- Rent-A-Cop Roadblock
by Rachel Naba
David Prater was sentenced to 250 days in the Travis County Community Justice Center in East Austin, Texas, for a first-time minor drug possession charge. The facility is a state jail, and it was managed by Wackenhut Corrections Corporation under subcontract. Just days after his arrival, according to Prater, 11 gang members attacked him because he asked them to please keep the noise down. He was kicked in the head and face until his bones broke through the skin. Where were the guards? They were watching.
After the incident, Prater was kept in isolation. He was illegally transferred from prison unit to prison unit. He reports that he did not receive proper medical attention and that he was consistently denied pain medication. The officials at the facility manned by Wackenhut fed him only chicken bouillon in hot water. One would feel more comfortable believing that cases like Praterıs are rare, but evidence shows us otherwise; Wackenhut Corporation has a history of mistreatment, secrecy, and questionable tactics that have surfaced not only in their private prisons, but also in personal security and activities linked with the US Government. ³It is known throughout the industry,² retired FBI special agent William Hinshaw told an investigator, ³that if you want a dirty job done, call Wackenhut.²
Recently, Wackenhutıs strange activities have appeared again. Between Thursday, February 20th and Tuesday February 25th, the Wackenhut Services Corporation, a non-governmental and private corporation, manned roadblocks on the Arizona/Nevada border at the Hoover Dam. Drivers were being pulled over at roadblocks and were asked where they were going and from where they were coming. Their vehicles were looked into, and guards used hand-held mirrors to search under cars. A vehicle containing news service employees was among those stopped and questioned, but these individuals knew their rights. They refused to answer the guardıs questions, informing them that the private firm had no right to detain citizens on a public road. Instead, the news service team asked the guards questions of their own: Isnıt detaining citizens on a public roadway without being an official police agency considered false imprisonment? What government entity is paying for this contract with your company? Their questions were ignored. They were instructed to move along immediately.
While many may not sense the severity of the roadblocks that were set up by non-official guards, those who know the history and dealings of Wackenhut raise their eyebrows in response to the news. Just who is the Wackenhut Corporation?
* Prisons that Wackenhut has managed have had an extremely tainted history. A prison in New Mexico experienced 9 stabbings, 5 murders and many riots after being open just one year. Travis County jails managed by Wackenhut showed similar problems: Wackenhut was providing neither the contracted number of guards nor the required educational programs under their contract. Former Wackenhut employees report threats of being fired if they refused to work overtime, paid the guards much less than the norm, and hired relatives of inmates or gang members as guards. Wackenhut prisons in Australia have had numerous mass escapes. Teenagers have been hired by the company as guards. Many of their prisons worldwide have been described as ³²concentration camps². Their prisons have a lengthy history of sexual assault.
* George Wackenhut, a 34 year old former FBI agent, joined with three other former FBI agents in 1954 to form a company in Florida called Special Agent Investigators Inc. In 1958, after much trouble and violence between the partners, Wackenhut bought out the others and took over the company, forming Wackenhut Corporation. He made his way using close political friends, and soon Wackenhut was receiving multimillion-dollar contracts from the government to guard Cape Canaveral and the Nevada nuclear-bomb test site. Today, Wackenhut is the third largest investigative security firm in the country with offices in 39 foreign countries. In 1991, a third of their $600 million in revenues came from the federal government, and another large portion from companies that work for the government.
* Current and recent members of the Wackenhut board have included former FBI director Clarence Kelley, former Defense secretary and former CIA deputy director Frank Carlucci,President Bushıs foreign intelligence advisory board and former CIUA deputy director Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, former US Secret Service director James J. Rowley, and others.
* Wackenhut is the largest company that supplies security to US embassies oversees. Bruce Berckmans, former CIA station worker and former Wackenhut International operations vice president, told investigators that he has seen a formal proposal George Wackenhut submitted to the CIA, allowing the agency to use Wackenhut offices throughout the world as fronts for CIA activities. Terrorism expert William Corbertt, former CIA analyst and now ABC News consultant based in Europe, told investigators of SPY magazine: For years, Wackenhut has been involved with the CIA and other intelligence organizations, including the DEA. Wackenhut would allow the CIA to occupy positions within the company [in order to carry out] clandestine operations.²
* Wackenhut guards important governmental facilities in the US, including the Alaskan oil pipeline, the Hanford nuclear-waste facility, the Savannah River plutonium plant and Area 51 (the infamous place of the UFO sightings).
* According to Frank Donner, the Wackenhut Corporation maintained files on Americans suspected of being communists or who were left-leaning. Included in the list are antiwar protesters, civil-rights demonstrators and other ³dissidents². By 1965, the company bragged that it maintained files on 2.5 million suspected dissidents - one in 46 American adults then living. Sources reported that the firm supplies intelligence agencies with information and is compensated for this with government contracts.
* Investigators asked about the contents of an unusual truck shipped from Eagle Pass to Chicago by Wackenhut guards. Drivers and guards were firmly instructed not to open the trailer. Investigators were told by George Wackenhut that the trucks contained food stamps. According to the Department of Agriculture, food stamps were shipped from Chicago to outlying areas, are used once and then destroyed. Wackenhutıs response? ³We do not reveal the names of our clients,² they told reporters.
* In 1997, American Computer Company accused the firm of attacking their servers and computer data centers and suggested that they might be operating a cyber-terrorism team on the internet. A Wackenhut mail server accidentally left a digital thumbprint that was traced to the company.
A random roadblock around sensitive areas in the country may not seem like a radical step these days as worries about terrorism and war escalate. But when they are done by rent-a-cops from a non-governmental company that has such a troublesome history and connections with the CIA and FBI, one must wonder if it is not working for Big Brother.
Wackenhut Online warning: This text was taken directly from http://www.wackenhut-oakridge.com - a Wackenhut website:
³NOTICE TO USERS This is a Federal computer system and is the property of the United States Government. It is for authorized use only. Users (authorized or unauthorized) have no explicit or implicit expectation of privacy. Any or all uses of this system and all files on this system may be intercepted, monitored, recorded, copied, audited, inspected, and disclosed to authorized site, Department of Energy, and law enforcement personnel, as well as authorized officials of other agencies, both domestic and foreign, By using this system, the user consents to such interception, monitoring, recording, copying, auditing, inspection, and disclosure at the discretion of authorized site or Department of Energy Personnel. Unauthorized or improper use of this system may result in administrative disciplinary action and civil and criminal penalties. By continuing to use this system you indicate your awareness of and consent to these terms and conditions of use. LOG OFF IMMEDIATELY if you do not agree to the conditions stated in this warning.²
Interesting. But isnıt Wackenhut a private company? When we called the Oakridge office, I was told that that information was not allowed to be revealed over the phone. ³Whether Wackenhut is a government agency or a private corporation is not something that can be revealed?² we asked, amazed. Their response: a firm ³No.²
Yet when one goes to the companyıs main website (www.wackenhut.com), it states: ³The Wackenhut Corporation is a U.S.-based division of Group 4 Falck A/S, the world's second largest provider of Security Services. Group 4 Falck (www.group4falck.com) is based in Copenhagen and has activities in more than 80 countries and is the market leader in over half the countries in which it operates.². More research reveals that Group 4 Falck sells shares in its company - a private corporation!
We proceeded to call the Wackenhut main office to find out whether the company was indeed a corporation or a governmental entity. The receptionist informed us that she was new and would have to verify that information. She then informed us that Wackenhut was a government entity.
Which is it? Is Wackenhut a private corporation
or a governmental agency such as the CIA and FBI? We cannot seem to get
a clear answer.
