• Listen to this segment

• Listen to the entire program

Despite its innocuous-sounding name the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has spent more money than any other entity in lobbying Congress. And now it seems the Chamber will go to any lengths to secure it’s pro-business agenda. Tens of thousands of leaked emails recently confirmed that a law firm called Hunton and Williams, working for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce had hired several private security companies to come up with a plan of action to deal with the Chamber’s critics and detractors. The security companies include HB Gary Federal, Palantir, and Berico Technologies, which together are called Team Themis. For millions of dollars, the companies proposed delivering to the Chamber of Commerce serious and sustained attacks using unethical methods like spying and planting false information on a number of progressive organizations and unions with a history of exposing the Chamber’s shenanigans. The emails were obtained by a computer hacking activist group called Anonymous, who garnered attention for shutting down websites of companies that helped censor and defund WikiLeaks, as well those of several oppressive regimes like Cairo and Tunisia. Anonymous hacked into the email account of Aaron Barr, an executive at HB Gary Federal, after Barr boasted he could take down the hacker organization. The groups that the security firms planned to discredit for the Chamber of Commerce included Change to Win, the SEIU, the website Stop the Chamber.com, and U.S. Chamber Watch. Today, Democratic members of Congress are formally calling for an investigation of Hunton and Williams, and the team of security firms whose proposal has been exposed. The lawmakers told the Washington Post that it was “deeply troubling” that “that tactics developed for use against terrorists may have been unleashed against American citizens.”

GUEST: Christy Setzer, Communications Director of U.S. Chamber Watch

Find out more at www.fixtheUSchamber.org.