1.GM Crop Thriller Outguns James Bond
2.Blackwater's Black Ops... and Monsanto
3.Greenpeace Sues Chemical and PR Firms for "Unlawful" Spying
4.Greenpeace Sues Dow, Sasol, Dezenhall for Corporate Spying, RICO
5.Undercover police officer at centre of international row

NOTE: A couple of months back a Special Branch Counter Terrorism officer dropped by to gather intel on GMWatch - only to find he was talking to our director! It seems he'd been been advised we might be fund raising for "illegal activities". Below we've collected together some articles that might make you wonder why peaceful protest and info sharing attracts this kind of attention.
---
---
1.GM Crop Thriller Outguns James Bond
Andrew Gunther
http://www.ecocentricblog.org/2011/01/07/gm-crop-thriller-outguns-james-bond/

[See also the "Dr. GMO" graphic at the link above]

Watching James Bond films is for some of us a family tradition over the Christmas holiday, mostly because the stories are so big and farfetched. You know, where the bad guys are found to be secretly coercing governments and even entire countries to aid and abet corporate global domination, and where good old Felix from the CIA saves the day and helps Mr. Bond defeat the evildoers.

But in a bizarre twist to the plot, it now looks like the real-life Felix may have actually been working for Monsanto and the Big Ag lobby all along. An article in The Guardian newspaper this week on the latest batch of diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks reveals that the U.S. embassy in Paris advised Washington in 2007 to start a military-style trade war against any European Union country that opposed genetically modified (GM) crops. It's exactly the kind of plot that you’d expect to see in a James Bond movie.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/03/wikileaks-us-eu-gm-crops

One of cables is from Craig Stapleton, the U.S. ambassador to France from 2005-2009. In that cable, Stapleton expresses his concern that France might soon pass laws that could hamper the expansion of GM crops in Europe, and calls on Washington to punish the EU particularly countries not supporting the use of GM crops:

"Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits”¦ The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an early victory”¦ Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voices."
http://213.251.145.96/cable/2007/12/07PARIS4723.html

The Wikileaks cables also reveal that U.S. diplomats have been working directly for GM companies such as Monsanto, with one of the cables from the U.S. Embassy in Madrid even warning that: "If Spain falls, the rest of Europe will follow."
http://213.251.145.96/cable/2009/05/09MADRID482.html

Does this sound remotely familiar, like some paranoid Cold War scribblings from the 1950s?  It's hard to believe that these are current communications from diplomats about the possible EU public rejection of GM crops.

These latest leaked cables reveal that corporate interests are the driving force behind GM technology. Forget Monsanto's claims of "feeding the world," or "sustainable agriculture," or "protecting the environment." The reality is that GM crops were developed by corporate giants like Monsanto, Bayer and Syngenta to maximize profits for their shareholders no more, no less. It is no wonder then that all attempts to provide U.S. consumers with fair and transparent labeling of foods containing GM ingredients have been opposed at every step. Such consumer choice wouldn’t serve their corporate interests now, would it?

I have no problem with the science of biotechnology. Indeed, I know that this science can help us to select and breed better crops through non-risk technologies like Marker Assisted Selection, which does not produce GM organisms. But I do have a problem with how this science has been hijacked by corporate interests, and how the wholesale rush to patent plant genes as the intellectual property of a handful of multi-national corporations is placing the control of global food production into their hands.

Wikileaks appears to have exposed the U.S. government and some of its employees who were acting somewhat like hired thugs to "cause some pain" to other countries unwilling to adopt this failing technology. Imagine what changes sustainable agriculture might make with this level of commitment and support.

Andrew Gunther is program director at Animal Welfare Approved
---
---
2.Blackwater's Black Ops
Jeremy Scahill
The Nation, September 15 2010  
http://www.thenation.com/article/154739/blackwaters-black-ops?page=0,0

Over the past several years, entities closely linked to the private security firm Blackwater have provided intelligence, training and security services to US and foreign governments as well as several multinational corporations, including Monsanto, Chevron, the Walt Disney Company, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines and banking giants Deutsche Bank and Barclays, according to documents obtained by The Nation. Blackwater's work for corporations and government agencies was contracted using two companies owned by Blackwater's owner and founder, Erik Prince: Total Intelligence Solutions and the Terrorism Research Center (TRC). Prince is listed as the chairman of both companies in internal company documents, which show how the web of companies functions as a highly coordinated operation. Officials from Total Intelligence, TRC and Blackwater (which now calls itself Xe Services) did not respond to numerous requests for comment for this article.

One of the most incendiary details in the documents is that Blackwater, through Total Intelligence, sought to become the "intel arm" of Monsanto, offering to provide operatives to infiltrate activist groups organizing against the multinational biotech firm.

Governmental recipients of intelligence services and counterterrorism training from Prince's companies include the Kingdom of Jordan, the Canadian military and the Netherlands police, as well as several US military bases, including Fort Bragg, home of the elite Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), and Fort Huachuca, where military interrogators are trained, according to the documents. In addition, Blackwater worked through the companies for the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the US European Command.

On September 3 the New York Times reported that Blackwater had "created a web of more than 30 shell companies or subsidiaries in part to obtain millions of dollars in American government contracts after the security company came under intense criticism for reckless conduct in Iraq." The documents obtained by The Nation reveal previously unreported details of several such companies and open a rare window into the sensitive intelligence and security operations Blackwater performs for a range of powerful corporations and government agencies. The new evidence also sheds light on the key roles of several former top CIA officials who went on to work for Blackwater.

The coordinator of Blackwater's covert CIA business, former CIA paramilitary officer Enrique "Ric" Prado, set up a global network of foreign operatives, offering their "deniability" as a "big plus" for potential Blackwater customers, according to company documents. The CIA has long used proxy forces to carry out extralegal actions or to shield US government involvement in unsavory operations from scrutiny. In some cases, these "deniable" foreign forces don't even know who they are working for. Prado and Prince built up a network of such foreigners while Blackwater was at the center of the CIA's assassination program, beginning in 2004. They trained special missions units at one of Prince's properties in Virginia with the intent of hunting terrorism suspects globally, often working with foreign operatives. A former senior CIA official said the benefit of using Blackwater's foreign operatives in CIA operations was that "you wouldn't want to have American fingerprints on it."

While the network was originally established for use in CIA operations, documents show that Prado viewed it as potentially valuable to other government agencies. In an e-mail in October 2007 with the subject line "Possible Opportunity in DEA””Read and Delete," Prado wrote to a Total Intelligence executive with a pitch for the Drug Enforcement Administration. That executive was an eighteen-year DEA veteran with extensive government connections who had recently joined the firm. Prado explained that Blackwater had developed "a rapidly growing, worldwide network of folks that can do everything from surveillance to ground truth to disruption operations." He added, "These are all foreign nationals (except for a few cases where US persons are the conduit but no longer 'play' on the street), so deniability is built in and should be a big plus."

The executive wrote back and suggested there "may be an interest" in those services. The executive suggested that "one of the best places to start may be the Special Operations Division, (SOD) which is located in Chantilly, VA," telling Prado the name of the special agent in charge. The SOD is a secretive joint command within the Justice Department, run by the DEA. It serves as the command-and-control center for some of the most sensitive counternarcotics and law enforcement operations conducted by federal forces. The executive also told Prado that US attachés in Mexico; Bogotá, Colombia; and Bangkok, Thailand, would potentially be interested in Prado's network. Whether this network was activated, and for what customers, cannot be confirmed. A former Blackwater employee who worked on the company's CIA program declined to comment on Prado's work for the company, citing its classified status.

In November 2007 officials from Prince's companies developed a pricing structure for security and intelligence services for private companies and wealthy individuals. One official wrote that Prado had the capacity to "develop infrastructures" and "conduct ground-truth and security activities." According to the pricing chart, potential customers could hire Prado and other Blackwater officials to operate in the United States and globally: in Latin America, North Africa, francophone countries, the Middle East, Europe, China, Russia, Japan, and Central and Southeast Asia. A four-man team headed by Prado for countersurveillance in the United States cost $33,600 weekly, while "safehouses" could be established for $250,000, plus operational costs. Identical services were offered globally. For $5,000 a day, clients could hire Prado or former senior CIA officials Cofer Black and Robert Richer for "representation" to national "decision-makers." Before joining Blackwater, Black, a twenty-eight-year CIA veteran, ran the agency's counterterrorism center, while Richer was the agency's deputy director of operations. (Neither Black nor Richer currently works for the company.)

As Blackwater became embroiled in controversy following the Nisour Square massacre, Prado set up his own company, Constellation Consulting Group (CCG), apparently taking some of Blackwater's covert CIA work with him, though he maintained close ties to his former employer. In an e-mail to a Total Intelligence executive in February 2008, Prado wrote that he "recently had major success in developing capabilities in Mali [Africa] that are of extreme interest to our major sponsor and which will soon launch a substantial effort via my small shop." He requested Total Intelligence's help in analyzing the "North Mali/Niger terrorist problem."

In October 2009 Blackwater executives faced a crisis when they could not account for their government-issued Secure Telephone Unit, which is used by the CIA, the National Security Agency and other military and intelligence services for secure communications. A flurry of e-mails were sent around as personnel from various Blackwater entities tried to locate the device. One former Blackwater official wrote that because he had left the company it was "not really my problem," while another declared, "I have no 'dog in this fight.'" Eventually, Prado stepped in, e-mailing the Blackwater officials to "pass my number" to the "OGA POC," meaning the Other Government Agency (parlance for CIA) Point of Contact.

What relationship Prado's CCG has with the CIA is not known. An early version of his company's website boasted that "CCG professionals have already conducted operations on five continents, and have proven their ability to meet the most demanding client needs" and that the company has the "ability to manage highly-classified contracts." CCG, the site said, "is uniquely positioned to deliver services that no other company can, and can deliver results in the most remote areas with little or no outside support." Among the services advertised were "Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence (human and electronic), Unconventional Military Operations, Counterdrug Operations, Aviation Services, Competitive Intelligence, Denied Area Access...and Paramilitary Training."

The Nation has previously reported on Blackwater's work for the CIA and JSOC in Pakistan. New documents reveal a history of activity relating to Pakistan by Blackwater. Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto worked with the company when she returned to Pakistan to campaign for the 2008 elections, according to the documents. In October 2007, when media reports emerged that Bhutto had hired "American security," senior Blackwater official Robert Richer wrote to company executives, "We need to watch this carefully from a number of angles. If our name surfaces, the Pakistani press reaction will be very important. How that plays through the Muslim world will also need tracking." Richer wrote that "we should be prepared to [sic] a communique from an affiliate of Al-Qaida if our name surfaces (BW). That will impact the security profile." Clearly a word is missing in the e-mail or there is a typo that leaves unclear what Richer meant when he mentioned the Al Qaeda communiqué. Bhutto was assassinated two months later. Blackwater officials subsequently scheduled a meeting with her family representatives in Washington, in January 2008.

Through Total Intelligence and the Terrorism Research Center, Blackwater also did business with a range of multinational corporations. According to internal Total Intelligence communications, biotech giant Monsanto””the world's largest supplier of genetically modified seeds””hired the firm in 2008 09. The relationship between the two companies appears to have been solidified in January 2008 when Total Intelligence chair Cofer Black traveled to Zurich to meet with Kevin Wilson, Monsanto's security manager for global issues.

After the meeting in Zurich, Black sent an e-mail to other Blackwater executives, including to Prince and Prado at their Blackwater e-mail addresses. Black wrote that Wilson "understands that we can span collection from internet, to reach out, to boots on the ground on legit basis protecting the Monsanto [brand] name.... Ahead of the curve info and insight/heads up is what he is looking for." Black added that Total Intelligence "would develop into acting as intel arm of Monsanto." Black also noted that Monsanto was concerned about animal rights activists and that they discussed how Blackwater "could have our person(s) actually join [activist] group(s) legally." Black wrote that initial payments to Total Intelligence would be paid out of Monsanto's "generous protection budget" but would eventually become a line item in the company's annual budget. He estimated the potential payments to Total Intelligence at between $100,000 and $500,000. According to documents, Monsanto paid Total Intelligence $127,000 in 2008 and $105,000 in 2009.

Reached by telephone and asked about the meeting with Black in Zurich, Monsanto's Wilson initially said, "I'm not going to discuss it with you." In a subsequent e-mail to The Nation, Wilson confirmed he met Black in Zurich and that Monsanto hired Total Intelligence in 2008 and worked with the company until early 2010. He denied that he and Black discussed infiltrating animal rights groups, stating "there was no such discussion." He claimed that Total Intelligence only provided Monsanto "with reports about the activities of groups or individuals that could pose a risk to company personnel or operations around the world which were developed by monitoring local media reports and other publicly available information. The subject matter ranged from information regarding terrorist incidents in Asia or kidnappings in Central America to scanning the content of activist blogs and websites." Wilson asserted that Black told him Total Intelligence was "a completely separate entity from Blackwater."

Monsanto was hardly the only powerful corporation to enlist the services of Blackwater's constellation of companies. The Walt Disney Company hired Total Intelligence and TRC to do a "threat assessment" for potential film shoot locations in Morocco, with former CIA officials Black and Richer reaching out to their former Moroccan intel counterparts for information. The job provided a "good chance to impress Disney," one company executive wrote. How impressed Disney was is not clear; in 2009 the company paid Total Intelligence just $24,000.

Total Intelligence and TRC also provided intelligence assessments on China to Deutsche Bank. "The Chinese technical counterintelligence threat is one of the highest in the world," a TRC analyst wrote, adding, "Many four and five star hotel rooms and restaurants are live-monitored with both audio and video" by Chinese intelligence. He also said that computers, PDAs and other electronic devices left unattended in hotel rooms could be cloned. Cellphones using the Chinese networks, the analyst wrote, could have their microphones remotely activated, meaning they could operate as permanent listening devices. He concluded that Deutsche Bank reps should "bring no electronic equipment into China." Warning of the use of female Chinese agents, the analyst wrote, "If you don't have women coming onto you all the time at home, then you should be suspicious if they start coming onto you when you arrive in China." For these and other services, the bank paid Total Intelligence $70,000 in 2009.

TRC also did background checks on Libyan and Saudi businessmen for British banking giant Barclays. In February 2008 a TRC executive e-mailed Prado and Richer revealing that Barclays asked TRC and Total Intelligence for background research on the top executives from the Saudi Binladin Group (SBG) and their potential "associations/connections with the Royal family and connections with Osama bin Ladin." In his report, Richer wrote that SBG's chair, Bakr Mohammed bin Laden, "is well and favorably known to both arab and western intelligence service[s]" for cooperating in the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Another SBG executive, Sheikh Saleh bin Laden, is described by Richer as "a very savvy businessman" who is "committed to operating with full transparency to Saudi's security services" and is considered "the most vehement within the extended BL family in terms of criticizing UBL's actions and beliefs."

In August Blackwater and the State Department reached a $42 million settlement for hundreds of violations of US export control regulations. Among the violations cited was the unauthorized export of technical data to the Canadian military. Meanwhile, Blackwater's dealings with Jordanian officials are the subject of a federal criminal prosecution of five former top Blackwater executives. The Jordanian government paid Total Intelligence more than $1.6 million in 2009.

Some of the training Blackwater provided to Canadian military forces was in Blackwater/TRC's "Mirror Image" course, where trainees live as a mock Al Qaeda cell in an effort to understand the mindset and culture of insurgents. Company literature describes it as "a classroom and field training program designed to simulate terrorist recruitment, training, techniques and operational tactics." Documents show that in March 2009 Blackwater/TRC spent $6,500 purchasing local tribal clothing in Afghanistan as well as assorted "propaganda materials””posters, Pakistan Urdu maps, etc." for Mirror Image, and another $9,500 on similar materials this past January in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

According to internal documents, in 2009 alone the Canadian military paid Blackwater more than $1.6 million through TRC. A Canadian military official praised the program in a letter to the center, saying it provided "unique and valid cultural awareness and mission specific deployment training for our soldiers in Afghanistan," adding that it was "a very effective and operationally current training program that is beneficial to our mission."

This past summer Erik Prince put Blackwater up for sale and moved to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. But he doesn't seem to be leaving the shadowy world of security and intelligence. He says he moved to Abu Dhabi because of its "great proximity to potential opportunities across the entire Middle East, and great logistics," adding that it has "a friendly business climate, low to no taxes, free trade and no out of control trial lawyers or labor unions. It's pro-business and opportunity." It also has no extradition treaty with the United States.
---
---
3.Greenpeace Sues Dow, Sasol, Dezenhall for Corporate Spying, RICO
Phil Radford
Greenpeace, November 29 2010  
http://bit.ly/glegk4

Today, Greenpeace filed a lawsuit against Dow Chemical, Sasol North America (which owns CONDEA Vista), and PR firms Dezenhall Resources and Ketchum, for hiring private investigators to steal documents from Greenpeace, tap our phones and hack into our computers.

Go here for a PDF of the complaint.

The purpose of this lawsuit is twofold.

First, we aim to put a dent in the arrogance of these corporate renegades who have for too long believed that ethics do not apply to their pursuit of ever-higher profits.

Second, we believe it is every citizen's right to stand up for the health of their children and community without fearing retribution, an invasion of privacy, conspiracy against them or theft of their belongings. We believe Dow and Sasol conspired to do this to Greenpeace; we aim to stop this before it happens to you.

Boxes of files from the security firm hired by Dezenhall Resources and Ketchum on behalf of Dow, Sasol North America, and other companies, reveal daily logs, emails, reports, phone records and other evidence that shows what these corporations were working to disrupt: the private lives of community members in Louisiana fighting to keep their communities free of toxic poisons and community meetings and efforts to educate the public about the public health threats posed by these companies.

The public relations firms involved - including Nichols Dezenhall (now known as Dezenhall Resources) and Ketchum - acted as intermediaries between the chemical companies and the private investigator spies.

While Greenpeace can only sue on our own behalf, we do so to send a message to any big corporation that plans to spy on, intimidate and interfere with communities fighting for a better world for their children. People among the communities in this case are residents of Mossville and Lake Charles, Louisiana, who suffer high rates of cancer and other health effects linked to the production processes of the companies we're suing.

This case concerns events that occurred between 1998 and 2001. Many of the affected people in Lake Charles and Mossville have since died, many by cancers they believe were caused by the toxic pollutants these companies pumped into their environment.

Greenpeace works to protect the environment we all depend on, rooted in the assumption that politicians and corporations care about two things - money and people (either voters or customers).

We know we won't match polluters dollar for dollar, but have matched their millions over the years with three million people behind us. When Goliath corporations go beyond buying elections to intimidating, infiltrating and invading the privacy of small citizen groups, they are attacking more than that group. When corporations hire private spies to undermine the rights of civic leaders, they are undermining democracy.

We'll see them in court.

Read more and view evidence documents
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/spygate
---
---
4.Greenpeace Sues Chemical and PR Firms for "Unlawful" Spying
James Ridgeway and Daniel Schulman
Mother Jones, 29 November 2010
http://motherjones.com/environment/2010/11/greenpeace-sues-dow-sasol-dezenhall-ketchum-spying

*In 2008, Mother Jones blew the lid off corporate black ops against environmental groups. Now one of the targets is fighting back.

More than two years ago, Mother Jones exposed a private security firm run by former Secret Service agents that had spied on an array of environmental groups on behalf of corporate clients, in some cases infiltrating unsuspecting organizations with operatives posing as activists. Now, one of the targets of this corporate espionage is fighting back.

On Monday, Greenpeace filed suit in federal district court in Washington, DC, against the Dow Chemical Company and Sasol North America, charging that the two multinational chemical manufacturers sought to thwart its environmental campaigns against genetically engineered foods and chemical pollution through elaborate undercover operations. Also named in the suit are Dezenhall Resources and Ketchum, public relations firms hired by Sasol and Dow respectively, and four ex-employees of that now-defunct security firm, Beckett Brown International (BBI).

The suit charges that between 1998 and 2000 the chemical companies, the PR firms, and BBI "conspired to and did surveil, infiltrate and steal confidential information from Greenpeace with the intention of preempting, blunting or thwarting its environmental campaigns. These unlawful activities included trespassing on the property of Greenpeace, infiltrating its offices, meetings and electronic communications under false pretenses and/or by force, and by these means, stealing confidential documents, data and trade secrets from Greenpeace." Greenpeace is seeking an injunction against further trespass and thefts of trade secrets, as well as compensatory and punitive damages.

The lawsuit stems from an April 2008 Mother Jones article that detailed a series of black ops carried out by BBI against Greenpeace and other environmental groups. The story was based largely on internal BBI records made available to the magazine by John Dodd, a principal investor and officer of BBI. At the time, Dodd said he decided to come forward after discovering that BBI's employees had defrauded him and engaged in unscrupulous snooping on activist groups and other targets.

Mother Jones reporters sifted through thousands of pages of internal documents that included billing records, surveillance reports, and email correspondence from undercover operatives in Washington and Lake Charles, Louisiana. Contained in the trove were a variety of internal Greenpeace records, including strategy memos, campaign plans, donor lists, and documents that included credit card information and the social security numbers of Greenpeace employees. Also unearthed were similar records belonging to other organizations, including Friends of the Earth, GE Food Alert, the Center for Food Safety, and Fenton Communications, a PR firm that represents various environmental groups.

Following Mother Jones' story, Greenpeace officials were granted access to Dodd's BBI archive, where they eventually recovered more than 1000 pages of internal Greenpeace records. The complaint charges that: "The vast majority of Greenpeace's internal documents that were ultimately recovered from BBI were in pristine condition, giving rise to the inference that these documents were not taken from trash dumpsters, but rather from recycling receptacles and/or”¦from inside Greenpeace's office."

BBI's operations included clandestine night-time dumpster diving sorties into Greenpeace's trash and recycling bins in the alleys of downtown Washington. The firm's operatives were assisted by at least one active duty Washington police officer, who may have used his badge to gain entrance into Greenpeace's gated trash area, the environmental group alleges. Between July 1998 and October 2000, BBI operatives stole internal Greenpeace records on at least 100 occasions, the group claims.

According to the complaint, internal BBI documents show that "BBI employees or contractors tested multiple three- and four-digit codes and documented whether each code was successful in granting access" to Greenpeace's Washington headquarters. The suit also charges that BBI "appears to have broken into the offices" of a Louisiana law firm engaged in litigation against the Condea Vista chemical company (now Sasol North America).

Undercover operatives employed by BBI organized an elaborate system to penetrate Greenpeace, sending at least one contractor posing volunteer to surveil Greenpeace's Washington offices, the complaint states. Meanwhile, other BBI employees and contractors spied on Greenpeace employees and other activists in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where environmentalists were engaged in a fierce campaign against Condea Vista.

Condea Vista employed BBI directly and through its PR firm, Dezenhall-Nichols (now Dezenhall Resources). From October 1998 until July 1999, Dezenhall paid BBI about $150,000 to work on the "U Street Project" - a reference to Greenpeace's then headquarters on Washington's U Street. Dezenhall's chemical company client was particularly interested in campaigns targeting the manufacture and sale of plastics containing the polymer polyvinyl chloride. The objectives of the U Street operation, according to the complaint and internal BBI records, "explicitly included obtaining financial information about Greenpeace: 'funding'; '[d]onors: corporate political, private'; and 'money trails.'"

Meanwhile, BBI also launched a similar operation in Louisiana dubbed the "Lake Charles Project" to collect internal information on campaigns by Greenpeace and other environmental groups. For the Lake Charles operation, BBI relied heavily on a freelance "research consultant" named Mary Lou Sapone. She recruited a school teacher to infiltrate a local environmental groups, where he eventually become a board member. The Greenpeace complaint alleges that Sapone also "cased Greenpeace's U Street Office while masquerading as a prospective campaign volunteer." In July 2008, Mother Jones revealed that Sapone, using her maiden name, McFate, had for more than a decade infiltrated the gun control groups on behalf of the National Rifle Association.

While BBI was working for Condea Vista, it also targeted Greenpeace on behalf of Dow. At the time, Greenpeace was aggressively campaigning against the spread of genetic engineered foods and was pushing to get the federal government to impose strict regulations on the industry. (Dow is a major player in this field.) The suit alleges that Dow hired the public relations firm Ketchum to keep tabs on the plans of its critics; the PR firm in turn employed BBI to spy on Greenpeace.

The complaint describes a July 1999 meeting in which representative of BBI, Ketchum, and Dow convened at an Annapolis, Maryland, hotel "to discuss the surveillance of Greenpeace and other environmental organizations critical of, or likely to criticize Dow Chemical." There, the BBI team "delivered a power-point presentation about Greenpeace which included confidential, prospective budget information and campaign plans." According to the complaint, Ketchum paid BBI more than $125,000 for confidential information on Greenpeace.

Dow Chemical, Ketchum, and Dezenhall Resources did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Informed of the law suit by Mother Jones, a Sasol North America spokeswoman said, "Wow." She then directed a reporter to a past statement by the company saying it had no comment on matters that occurred prior to Sasol taking ownership of Condea Vista in 2001.

On Monday, Greenpeace posted a "SpyGate" page on its website devoted to the lawsuit. "The purpose of this lawsuit is twofold," the group explained on its site. "First, we aim to put a dent in the arrogance of these corporate renegades who have for too long believed that ethics do not apply to their pursuit of ever-higher profits. Second, we believe it is every citizen's right to stand up for the health of their children and community without fearing retribution, an invasion of privacy, conspiracy against them or theft of their belongings. We believe Dow and Sasol conspired to do this to Greenpeace; we aim to stop this before it happens to you."

James Ridgeway is a senior correspondent at Mother Jones. Daniel Schulman is Mother Jones' Washington-based news editor. Email him at dschulman (at) motherjones.com.
---
---
5.Undercover police officer Mark Kennedy at centre of international row
Matthew Taylor and Paul Lewis
The Guardian, 13 January 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/12/activism-protest

*Questions asked over officer in German and Irish parliaments as new allegations of sexual activity surface

The international row surrounding the undercover police officer Mark Kennedy intensified today as politicians across Europe demanded information about his activities and new allegations surfaced about the scope of his sexual activity.

In a day of dramatic developments, Kennedy, the Metropolitan police officer at the centre of a growing controversy over the infiltration of peaceful environmental groups, emerged as a key figure in protest movements spanning several European countries, including Ireland, Iceland, Germany, Italy and Spain.

German politician Andrej Hunko said Kennedy had been "operating on the border of illegality" in Germany claiming he had worked as an "agent provocateur" among anti-fascist groups there. He also said that Kennedy, who visited Germany at least five times between 2004 and 2009 according to activists, may have been feeding information to the German police.

"Kennedy wanted to infiltrate anti-fascists, and as an agent provocateur to instigate actions together with them. I suspect then, that it wasn't Scotland Yard that focused his interest on the 'hot spots' of the German anti-fascist scene. I see proof instead of the opposite, that the German police were involved in the operation of this British agent."

In Ireland Labour foreign affairs spokesman Michael D Higgins called on the minister for justice Dermot Ahern to issue a statement on Kennedy's activities after it emerged he had travelled to the country at least five times between 2004 and 2006, linking up with activists in Dublin, Cork and Mayo.

One Irish activist, who met Kennedy several times and who put him up in Dublin in 2006, said the undercover officer acted as a "facilitator" between different protest groups from Ireland the UK and Iceland: "He did a lot with logistics because he had a van and helped move stuff around a lot," said the man who did not want to be identified. "He was not a major strategist but he was very good at linking people and different groups together."

Kennedy also spent time in Iceland forging close links with the Saving Iceland campaign group. He introduced members of this group to activists in Ireland and in the summer of 2005 he attended a gathering of direct action campaigners in Reykjavik. Jason Kirkpatrick, a documentary film-maker and former friend of Kennedy's, said he returned from the trip boasting he had been there training other activists in direct action techniques.

"He showed me a video of him training people in lock-down techniques," said Kirkpatrick, who lives in Germany. "The Icelandic protesters had asked for help from the movement in the UK and Mark was one of the ones that went over to train people. I remember he was laughing about the Icelandic police because they had never seen protesters locked to lorries before and the police did not know what to do."

Kennedy also spent time in Spain, France and Italy sometimes travelling under the guise of a "freelance climber" at other times openly connected to Dissent!, an international network of local groups organising opposition to the G8 summit at Gleneagles, Perthshire, in July 2005.

It is during these trips that he is alleged to have had several sexual relationships with other activists. Today Jean, 36, an environmental activist based in France who met Kennedy several times, told the Guardian: "It is well known in the movement that Kennedy slept with a large number of women who didn't know he was a police officer, and he therefore had sex with them without their informed consent. It happened in Britain and across Europe over several years and some of the women were friends of mine.

Jean said that if it is true that there are other officers working undercover in the protest movement, as Kennedy claimed, the police would have known about his sexual partners.

"There is a profound moral question here, and possibly legal questions as well," she added. "The question for senior police officers in the UK is simple: how much did they know and when did they know it?"

Kennedy also paid for several campaigners to travel to Ireland in the spring of 2005 and then to Germany to discuss the upcoming G8 protests, according to another activist.

"As part of the popular education project he also took part in workshops and participated in an evening pub quiz that we put on as part of events," said the woman. "His role was the bingo caller."

According to a long term former friend Kennedy's last appearance as an activist was during an animal rights protest in Milan in September last year when he gave a climbing workshop for fellow protesters.