Dark Money, Dark Power: How Big Oil’s Intelligence Network Circumvents FOIA

[Octafish]

There's no bigger bling than what black gold brings.



Dark Money, Dark Power

How Big Oil’s Intelligence Network Circumvents FOIA

by ADAM FEDERMAN
CounterPunch, NOVEMBER 10, 2014

What if the private sector banded together to create its own intelligence sharing networks exempt from FOIA law and public accountability?

In the last decade a number of different industries ranging from financial services and health care to nuclear energy and defense have created what are known as Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs). They allow member companies to share information anonymously without fear that it will be subject to FOIA requests or anti-trust violations. Now the oil and gas industry is getting in on the act.

In late June, the oil and gas industry announced the creation of an ISAC. According to the group’s website the ONG-ISAC, “is being created to provide shared intelligence on cyber incidents, threats, vulnerabilities, and associated responses present throughout our industry.” The website explains that the analysis center is built around four core principles, among them, “anonymous submissions” and “protection from FOIA disclosure and anti-trust violations.” This is apparently a hallmark of private sector intelligence-sharing networks, even though they continue to share information with government agencies. An ISAC primer published by Booz Allen Hamilton states, “ISACs operate in a manner to protect members from anti-trust violations and Freedom of Information Act queries.”

SNIP...

Although ISACs are privately owned and operated, they still work with government agencies, including the DHS and FBI. According to a white paper published by the National Council of ISACs in 2004, strong public private partnerships are key to any ISAC’s success. “Close relations between the private sectors and the Department of Homeland Security and between each sector and its Lead Agency are vital,” they wrote. Of course, under one condition: Any information exchanged between the private sector and Homeland Security would be exempt from FOIA law.

SNIP...

Today oil and gas companies routinely share information about activists and environmental groups with state level Homeland Security Fusion Centers and law enforcement agencies. In most cases these stories have only come to light because of FOIA. What will happen now that the oil and gas industry has created its own intelligence-sharing network? What will stop them from anonymously filtering information on activists and environmental groups through the ISAC, which is exempt from FOIA disclosure? It’s anyone’s guess. But chances are the public will be kept in the dark.

SOURCE: http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/11/10/how-big-oils-intelligence-network-circumvents-foia/

[Jackpine Radical]

1. The Empire marches on…

[Octafish]

2. FWIU, annual petroleum sales exceed global government expenditures.

So...if we added up all the budgets, it's still a smaller pile than what the BFEE and their Roil chums sit on.

It also helps explain why no one on tee vee ever wonders why the rich keep getting richer. They want to get paid.

[Octafish]

3. What is it called when State Power and Corporate Power fuse into one?

Doesn't matter. What matters is it kills Democracy.

An example: FBI Knew of Plot to Execute Occupy Activists but Did Nothing

FBI Document—“(DELETED)” Plots To Kill Occupy Leaders “If Deemed Necessary”

By Dave Lindorff
June 27, 2013 WhoWhatWhy.org

Would you be shocked to learn that the FBI apparently knew that some organization, perhaps even a law enforcement agency or private security outfit, had contingency plans to assassinate peaceful protestors in a major American city — and did nothing to intervene?

Would you be surprised to learn that this intelligence comes not from a shadowy whistle-blower but from the FBI itself – specifically, from a document obtained from Houston FBI office last December, as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by the Washington, DC-based Partnership for Civil Justice Fund?

To repeat: this comes from the FBI itself. The question, then, is: What did the FBI do about it?

The Plot

Remember the Occupy Movement? The peaceful crowds that camped out in the center of a number of cities in the fall of 2011, calling for some recognition by local, state and federal authorities that our democratic system was out of whack, controlled by corporate interests, and in need of immediate repair?

That movement swept the US beginning in mid-September 2011. When, in early October, the movement came to Houston, Texas, law enforcement officials and the city’s banking and oil industry executives freaked out perhaps even more so than they did in some other cities. The push-back took the form of violent assaults by police on Occupy activists, federal and local surveillance of people seen as organizers, infiltration by police provocateurs—and, as crazy as it sounds, some kind of plot to assassinate the “leaders” of this non-violent and leaderless movement.

CONTINUED...

http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/06/27/fbi-document-deleted-plots-to-kill-occupy-leaders-if-deemed-necessary/

Secret Police. Secret Spying. Secret Laws. Secret Detentions. Secret Executions...Anyone seeing a pattern, here?