Vodafone

[2006] Security Experts' 'Suicides' Called Into Question -- European Media Probe Dangers of Secret Surveillance Systems in March of 2005, Costas Tsalikidis, a 38-year-old software engineer for Vodaphone in Greece had just discovered a highly sophisticated bug embedded in the company's mobile network. The spyware eavesdropped on the prime minister's and other top officials' cell phone calls; it even monitored the car phone of Greece's secret service chief. Others bugged included civil rights activists, the head of Greece's "Stop the War" coalition, journalists and Arab businessmen based in Athens. All the wiretapping began about two months before the Olympics were hosted by Greece in August 2004, according to a subsequent investigation by the Greek authorities.
Tsalikidis, according to friends and family, was excited about his work and was looking forward to marrying his longtime girlfriend. But on March 9, 2005, his elderly mother found him hanging from a white rope tied to pipes outside of his apartment bathroom. His limp feet dangled a mere three inches above the floor. His death was ruled a suicide. The next day, Vodaphone's top executive in Greece reported to the prime minister that unknown outsiders had illicitly eavesdropped on top government officials. Before making his report, however, the CEO had the spyware destroyed, even though this destroyed the evidence as well.
-- the Vodaphone eavesdropping was transmitted in real time via four antennae located near the U.S. embassy in Athens, according to an 11-month Greek government investigation. Some of these transmissions were sent to a phone in Laurel, Md., near America's National Security Agency.
-- according to Ta Nea, a Greek newspaper, Vodaphone's CEO privately told the Greek government that the bugging culprits were "U.S. agents." Because Greece's prime minister feared domestic protests and a diplomatic war with the United States, he ordered the Vodafone CEO to withhold this conclusion from his own authorities investigating the case

[2005] QUESTIONS ASKED OVER LABOUR'S `SECRET’ MEETINGS WITH BIG BUSINESS LEADERS Details of high-level meetings between the prime Minister and top executives of Britain's most powerful companies will remain secret, the government has ruled, despite widespread concern about big business' privileged access to senior politicians.....The documents released reveal that Blair has met with the MCG every year since he was elected in 1997. Participants at the last meeting, in October 2004, included top executives from HSBC, Vodafone, Unilever, BP, the drinks giant Diageo, cigarette manufacturer British American Tobacco, and mining company Rio Tinto.

Microwaving children
Orange are once again riding roughshod over the precautionary principle with regard to children with their plans to appeal a decision not to let them place a mast next to the playing fields of Oakview School in Loughton. After a long campaign 02 and Vodaphone were ordered to remove a overbearing mast in Gateshead last year, yet to the astonishment of residents have now made a planning application to restore it. MAST SANITY NEWSLETTER JUNE/JULY 2008