‘Rent-A-Cops for CEOs’: New Report Reveals FBI Spying On Online Critics of Business Leaders
The FBI is treating sarcastic social media posts about high utility bills as potential threats to corporate executives in what critics call an alarming expansion of counterterrorism tactics, according to an FBI threat assessment document obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The document, titled “Heightened Threat to Chief Executive Officers Following the Shooting of a Healthcare Senior Executive,” dated February 19, reveals the agency’s increased scrutiny of online criticism directed at business leaders, journalist Ken Klippenstein reported on March 25.
In one case highlighted by Klippenstein, the FBI flagged a social media post stating “I’ll shoot the CEO of [U.S. company] before I pay that light bill.” Investigation revealed this was merely a joke responding to a video showing elaborate Christmas decorations on a Texas home, not an actual threat.
“This is not exactly the makings of an anti-CEO pogrom, but FBI intelligence, it would seem, is not big on humor,” Klippenstein wrote, noting that the company name was redacted, but he did find the original post.
FBI Director Kash Patel has characterized vandalism against Tesla facilities as “domestic terrorism,” despite the FBI’s own assessment acknowledging that “anti-corporate rhetoric rarely rises to the level of illegality.”
The document contains multiple examples where the FBI appears to have misinterpreted online criticism or humor as potential terrorism. In another instance, the agency identified posts from laid-off employees of a digital music distribution service that it later admitted “did not meet federal prosecution criteria,” yet still referred the matter to local law enforcement.
“What’s especially creepy about conflating anti-corporate sentiment with terrorism is that it opens the door to spying on the American people,” Klippenstein reported.
Property of the People, the transparency nonprofit that obtained the document, criticized the focus on protecting executives. “If the government truly cares about preventing death and suffering, perhaps tax dollars should be spent on healthcare for the people instead of mass surveillance and security for wealthy executives,” the group’s executive director Ryan Shapiro told Klippenstein.
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