THE
PRIVATISATION OF SPYING PART 2
Peace Researcher 35 – December 2007
-
Mark Eden, Wellington
Animal Rights Network
Peace Researcher 34 (July 2007) covered the story of how private
investigators paid spies to infiltrate activist groups in Wellington
and Christchurch.
The Christchurch spy, Ryan Paterson-Rouse,
confessed that he had been hired by Thompson & Clark Investigations Ltd to
spy on the Save Happy Valley
campaign on behalf of State Owned Enterprise (SOE), Solid Energy. This led to a
flurry of media interest and even Helen Clark joined in condemning the use of
spies by SOEs. The Wellington
spy denied everything and at the time we weren’t sure who exactly was paying
for information on animal rights activists so our spy scandal never received
the attention it deserved.
In 2005 Wellington
animal rights activists were preparing for protests against an animal
researchers conference when law student Somali Young joined the group. She
quickly became a trusted volunteer as she was always reliable and never missed
a meeting. In fact she was the most efficient minute taker we had ever seen!
After the conference she became very interested in our campaign against factory
farming of pigs, even texting us for daily updates when she was on holiday in Australia.
In 2006 she travelled to Australia
with Wellington
activists to join protests against another animal researchers’ conference. She
also became involved in Peace Action Wellington, specifically in a campaign
against an arms industry conference organised by the NZ Defence Industry
Association.
Cover Blown
Her cover was blown when a computer glitch at Thompson & Clark caused
emails addressed to her to bounce back to the sender with Thompson and Clark’s address included. Unlike the Christchurch spy, Somali denied working for
Thompson & Clark, but has never explained how emails addressed to her ended
up in their computer system. She is still in Wellington but runs away every time her
former friends in the animal rights and peace groups have approached her.
Since we couldn’t persuade
the spy to cooperate we decided to try and find out who was paying for
information on animal rights activists by asking our opponents. We used the
Official Information Act and wrote to a variety of SOEs and Government bodies
that have been criticised or campaigned against by animal rights campaigners
asking them if they had any contracts with Thompson and Clark.
Massey University, AgResearch (a Crown Research Institute), and the
Pork Industry Board have all admitted having dealings with Thompson &
Clark. Massey University said it subscribed to a
monthly newsletter in which Thompson & Clark provides updates on activist
groups, and the other two said Thompson & Clark provided risk management
and security services. All three organisations refused to release any further
details of the contracts and the Ombudsman’s Office is currently investigating
this refusal. Hopefully more information will be released soon.
The Pork Industry Board had been criticised for years over its factory
farming practices, and both Massey
University and AgResearch
are major users of animals in experiments. The National Anti Vivisection
Campaign, which monitors the animal research industry, is based in the
Wellington Animal Rights Network office.
Unlike Solid Energy, which has aggressively debated with the Save Happy
Valley Campaign through the media, the organisations involved in factory
farming and animal experiments prefer to avoid the limelight and keep the issue
out of the public eye. This, and the lack of solid information about the Wellington spying, has meant that the media hasn’t yet
paid any serious attention to the Wellington
spy story. The same Government that condemned Solid Energy’s behaviour as
“unacceptable” had nothing to say about a Crown Research Institute and a
university using private investigators against animal rights groups. Both the
Wellington Animal Rights Network and Peace Action Wellington are still
investigating and there is much more to come on this story.