Workplace Torture Goes Corporate

Applications for Private Sector Offered

Dominic Debs & August Riis
International Press Investigative Reporters

(NYC 9/25) The business world is ready for a return to the days of harsh discipline and top-down authority. Corporate America is getting on the torture band wagon A new company, Corporate Applications for Torture, Inc. (“CAT”) is about to issue a prospectus for investors and also open it’s doors for new customers.

Torture is a hot news item lately. Last week President Bush stopped denying the existence of secret administration torture chambers around the world. He stole the news initiative from his critics in a major press conference. He not only announced the torture program, he offered a vigorous defense.

Congress embrased this new secret weapon in a bill to redefine “affront to human dignities,” a key concept in the Geneva Convention on the treatment of war prisoners. House Majority Leader John Boehner, R, OH, rose up and mounted a stiff attack on Democrats who oppose the bill. He said that their position is "just one more in a long line of troubling actions that weaken our ability to wage and win the Global War on Terror."

The bill appears headed for passage. Its rumored President Bush will have one of his famed signing statements attached that broadens his powers of prisoner abuse in ways no one has yet anticipated.

Time to go private.

Seizing the moment, a new privately held company will offer torture services to US and foreign corporations. The company, Corporate Applications for Torture, Inc. (CAT), says its motto is “Make them behave.” Founder and CEO Larry von Sacher is excited about the prospects and sees the market as virtually unlimited.

“There’s a real negative reaction to all this employee assistance nonsense that corporate America is forced to offer,” von Sacher said. Sacher is referring to employee assistance programs (EAPs). Most of corporate America offers some form of EAP program where employees can get free short term counseling on issues related to work problems, family issues, and concerns like depression. Von Sacher made it clear that:

“This Mr. Nice Guy crap is over. It’s time to tell employees either shape up or there will be consequences. Right now they just sit in some counselor’s office and whine for several hours. The CAT techniques are designed to get quick compliance and send a message – do the damn job and shut up.”

CAT Services Get Up Close & Personal

“We’re very discreet but we’re meticulous and quick,” said Von Sacher. “Occasionally we have to get up close and personal with recalcitrant employees, but we always get the information.” Von Sacher welcomed the government’s efforts to legalize torture. He sees the broad media attention as positive for his company.

We got really excited about Air Force Secretary Mike Wynne’s statement. He want’s to use microwave weapons on American citizens before overseas deployment. I sent Mike a short email with these words, “We’re ready. Bring it on.” We offer a test bed that can also deliver profits to defense contractors and other concerns. It’s Wynne – Win.

CAT plans to offer multi level torture applications. Level I called “Snap to” is for smaller companies or firms which plan to use corporate torture only for internal employee issues. A company will be able to buy “disciplinary solutions,” as they’re called in quantities of 1 to 10, 11 to 20 and so on. CAT director of marketing Linda Stern said, “We want people to have a method of learning about our services through a measured entry strategy.” She says “Once they see the results of “disciplinary solutions” they’ll be read for the next level.

Level II, known as “Corporate Beat Down” (CBD) is where the real marketing effort goes. Stern says, the subscription to CBD offers a wrap around torture application for company employees and difficult individuals outside the company. It’s rumored that disgraced Hewlett Packard CEO Patricia Dunn was just days away from being the first Level II customer. She hoped that CAT could persuade board members not to remove her after it became apparent that Dunn had ordered the wire tapping of board member phones and internet accounts.

Here’s how it works according to von Sacher:

You sign up for an annual subscription. That will run about $1.0 million a year. Your services up to the first million are charged against that base fee. They you get discounts off of additional services. For example, if you have difficult outside auditors or pesky reporters bothering you, we can take them on a little vacation to a summer resort and shape them up. It doesn’t take long and some of them even like it.

One senior industry watcher had high praise for the entire approach. “The idea of private enterprise driven truth extraction operations like CAT's represents the best kind of outside the box creativity in the war on corporate inefficiency” said Dr. Daniel D. Portado, President of the Hispanic interrogation firm, Border Grill.

Stern says that the company is looking for talented employees. She reports recruiting trips to countries that comprised the former Soviet Union and its client states, Paraguay, and Argentina.

CAT will announce a public offering with a year based on performance. One can only imagine what those share holder meetings will be like.

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