Retired cops, activist pensioners, and the economic blowback over Snowden
http://pando.com/2013/12/23/retired-cops-activist-pensioners-and-the-economic-blowback-over-snowden/
Retired cops, activist pensioners, and the economic blowback over Snowden
BY DAVID SIROTA
ON DECEMBER 23, 2013
Certainly, an image of aging lawmen from the Dixie south probably isnt the first thing that pops into your mind. And yet, it was none other than the Louisiana Sheriffs Pension Fund aka retired Bayou State cops that last week jumped to the front of the throng thats been criticizing tech companies all-too-close relationship with the NSA. Of course, many of the headlines surrounding the sheriffs shareholder lawsuit against IBM overstated what the suit is really all about. Yes, their case is generally about the tech sectors work with the NSA, but no it is not necessarily criticizing that work unto itself.
Instead, the lawsuit more narrowly focuses on the companys longtime association with the NSA and its lead role publicly lobbying for a federal law that would likely expand data sharing between tech companies and the spy agency. Citing that as background, the suit claims that IBM management knew Edward Snowdens revelations about the NSAs international spying would almost certainly damage the companys technology business in China a country that is already paranoid about corporate-shrouded NSA infiltration. Yet, as the lawsuit alleges, IBM management nonetheless kept issuing positive pronouncements about its business prospects in China even as the Snowden revelations coincided with both a decline in its Chinese revenues and a Chinese government investigation into the company.
As summed up by the pension funds legal team in an interview with Pando, the Louisiana sheriffs argue that the companys positive pronouncements were deliberately misleading and that therefore the fund and other IBM shareholders were defrauded.
For its part, IBM management deemed the lawsuit a wild conspiracy theory. But no matter the resolution of this particular case, it spotlights how the NSA controversies are not just about civil liberties and privacy, nor do the controversies only create predictable political coalitions. Snowdens revelations are also about legal exposure, shareholder rights, and the esoteric politics of investor activism in the brave new world of economic blowback.
Gee, the NSA spying "blowback" causing the US tech sector to lose as much as $180 billion is ruffling feathers. No one could have predicted that.