Corporate Espionage Detailed in Documents

According to BBI documents, investigative targets included the law firm that represented many of the workers; lawyer Tom Filo and his activist wife; Beth Zilbert, who led a Louisiana advocacy group called CLEAN; and Greenpeace's Washington offices. Mother Jones magazine has reported on aspects of BBI's work.

Ward, the former investigator, hired Jay A. Bly, a former Secret Service agent, to follow Zilbert and do weekly trash pickups. Bly wrote that he found little of value in the activist's trash: "no newspapers, magazines, flyers, envelopes. . . . It appears that they may be recycling all their trash."

Reached by phone, Bly referred questions to Ward. Zilbert said: "See? Recycling pays."

BBI obtained law firm documents, including one lawyer's tax returns, medical assessments and financial information about the firm's clients. "This stuff is stuff we never, ever would have thrown away," Filo said.

An undercover operative not identified in the documents was named to the governing board of CLEAN. "I will be in the 'inner circle' and included in all the planning meetings," he wrote in an e-mail.

The operative reported on meetings held at the law office after business hours and on private conversations about lawsuits, one of which took place in a parking lot because of concern that meeting rooms were bugged.

In the years since, several class action lawsuits stemming from the spill have been settled. One remains, and lead lawyer Perry R. Sanders Jr. said he intends to use the information about BBI's intelligence gathering to press his claim.

"It's just not okay this happened," Sanders said.

Staff researchers Madonna A. Lebling and Meg Smith contributed to this report.