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The practice of governments and security firms conducting wide-scale exploitation of major disasters, natural and otherwise, is nothing new. Last week, the Intercept reported on TigerSwan, a mercenary security firm that follows a similar disaster-capitalist model and has attacked the No Dakota Access Pipeline (NoDAPL) movement since 2016, at least. But that’s not all: TigerSwan has also been preying on relief needs in hurricane-hit areas like Houston and Puerto Rico since 2017.

So far, the mercenary firm keeps its media presence at a minimum level, attracting little attention from the press. This makes sense considering the depth and scale of its massive military-style operations, including suppressing anti-pipeline activists by infiltrating activist groups with informants, surveilling the movement and calling on law enforcement agencies to suppress activist organizing.

In spite of how shadowy the firm may sound, TigerSwan has the approval of the United States government. TigerSwan contracts with the U.S. military and the state department to offer its services to Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind the Dakota Access pipeline. In May 2017, the Intercept […]

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