BIG BROTHER

FDA Spied on Its Own Scientists

As part of surveillance operation into leaks.

According to a cache of previously unreleased documents, the Food and Drug Administration spied on its own scientists’ emails to create an enemies list, The New York Times reports. The FDA secretly captured thousands of emails sent privately by disgruntled scientists to Congress, lawyers, labor officials, journalists, and even President Obama in what started as a narrow leak investigation but soon mushroomed into a campaign to find out who the agency’s critics were—even if they were inside the agency. Using spy software designed to help companies monitor their employees, the FDA captured screen shots from government-issued laptops of five scientists who worked at home—and monitored keystrokes and personal emails and then copied the documents onto a thumb drive.