Watching the watchdogs. A former worker at Wal-Mart is claiming the retail giant is running a sophisticated surveillance operation that targets employees, journalists, stockholders and critics. Bruce Gabbard was fired last month for intercepting and recording phone calls to and from a New York Times reporter. Gabbard told the Wall Street Journal he was part of a broader surveillance operation run out of Wal-Mart's Arkansas headquarters. Employees reportedly nicknamed their work area "The Bat Cave."
Gabbard also revealed that Wal-Mart infiltrated the group Up Against the Wal last year by sending a long-haired employee wearing a wireless microphone to one of the group's meetings. A Wal-Mart surveillance van was stationed outside the meeting in order to listen in to what was happening. Wal-Mart also reportedly closely monitored the internet and phone usage of employees at work. Managers received a list of email addresses and phone numbers with which their employees have communicated, and a list of Web sites visited.
Wal-Mart also developed a system to read the personal emails of workers sent or received from private accounts such as Hotmail or Gmail.
After the Wall Street Journal story ran, Wal-Mart issued an apology -- but only to shareholders that were monitored under the surveillance operation.
More on the story.
4 comments:
If Walmart is spending all this money on spy tactics and not spending it on giving workers benefits etc.....truley sad.
Rent the documentary movie by Robert Greenwald called Walmart. You will be surprised how Walmart and the CEO treat the employees.
I have heard enough negative things about Walmart not to want to shop there and support these things.
That true about the negative talks about Walmart. But, keep in mind that the creator of Walmart, the late Sam Walton. ceetainly would have never dreamed of his empire Walmart to turn out the way it is today. I read a book that Sam Walton wrote about his early beginning of creating Walmart. Walmart was simply suppose to be store where people can get discounts. It was more family oriented. But, once Sam Walton passed away, he did the most tragic thing: he divided the shares of the company to his wife and children. Once Walton did that, the family then gave a majority control of the company to the shareholders. They just reap the rewards of the company. The Walton family owns 46% of the company. The shareholders own the rest. Not a very finanically intelligent Walton family. But, I find the company Walmart is very sad company and Sam Walton would turn over in his grave.
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