truthout - Former Secret Service Agents Spied on Activists

FOCUS | Former Secret Service Agents Spied on Activists


http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041208Z.shtml

James Ridgeway of Mother Jones reports that "A private security company
organized and managed by former Secret Service officers spied on Greenpeace and
other environmental organizations from the late 1990s through at least 2000,
pilfering documents from trash bins, attempting to plant undercover operatives
within groups, casing offices, collecting phone records of activists, and
penetrating confidential meetings. According to company documents provided to
Mother Jones by a former investor in the firm, this security outfit collected
confidential internal records - donor lists, detailed financial statements, the
Social Security numbers of staff members, strategy memos - from these
organizations and produced intelligence reports for public relations firms and
major corporations involved in environmental controversies. In addition to
focusing on environmentalists, the firm, Beckett Brown International (later
called S2i), provided a range of services to a host of clients."