We talk about for some time: the multinational targeted by boycotts and criticism from environmental organizations and non-profit organizations are organized to keep the same NGO monitored and thus be able to know the strategies. Now to put it in black and white, telling mechanisms more or less clear, is Gary Ruskin, director of the Center for Corporate Policy and a member of Essential Information, a nonprofit organization founded in 1982. Both actually carry out periodic monitoring of the policies pursued by multinational companies and it inform the general public.
NGOs and espionage
Multinational companies and big corporations are using techniques and strategies for monitoring nonprofit organizations, sometimes taking the streets "unorthodox" and not always correct. To put it in black and white in its report released in recent days is Gary Ruskin, author of the document re-launched in the U.S. by the Center for Corporate Policy (www.corporatepolicy.org) directs that the same Ruskin. In the organization's staff are experts like Sarah Anderson, director of the Global Economy Program of '
Institute for Policy Studies in Washington; John Cavanagh, an economist who has worked for the UN in the 80s; Charlie Cray, a researcher in the forces and campaign director of Greenpeace USA Citizen Works, Robert Weissman, president of the organization
Public Citizen, a lawyer and author of numerous articles and publications. Ruskin is also part of Essential Information (www.essentialinformation.org), a nonprofit organization that publishes a monthly report on the conduct of multinational corporations.
In the report Ruskin explains and documents how multinational companies in the United States also make use of the former staff of the National Security Agency, other federal agencies and law enforcement personnel to monitor local non-profit organizations and their activists in various fields of interest : environmentalists, pacifists, consumer protection, movements that are concerned with social justice, power, fight the abuse of chemicals in food and agriculture, animal rights. One of the strategies mentioned widely Ruskin is one that sees corporations infiltrate between volunteers and people you trust journalists to gather information.
"For many large companies - writes Ruskin - the value of the brand itself is a precious thing. To see this non-profit organizations and those who protest as potential adversaries and unexpected and want to know everything about them. Large companies take very seriously anything that threatens their brand and then focus their efforts in keeping controlled non-profit organizations to develop strategies with which they deny charges or mask certain activities. "
The reconstruction of Ruskin is thorough and detailed, cites articles and judicial acts and documents a long series of cases.
Cites for example the article by James Ridgeway-complaint appeared on Mother Jones (www.motherjones.com), according to which a major private company that deals with security, "he spied on Greenpeace from the late 90s until at least all the 2000 appropriating documents even from trash cans, trying to infiltrate people in the groups and meetings, collecting phone records of activists. "What happened in those years? "In the 90s - writes Ruskin - Greenpeace has campaigned to eliminate the use of chlorine in the manufacture of plastic and paper. Many of the criticisms were directed at Dow Chemical (www.sciencemag.org) and also had the support of the Clinton Administration and other government agencies. In an effort to contain the problem to the image of the Dow made a deal with a public relations firm, the Ketchum. According to Mark Floegel of Greenpeace, the Dow paid to Ketchum about 500 thousand dollars a year for public relations and for spying on Greenpeace and other environmental groups. "The environmental group has sued Dow and collected a precise chronology of the case (www.greenpeace.org) that provides court documents and testimony.
In 2000, according to the reconstruction of Ruskin, the private company for security that had spied on Greenpeace, the BBI, changes his name into S2i and is hired by Ketchum to monitor non-profit organizations that were opposing genetically modified foods. He always writes James Ridgeway of Mother Jones; The magazine also provides a document that attests to the BBI as it was also focused on the Fenton Communications, a public relations firm that supports environmental causes and nonprofit groups
(www.motherjones.com).
Yet another example was in January 2011 when the manager of a company that deals with computer security announces that it has identified the leader of hackers who call themselves Anonymous. In response, Anonymous has hacked email accounts and the company's network spreading confidential documents (www.theguardian.com) which allowed to find out how the same company had in mind to help a major customer, the Us Chamber of Commerce, in discredit organizations too critical (www.nytimes.com).
Also in 2011, but in November, the French company Electricite de France has been fined € 1 million and a half to have hacked into the computer of Greenpeace France and has also paid another 500 thousand euro of damage (www.telegraph.co.uk) . Ruskin in his report has rebuilt dozens of episodes. Here's another one. The Camp of Climate Action is an English band formed by activists clamoring for the decommissioning of coal-fired plants and in October 2009 had led a campaign of civil disobedience against the installation of Ratcliffe-on-Soar. Sixteen months after the British newspaper Guardian reported that three major companies in the energy sector had commissioned a private company to infiltrate activists of the group (www.theguardian.com).
What is happening in Italy? Many multinational and large companies are also present in our country. How do they behave? We hope that as soon as a detailed analysis of Ruskin in the USA.
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