The Chamber Bulks Up, Takes Aim

Anne Landman — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:37:12 -0500

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is growing its bank account and jumping into grassroots lobbying game now since the Supreme Court opened the floodgates for corporations to spend unlimited money on elections. The Chamber spent more than $144 million on lobbying and grassroots organizing in 2009, far beyond the spending of individual labor unions or the Democratic or Republican national committees. The Chamber is expected to exceed that spending level in 2010. One of the factors causing the rapid increase in money pouring into the Chamber is the Supreme Court's ruling in the Citizens United case which handed corporations the free-speech right to spend as much as they want to elect or defeat candidates. The Court's ruling struck down a century of established case law upholding limits on corporate political spending. It also made business executives more comfortable using corporate funds for political purposes. Passing funds through trade groups instead of spending directly on elections has another benefit for corporations: Trade groups can legally avoid disclosing their donors' identities. The Chamber has developed a system where corporations give them money, and they in turn produces issue ads targeting individual candidates without revealing the names of the businesses who are funding the ads. This means that for all the increased influence corporations now have on elections, there is no equivalent transparency. The Chamber's system keeps secret which businesses are influencing a given election, and to what extent.

Corporations Hide Flight Records From Public View

Anne Landman — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:30:33 -0500

A federal district court ruled that the public interest journalism group ProPublica can obtain a list of corporate-owned airplanes whose flight information was blocked from public view. ProPublica first sought the list in 2008 under the Freedom of Information Act, after the CEOs of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler flew to Washington, D.C. on corporate jets to ask Congress to bail out their companies. Those flights became known because the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) provides real-time flight information that the public could see. But the bad publicity over the flights led General Motors to try and stop the public from tracking its planes in the future. A little-known law called the Block Aircraft Registration Request Program permits companies to ask that their corporate jets' flight information be blocked from public view. The National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) filed a lawsuit to block ProPublica's request, saying hiding flight information is necessary to corporate executives' security, and prevent disclosure of business trips that could affect stock prices or reveal information about potential deals to a company's competition. But the judge ruled against those arguments, saying they are overly expansive and are outweighed by the public's right to access taxpayer-funded government records. She also pointed out that even if someone were to look up past flights, they couldn't determine who was on the flight or what the purpose of the flight was.

Here's Looking at You, Kids

Anne Landman — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 22:26:09 -0500

Few cell phone users know that mobile phone companies like AT&T, Verizon and Sprint can track the locations of cell phones in real time, thanks to small global positioning sensors (GPS) placed inside phones. They can also analyze how a call is routed through towers, to pinpoint a phone's location to an area the size of a city block. The feature was originally designed to help police and emergency personnel follow up on 911 calls, but the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have been obtaining more and more cell phone location records, without notifying the target or obtaining judicial warrants that establish probable cause. Cell phone companies started getting so many requests from law enforcement to trace cell phone data, that Sprint Nextel set up a dedicated Web site that allows law enforcement agencies to access people's cell phone location records directly from their desks -- although they must give passwords to long on, and provide valid court orders for non-emergency requests. Information about the increasing clandestine cell phone tracking by law enforcement emerged the same week that a Philadelphia couple filed a lawsuit against their son's school district in which they accused his high school of activating a Webcam embedded in their son's school-issued laptop computer and covertly photographing the 15 year-old at home. How did they discover the school was spying on their son? The suit states that on November 11, an assistant principal at the high school informed their son that he had been "engaged in improper behavior in his home," and, as evidence, showed him a photo taken from the Webcam embedded in his laptop.

Lessons in Legislative Manipulation From the Tobacco Industry

Anne Landman — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:33:49 -0500

The article in the November 14 issue of the New York Times about the extent to which the biotech firm Genetech was able to put their own words into legislators' mouths raises the next logical question: To what extent are corporations in the U.S. actually drafting laws and getting them passed?

We can't deny this is happening, yet few want to talk about it. Tobacco industry documents, though, show exactly how corporations can and do co-opt legislative processes from start to finish, and how successful they are at it. Big Tobacco's success at staving off regulation shows its ability to control legislative processes. The tobacco industry's pioneering work in this area has drawn a road map for other industries showing how to manipulate state and federal legislatures as well.

There are many ways that businesses turn legislative processes to their own advantage. Certainly they lobby to thwart laws they don't like, but they also actively draft and push through laws of their own design, for lots of purposes. Tobacco documents demonstrate this.

Knock Knock, Who Was There?

Bob Burton — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:46:03 -0400

The Obama administration has denied a request made under the Freedom of Information Act for the names of all visitors to the White House visitors between January 20 and May. MSNBC.com investigative journalist Bill Dedman reports that the Obama administration, just like the Bush administration, "is arguing that the White House visitor logs are presidential records -- not Secret Service agency records, which would be subject to the Freedom of Information Act." A spokesman for Obama, Ben LaBolt, said that the administration should be able to hold secret meetings "such as an elected official interviewing for an administration position or an ambassador coming for a discussion on issues that would affect international negotiations." However, Dedman notes that "these same arguments, made by the Bush administration, were rejected twice by a federal judge."

Forward Movement in FOIA Office

Judith Siers-Poisson — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 23:40:52 -0400

According to the The National Archives and Records Administration, Miriam Nisbet will be the first director of the Office of Government Information Services. She was previously legislative counsel for the American Librarian Association. Additionally, "she served as Deputy Director of the Justice Department's Office of Information Privacy, which plays a major role in overseeing government wide FOIA policy, and as a special counsel for information policy at the National Archives. Most recently, she was director of UNESCO’s Information For All Program." While OGIS was created in 2007 by Congress as "monitor and mediator" of FOIA requests, the Bush administration left the office unfunded. "We've been waiting a long time to see this thing get off the ground,” says Rick Blum, coordinator of the Sunshine in Government Initiative, a media coalition that worked closely with congress to push for the office’s creation, “She’s a long-time advocate for open government, and this is a promising start for those who want the FOIA to work better."

From Cell to Sell: Police Recruit Activists as Spies

Diane Farsetta — Tue, 05 May 2009 15:36:15 -0400

In Scotland, police have been offering environmentalists money in return for information about activist groups. "They said 'if you help us, we will help you,'" one anti-nuclear activist stated, referring to military police officers. The Guardian reports that "a network of hundreds of informants ... claim to have infiltrated a number of environmental groups," providing police with "information about leaders, tactics and plans of future demonstrations." One of the groups targeted by police, Plane Stupid, was previously infiltrated by a corporate spy. A police statement stressed their "responsibility to gather intelligence," saying contacts were made "to ensure that any future protest activity is carried out within the law." Plane Stupid responded, "Our civil liberties were invaded and our right to peaceful protest called into question simply to defend the interests of big business." Scotland's Sunday Herald reports that the covert police campaign goes back to at least 2005, when military police set up "cosy chats" with people arrested during a protest at a nuclear arms site.

Courage, Bayer CropScience Style

Bob Burton — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 05:52:57 -0400

Bayer CropScience has invoked the specter of terrorism in a bid to limit what information the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board can release at a public hearing into a chemical plant explosion in West Virginia that killed two employees. Bayer is claiming that "because it has a dock for barge shipments on the adjacent Kanawha River, its entire 400-acre site qualifies under the 2002 federal Maritime Transportation Security Act," reports Sean D. Hamill. "It has asked the Coast Guard, which has jurisdiction under the act, to review the public release of 'sensitive security information.'" Bayer appears to want to limit discussion of the potential hazards of methyl isocyanate, the same chemical made at Bhopal, India, notes Hamill. On its website, Bayer CropScience states that one of its core values is "integrity, openness and honesty" and that it is committed to "having the courage to tell the truth" and "presenting the unvarnished truth in an appropriate and helpful manner."

AIG Spin: Your Tax Dollars at Work

Diane Farsetta — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:01:08 -0500

American International Group (AIG), "which is receiving its fourth taxpayer bailout, has four public relations firms on its payroll" -- Kekst & Company, Sard Verbinnen, Hill & Knowlton and Burson-Marsteller -- in addition to its own PR staff. While bailout recipients have been criticized for planning lavish retreats (which AIG has done repeatedly), using private jets and retaining lobbying firms, "some taxpayers and members of Congress could view public relations as unnecessary expenses," warns the New York Times. AIG "may legitimately need help talking to the crowds of journalists, regulators, legislators and investors," but the insurance giant has "given little clarity on taxpayer losses to date, or provided much communication directed towards taxpayers at all." Meanwhile, AIG's "public relations army" hasn't seemed to make its executives PR savvy. On a conference call, AIG chief restructuring officer Paula Reynolds "unwisely quipped that it might be 'better to go to jail' than have to deal with the intricacies of securities laws as they apply to AIG's situation."

Shut Up and Take Your Medicine

Sheldon Rampton — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 13:49:38 -0500

Internet theorist Clay Shirky discussed the "Medical Justice" service as an example of the industry's attempt to "prevent Health 2.0 from happening"

Doctors who don't want their patients to complain about their services are signing up with a service called Medical Justice, which has developed a standardized waiver that patients are asked to sign, agreeing not to post online comments about the doctor. The company "advises doctors to have all patients sign the agreements," reports Lindsey Tanner. "If a new patient refuses, the doctor might suggest finding another doctor. ... Doctors are notified when a negative rating appears on a Web site, and, if the author's name is known, physicians can use the signed waivers to get the sites to remove offending opinion." Dana Blankenhorn writes that patients rights advocates are angry at the attempt to stifle patients' speech: "MyDocHub calls it an attack on First Amendment rights, while ePatients.Net calls it an 'almost comical attempt to hold back the tide.' Consumer advocates are also grumbling."

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