Black Ops on Green Groups: Private Security Firm Run by Fmr. Secret Service Officers Spied on Environmental Orgs for Corporate C : Indybay

A private security firm spied on Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and several other environmental organizations, from the late 1990s until at least the year 2000. That’s according to a comprehensive new investigation by Mother Jones magazine. The security firm was run by former Secret Service officers. The operatives infiltrated environmental groups, collected their phone records and confidential internal documents, and even went through their trash. The information was then passed on to public relations firms and corporations involved in environmental controversies.

The security firm was called Becket Brown International and later changed its name to S2i. It dissolved in 2001 but its officials went on to other security firms that remain active today. Among its clients in the late 90s was public relations company Ketchum that worked for Dow Chemical and Kraft Foods, that owns Taco Bell. Another client included PR outfit Nichols-Dezenhall, which was working with Condea Vista, a chemical manufacturing firm that in 1994 leaked up to 47 million pounds of ethylene dichloride, a suspected carcinogen, into the Calcasieu River in Louisiana.

James Ridgeway is the senior Washington correspondent for Mother Jones Magazine. He is the primary author of the report available at motherjones.com. Its called “Cops and Former Secret Service Agents Ran Black Ops on Green Groups.” Ridgeway joins me now from the firehouse studio in New York.

James Ridgeway, Senior Washington Correspondent for Mother Jones Magazine.

Black Ops on Green Groups: Private Security Firm Run by Fmr. Secret Service Officers Spied on Environmental Orgs for Corporate C

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