The Courier-Mail http://www.news.com.au/headlines/ Private jail firm linked to CIA By MARSHALL WILSON 24jul99 A MASSIVE United States company accused of doctoring computer software to allow the CIA to spy on foreign governments is running key Australian jails and detention centres, including Brisbane's high-security Arthur Gorrie prison. The company, Wackenhut, also has been linked to joint ventures to produce chemical and biological weapons, machine guns and devastating fuel-air explosives. It recruits many of the top people for its 70,000 global workforce from intelligence agencies such as the FBI and CIA, the US military and law enforcement agencies. Company founder George Wackenhut has denied it is an arm of the CIA but the group has faced repeated accusations of allowing its worldwide structure to be a front for spying. In Australia, directors of company subsidiaries also have pointed out that Wackenhut Corrections Corporation is a different organisation to The Wackenhut Corporation and listed separately on the stock exchange. Within 13 months of Wackenhut's subsidiary - Australasian Correctional Management - taking over Arthur Gorrie jail, four inmates committed suicide, another died in mysterious circumstances, an inmate was set on fire and gang rape was alleged to have been common. One of ACM's officers, a tough-talking former US Marines colonel with a bent for discipline, was replaced as Arthur Gorrie general manager after a jail riot and lobbying by Brisbane's Prisoners Legal Service. Wackenhut offshoots run immigration detention centres at Port Hedland in Western Australia, Villawood in Sydney, Maribyrnong in Victoria and in Perth. Recent influxes of illegal immigrants from communist China into Australia and an array of boat people from remote locations in South-East Asia could make detention centres a prime target for covert intelligence. The company also controls Junee prison in NSW and the Fulham Correctional Centre near Sale in Victoria. In 1991 and 1992, Wackenhut was named at two US Congressional inquiries. Allegations included tampering with a computer software program for CIA spying operations and mounting an aggressive surveillance campaign on an oil industry whistleblower in Alaska. The group created in 1954 by Mr Wackenhut, a former FBI agent, and now operating in 50 countries, has faced claims it allows its corporate identity to shield covert CIA operations. An Immigration Department source said the Wackenhut subsidiaries survived a "fairly rigorous probity investigation" before winning contracts in Australia. He said the contract allowed the department to closely monitor the company's performance. Although Wackenhut subsidiaries ACM and Australian Correctional Services run the private jails and immigration detention centres, business records list the address of the holding company as "unknown". ************************************************************************* This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
