ThinkProgress:The Chamber’s Anti-Union Lawyers Solicited ‘Abhorrent’ Privacy Invasions

[Ichingcarpenter]

Last week, ThinkProgress revealed that top lawyers for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce solicited private security contractors to investigate the Chamber’s political opponents. The law firm, Hunton & Williams LLP, represents the Chamber against campaigns by unions and political activists. In 2009, the Chamber paid Hunton & Williams $1,147,644 for its services. The law firm has represented subprime mortgagers, global warming polluters, and tobacco giant Phillip Morris.

Three Hunton & Williams partners engaged the services of Palantir, Berico Technologies, and HBGary Federal to perform the invasions of privacy the Chamber itself now describes as “abhorrent“:

– Richard L. Wyatt Jr., co-head of the firm’s Litigation Group, who is suing the Yes Men on behalf of the Chamber. Wyatt negotiated with the spy firms on pricing and told them he would sell the project to the Chamber.

– Robert T. Quackenboss, a lawyer who handles “the tactical and public communications response to union-coordinated attack campaigns.” In this effort, Quackenboss was the “key client contact operationally” with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

– John W. Woods, an expert on “electronic surveillance” and “corporate crimes.” Woods was the “primary point of contact” with the corporate spy contractors.

A key service that attracted the Chamber’s lawyers to the corporate spies was the ability of HBGary’s CEO Aaron Barr to use computer programs and false “personas” to “scrape” personal information from the websites of Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media sites. Such acts are in explicit contravention of the legal terms of service of Facebook and LinkedIn.


SNIP>>.


http://thinkprogress.org/2011/02/14/chamber-privacy-invasions/


Looks like they have the names of these assholes.....

[mikehiggins]

1. Ralph Nader

Does anyone remember the outrage when it was discovered GM (as I recall) had spied on Nader when he was suing them over the Corvair(?)

See anything like that outrage now?

We really have fallen a terrible distance from what this nation once thought it was.