Yahoo Finance Why Jeff Bezos is hiring ex-spooks to keep tabs on his employees
Much ink has been spilled over how trillion dollar technology companies have become more powerful than nation states.
The world was given a glimpse of one of the less obvious methods on Tuesday when Amazon appeared to inadvertently broadcast the details of an intelligence unit it is apparently packing full of ex-military and secret service agents.
The retail giant posted, and then abruptly took down, two job adverts seeking analysts to monitor the "threat" of labour organising at the company, which has resisted unionisation since its founding.
The adverts required an ex military or ex police expert to research and gather intelligence on "sensitive topics that are highly confidential including labor organising threats against the company" under its already established "Global Intelligence Program".
It said that recruits would be required to help build a proprietary intelligence gathering system and be plugged into experts on hate groups, law changes, geopolitical issues, terrorism, policing and unionisation, “topics of importance to Amazon”, from its intelligence headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona.
A second language is a must and Hindi, Tagalog, Spanish, Arabic, French, Mandarin, Korean, Japanese or Brazilian Portuguese are ideal. Analysts will also be required to gather information internally to spot any risks to the business, be it theft in its 175 warehouses or employees leaking information to the press.
Amazon later claimed the job postings were “made in error” and “has since been corrected". However it has declined to say which aspects of the adverts were incorrect or to answer questions about whether it monitors employees.
Athena, a coalition which is focused specifically on Amazon's corporate activity and treatment of workers, said workers, have in the past complained of being targeted by the company for speaking out on labour issues.
"This job description is proof that Amazon intends to continue on this course," claimed Athena director Dania Rajendra.
The tactics described in the posting are common, but are rarely set forth so explicitly in public help-wanted ads, according to legal scholars.
“I was struck by how brazen it was,” said Veena Dubal, a law professor at UC Hastings. “It just must be within this particular corporate environment that there is a different sense of what is OK.”
It should come as little surprise that Amazon, a company worth $1.75tn ($1.31tn), appears to be considering investing heavily in keeping its operations secure.
Amazon admitted to monitoring the conversations of Amazon Flex drivers in dozens of private Facebook groups in the United States, the UK and Spain this week after a report in Vice. “Upon being notified, we discovered one group within our delivery team that was aggregating information from closed groups,” a spokesman said. “While they were trying to support drivers, that approach doesn’t meet our standards, and they are no longer doing this as we have other ways for drivers to give us their feedback”.
Founder Jeff Bezos himself has a chequered history with intelligence analysts. The 56-year-old has been assisting the FBI with an investigation into the alleged hacking of his phone in 2019, which may have resulted in the publishing of several embarrassing pictures and the disclosure of his affair with former Fox news reader Lauren Sanchez.
Consulting firm FTI , which Bezos hired after details surrounding the relationship was splashed across American tabloid the National Enquirer, concluded that his iPhone had been hacked after receiving a file sent from the WhatsApp account of the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman.
If true, the alleged hack highlighted chinks in the armour of one of the richest men in the world, who by virtue of his wealth is particularly vulnerable to extortion.
But of greater concern to Amazon, and its rivals, is the internal threat. The fear of employee leaks has long gripped Silicon Valley, with precious iPhone designs or proprietary algorithmic formulas of huge value to entire organisations’ existences.
Almost every year the design for the latest iteration of the new Samsung phone made its way to the public ahead of its launch, yet Apple has largely kept its secrets under wraps. This is thanks to a crack team of investigators who dabble in both the human resources and legal departments and are tasked with looking into who employees have been emailing, what security clearance their badge offers and any indication they might be sharing proprietary information externally.
Apple was, however, left with egg on its face in 2017 when a worker leaked a presentation about leaking information. The presentation revealed Apple’s Global Security team, which employed numerous investigators around the world to block information from reaching competitors, counterfeit manufacturers and the press.
Most importantly, Apple had warned its workers, it would be hunting down the source of any leak that did make it through. The investigators included a collection of former US intelligence experts ranging from the National Security Agency, the FBI and the US military.
What sets this apart from the approach suggested by Amazon’s withdrawn job listing, is that it looks set to apply military-style espionage tactics on employees who are vocal about labour rights and potential unionisation, rather than intellectual property. When asked, Amazon did not comment.
Amazon has weathered numerous reports of poor treatment of workers in its warehouses over the years, from claims employees were not allowed breaks to go to the bathroom to unfair hours.
James Bloodworth, an undercover journalist and author, told the Sun in 2018 that employees regularly urinated in bottles to avoid long walks to the bathroom over fears they might miss their targets.
A separate survey of anonymous British Amazon workers by employee rights group Organise included a response from a worker who claimed they did not drink water to avoid needing the bathroom.
Amazon says it “ensures all of its associates have easy access to toilet facilities which are just a short walk from where they are working. Associates are allowed to use the toilet whenever needed. We do not monitor toilet breaks”.
At least seven employees have died after contracting Covid-19 this year as warehouses remained open to fulfill orders despite most inessential services shutting down in March.
Enesha Yurchak, a former employee, is suing the company, claiming that she was unfairly fired after taking time off to recover from Covid-19 and raising the alarm about safety concerns inside a warehouse in Salem, Oregon, where she worked as a medical technician. Amazon did not comment.
Amazon’s apparent approach to building up its own spy department in-house is idiosyncratic of its entire approach to business - it created Amazon Web Services, its cloud computing arm, to help keep its marketplace online before offering it as a service to customers. It has its own video conferencing service, Chime and it has teamed up with Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase to create a healthcare company for its sprawling workforce.
Typically, companies hire external consultants to deal with employee activism and organising. Google placed Brian Katz, a former special agent, as head of the company's investigations team, dubbed “Stopleaks", but is also reported to have hired IRI consultants to bust unions.
Facebook, which tells workers they will be fired if they leak information in their training workshops, was understood to have been mulling its own response to a possible union before the pandemic struck.
It was one of the latest to suffer from a leak after a disgruntled employee shared a taped recording of his regular town hall with journalists in 2019. Zuckerberg responded by streaming the following Q&A on Facebook, live.
As internal snooping becomes the norm, various activist organisations have made it their mission to ensure whistleblowers proceed carefully when discussing complaints and attending protests or events. The Tech Workers Coalition warns against using any devices issued by the company to discuss these topics and points members to a surveillance defence manual written by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
But if workers come up against the kind of intelligence experts Amazon is looking for, there doesn't look like there is much they will be able to hide.
