service and other law enforcement officers.

The FBI is actively involved with corporations, click here to read more.

Even active-duty CIA operatives are allowed to sell their expertise to the highest bidder, "a policy that gives financial firms and hedge funds access to the nation's top-level intelligence talent," writes Eamon Javers. Little is known about the CIA's moonlighting policy, or which corporations have hired current CIA operatives.

According to Javers, "There is much about the policy that is unclear, including how many officers have availed themselves of it, how long it has been in place and what types of outside employment have been allowed." Regarding the CIA process for approving moonlighting, U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo said "My sense is that it is a rubber stamp deal....No one’s really looking at it or keeping a close eye on it."
 
This intermingling of the various kinds of spying on Americans should inflame the public:

In effect, the revolving door for intelligence, military and law enforcement officials is yet another aspect of the corporate capture of the federal agencies, and another government subsidy for corporations. Taxpayer funds are expended to train the officials who work for the CIA, NSA, Secret Service, military and other intelligence and law enforcement agencies. When these employees leave for employment in the private sector, corporations reap the benefits of this taxpayer-funded education, training and experience. It’s a great deal for the companies that hire these former agents, but not for taxpayers.

Corporate surveillance is leading to a further blurring between government and commercial interests that places non-profit organizations and the people who work in them in an even more vulnerable position.

Here's some info. on three companies conducting corporate espionage:

TrustWave, formerly known as NetSafe, was paid by the firm S2i, formerly known as BBI, to assist with electronic surveillance of Greenpeace for Dow Chemical. The report notes that TrustWave’s founder and a current director, Joe Patanella, formerly worked for the NSA.  A quick look at TrustWave’s interlocks shows that Phil Smith, current SVP of Government Solutions, formerly worked at the Department of Justice and the Secret Service.

Total Intelligence Solutions was hired by Monsanto to infiltrate unknown nonprofits organizing against the company in 2008. The report highlights the role of Cofer Black, chair of Total Intel at the time, in establishing the firm’s relationship with Monsanto. Black was at the helm of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center until 2002, when he took over counterterrorism efforts at the State Department before leaving to join ACADEMI, formerly known as Blackwater, as vice chair in 2004. Total Intel was launched by Erik Prince, owner of Blackwater, in 2007. In addition to Black, he brought on Robert Richer as CEO, who previously worked at the CIA.

Stratfor worked for Coca-Cola and Dow spying on animal and human rights activists, according to emails released by WikiLeaks in 2012. Fred Burton, one of the emailers and Stratfor’s VP of Intelligence, came into the private sector from the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security. Stratfor’s interlocks show that another vice-president, Scott Stewart, also came from the State Department.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140711/08223227850/fifth-surveillance-corporate-spying-non-profits.shtml
http://blog.littlesis.org/2013/12/03/whos-spying-on-nonprofits-for-corporate-america/