Private industry & State working together

[OutofDate1980]

Private industry and state security, keeping the plutocracy safe from the world. Your taxes at work, unless blacklisted.

Blacklisting activists is a human rights scandal. An inquiry is overdue | Dave Smith | Comment is free | theguardian.com

"Blacklisting is no longer an industrial relations issue; it is a conspiracy between multinational construction firms, the police and the security services. The parallels with phone hacking are obvious. While that led to a once-in-a-generation opportunity to clean up the worst excesses of the press, blacklisted workers are still asking: "Where is our Leveson?"

There is, however, a significant difference from phone hacking, where the police involvement was supposedly due to individual corruption. The police collusion in blacklisting is not one or two rogue officers, but standard operating procedure by the state to target campaigners under the guise of "domestic extremism", routinely sharing information with big business."

 

[OutofDate1980]

The corporate state takes no prisoners of those that expose their criminal activity.

Activist-journalist Barrett Brown has been in pretrial detention for almost a year. His crime is reporting on private security firms breaking the law.

US stops jailed activist Barrett Brown from discussing leaks prosecution | World news | theguardian.com

A gag order was issued on his legal team that prevents them from talking to the media about his prosecution in which he faces up to 100 years in prison for alleged offences relating to his work exposing online surveillance.

The Strange Case of Barrett Brown | The Nation

One can’t help but infer that the US Department of Justice has become just another security contractor, working alongside the HBGarys and Stratfors on behalf of corporate bidders, with no sense at all for the justness of their actions; they are working to protect corporations and private security contractors and give them license to engage in disinformation campaigns against ordinary citizens and their advocacy groups. The mere fact that the FBI’s senior cybersecurity advisor has recently moved to Hunton and Williams shows just how incestuous this relationship has become. Meanwhile, the Department of Justice is also using its power and force to trample on the rights of citizens like Barrett Brown who are trying to shed light on these nefarious relationships. In order to neutralize those who question or investigate the system, laws are being reinterpreted or extended or otherwise misappropriated in ways that are laughable—or would be if the consequences weren’t so dire.