Over the past several weeks, The Wall Street Journal has run several articles telling the story of a Wal-Mart employee who was fired last month as federal investigators began investigating claims that he intercepted phone calls and text messages of a number of employees and outsiders, including a New York Times reporter. Similar to the infamous HP spying case, Wal-Mart was trying to track down the source of some leaked company memos, and the fired employee says he was pursuing the leak on the instructions of a company senior VP, as part of his job within Wal-Mart's "Threat Research and Analysis Team" -- an internal security operation that put's HP's ragtag private investigators to shame. Another WSJ story last week gave some insight into the team and what it does, painting a pretty grim picture of the levels of surveillance the company uses on its own employees, and even external vendors. For instance, the company monitors the activity of vendors' computers connected to its network, for things even as minute as whether they're surfing porn, by using software that supposedly detects flesh tones when they're displayed on screen. The company apparently started monitoring calls after the 9/11 attacks "in response to government requests to employers in general to help find terrorist cells". Unsurprisingly, Wal-Mart didn't find any. The company has now sued the fired employee, alleging he's divulged trade secrets in all the WSJ articles, and it fears he's harboring information about "Project Red", a top-secret strategic plan for the company. Wal-Mart doesn't enjoy the best public image, and the stories of the Orwellian security tactics it uses are hardly likely to improve that standing, nor is it likely to placate the company's shareholders, who are growing increasingly unhappy with Wal-Mart's stagnant share price.