While Google’s “Don’t be evil” mission statement must surely rank as one of the most hypocritical in corporate history, they have plenty of stiff competition in the Evil Corporation stakes. Facebook, Disney, Twitter: the list seems endless and mostly centred in Silicon Valley.
Amazon might well be right up there. The corporation has become notorious for its assiduous spying, with devices like Alexa secretly monitoring and recording conversations in people’s homes, as well as its tough working conditions.
It turns out that Amazon is spying on its workers, too.
Dozens of leaked documents from Amazon’s Global Security Operations Center reveal the company’s reliance on Pinkerton operatives to spy on warehouse workers and the extensive monitoring of labor unions, environmental activists, and other social movements.
In its defence, the company says it is simply doing what most savvy businesses do. It’s called “threat awareness”.
The stated purpose of one of these documents is to “highlight potential risks/hazards that may impact Amazon operations, in order to meet customer expectation.”
“Like any other responsible business, we maintain a level of security within our operations to help keep our employees, buildings, and inventory safe,” Lisa Levandowski, a spokesperson for Amazon told Motherboard. “That includes having an internal investigations team who work with law enforcement agencies as appropriate, and everything we do is in line with local laws and conducted with the full knowledge and support of local authorities. Any attempt to sensationalize these activities or suggest we’re doing something unusual or wrong is irresponsible and incorrect.”
Levandowski denied that Amazon hired on-the-ground operatives, and said that any claim that Amazon performs the described activities across its operations worldwide was “N/A.”
All companies have to be prepared for risks to their business, whether it’s their premises burning down, their computers being hacked, or being targeted by inimical interests. Companies which don’t do so risk being left flat-footed and gawping like stunned mullets, should things go pear-shaped. Especially should a mob of hairy unemployables and neon-haired landwhales suddenly descend on them, waving their little placards and shrieking their little slogans.
Amazon appears to have plenty to worry about, too. While much of Amazon’s “threat awareness” (or “spying”, depending on your viewpoint) is centred around keeping tabs on what ought to be perfectly legitimate worker organising, the company is facing threats from the gamut of leftist causes du jour.
Greenpeace, Extinction Rebellion, scowling Swedish children and all the rest of the gaggle of often violently disruptive wokesters.
Rolf Skar, campaigns director at Greenpeace USA, told Motherboard, in response to news that Amazon was tracking the activity of the organization, that the company is mistaken in its assessment that Greenpeace is a threat to Amazon.
“We’re not violent. We don’t destroy property,” he said.
Au contraire. In 2011, Greenpeace activists destroyed an experimental GMO crop in Australia. They did the same in Britain in 1999. In 2014, Greenpeace activists irreparably damaged the World Heritage-listed Nazca Lines in Peru.
Greenpeace’s fellow-traveller environmentalists are often even more destructive.
Amazon’s “spying” is also directed at catching employees engaged in criminal activity.
In 2019[…]Amazon warehouse workers redeemed $37,900 worth of customer gift cards in the United Kingdom, and that six of those employees were identified and fired. In Poland, Amazon “off-boarded” two employees suspected of writing threats “on inventory packaging and in bin locations” that “implied that the author would make a deliberate and malicious attempt to ignite” the warehouse[…]
In October 2019, for example, the report states that Amazon lost $173,339.80 worth of inventory in the United Kingdom but regained $131,592.05 of those losses. In the span of that month, four UK employees were arrested, 35 employees “of interest” were “offboarded,” and 31 delivery vehicles were stolen.
Others, though, see darker work afoot at Amazon.
A source with knowledge of the company’s intelligence activities told Motherboard that in order to track protests and other labor organizing activity, Amazon intelligence agents create social media accounts without photos and track the online activity of workers leading organizing efforts. Motherboard granted the source anonymity because they feared retaliation from Amazon.
“When that team stalked people, they’d use fake accounts on social media,” they said. “They’d use a fake name and a profile with no photo. The worst part is that they read tons of conversations and messages, and knew everything about the private lives of these people. They knew if they had a bad day with their family.”
So Amazon knows about as much about its employees as it does its customers.
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