Reply #20: Is it like Axciom, no fly list, and all that stuff? [View All]

[madfloridian]

Hyped a little for the campaign? Or true and dangerous.

http://www.counterpunch.org/donahue10012003.html

Axciom, the Constitution and the General
Wesley Clark and the "No Fly" List
But as a businessman, Clark has been involved in helping companies sell the Pentagon and the Transportation Security Administration technologies that may threaten the civil liberties and privacy rights of Americans. In a recent profile, the Wall Street Journal reported that "Since retiring from a 34-year Army career in 2000, Gen. Clark has become: chairman of a suburban Washington technology-corridor start-up, managing director at an investment firm, a director at four other firms around the country and an advisory-board member for two others. For most, he was hired to help boost the companies' military business. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Gen. Clark counseled clients on how to pitch commercial technologies to the government for homeland-security applications."

Clark's most controversial role has been as a member of the Board of Directors of Axciom, a Little Rock-based database company that owns some of the most extensive consumer databases in the world. According to the Wall Street Journal, Clark "joined the board of the Nasdaq-traded company in December 2001, as the company started to market its customer-database software to federal agencies eager to hunt for terrorists by scanning and coordinating the vast cyberspace trove of citizen information." Fortune magazine reported that Clark "is spearheading the company's pursuit of contracts with the federal government. For example, the company can retool software that detects insurance fraud and make it screen airline passengers instead. Acxiom is now in talks with several government agencies and has won at least one contract so far."