In an eye opening article related to the rise of the now $20 Billion industry of spycraft, Adam Federman in Mother Jones reveals how one of these security companies, Welund, is working with the fossil fuel industry to monitor environmental activists and organizations working to oppose massive infrastructure projects such as Keystone XL and the Trans Mountain pipelines, as well as to provide insight into how to counter and neutralize these efforts. Welund was founded by a former MI-6 agent together with Travis Moran, VP of operations and a former US Justice Dept. special agent:
The company depicts the environmental movement as one of the energy industry’s most dangerous adversaries—comparable to the challenges posed by international industrial espionage. “What we’re talking about here is an existential threat,” Moran told the audience of oil and gas executives in Houston... “The anti-fossil fuel movement is the No. 1 challenge threatening our industry, especially when they have sympathizers in the White House, Ottawa, and elsewhere in public office,” wrote the editor of the Pipeline and Gas Journal, an industry trade publication, shortly before the 2016 election.
The methodology Welund employs is based around monitoring "open sources", including social media, unspecified “other sources” and the use of high tech spy drones.
These are not idle efforts to monitor activists and their organizations for industry. There has been close cooperation between Welund and the Canadian Government in its efforts to build pipelines to ship Tar Sands oil. In one instance, when Welund client Kinder Morgan decided to abandon its Trans Mountain pipeline project due to intense opposition, the Canadian government bought the pipeline from Kinder Morgan for $3.4 billion. During this time, Canada's National Energy Board (NEB) had subcontracted with Welund to help it navigate strong citizen opposition to the project:
As Canada’s NEB was evaluating Kinder Morgan’s application to build the Trans Mountain Pipeline, the agency signed a contract with Welund to monitor social media activity and provide the government with weekly updates on activist threats...Within the Canadian government, Welund’s services were touted by Lee Williams, who at the time was the head of security at the NEB... Williams has since left the NEB, according to government records. In recent promotional materials, Welund has listed a person named Lee Williams as a company contact.
If there is a silver lining to all of this, it is the fact that the presence of companies like Welund are a testament to the effectiveness of the environmental movement in shaping public policy around issues vital to our future well being:
The Houston conference was mostly celebratory... There were presentations refuting the science of global warming and information sessions with representatives of the US EPA and BLM... Chris Wallace of Fox News delivered the keynote address.
But, when Moran took the stage, the tone was decidedly darker. Showing the audience an image of a masked tree-sitter protesting a pipeline project, he warned them about the financial impact of activism. “If you’re not aware of this, if you’re not aware of how effective they can be…if you’re not ahead of the game,” he said, “this can be your fate.”
Never underestimate the power that these industries have to drive public policy. It was planning sessions just like this one back in the 1970’s that led to the current Republican dominance of every branch of government, much of it organized and funded by the oil industry.
Environmentalists must anticipate, expose and work to counter efforts by intelligence firms such as Welund in coordination with governmental agencies to infiltrate their meetings and create fake “astroturf” counter movements to discredit their efforts.
This is another highly relevant and insightful Mother Jones article that deserves a click and a read.