Wal-Mart, the massive retail chain, has established its own “intelligence” unit to conduct threat assessments, and to perform intelligence collection and analysis.
And it has been recruiting senior personnel from U.S. intelligence agencies to staff its operation.
“I’ve had a number of people contact me who have purely law enforcement / security investigative backgrounds,” wrote one Wal-Mart recruiter in a January 2007 bulletin board posting. “That is not what the company is looking for.”
“The primary screening criteria for the positions is [sic] formal training and experience in intelligence analysis. If an individual does not possess that minimal criteria, then he will not be considered.”
See “Wal-Mart Recruits Intelligence Officers” by Marcus Kabel, Associated Press, April 24.
See also “Wal-Mart Defends Itself with New Intel Unit” by Jason Goodwin, Government Security News, February 2006.
Let’s see what rules we can rewrite and beliefs we can reset: a few digital service sacred cows are long overdue to be put out to pasture.
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