Bonum Certa Men Certa

The European Patent Office Has Become Militarised

What it means for EPO to have hired the British privatised military, Control Risks Group (CRG)

Victim in Iraq
One among many innocent victims in Iraq



Summary: A look at the company which the European Patent Office (EPO) has chosen to spy on sources and journalists who combat corruption

KNOWING for a fact that we are being spied on by the London-based Control Risks (evidence does exist), because a British manager at the EPO (John Martin) hired them, we wish to remind readers of what Control Risks is really doing in general and what it is doing for the EPO. According to Wikileaks, Control Risks works with Stratfor (also known as shadow CIA) [1, 2], providing assessments based on surveillance. It would not shock us if Control Risks got many contacts inside the GCHQ and NSA (e.g. former staff), i.e. access to illegally-intercepted communications. Here is Control Risks in Sony's leaked E-mails. They work with some rather powerful circles -- powerful as in working with impunity. But looking outside the corporate world, Control Risks is heavily involved in military. That's where the big money is and Control Risks, despite not being so well known (it wants to keep a low profile and it never reveals its clients), is a huge company that has amassed billions of dollars over the years. As one blogger put it, "Blackwater USA is the US Government’s mercenaries of choice and Control Risks Group (CRG) is the British government’s."

Control Risks is a basically British branch of privatised military, so the EPO's John Martin must have been nuts for choosing it. Does one need an army to protect EPO management from critics? It's like using a sledgehammer on a nail. This British manager from the EPO chose to hire Control Risks to spy and thus threaten myself and others (probably IP Kat too) and for that he deserves no sympathy. He clearly hates free press, free speech, the rule of law, and worker's rights.

"The EPO employs them now. Fallujah, British blogs... same thing."Control Risks likes to publicly state that it is "ethical", but every company says such stuff; it is promotional nonsense. Control Risks has a role in a deadly invasion that killed up to a million people (depending on whose estimates) and was based on a massive lie, perpetrated in part by the British government and British intelligence agencies. Control Risks had people on the ground in Iraq shortly after the invasion; some staff was killed while on duty. Quoting the book "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army", "Firms like Control Risk [...] began deploying thousands of mercenaries in Iraq and recruiting" (making money from occupation). "At the time of the Fallujah incident," says the book "Private Security Contractors and New Wars", "Blackwater was taking over operations from a British security company, Control Risks Group."

The EPO employs them now. Fallujah, British blogs... same thing.

According to Source Watch, Control Risks "provided services for the UK government, Bechtel and Halliburton in Iraq" (nice company right there).

It is important for us to show our readers, including EPO staff, just how low their management has stooped. For a British company that works with hired assassins to spy on me in the UK is rather chilling, to say the very least.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Writing and Coding Isn't Always Enough
Last year we had to assume a role we didn't have before: litigants
Autumn Has Come
Autumn should be exciting in all sorts of ways; it'll also mark our anniversary
 
Gemini Links 01/09/2025: News Corp. WSJ and A Month With NixOS
Links for the day
Slopfarms Already Peaked, They Will Die When Slop Companies Run Out of Money to Borrow
slopfarms will lack an actual "engine"
“Sideloading” Never Killed Anybody
There are many online discussions this week about the misnomer "sideloading"
Slopwatch: Google News as FUD Vector Against Linux and Plagiarism Enhancer, Serial Slopper (SS) Uses LLMs to Googlebomb "Linux"
Slop destroys the Web not just by screwing with search engines and helping plagiarists. It's also responsible for de facto DDoS attacks...
Links 01/09/2025: "Attacks on Science" and China's "Soft Power" Grows
Links for the day
Links 01/09/2025: Fresh Backlash Against Slop and "Norway’s Electricity Crisis is About to Hit Britain"
Links for the day
Links 01/09/2025: Catching Up (Mostly via Deutsche Welle), "Windows TCO" Effect in UK
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/09/2025: Linguistic Barriers and "Web 1.0 Hosting"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, August 31, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, August 31, 2025
The UEFI 9/11 - Part IV - External Interference
They all seem to be playing a role in crushing Software Freedom and self-determination for users
Links 31/08/2025: Baggage Claim Scams, an Insurrectionist’s War on Culture, and a Sudden Robotics Hype
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/08/2025: Reviewing Netsurf and Slightly Less Historic Ada Design
Links for the day
IBM Has Taken Control of GNOME
Don't expect a successor to be found any time soon
Links 31/08/2025: Google Gmail Data Breach and LF Puff Pieces for Pay
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, August 30, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, August 30, 2025
This is What Google News Has Become
Moments ago
The Slopfarm WebProNews Has Turned Google News Into a Laughing Stock Full of Plagiarism by Slop
If Google News dies of neglect, that's one thing. It's starting to seem like active neglect by Google is a form of participation.
Do What is Moral, as What's Legal Isn't Always Moral
Do what's objectively moral, no matter the costs and the risks
Slopwatch: Google News Assisting Plagiarism and Anti-Linux FUD, Serial Slopper Rips Off Linux-Centric Journalists
This makes the Web a much worse place and lessens the incentive to do journalism
Links 30/08/2025: NVIDIA Fakes Results to Hide a Bubble Already in Implosion Phase, Data Breaches Galore, Important Win for Workers' Union in Canada
Links for the day
Representing and Speaking for Animals
If I ever choose to take this matter to tribunal with animals-centric NGOs on my side, it'll get some press coverage for sure
The UEFI 9/11 - Part II - Campaign of Censorship and Defamation Against Critics
In dictatorships, humour serves an important role. It's tragic.
In Kazakhstan, Yandex Estimated to be 20 Times Bigger Than Microsoft
Bing is measured as down this month
Shutterstock Not Enough? The Register MS Uses Slop Images in Articles (Seemingly More and More Over Time)
Cost-saving trajectory amid office shutdown?
Gemini Links 30/08/2025: Games, PostmarketOS, and Slop
Links for the day
Links 30/08/2025: Imgur Uproar and Many Ukraine Updates (Mediazona Reports Over 200,000 Russians Died for Putin)
Links for the day
How Not to Build Software
code forges that need a Web browser perhaps fill some 'niche' demand
GAFAM and "MATA"
The use of dark humour there hopefully helps illuminate what a lot of "modern" technology became like and how it interacts with human civilisation (to what ends and whose gain)
Birds Are Not "Pests and Vermin", Privacy is Not a Crime, and GNU/Linux is Not 'Hacking Platform'
I could not help but think of Free software analogies
The Sites Should Be Very Fast Again
That issue is now resolved
Flying in 2025
worse than ever before
Activists, Including Technical Activists, Need Not Pursue Affirmation
Techrights doesn't play or participate in a "popularity contest"
The UEFI 9/11 - Part III - Chaos is Scheduled to Happen Second Thursday of September (No Matter What the Microsofters Tell You)
The clock is ticking
Downplaying the Impact of "UEFI 9/11" is a Losing Strategy
we won't publish much whilst on holiday
Government Sites Should Run Free Software
Not proprietary bloatware with buzzwords
LLM Slopfarms Take No Breaks
When people run sites by bots they don't need to worry about "breaks"
GNOME Having a Meltdown Again
Thanks and farewell to Steven Deobald
Gemini Links 30/08/2025: Low Tech and Hunchbin 1.0.6
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, August 29, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, August 29, 2025