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WAL-MART'S SECURITY OPERATION

As the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart does often find itself a target for a wide range of protests and potential security threats. Its stores have been targeted by groups who feel its low wages contribute to the working poor and it has been the subject of frequent union protests over its healthcare policies. In December alone, Wal-Mart stores were evacuated for periods of time after bomb threats were reported at stores in Somerworth, N.H., Noblesville, Ind., Viera, Fla., Fruitland, Md., Fayetteville, Ark., Garden City, Kan., and Halifax, Nova Scotia.

At a gathering of security specialists in New York City in January of 2006, David Harrison, the former Army military intelligence officer who was hired by Senser to head Wal-Mart's analytical security research center, provided a rare glimpse into the company's monitoring operations. Harrison told the gathering Wal-Mart faces a wide range of threats: "A bombing in China, an armed robbery in Brazil, an armed robbery in Las Vegas, another bomb threat, and that was just yesterday," Harrison said.

To safeguard its employees and operations Wal-Mart has tapped its massive data warehouse of information, now believed to be larger than 4 petabytes (4,000 terabytes), to look for potential threats. It tracks customers who buy propane tanks, for example, or anyone who has fraudulently cashed a check, or anyone making bulk purchases of pre-paid cell phones, which could be tied to criminal activities. "If you try to buy more than three cell phones at one time, it will be tracked," he reportedly told the audience.

When CIOZone contacted Wal-Mart for comment on this story, the company said it would not provide further information or make its security officials available for interviews. It did not dispute Harrison's reported statements.

But, according to one report, Kenneth Senser, the senior vice president of global security, aviation and travel, is in charge of an apparatus that spans the company's global operations. Senser oversees a department with about 400 employees, according to an interview he gave last March to The New York Times. Heads of the company's crisis management, investigative services, the analytical research center headed by Harrison, as well as individual departments assigned to address corporate fraud, security of the company's headquarters in Fayetteville, Ark., and protection of the company's top executives, all report directly or indirectly to Senser.

In its advertisements for "global threat analysts" last spring, the job description included collecting information from professional contacts and public data to assess threats coming from "world events, regional/national security climates, and suspect individuals and groups."

Gabbard, the Wal-Mart employee fired for recording reporters' phone calls, said in his interview with The Wall Street Journal that Wal-Mart uses software from Raytheon Oakley Networks to monitor activity on its network. The Oakley product was originally developed for the U.S. Department of Defense.

The Oakley software is so sophisticated it can allow administrators to visually see what types of information are moving across the network, from Excel spreadsheets to job searches on Monster.com, or photos with flesh tones that might indicate a user is viewing pornography.

Tom Bennett, senior vice president of Raytheon Oakley Networks, would not reveal the company's customers other than the U.S. Department of Defense. However, the company does note its customers include 10 of the Fortune 100, including top U.S. retailers and manufacturers.