Cant say Im entirely surprised by this, but still a bit shocking. To give you an example of how this is playing out: a climate justice group—whether fighting fracking, coal, tar sands or pipelines—engages in completely lawful, constitutionally protected First Amendment activity, like holding a banner on a street corner. Big industry creates a side business that includes private security and public relations components in order to keep their hands clean. The private spies are often former FBI head honchos who leave government service for the lucrative land of corporate paychecks, but remain well-connected to their former employers and coworkers. Private spies infiltrate the group, create problems, steal membership or financial information from the group, and sometimes hack computers and/or attempt to provoke the group to break the law (or escalate tactics without group consent). Then they bring the information back to the PR staff, who grossly and maliciously manipulate facts and create a written publication called a Terrorist Bulletin, which is produced and sent to fellow industry organizations, as well as federal and local law enforcement. These terrorist bulletins say things like, This group is lawful and nonviolent now, but they are getting more militant and may become violent in the near future. In addition, these grey intelligence organizations come up with strategies to destroy and discredit lawful political groups. Note also that Andy Stern is a particular target of the Chamber of Commerce and their hired thugs. By far the best thing Ive ever heard about him. Are we doing the Chambers work by criticizing him for, e.g. joining a hedge fund board? Pretty complicated. monthlyreview.org/2014/07/01/electronic-communications-surveillance
Posted on: Mon, 07 Jul 2014 13:13:24 +0000
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