you go louisiana!

let's take back our rights.....

now if all other states would follow suit. it goes well beyond bbi though. governments have been illegally spying on citizens as well. i'm all for surveillance as long as it is legal (you know going before a judge and getting a warrant because the request actually just might be justified and all..)

Louisiana Court to BBI Spies: Testify or Else

A ruling by a Louisiana court could shed further light on the shadowy work of Beckett Brown International (BBI), the now defunct private security and investigations firm that spied on Greenpeace and other targets on behalf of corporate clients.

On Monday, state appeals court judge Kent Savoie ordered two of the firm's former officials, Tim Ward and Jay Bly, to testify or face potential contempt charges in a case related to a massive spill of ethylene dichloride in Lake Charles, Louisiana by chemical manufacturer Condea Vista. Working for Condea in the late 1990s, BBI mounted a wide-ranging operation to gather intelligence on the company's opponents, including local activists and lawyers suing the chemical maker on behalf of clients harmed during the cleanup of the 1994 spill. In addition to tailing activists and obtaining the phone records of Condea opponents, BBI installed a mole inside a Lake Charles environmental group to report inside information about the organization's strategy and campaigns.

Up until now, Ward and Bly have balked at testifying about their work for Condea, both citing a Maryland statute that protects private investigators from disclosing their clients and operations.

At the hearing, Tom Filo, a Lake Charles attorney targeted by BBI, testified that in 2006 he got a call from John Dodd, a onetime investor in the security firm, who said he had discovered documents from Filo’s law firm among BBI's files. These confidential documents included medical information about plaintiffs, correspondence related to fees among attorneys, and unfiled legal documents. Filo has contended that these documents were stolen from his offices.........