this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2026
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TIL ICE contractor GEO Group, was originally Wackenhut Corrections, owned by hard right warlord, George Wackenhut, who claimed to hold largest collection of files on suspected American dissidents (www.muckrock.com)
submitted 15 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) by AcidiclyBasicGlitch@sh.itjust.works to c/til@lemmy.world
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•A Brief History of America’s Private Prison Industry

•From FBI reject to private warlord: the rise of George Wackenhut

•By 1966, Wackenhut could confidently state that it had secret files on 4 million Americans

•Many of the Wackenhut documents and a series on student movements in California highlight the suspected connections between Communism, opposition to the Vietnam War, and the broader left counterculture of the 1960s, and document the right's evolving definition of "subversion."

•An ICE Contractor Is Worth Billions. It’s Still Fighting to Pay Detainees as Little as $1 a Day to Work. GEO Group, whose stock is valued at $4 billion, says that state minimum wage laws don’t apply to the cleaning services that it’s asked detained migrants to perform at facilities where they’re kept.

•Ice contractor plans for surveillance boom under Trump migrant crackdown: Geo Group, an Ice partner, is moving at ‘unprecedented speed’ to build out its monitoring, executive chair says

•Better know a private prison giant: GEO Group’s Board of Directors

•Feb 2025: Private Prison Exec Calls Mass Deportation Plans ‘Unprecedented Opportunity’ GEO Group Chairman George Zoley said the company stands to gain up to $1 billion in additional revenue from detaining and surveilling undocumented immigrants.

•The man who is making a killing from Trump’s current onslaught of immigrant persecution is himself an immigrant. In fact, if George Zoley had been born just 20 years later, he’d more likely be cowering inside the Aurora Detention Center instead of raking in the profits from it.

•George C. Zoley, chairman of the board and founder of GEO Group, the second largest private prison company is the United States, has been with GEO or its former parent company, the Wackenhut Corporation, since 1981. Zoley has called late George Wackenhut, the controversial right-wing founder of Wackenhut Corporation, the person he most admired.

Among the many concerning controversies involving Wackenhut corporations, one that might seem especially relevant in 2026, was their suspected involvement in several murders relating to the very convoluted Inslaw and PROMIS (Prosecutors Management Information System) software scandal of the 1980s. The software was sold as an automation system for police and court data, and advertised as one day having the potential to predict crime before it even happened. It was allegedly stolen and modified before being distributed by the U.S. government and used to spy on other countries.

•We know from witness statements that the murders appear to be connected to the corruption surrounding Wackenhut and the PROMIS affair. We know from FBI’s own records that the Bureau looked into the matter. And most recently, we know that the FBI has not only repeatedly refused to release those files, but apparently removed the request from their FOIA tracking system.

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[–] betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world 6 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

New rule: If you have a silly-sounding name (e.g. Wackenhut), you are not allowed to occupy a serious position in public or private employment, hobby organizations, community groups, etc. where said silly name would have to be included in official documents.

[–] JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 6 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

Tell that to Jeff Jorgensen. I swear the only reason he goes by Bezos is because otherwise the Lex Luther parallels are too on the nose.

Can't have a bald, ultra-wealthy villain that also has an alliterative name.

Whose gonna save us? Barry Bonds? Willy Wonka? Hugh Heffner?