Eveline Lubbers, Letter to the editor of the Guardian, 28 October 2009.

In an excellent three day series revealing an intimate cooperation between the police and corporations under fire in gathering intelligence on activists, the Guardian published spotter cards used to identify protesters. One of the cards holds a picture of  Martin Hogbin, portrayed as an activist accused of being an infiltrator, but denying it.

This denial invites contestation, with facts confirming that indeed he did supply information to British Aerospace (BAe). The following overview is based on publicly available information, most of it online. It shows that Martin Hogbin infiltrated the Campaign Against Arms Trade from 1997 until 2003. He started as a volunteer, and worked at CAAT’s office in London as a paid campaign coordinator from 2000 until his suspension and subsequent resignation. He was a spy from the beginning until the end. The evidence consists of the results of the internal investigation of CAAT’s Steering committee sustained by sections in Evelyn le Chêne’s spy files, the findings of the Information Commissioner and legal documents substantiating that BAe indeed hired Evelyn le Chêne to spy on CAAT.

Eveline Lubbers, 20 June 2008

Last week, 12 June 2008, the Swiss investigative reporters program Temps Present revealed that Nestle had infiltrated Attac Switzerland, for more than a year. The food multinational paid Securitas, one of Switzerland's largest security firms, to plant a woman in the protest group from the summer of 2003 until 2004.

Using a false name the infiltrator participated in meetings and preparation sessions around the time of the July 2003 G8 summit in Evian. After the summer members of the group started editing a book about the “Nestlé Empire.” As a co-author she had complete access to the group's documentation and to all Attac’s email contacts around the world, including information on union members in Colombia fighting for workers-rights in Nestle plants. Such information is potentially dangerous in the wrong hands; in the past people have been killed just for being active organizers.

The Securitas agent never gave an address or phone number and refused to appear in any Attac photos, but the group considered this her personal right. After the work on the Nestle book had finished, she disappeared and could not be reached. However, through an anonymous call to the Suisse anti-corruption hot line of Transparency International, her story reached the desks of the television reporters of Temps Present.

14 Feb 2007 

SpinWatch is a partner of the ALTER-EU, a coalition of citizen's organisations to campaign for transparacy on lobbying in the EU. CEO is another member of this coalition. 

Today, CEO sent a complaint letter to EPACA chairman John Houston, in reaction to a chapter that Houston wrote in Challenge and Response -- Essays on Public Affairs and Transparency, published in September 2006.
In his chapter, Houston makes unfounded and unsubstantiated accusations against CEO and ALTER-EU.

The letter is published at the Corporate Europe Observatory website.

13 Feb 2007

by Eveline Lubbers 

Dear George,

Your Guardian column today  devoted to "The parallel universe of BAE" reveals that confidential and legally privileged material belonging to CAAT landed on the desks of BAE Systems plc. The company has refused to state how it came into possession of the material.

You recall the exposure in the Sunday Times that revealed how BAE had carried out a “widespread spying operation” on its critics.  CAAT took the case to the UK’s Information Commissioner, who found that the email address belonged to “a company with links to Evelyn Le Chene.”

I have had the opportunity the study the many surveillance reports about CAAT that were sent to BAE, the source material used by the Sunday Times. SpinWatch published an elaborate dossier on the case. It's called the  Threat Response Spy Files, investigating this case of corporate intelligence.

Eveline Lubbers, 28 Jan 2007 

Shell was one of the first companies to take a hit in the new-media war. The company was taken by surprise in 1995 when a Greenpeace campaign against sinking the redundant Brent Spar oil platform succeeded. Such a disaster would not be allowed to happen again. Shell International developed an online strategy, which included monitoring what was being said about the company in cyberspace.

For my book Battling Big Business I researched the on line detective agencies hired by Shell. Back then I also found out that the company’s impressive new website offered means of surveillance too. The forums were used to monitor Shell’s critics. For my present PhD research I was curious to know what had happened to the forums since.