We can’t imagine what Wal-Mart executives were thinking when they authorized company security personnel to report on activist shareholders.
Once the maneuver was exposed, Wal-Mart was quick to apologize, a wise decision but one that doesn’t begin to address the depth of the firm’s questionable efforts to monitor its employees, critics, consultants and reporters covering the company.
The activities came to light after a veteran security staffer was fired for “unauthorized” recording of phone calls to and from a New York Times reporter and intercepting pager messages. In an interview after his dismissal, Bruce Gabbard gave The Wall Street Journal details of Wal-Mart’s wide-ranging spy operations. Among other things, he revealed that last year the company dispatched a long-haired employee with a wireless microphone to infiltrate a group critical of Wal-Mart to see if the group would be disruptive.
The company also used high-tech monitoring systems devised by a defense contractor to keep track of the actions of anyone using its computer network. That included reading e-mail sent via private accounts and reviewing its vendors’ Internet browsing activities.
Gabbard says Wal-Mart has mustered a roughly 20-person “Threat Research and Analysis Group” that works in what they called the “Bat Cave,” a dimly lit facility at the company’s Bentonville, Ark., offices. As the world’s largest retailer, the company has many legitimate security concerns. A representative says the company is no longer running its monitoring operations in the “same manner,” but that’s hardly reassuring given what was revealed this week.
