New Leak: Bank of America Spies on Political Opponents

In a report that surfaced today, members of the Anonymous collective report to have obtained information regarding surveillance efforts by Bank of America against activists. Sources report that activists of the Occupy Wall Street movement, the Anonymous collective, and other private citizens were targeted by efforts of Bank of America and at least one other IT contractor by the name of TEKSystems. One of the most interesting details of this story is that no servers were hacked to obtain this information. Indeed, the data was openly available on a Tel Aviv, Israel based server which may or may not have been affiliated with ClearForest, a Thomson Reuters company implicated in the report who happens to maintain a significant presence in Tel Aviv. Though the details are still being released, one point is consistent across all reports:

“Bank of America and others are contracting other companies to spy and collect information on private citizens.”

We have contacted representatives of Bank of America, Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters, TEKSystems, and ClearForest, seeking comment regarding this story, but have yet to receive any reply.