Leaked Documents Expose How Corporations Use Spies to Subvert People's
Movements Worldwide
Published on
Tuesday, December 12, 2017
by
Common Dreams
Leaked Documents Expose How Corporations Use Spies to Subvert People's
Movements Worldwide
Given what "these companies have gotten away with," concluded Naomi Klein,
it is "no wonder they fear our power."
by
Jake Johnson, staff writer
Anti-war demonstrators rally in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza near the United
Nations September 19, 2006 in New York City. (Photo: Michael Nagle/Getty
Images)
That governments deploy undercover law enforcement officers to infiltrate,
gather information on, and subvert protest movements has long been common
knowledge. Less well-known, however, is the extent to which some of the
world's most profitable businesses have hired private spies to keep tabs on
political movements they perceive as a threat to their power and profits.
"The leaked documents suggest the use of secretive corporate security firms
to gather intelligence about political campaigners has been widespread."
-Meiron Jones and Rob Evans, the Guardian
Hundreds of pages of newly leaked documents-reported on for the first time
Tuesday by the Guardian and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism
(TBIJ)-provide an unprecedented glimpse into this mysterious world of
"corporate spies," who have been hired by major companies like the German
carmaker Porsche, the U.S.-based manufacturing giant Caterpillar, and the
Royal Bank of Scotland to monitor anti-war demonstrations, protests against
the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, and environmental
campaigns against the destruction of the planet.
"The leaked documents suggest the use of secretive corporate security firms
to gather intelligence about political campaigners has been widespread,"
report the Guardian's Rob Evans and Meirion Jones.
Despite this fact-and despite claims by police that corporate spies embedded
in protest movements frequently outnumber undercover law enforcement
officers-these private firms face "little or no regulation."
And while these "security" companies have attempted to fashion themselves as
run-of-the-mill service providers, they are in reality quite different.
"One key distinguishing factor is that corporate investigation firms are
often staffed and run by former spies and veterans of special forces, even
if they work alongside graduates, accountants and lawyers," TBIJ notes.
"Some of the companies even have private military arms."
Speaking anonymously to the Guardian, a man who claims he personally
infiltrated political groups for a corporate spy firm said that his work
involved more than merely collecting information on protesters.
"He described how the spies surreptitiously fostered conflicts within a
campaign to set activists against each other, in order to wear them down and
make them lose their political motivation," the Guardian reports.
One of the companies featured heavily in the cache of documents is the
private security firm C2i International, which has deployed spies on behalf
of Porsche and other major companies to infiltrate groups of
environmentalists and anti-Iraq war campaigners.
According to the Guardian, "documents show that C2i claimed it had
'real-time intelligence assets' in a range of environmental campaigns
including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, local green groups in Oxford and
'all anti‐aviation groups.'"
In 2008, C2i also "pitched its services to Donald Trump's property
development firm, which was seeking to create a huge golf course and build a
hotel and flats on ecologically sensitive land in Scotland." C2i reportedly
warned Trump that his company was "under threat from a consortium of
environmental activists," but it is unclear whether Trump took C2i up on its
offer.
In one case exposed by the leaked documents, C2i-hired by Caterpillar-spied
on the family of Rachel Corrie, who was crushed to death by an Israeli
military bulldozer in 2003 while protesting the destruction of Palestinian
homes. The bulldozer was manufactured and sold to the Israeli military by
Caterpillar.
As the Guardian reports, "Corrie's family took legal action against
Caterpillar, alleging that the firm was complicit in war crimes by exporting
bulldozers to the Israelis knowing that they would be used to demolish
Palestinian homes."
Just days after U.S. judges dismissed the lawsuit, Corrie's mother spoke to
members of the campaign supporting the family's legal action on a conference
call. C2i appears to have listened in on the call and obtained the
campaign's notes pertaining to the conversation.
After learning that her conversation was infiltrated by private spies,
Corrie's mother Cindy told the Guardian that it is "really distasteful" that
corporate operatives would lie about their identities to listen to a
conversation she believed only consisted of supporters.
Reacting to the newly leaked trove of documents, author and environmentalist
Naomi Klein-who has written extensively on the exploits of corporate
contractors-argued that given the enormous human and environmental abuses
global corporations have committed, it is not surprising that they would
hire spies to monitor those who threaten to expose their criminality.
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