-Caveat Lector- This originally appeared on the WELL: PAY YOUR MONEY, TAKE YOUR CHANCE As long as we refuse to protect ourselves and each other, we are at the mercy of a legal system whose very business is crime, and a lucrative business it is. By this point in history, all but the most naive of us have stopped expecting cops, public or private, to all behave like Boy Scouts. There has been simply too much hard evidence to the contrary. In that murky gray zone where law enforcement overlaps with organized crime, an underground empire has arisen. It is a world where the so-called "War on Drugs" is often a war on rival drug dealers, and always a war on the poor. It is a world where "national security," excuses war crimes and genocide is a commodity. It is a world where justice is for sale and cops are for rent. Cops, rent-a-cops in particular, vary widely in quality. A family business, Wackenhut Corp. was founded in 1954 by a one time FBI man George R. Wackenhut. His son Richard, a Citadel graduate, is president and CEO. The immediate family hold over 50% of the stock The rest is divided among just 1100 stockholders. Wackenhut stock is traded on the New York Stock exchange. Buy a share, and you will receive a fascinating brochure. The company's revenue has grown from just $300,000 in 1958 to nearly half a billion today. It is one of the largest private security firms in existence. Wackenhut specializes in security contracts. Government contracts are best, of course, and the company's remarkable growth is due on no small part to George Wackenhut's relationship to certain government officials. His first big break came when he secured a contract to watch over Titan missile sites in four states. Since then, security and public safety functions have proven a lucrative focus. Wackenhut provides security guards for such high-risk installations as the trans-Alaska pipelines, major airports both in the United States and abroad, dams and the nuclear test site in Nevada. It also owns a casualty reinsurance firm, a travel service, and an airline services company. The Department of energy provides 25% of Wackenhut's total gross. Their operatives also serve friends of the U. S. Govt. and Big Oil (like the fugitive Shah of Iran), abroad as well as at home. Wackenhut personnel guard the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve Sites in Louisiana and Texas. From time to time, they can be seen around the complexes, dodging alligators, and exchanging laser gunfire with soldiers, local police and sheriff's deputies. This is just practice to prepare for real trouble, such as terrorists. Wackenhut touts it's supposed anti-terrorist expertise. James_P._Davis, who manages the site for government contractor Boeing, declares: "I pity anybody who tries to invade here. It would be tougher than Fort Knox." That is arguable. The government itself concedes that the security could be beefed up. But the analogy to Fort Knox is fitting. There is gold here, too, only it's black. Never forget the Golden Rule: "Gold rules." Wackenhut often recruits ex-police and military men who don't require a fresh background check. Cutting this corner (at $30,000 to $40,000 apiece) has allowed the employment of a number of unsavory characters, including infamous navy spy John Walker. When Wackenhut operatives were caught recently in the public spotlight by court allegations of illegal surveillance, Associated Press reports that they were staunchly defended by their employer in the case, the president of Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., James B. Hermiller. Alyeska is a consortium of seven oil companies including Exxon Corp., owners of the Exxon Valdez. They are also long time Wackenhut clients. During the spill, industry security mounted an armed "bear patrol" to "keep grizzlies from rolling in the contaminated sand." They kept potential witness from the spill scene. Alyeska lies about clean up. State studies have confirmed that contaminants -- including carcinogens such as benzene and toxic materials such as heavy metals -- are ending up in the waters and sediments of Port Valdez. Happy dining, crab lovers. Alyeska also lies about the carcinogen content of the atmospheric pollution they inflict on their neighbors. Breath deep, Valdez. Few of it's victims are any longer surprised that Big Oil lies. Internal documents to that effect (and worse) were leaked by Aleyska employees to long time industry gad-fly, professional tanker broker Charles Hamel The whistle blowing employees were afraid to let their names be used. Charley Hamel was not. At least one regulatory action, a $20,000 fine proposed by the EPA in August, 1992 against Alyeska for illegal waste-water dumping, is attributable to information provided by Hamel. One former employee, Robert Scott, has filed a complaint with the U.S. Labor Department charging that Alyeska illegally fired him for leaking information that detailed problems with vapor-emission. "This is not a knock down and kill you problem," says Riki Ott, a marine toxicologist and president of the Oil Reform Alliance, a coalition of fishing and environmental groups in Alaska. "It's more like a 20 year from now cancer problem." Cancer is not the only problem in this case. This is more about lies than it is about cancer. Disinformation is cancer in our body politic. It has so saturated our culture that it is no longer the social norm to take a stranger at his word on such basic information as his name. Can Wackenhut's public relations department be trusted to tell the truth? Their track record, and that of their clients, tell the tale. Company officials claim that Alyeska is committed to operating in an environmentally sound manner. But environmentalists, state and even federal officials and other observers differ. Privy employees agree. Alyeska has been a major source of water, air and soil pollution in Alaska. Wackenhut Corp. has been, at the very least, a witting accomplice, both during and after the fact. They have worked to conceal disturbing truths from Congress, law enforcement, and the public at large. They have perpetuated dangerous, sometimes fatal lies. They hired Wackenhut to help cover them up. Wackenhut certainly gave it a hell of a try. Wackenhut blew it. Fortunately for us, many Wackenhut operatives are incredibly lame. As disturbing as the cover-up itself, allegations have surfaced in court that Alyeska has pursued an aggressive campaign of spying and covert operations aimed at ferreting out internal whistle-blowers and silencing outside opponents. Their main tool in this undertaking has been Wackenhut Corp. Three of five dissident Wackenhut employees allege that even Rep. George Miller (D-California), chairman at the time of the House committee that oversees environment and resource development issues was targeted for "dirty tricks" when he began investigating alleged environmental wrongdoing by Alyeska, according to sources and sworn court statements. Miller became incensed to the point of subpoena. His committee quickly began investigating the possibility that Wackenhut may have obstructed Congress, as well. Alyeska, as well as Wackenhut, denies any wrongdoing. But for some, the alleged black-bag operation conjures up disquieting echoes of the past, and uneasy foreboding about the future. One honest (and prudent) cop, Rafael Castillo, a thirty year veteran of city, county, state, and federal police work left Wackenhut rather than expose himself to the possibility of criminal prosecution and a ruined career. Twice he had confronted superiors on the matter, to no avail. He had no honorable choice but to quit, which he did, reputation intact. It's too bad that all cops aren't Rafael Castillo, but they're not. Sworn court statements and interviews with sources familiar with the probe, portray a conspiracy of electronic surveillance, lies, phony offices, burglaries and similar behavior aimed at silencing critics. With one side of it's mouth, Alyeska has denied the charges. With the other side, Alyeska assigned Wackenhut the task of rooting out the sources. Wackenhut began by attempting to backtrack from Hamel. In a sworn statement in U.S. District Court in Houston one former Wackenhut employee stated that the company's special investigations division conducted illegal electronic surveillance of Hamel's home, searched his garbage, obtained his telephone records and attempted to furnish him with large amounts of cash. The employee, whose name was blacked out in the court file, said Wackenhut agents also masqueraded as news reporters and environmentalists. They also steal garbage. Charley Hamel caught them on video tape stealing his. They also got a parking ticket while inside bugging his house. These are not exactly what you could call rocket scientist types. They were beaten at their own game by an amateur armed with little more than a camcorder and a realistic estimation of the degree of privacy he enjoyed. It can be done. Wackenhut also set up a phony environmental group, called Ecolit, with offices near Hamel's home. This was part of a 17 person "special investigation unit" created by Wayne Black. Black described it in an interview with the Washington Post as a "private FBI." Black had once been a criminal investigator for the Dade County prosecutor. According to the Anchorage Daily News, he had been suspended for illegally conducting a wire tap and pressuring witnesses. Despite, or perhaps because of, the efforts of a special prosecutor, he managed to squirm out of the charges. A month later he went into private practice. In 1989 his firm was purchased by Wackenhut. He's their kind of guy. He told Hamel his name was Dr. Wayne Jenkins, a staff researcher for Ecolit. At one point, Hamel was told that real estate tycoon Donald J. Trump was on Ecolit's board of directors. For a while, Hamel fell for it. Then his garbage started disappearing. His suspicions aroused, he set a trap with his trusty camcorder. It worked. On occasion, Wackenhut also delivers garbage. One operative, identifying herself as an environmental journalist, tried to "befriend" Hamel in an Anchorage hotel bar in March, 1990, and later on an airline flight. Her aim was to discover Hamel's sources and also to "compromise him" in some way, court statements said. It didn't work. Wayne Black was not a loose cannon. According to Castillo, Black kept Wackenhut security chief, and former head of Alaska's State Police Pat Wellington abreast of his progress. Black has since been promoted. He is now vice-president of investigations for Wackenhut. Alyeska President James B. Hermiller said the company would cooperate fully with Miller's committee, but he has denied that Alyeska targeted Hamel for investigation. Hermiller declined to comment on the specific allegations in the court documents. But he did say, "Wackenhut is probably the premiere security firm in the world, and they do not do anything illegal. They conduct programs in a very professional and legal way." Premier? Professional? Legal? Hardly. In service to other less influential clients Wackenhut operatives have appeared, on numerous occasions, to be the premier bunglers of the trade. Yet they can, on occasion, appear deadly efficient and, in fact, downright sinister. Wackenhut performs a wide variety of services with widely varying efficiency. Some are scarier than others. One such service is union busting. The firm provides a comprehensive strike-breaking service. It includes armed protection, bedding, bath facilities and a catering service for scab labor. Clients of this particular service range from the Greyhound Corp. to Capital Cities. Capital Cities (owner of ABC) was founded by the reputedly deceased Director of Central Intelligence, William Casey. Casey is the alleged mastermind of the "October Surprise" and convenient scapegoat of the Iran-Contra affair, as well as being a Knight of Malta. The Knights are no friends of labor. The Wackenhut Corporation boasts widely of the sophistication of its "strike service." Potential clients also take note of other, more objective, versions. A poignant vignette of Wackenhut labor relations is found in SPOOKS The Haunting of America- The Private Use of Secret Agents Author Jim Hougan recounts the dilemma of a certain Muldoon, hired by Wackenhut to guard publisher Katherine Graham and other executives of the Washington Post during a dispute with the pressmen. About twenty of Muldoon's spooks were given plainclothes assignments that placed them round the clock in the executive's living rooms. Muldoon remembered the awkwardness of the situation. "It was uncomfortable," he said, "These were really nice homes. The family would eat dinner, the kids would be playing-and there, sitting on the couch would be me or some other guy from the agency -- big, you know, and checking his gun. It was sorta tense. We didn't really fit in. I'll tell ya: some of those people were real shits about it. Katherine Graham wouldn't even let us in. She wanted my man to sit outside on a cot in the cold all night. I wouldn't let him. I mean, who the hell does she think she is?" Meanwhile the pressmen bothered Muldoon even more. One morning he came home to find his car filled with garbage and a threat painted on his hood. Muldoon was furious. He "called a friend in New Jersey who's very well connected to both the unions and, well, organized crime. And I told him that I had a list of twelve union leaders here in Washington. If anyone fucked with me or my family or anything of mine, I was going to take out three of the bastards at the exact same time. As a warning. If anything else happened, I was going to hit the other nine - all at once. I told him I didn't care if those guys were responsible or not. I was holding them responsible and he'd better get the word out. I was not bullshitting either. I would have done it. I know guys inside the Agency, and guys who left, who could do that. And they would, too. I offered, as a demonstration, to abduct three of the union people and hold them for an hour -- just to show I was serious. But he took the hint. Nothing ever happened after that." Muldoon, smiling, admitted that such an abduction would have been "embarrassing" to the Post's publisher. He shrugged. "What the hell? If they can hit my car, they can hit my family." Employing Wackenhut placed the liberal Katherine Graham in some very strange company indeed. The immense private intelligence service relies on dossiers of the Church League of America, a right-wing think tank whose massive intelligence files on the "left" surely included volumes about Mrs._Graham herself. In 1971, six executives of Wackenhut, Pinkerton's, and Burns were found guilty of bribing New York City policemen to obtain confidential records of would-be employees of American and Trans-Caribbean Airlines. One wonders why they needed to resort to bribes at all, since, as Rand Corporation reports, Wackenhut and Pinkerton's (never mind Burns) have dossiers on more than four million Americans. Wackenhut sells what it calls "protection" to more than just media moguls. A look at how well they deliver presents a telling appraisal of their skill level and intent. Far from "premier," they instill little confidence in their ability to protect even themselves against bunglers, turncoats, and law enforcement, let alone serious terrorists. Still less does Wackenhut's consistent corner cutting inspire confidence in it's ability to protect the lives and property of ordinary clients. I'd hire the Keystone Kops first, if I was you. Wackenhut has repeatedly proven to be incapable of protecting the Nevada Nuclear Test site from the intrusion of pacifist protesters in peace time. They perform better in the brochure than they do on the ground. They're not the only ones. The "premier" track record of Wackenhut's much vaunted and ballyhooed "protection" business has been repeatedly exposed, even by America's routinely lapdog press. Some things are just too big to ignore. During the recent Gulf War, Wackenhut's impotence was driven home by terrorists. February 6, 1991 the Los Angeles Times reported that "guerrillas opposed to the U.S. role in the Persian Gulf War" blew up a car outside the offices of Pesevisa, the Peruvian subsidiary of Wackenhut. Pesevisa is under contract to provide security for the U.S. and Canadian embassies in Lima. Three security guards were killed, and seven other people were seriously injured, authorities said. In a drive-by attack, assailants threw at least 22 pounds of dynamite and fired machine-gun bursts at three diplomats' cars parked in front of the company, police said. The explosion left a large crater and blew out windows outside the office. Leaflets condemning American involvement and attributed to the pro-Cuban Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement were left at the scene. A U.S. Embassy spokesman in Lima said the attack was directed at Pesevisa, though Tupac Amaru guerrillas also attacked the U.S. Embassy twice that week and dynamited the North American Cultural Institute the previous November. Wackenhut guards have also died on the job in El Salvador. The "premier" protection business seems hard pressed to "protect" themselves, let alone clients. What would Muldoon say? In fairness, it must be emphasized that in 1986, when Wackenhut Corp. announced the creation of an anti-terrorism division headed by former agents of the FBI, CIA and State Department, the director of the new division did state specifically that it would not provide "rent-a-commandos" but would instead provide what it called "training" on how to survive a terrorist attack. The anti-terrorism and crisis management division would be for hire to "advise" corporations or governments, said Richard R. Wackenhut, "This is a new corporate division to deal (sic) not only with the threat of terrorism but with a major industrial accident, hostage taking or any other crisis facing an organization," The L.A. Times reported that in 1985, the increasing fear of terrorism had boosted the already growing security business significantly, citing a 25% increase in 1984 of clients for Wackenhut's executive protection division, provision of bodyguards and "other" security services in 28 countries. Revenue was up 16% said Matt Kenny, director of corporate communications. The greater the number of terrorist incidents, what ever their source, the greater the demand is for "protection." One can not help but wonder if some incidents are covert operations by private security operatives, aimed at drumming up business. "We are aiming at some U.S. government contracts," said Conrad V. Hassel, the director of the new division. Hassel had previously served as chief of special operations for the research unit of the FBI for part of his 23-year career with that agency, and so presumably knew where to peddle his wares. Hassel foresaw embassy security as one potential marketplace, adding that Wackenhut already posted guards at five U.S. embassies. "There's no way we're going to be rent-a-commandos," Hassel said, "We're not going to put a force together to storm any airplanes." Instead Hassel predicted the new division would provide "training" for clients and their families who might be targets of terrorism. "We will try to instruct them how to survive over there, but we're not going to train them how to become 'Rambos' and kick their way out of a room," he said. Training would include discussions by former hostages, and focus on psychological preparedness, such as teaching potential victims to humanize themselves in the eyes of their captors. "The terrorists are reacting against a symbol of what they are fighting against," he said. "Once you become human, it becomes damn hard to kill you." This bit of Wackenhut wisdom was marketed to customers from among the company's 15,000 member base of clients as well as to the United States and certain unnamed foreign governments. DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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