http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/04/firm-spied-on-environmental-groups.html
Link: Exclusive: Cops and Former Secret Service Agents Ran Black Ops on Green Groups .
(((ESPECIALLY dumpster-diving. This private-security company was way into dumpster-diving for its corporate clients, until it went broke and several crateloads of its internal documents ended up, years later, in or near the custody of leftie mag MOTHER JONES.)))
(((Really makes you wonder what "Mary Lou Sapone" is up to, these days. Federal agents in political groups are nothing new, but our Mary Lou was a *private* agent in political groups.)))
"In the late 1990s, Greenpeace was working with environmental groups in the stretch of Louisiana dubbed "Cancer Alley," organizing against various forms of industry pollution. Its work there and that of its Louisiana partners became another target for BBI. In 1998, according to BBI emails, correspondence, and records, BBI retained Mary Lou Sapone, a self-described "research consultant," (((Come on, she's gotta call herself *something*))) who recruited a paid operative in Louisiana to infiltrate an environmental group called CLEAN. Sapone had something of a talent for infiltrating activist groups. In the late 1980s, working for a security firm called Perceptions International, which was, in turn, working for the U.S. Surgical Corporation, she penetrated a Connecticut-based animal-rights group, gathering evidence on an activist who would later serve jail time for planting a pipe bomb near the parking space of the company's CEO. The activist would eventually accused Sapone of coaxing her into the plot.
"Sapone's operative in Louisiana relayed to her information on what the local enviros were planning, provided gossip on the internal rivalries, and identified the scientists aiding the groups. She passed the intelligence to BBI. In an August 20, 1998 "client briefing," BBI boasted that "our operative is being nominated to the citizen action panels for local industries" and it asked which local industry Condea Vista, the chemical manufacturing firm, would prefer the operative to focus on. (The previous year, Condea Vista had lost a lawsuit brought by the residents of Lake Charles, Louisiana, against the company for the 1994 ethylene dichloride leak and had been slapped with a $7 million judgment.) (((That kinda jack will buy a lot of "research consultants.")))
Another BBI document noted, "The operative has been trained to be inquiring, but not participatory. Operatives are not allowed to offer suggestions or `help' targets in any way. They are trained to seek documents, ID friends and foe legislators and regulators, follow money trails, ID informants, discover future targets." (((Sounds a lot like newspaper reporters, actually... although they're an endangered species while the market for "research consultants" must be booming.)))
"(...) (Sapone did not respond to a message requesting comment.) (((Not too surprising.)))
"Penetrating a citizens group was not a new endeavor for BBI. In 1996 and 1997 in northern California, where Browning-Ferris Industries was engaged in a battle over the future of a garbage dump, BBI conducted what its records labeled "covert monitoring" and "intelligence gathering" on the North Valley Coalition, a citizens group opposed to the Browning-Ferris project. In September 1997, BBI received a payment of $198,881.05 from BFI...."
(((The tradecraft of demimondes is always remarkably tedious... imagine the mindnumbing hassle of spying on small NIMBY activist groups as they moan over the carcinogens your client put in their water supply.)))
