{"id":2270,"date":"2023-03-24T12:44:53","date_gmt":"2023-03-24T17:44:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/?p=2270"},"modified":"2023-03-24T12:44:53","modified_gmt":"2023-03-24T17:44:53","slug":"facebook-google-amazon-share-revolving-door-with-justice-department","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/?p=2270","title":{"rendered":"Facebook, Google, Amazon Share \u2018Revolving Door\u2019 With Justice Department"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Justice Department and Big Tech seem to have a revolving-door relationship, one watchdog group contends after doing an analysis<\/a> covering over 20 years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Corporate brands such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon have hired former Justice Department senior officials while also serving as a farm team for the government agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Big Tech<\/a> firms hired about 360 former Justice Department employees, while the Justice Department hired 41 former Big Tech employees, according to the American Accountability Foundation. Most of the jobs are since 2011, but the earliest<\/a> example goes back to 2000. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The organization\u2019s analysis comes after the Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit in January against Google amid pressure from both Democrats and Republicans to address concerns about Big Tech\u2019s censorship of free speech, clout in politics, and monopolistic power. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In December, Twitter fired its deputy general counsel, James Baker<\/a>, who is a former general counsel to the FBI.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After President Joe Biden<\/a> was elected in November 2020, Google\u2019s parent company, Alphabet, hired 40 employees who previously worked for the Justice Department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The analysis by the American Accountability Foundation shows that 61 of 103 Amazon<\/a> employees who previously worked for the Justice Department were hired after Biden\u2019s election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although it\u2019s not uncommon for government officials to rotate between jobs in private industry and federal agencies, the shared goals of the bureaucracy and Big Tech are more alarming, said Tom Jones, president of the American Accountability Foundation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe relationship between Big Tech and the government is a different relationship [than] between most agencies and industries,\u201d Jones told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. \u201cBig Tech has become an adjunct of the government. They are pursuing the same goals. People are moving back and forth because they are pushing the same agenda that is out of step with most Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jones said this \u201crevolving door\u201d calls into question whether the Biden administration would end some abuses that involve Big Tech\u2019s targeting of conservatives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The American Accountability Foundation\u2019s analysis also says that Microsoft hired 26 legal and technological employees who had Justice Department experience. Moreover, Meta, the corporate parent of Facebook<\/a>, hired 53 employees who had worked for the Justice Department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The watchdog group said it did the analysis based on public information, including from news reports and LinkedIn. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Out of hundreds of names listed, Jones\u2019 organization singles out<\/a> some high-ranking individuals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Glenn Leon is the chief of the Justice Department\u2019s criminal fraud section and has been back and forth between government and industry. Leon was deputy chief of the agency\u2019s criminal fraud section before Hewlett-Packard hired him as senior vice president and chief ethics and compliance officer. But Leon left HP to return to the Justice Department for the top job in the criminal fraud section. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keith Edelman started his Justice Department career as an assistant U.S. attorney<\/a> in the Eastern District of New York. From there, Edelman became the associated general counsel at Meta, Facebook\u2019s parent company. After that run, he returned to the Justice Department as special counsel for the assistant attorney general in the criminal division. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the Big Tech side, Lawrence Reicher is a former chief of the Justice Departmen\u2019s decree enforcement and compliance office in the antitrust division. Reicher is now Amazon\u2019s corporate counsel for litigation and regulatory affairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chris Sonderby initially served as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of California<\/a>, then as the Justice Department\u2019s senior representative in Asia for transnational criminal matters. Sonderby is now vice president and deputy general counsel at Meta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Original article: https:\/\/www.dailysignal.com\/2023\/03\/22\/facebook-google-amazon-share-revolving-door-with-justice-department\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Justice Department and Big Tech seem to have a revolving-door relationship, one watchdog group contends after doing an analysis covering over 20 years.  Corporate brands such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon have hired former Justice Department senior officials while also serving as a farm team for the government agency. Big Tech firms hired about 360 former Justice Department employees, while the Justice Department hired 41 former Big Tech employees, according to the American Accountability Foundation. Most of the jobs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2270"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2271,"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2270\/revisions\/2271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}