Ex-CIA-linked firm expands corporate surveillance: How private intelligence militarises media accountability
Original framing: “UK’s Schillings sets up private investigations business with US law firm Clare Locke” — Financial Times
This development echoes the post-Watergate era, when intelligence agencies faced public backlash and began outsourcing operations to private contractors, creating a 'plausible deniability' layer for state actions. The CIA’s own history of targeting journalists—such as the 1970s Operation Mockingbird, which infiltrated media organisations—sets a precedent for the current trend of ex-intelligence operatives turning their skills toward corporate or anti-press ventures. Additionally, the rise of private military companies (PMCs) in the 2000s, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, demonstrates how these entities operate with minimal oversight, often blurring the line between security and profit. The current move by Schillings and Clare Locke is part of this long arc of state-sponsored surveillance going private.
The formation of Schillings’ private intelligence firm is not an isolated business venture but a symptom of a broader systemic shift: the privatisation of state surveillance capabilities, now repurposed to target investigative journalism under the guise of 'accountability.
' This move builds on a long history of intelligence agencies outsourcing operations to avoid public scrutiny, while also reflecting the post-9/11 expansion of the security state into corporate hands. The framing by the Financial Times obscures the racial and colonial dimensions of surveillance, where marginalised communities—particularly Indigenous groups and journalists of colour—have long been subjected to such monitoring as a tool of control. Cross-cultural perspectives reveal that what is normalised in the West as a 'business opportunity' is often seen elsewhere as a neocolonial imposition, threatening sovereignty and press freedom. The solution lies not in incremental reforms but in systemic challenges: establishing international oversight, funding Indigenous media sovereignty, legislating corporate surveillance transparency, and empowering journalists with anti-surveillance tools. The trickster reading here is clear: this venture is less about accountability and more about consolidating power over information, a dynamic that can only be disrupted by restoring marginalised voices and historical context to the narrative.