DOCUMENTS SHOW CHAMBER HIRED FIRMS TO INFILTRATE, DISCREDIT SEIU, CHANGE TO WIN, OTHERS

By Mark Gruenberg

PAI Staff Writer

WASHINGTON (PAI)—The U.S. Chamber of Commerce hired a lobbying firm, which in turn hired three computer security outfits, to infiltrate and discredit the Service Employees, Change To Win, a labor-funded Chamber watchdog organization and other progressive groups that oppose the business lobby’s agenda, released memos and e-mails show. The method used: “An underhanded cyber-campaign,” the source says.

The 67,000 memos and e-mails, according to an investigation by ThinkProgress, an affiliate of the Center for American Progress, also showed the business lobby’s hirelings went so far as to individually defame workers for the progressive groups. One target was Mike Gehrke, who at the time worked for Change To Win.

The Chamber’s lobbying firm, Hunton & Williams, hired three computer security outfits – HBGary Federal, Palantir and Berico Technologies -- to use a wide range of tactics against SEIU, CTW, the labor-backed USChamberWatch and an independent website, StopTheChamber.com. The security outfits called their project “Themis.”

The memos showed the Chamber turned to Hunton & Williams for help after the progressive groups raised questions during last year’s election campaign if foreign corporations were using the Chamber as their conduit for campaign contributions. Foreign donations to U.S. campaigns are illegal. The Chamber denied the charge.

Hiring the lobbyist, which in turn hired the three security outfits “on spec,” allowed the Chamber to officially deny its role. But the e-mails and memos show the Chamber was Hunton & Williams’ client. The tactics the computer security firms used included:

* Entrapping the progressive groups by creating false financial documents for them, then exposing the documents, thus discrediting SEIU, CTW and the others.

* Exposing personal information about workers for the progressive groups, and their families, including Gehrke. One e-mail showed which “Jewish church” (sic) he attended. Another named his wife and children.

* Creating a "fake insider persona" to "generate communications" with Change To Win in an attempt “to mislead and undermine” the union coalition.

* Violating the “terms of use” and “exploiting vulnerabilities” in social networks such as LinkedIn and Facebook to gather the personal information about Gehrke and others. After a Nov. 24, 2010 conference call between Hunton & Williams and one of the three security outfits, the security company wrote: “We need to blow these guys away with descriptions of our capabilities, IP, and talent. Make them think that we are [James] Bond, Q, and money penny all packaged up with a bow."

One other piece of disinformation occurred last year and affected StopTheChember.com, the non-union independent Chamber foe.

Website operator Brad Friedman reported on a blog he received “hundreds of death threats” after Fox News ran a story saying StopTheChamber.com “put a bounty on the head” of the Chamber. “The article came out of the blue, so somebody clearly tipped off Fox News. We don’t have direct evidence, but it’s interesting,” said Friedman.

The discrediting-plus-disinformation campaign, from late 2010 through early February, was ”a concerted and deliberate effort to use anything possible to smear the Chamber's political opponents,” ThinkProgess said. The three computer security firms expected to be paid – by the lobbyist the Chamber hired -- $250,000-$300,000 monthly, the e-mails and memos show.

“An e-mail from February 3 showed that Hunton & Williams wanted the firms to work on spec and then present jointly with H&W to the Chamber on or around February 14,” ThinkProgress reported.

“The e-mails also reveal that lawyers from Hunton & Williams met with the Chamber numerous times in order to brief them on the status and progress” of the disinformation-discreditation campaign, ThinkProgress added.

“This is a new era of dirty tricks,” StopTheChamber’s Friedman wrote on the blog, “picking up where the ratfuckers left off in the Nixon administration, and they seem to be getting away with it with impunity. That’s what should be covered.”

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