The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has accused the popular animal theme park SeaWorld of infiltrating its organization by sending an employee on an undercover mission posing as an animal rights activist. According to PETA, the SeaWorld employee took part in numerous PETA protests against SeaWorld, including one at the 2014 Rose Parade in Pasadena when he was arrested along with other activists. One photo posted on Twitter showed him inside a police van along with other arrested activists. PETA activists knew the man as Thomas Jones, but his real name was Paul McComb. Unlike the other activists arrested that day, he was released without charge. His name never appeared on an arrest sheet. According to PETA, McComb also repeatedly used social media in an effort to incite other activists, stating that it’s time to “grab pitchforks and torches” and time to “burn [SeaWorld] to the ground.”
Will Potter talking:
What we found out recently is that in their desperation as their profits continue to plummet and as SeaWorld has really been rocked by the Blackfish movie and the cultural change that that’s prompted, they’ve resorted to some dirty tricks, including using staff members to attempt to infiltrate protest groups and PETA volunteers, going so far as to actually provoke and instigate, or attempt to on social media, illegal activity. Unfortunately, though, this isn’t really a shock if you’ve been following these types of activities by corporations for quite some time.
Matthew Strugar talking:
this was a desperate attempt by a desperate company to save stock prices that are plummeting and attendance that is tanking. When this gentleman was arrested with 16 other activists at the 2014 Rose Parade, he was handcuffed, he was taken to the station with all the other activists, and after the other activists were booked and released, he never came out of the jail. And people were waiting, sitting around, still waiting for him to be released. And they called him, and he said, “Oh, I got out a long time ago.” We looked into it. He never showed up on any arrest sheets. He never received any charges.
And in connection with my representation of the other 16 activists, I called him, basically as—to interview him as a witness in connection with my clients’ arrests. He gave me just some really incredible stories, saying that he stayed at a local city nearby before the Rose Parade, but couldn’t name any city nearby, including the one that he stayed in; said that after he was arrested, he simply—he broke down crying in a holding cell, and the police had pity on him and released him, as if that’s something that ever happens. And then when I asked him, you know, where he worked and some basic pedigree information and told him I might have to call him as a witness in connection with the criminal trials, he got incredibly defensive, told me to lose his number, eventually hung up on me, said there was no way he was ever going to testify. So, that’s when we knew that something was up.
Hal Weiss talking:
My interactions with him were rather limited. If you look at the photographs, I think he was arrested right next to me. I shared a bench with him in the paddy wagon. Other than that, I remember him essentially keeping to himself. He didn’t say much to me. I had never seen him before that day, and I don’t recall ever seeing him again after.
we went out on that January 1st to protest SeaWorld’s participation in the Rose Parade. I recall Tom, Tom Jones—is this his name? Or Paul, Paul McComb? Whatever his actual name is—being there with us, kind of just popping up out of the blue. I was extremely focused on the day ahead of us. I wanted to show my concern about orcas in captivity at SeaWorld, so I didn’t pay much attention to him.
Matthew Strugar talking:
SeaWorld’s statement is a bizarre response that they say that they’re concerned about the safety of their employees and the rhetoric of animal rights activists, when it was their own employee who had the most inflammatory rhetoric of any anti-SeaWorld activist that I’ve seen, who had this guy posting on social media that you need to bring the pitchfork and torches to the demos, that we need to burn this place down, even encouraging activists to show up at SeaWorld vice presidents’ houses with bullhorns late at night and keep them awake. And that’s just not the kind of rhetoric we often hear within the anti-SeaWorld movement. This guy was going to demonstrations saying, you know, “We knew to take increasingly militant action,” increasingly encouraging people to ramp up their activity. So, the bizarre thing is that the most inflammatory rhetoric and the most—you know, who seemed like the biggest threat to SeaWorld’s safety, of its park employees, was their own employee in this situation.
Will Potter talking:
when people make a lot of money by abusing animals, they don’t like having that abuse exposed, because it means they lose profits, and consumers don’t like that very much. And that’s exactly what’s happened with SeaWorld, and especially with Blackfish. I mean, it’s really unprecedented how quickly the tides have turned against this company. In just a couple of years, there’s been a groundswell of public opposition and just a cultural change in how we regard these animals and using animals for entertainment at places like SeaWorld. And I think these types of tactics, that I’ve reported on extensively, from corporations are truly an act of desperation, when activists become incredibly effective at changing cultural values, cultural discussion, and also threatening corporate profits. I think, if anything, the example of this infiltration and attempts at provocation show the lengths to which these companies are willing to go, rather than change their business practices and respond to consumer pressure.
we’re just really seeing the tip of the iceberg with this, I think. I mean, for a long time, I’ve written about tactics like this—disruption, infiltration, provocation—by the FBI, which we’ve seen for decades. But we don’t know as much about what corporations are doing. Some of the other examples I have reported on, though, are: Coca-Cola was exposed, through WikiLeaks, of contracting with a private security firm called Stratfor to spy on PETA activists and gather information about their protest activity; Burger King also hired spies to gather information about the Student/Farmworker Alliance, who were protesting their labor practices; and similarly, Greenpeace found out that companies like Dow Chemical were going through their dumpsters and hiring private firms to gather information in illegal ways to do that. So this is really—fits into that pattern of behavior. But what’s truly disturbing is we don’t know the extent to which this is happening. At least with the FBI, there’s some ostensible oversight or accountability. With these corporations, there’s nothing like that.
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Will Potter, investigative journalist and TED Fellow who focuses on how the war on terrorism affects civil liberties. He runs the website GreenIsTheNewRed.com. His latest article is titled, “Sea World Employee Busted Infiltrating PETA “. Potter is also the author of “Green is the New Red: An Insider’s Account of a Social Movement Under Siege.”
Hal Weiss, volunteer with PETA who protested alongside an undercover SeaWorld infiltrator, Paul McComb, at the 2014 Rose Parade.
Matthew Strugar, director of litigation for the PETA Foundation.
— source democracynow.org