Is Ford Motor Co. capable of electronically bugging employees?
The answer is yes if you ask Jason Vines, past head of the auto giant's public affairs office.
David Shepardson of The Detroit News reports that Vines writes in a new book that Ford bugged his phone during the company's 2001 Firestone tire crisis in which tires were failing at an usually high rate on cars like Explorers. It was a public relations nightmare.
In a new book, Jason Vines — a longtime public affairs official at DaimlerChrysler, Chrysler LLC, Nissan Motor Co. and Ford — says after he was fired along with then-CEO Jacques Nasser in October 2001 that a Ford security official told him his car and phone had been bugged. Vines said the official told him his phone had been bugged for a "few months."
Under Michigan law, bugging a phone, even a company-owned phone, would be a felony. The book "What Did Jesus Drive? Crisis PR in Cars, Computers and Christianity" is being published Nov. 1 by Waldorf Publishing. The publisher made an advance copy available to The Detroit News.
Vines recounted a meeting in the office of the company's then-general counsel John Rintamaki [when] he complained about a boss. Rintamaki turned up the radio in his office and began playing some loud classical music, similar to a scene in the movie "All the President's Men" and whispered to Vines "they're listening."
Ford's carefully worded email response says: "We are not aware of anything of this nature happening."
