Tech | September 16, 2010 | 13 comments

Monsanto and Blackwater's black ops infiltrating websites

source: http://www.thenation.com/article/154739/blackwaters-black-ops?page=0,0

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JanforGore
NOTE: Internal company documents show Monsanto paid a Blackwater entity (Total Intelligence) over $200,000 to scan "activist blogs and websites", and suggest the issue of infiltration also arose.
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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."

snip

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."

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13 comments // Monsanto and Blackwater's black ops infiltrating websites

  • irie_ojo
    • 0
      irie_ojo  

    • anything to do with blackwater is bad....... how are they still allowed to operate as an american company?

      Oh yeah they just change their name.... blackwater aka XE

    • 1 year ago
  • juicie
  • juicie
    • 0
      juicie  

    • I wonder if the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation's buying into Monsanto will yield more of this type of trolling.

    • 1 year ago
  • corndog67
    • 0
      corndog67  

    • The Byrne conspiracy.

      $200,000? That's practically nothing to some of todays companies. How much do you think that Proctor and Gamble or Johnson & Johnson pays to keep and eye on what people are saying on the internet? Millions? Billions?

      I'm sure some of the companies doing the investigating, would charge that for 1 month of checking things out. It's a BIG MONEY enterprise. I wonder how I can get in on it?

    • 1 year ago
  • JanforGore
    • +1
      JanforGore  
    • Image

    • http://www.powerbase.info/index.php/Jay_Byrne

      'Covert Monsanto-Bivings campaign

      Byrne is believed to have been the chief architect of the covert Monsanto-Bivings PR campaign which involved attacks on the company's critics via front e-mails, such as those of Andura Smetacek and Mary Murphy, and material posted on the website of a fake agricultural institute, the Center For Food and Agricultural Research (CFFAR). CFFAR material, attacking Monsanto's critics, was also faxed to journalists and planted at a conference.

      The campaign is believed to have been a response to the growing role of the Internet in Monsanto's marketing problems in the late 1990s. As Bill Lambrecht pointed out in a September 1999 article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

      The Internet is enabling mobilization like never before and, in the process, giving biotechnology companies fits. In recent months, St. Louis-based Monsanto Co. and its rivals in the new science of genetically engineering food have watched in dismay as pockets of protest have mushroomed... perhaps no single factor looms larger in biotechnology's tumble than the role of the Internet' [emphasis added].[3]

      Byrne led Monsanto's counter attack. He is reported to have spent "a quarter of his time monitoring the Web for rogue and activist sites. He finds everything from activist sites to sites that provide even-sided discussions and debates about industry issues to those that paint Monsanto black."[4] Some of these he attempted to shut down. He gave advice to other PR professionals on the best ways to achieve this: "Anonymous sites often can be shut down by contacting the site's hosting company. To avoid any possible liability, hosting companies will shut down a site if they can't identify the owner, Byrne says."[5]

      In February 2001 the owners of the monsanto.org site received a letter from Monsanto's lawyers telling them, "The information contained on your web site is defamatory, inaccurate and misleading". The letter also said, "if you do not immediately cease and desist from your conduct, as demanded by this letter, Monsanto will institute the appropriate proceedings against you without delay." Monsanto took legal action against the site in order to gain possession of the monsanto.org domain.[6]

      Besides attacking critical sites, a significant part of Byrne's focus as an Internet strategist appears to have been on how to make Monsanto's case beyond the company's own websites and listservs. CS Prakash's campaign launched in January 2000 seems to have been of particular interest. According to one PR article:

      The site's listserv (AgBioWorld) generates more than 2,000 subscribers. Byrne subscribes and offers advice and information when relevant and ensures his company gets proper play.[7]
      Byrne's exact role in the Prakash campaign's emergence can only be guessed at but there is evidence that the AgBioWorld site was designed by Monsanto's PR company Bivings Group and its original e-mail archive was covertly hosted on Bivings' main apollo server. The AgBioView list prominently circulated emails from Andura Smetacek and Mary Murphy attacking Monsanto's critics. Murphy's mails have been Bivings and Smetacek's to Monsanto, as is detailed in Andrew Rowell's book, Don't Worry, It's Safe to Eat.


      At the end of 2001 Byrne ran a PR industry workshop in Chicago which was billed by its organisers, Ragan Communications, as showing how Monsanto 'brilliantly outwits its opponents at their own game of guerilla PR.' Byrne's presentation was accompanied by a PowerPoint display.[8] One of Byrne's slides, headed, "Take action/Take control", illustrated Monsanto's work on a particular search engine. Listed are the top search results for "GM food" before and after Monsanto took action. All the "before" sites are critical of GM; the "after" sites were mostly created by Bivings and include the Center For Food and Agricultural Research - the fake agricultural institute promoted by Smetacek.


      Another of Byrne's slides is headed "Listservs: Directed & opt-in". It contains a single image: a thread of messages on the AgBioView list. The implication would seem to be that Monsanto uses this list for strategic PR purposes.


      The content of Byrne's concluding slide is a quote: "Think of the Internet as a weapon on the table. Either you pick it up or your competitor does - but somebody is going to get killed."

      Graydon Forrer and Philip Angell were colleagues of Byrne's at Monsanto.'

    • 1 year ago
  • JanforGore
    • +1
      JanforGore  

    • http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_16382.cfm

      Popular Anti-Monsanto, Anti-GMO Website Under Attack
      GM Watch, January 8, 2009
      Straight to the Source

      NOTE: We've been getting questions about the attacks on GM Watch that drove our site offline last Spring so here's a slightly edited version of an interview recorded with Jonathan about what happened.
      --- ---
      Interview about attacks on GM Watch
      Transcript

      Peter Brown: Jonathan, I want to begin by asking you about the attacks on GM Watch that forced your website and all your lists offline. What's the current state of play on this?

      Jonathan Matthews: Well, we're back online again, so that's the good news. We've got a temporary website and we've also re-established our lists and we've been contacting all our subscribers, so they have got the opportunity to resubscribe with us. So we're gradually picking up the pieces but it's been a very damaging attack.

      Peter: But, just to be clear about this, now, the GM Watch site has profiles on the PR players in the promotion of GM crops, and George Monbiot has called it the world's most comprehensive database on the impact and politics of GM crops - is that still offline?

      Jonathan: Yes, obviously we hope to make the same information available again in the not too distant future - but the GM Watch site as was is gone.

      Peter: And that's because of this recent attack?

      Jonathan: Yes, following the most recent attack our web host decided to take the GM Watch site offline - and to keep it offline, unfortunately, until we found someone else to host the GM Watch and LobbyWatch sites.

      Peter: But surely that's a bit short sighted. Aren't these attacks on websites getting really common these days? I saw a recent headline from Computer World that said that something like half a million web pages had been infected by hack attacks. How does it help to discontinue the relationship with GM Watch?

      Jonathan: Well, yes it's certainly true that there have been a lot more websites getting hacked recently, and we're talking about websites that people might expect to be pretty secure, so that includes government websites, in the U.K. for instance, and United Nations websites have been hacked and even, I understand, the Dept. of Homeland Security apparently! So it's certainly not just GM Watch.

      Peter: So if these attacks are going on, doesn't that mean that the attack on your website might be just indiscriminate. In other words it might not have been an attack personally against the GM Watch organisation? Surely, you're just one amongst many who are suffering from this?

      Jonathan: Well, it's certainly possible that we're talking about something random, but that's not the view of our web host - for a number of reasons. The first one is that this most recent attack wasn't a one-off. In fact, he's actually been at the sharp end of about 14 months of this, so

      Peter: So that's been a really sustained attack - for over a year, you mean?

      Jonathan: Yes, though the form of the attacks has varied quite a bit in that time. It originally started in February of last year when the server was hacked into and a lot of material was deleted off both our sites at that time, and they also got at the back up for the sites on the server and attacked that, so that caused us a lot of problems.

      That's where it started, but after that they stopped hacking for a while and it moved over to what are called Denial of Service attacks, you know, which are attacks where they try and make it hard for people to access your site.

      Peter: So how does that work? How do they do that?

      Jonathan: Well, initially they were exploiting the fact that the pages on our sites were generated from a database type system and this enabled them to inject into that in a way that completely slows down the site and makes it difficult to access.

      And that went on and on and on. They just kept that up - it's something that can be automated, apparently. And in the end we agreed with our web host that the site should be changed over from dynamic to static pages, so it moved off that database system.

      And that was effective in bringing those attacks to a halt, but the interesting thing is as soon as we made it impossible for them to launch that form of attack, then they hacked back in again and they defaced the site again. But that time we were ready for them - you know, we had new measures in place and it was easy to restore the sites (and) get back online.

      And then they shifted over to a new form of Denial of Service attack where they pounded the sites with huge numbers of hits. Again that's a type of attack that can be automated, but actually the site stood up to it pretty well. So then they hacked back in again and really attacked the site big time.

      Peter: So now you're talking about the most recent attack? What did they exactly do?

      Jonathan: Well, the attack itself was pretty devastating. They hacked into the server and attached over 20 different viruses plus spyware to the GM Watch site. And they may also have put in some malicious code, as well. A network engineer who our web host brought in to advise on what damage had been done said that he'd actually never seen anything like it in his 20 years in the industry. They also deleted some of the site content, as well.

      Peter: Some of the site content? So what did they delete?

      Jonathan: Well, the home page off the LobbyWatch site went. The interesting thing actually was that in this last attack, unlike the earlier attacks when they hacked in and defaced the sites - on those occasions what they'd done, it was clear, was just try to delete everything they could - but this time they seemed to just target certain specific pages.

      So we lost, as I said, the home page on the LobbyWatch site. We had some pages linking through to GM Watch material that had been translated into different languages - pages with those links on were deleted for some reason. And then we had an interview I'd done with Marina Littek of Green Planet which went into a lot of detail about the dirty tricks campaign Monsanto and its Internet PR agency Bivings had been involved in that we'd uncovered. So that interview went, and the main page on the 'wormy corn' scandal, that was deleted as well.

      Peter: So that 'wormy corn' scandal that was what lead to calls for the retraction of a pro-GM paper in a science journal, wasn't it?

      Jonathan: Yes, and to legal threats against our web host by one of the researchers, and that lead to the GM Watch site being shut down for only about a week last August. Those were the only pages we've been able to identify as having been deleted in this last attack.

      Peter: But don't you think this is just another example of the current attempts to target certain types of servers on the Internet?

      Jonathan: Well, our web host thinks not. His point is that if these attacks had simply been coming about because hackers had spotted certain vulnerabilities in his server - you know, certain things they could exploit, like versions of code or software products they knew they could target, then why over that 14 month period did they always target our websites and not any of the 300 or so other websites he's also got on that server. I mean, it was just always us and I think that persuaded him that there was something personal about this!

      Because those other websites are operating off exactly the same kind of platforms as us - and in fact over time because of the attacks, obviously, he was making changes to our sites, like moving us off a dynamic system onto static pages and doing other things to make it hard to attack us, so in a way other sites on his server became relatively easier to attack than us, but they didn't ever attack those, even though they still had those loopholes and we'd closed them on our sites. They kept coming after our sites each time, changing tactics and the form of attack.

    • 1 year ago
  • udt101
    • +1
      udt101  

    • There is nothing in this article that supports the headline. The ad-libs following actual quotes are ridiculous. The assertions following the numbers are outrageous. This is irresponsible journalism. It'd be nice to see a real piece on corporate scandal rather than this nonsensical rabble-rousing.

    • 1 year ago
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  
    • udt101:

      "Internal company documents show Monsanto paid a Blackwater entity (Total Intelligence) over $200,000 to scan "activist blogs and websites", and suggest the issue of infiltration also arose."

      Hmm, it's about Monsanto, Blackwater, Monsanto hiring a blackwater entity, and discussion of possible infiltration of websites and certain groups. And gee look, the headline matches that. If you want to see shoddy headlines you don't need to peruse far. You can see any number of them on FOX and other fake news entities everyday. And just so you know, I'm not changing it.

    • 1 year ago
  • figgdimension
  • figgdimension
  • CalgarC
    • 0
      CalgarC  

    • oh god they are after my blog... internet trolls never get anywhere even if they are a giant corrupt chemical company...

    • 1 year ago
  • JanforGore
  • JanforGore
    • +4
      JanforGore  

    • Now why would they need to do this if everything they are doing is safe and above board?

      What are they afraid of?

      COME OUT COME OUT WHEREVER YOU ARE.

    • 1 year ago
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