James Ridgeway

In 1965, James Ridgeway helped launch the modern muckraking era by revealing that General Motors had hired private eyes to spy on an obscure consumer advocate named Ralph Nader. He worked for many years at the Village Voice, has written 16 books, and has codirected Blood in the Face, a film about the far right. In 2012, he was named a Soros Justice Media Fellow.

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Greenpeace Sues Chemical and PR Firms for "Unlawful" Spying

In 2008, Mother Jones blew the lid off corporate black ops against environmental groups. Now one of the targets is fighting back.

—By James Ridgeway and Daniel Schulman

| Mon Nov. 29, 2010 12:38 PM PST

More than two years ago, Mother Jones exposed a private security firm run by former Secret Service agents that had spied on an array of environmental groups on behalf of corporate clients, in some cases infiltrating unsuspecting organizations with operatives posing as activists. Now, one of the targets of this corporate espionage is fighting back.

On Monday, Greenpeace filed suit in federal district court in Washington, DC, against the Dow Chemical Company and Sasol North America, charging that the two multinational chemical manufacturers sought to thwart its environmental campaigns against genetically engineered foods and chemical pollution through elaborate undercover operations. Also named in the suit are Dezenhall Resources and Ketchum, public relations firms hired by Sasol and Dow respectively, and four ex-employees of that now-defunct security firm, Beckett Brown International (BBI).

The suit charges that between 1998 and 2000 the chemical companies, the PR firms, and BBI "conspired to and did surveil, infiltrate and steal confidential information from Greenpeace with the intention of preempting, blunting or thwarting its environmental campaigns. These unlawful activities included trespassing on the property of Greenpeace, infiltrating its offices, meetings and electronic communications under false pretenses and/or by force, and by these means, stealing confidential documents, data and trade secrets from Greenpeace." Greenpeace is seeking an injunction against further trespass and thefts of trade secrets, as well as compensatory and punitive damages.

[Read the full article]

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Obama's Deficit Commission Prepares to Carve Its Turkey

—By James Ridgeway

| Sun Nov. 28, 2010 11:49 AM PST

The dread report of the White House’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform is due out this week. One of the Commission’s co-chairs, the putative Democrat and consummate wheeler-dealer Erskine Bowles, has been up on the Hill flogging their plan to reduce the debt by cutting the country’s already skimpy programs for the old, the sick, and the poor. His partner, motor-mouth Republican Alan Simpson, continues his ranting and ravings against the greedy geezers who want to sink his entitlement-cutting ship before it’s launched. Both of them have taken to boo-hooing because no one appreciates all the work they are doing to save the nation from certain fiscal doom, and nobody is willing to pitch in to meet this noble goal.

Personally, I’m still waiting to hear how Wall Street is going to pitch in and do its part--or the people with high six-figure incomes who claim they still aren’t rich enough to give up their tax cuts. Or, for that matter, Bowles and Simpson themselves, who retired on fat pensions and don’t have a financial care in the world. Since none of this is likely to happen any time soon, we’d better take a good hard look at what these sanctimonious old coots have come up with.

We already know a lot about what to expect from the Fiscal Commission Plan, since the co-chairs released their own preliminary proposals (as yet unapproved by the 18-member Commission) earlier this month. According to people with access to the Commission’s thinking, they seem to believe their best bet is to achieve consensus on a proposal to change the way Social Security’s annual cost of living increases (COLAs) are calculated. What seems like a mere accounting adjustment would, in reality, severely affect benefits over time. The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare explains the impact of this scheme:

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

Invasion of the Body Scanners: Airport Security May Not Work, But It Does Cause Cancer

—By James Ridgeway

| Tue Nov. 23, 2010 11:00 AM PST

On the eve of some of the busiest travel days of the year, airport scanners are causing hysteria–and with good reason. Never mind the puerile TSA screeners giggling at your naked body. It turns out that the things may pose serious health concerns. In a letter to John Pistole, administrator of TSA, New Jersey Congressman Rush Holt, a scientist and the Chairman of the House Select Intelligence Oversight Panel, raised the possibility that the machines might be carcinogenic.

In March, the Congressional Biomedical Caucus (of which I am a co-chair) hosted a presentation on this technology by TSA, as well as a briefing by Dr. David Brenner of Columbia University on the potential health effects of “back scatter” x-ray devices. As Dr. Brenner noted in his presentation and in subsequent media interviews, the devices currently in use and proposed for wider deployment this year currently deliver to the scalp “20 times the average dose that is typically quoted by TSA and throughout the industry.”

Dr. Brenner has pointed out that the majority of the radiation from X-ray backscatter machines strikes the top of the head, which is where 85 percent of the 800,000 cases of basal cell carcinoma diagnosed in the United States each year develop. According to Dr. Brenner, excessive x-ray exposure can act as a cancer rate multiplier, which is why our government should investigate thoroughly the potential health risks associated with this technology.V

Various experts have questioned whether older people and children ought to be subjected to scanners, and whether people susceptible to or having melanoma and cataracts should undergo the scan.

Holt also questioned the efficacy of the body scanners, which would come as no surprise to critics who’ve been lambasting them for years. Last January, when the government’s appetite for body scanners got a big boost from the underwear bomber, there was skepticism about their ability to detect the types of explosives favored by would-be airline bombers. As I wrote at the time:

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

Two Clinton-Era Laws That Allow Cruel and Unusual Punishment

—By James Ridgeway

| Fri Nov. 19, 2010 2:04 PM PST

If the lame duck Congress is looking for legislation to pass before the Republicans take hold, it should look no farther than two laws passed as part of the so-called War on Crime, which gives the War on Terror a run for its money when it comes to violating Constitutional and human rights.

The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), passed after the Oklahoma City bombing with broad bipartisan support, undermined habeas the corpus rights of US prisoners long before the Bush Administration sought to withhold them from "enemy combatants." AEDPA placed severe limitations on prisoners' ability to challenge death sentences—or life sentences, or any unjust convictions—in federal courts, even when they had new evidence of their innocence.

Under AEDPA, proof of "actual innocence" does not necessarily prohibit the execution or continued incarceration of prisoners. (A recent Supreme Court decision in the Troy Davis case questioned, but did not eliminate, this reality.) And while the pace of executions has slowed in recent years in spite of the AEDPA, the law still stands in the way of appeals by many prisoners across the country who might have just grounds for seeking to have their convictions overturned.

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

Cat Food For You, Tax Cuts for Me

—By James Ridgeway

| Wed Nov. 10, 2010 3:20 PM PST

Proposals by the deficit Commission leaders Wednesday provide detail to what Washington has been gossiping about for months. Not whether Obama will cut entitlements, but where and how.

For months, the Obama administration has been hinting it will support cuts in Social Security and Medicare as part of a program to reduce the deficit, meantime leaving most of the Bush tax cuts in place. That's been the deal since last spring. Sunday on 60 Minutes, the President was somewhat more explicit. We are "still confronted with the fact that the vast majority of the federal budget are things that people really think are important, like Social Security and Medicare and defense. And so, you then have to start making some tough decisions about how do we pay for those things that we think are important? … I mean, we're gonna have to, you know, tackle some big issues like entitlements that, you know, when you listen to the Tea Party or you listen to Republican candidates they promise we're not gonna touch."

Wednesday the commission leaders—Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson—provided the President with the details he needs. The Washington Post reports, "Leaders of President Obama's bipartisan deficit commission are proposing to reduce the annual cost-of-living increases in Social Security. The proposal would also set a tough target for curbing the growth of Medicare. And it recommends looking at eliminating popular tax breaks, such as mortgage interest deduction."

[Read more in the MoJo blog]