A former worker at Wal-Mart is claiming the company is running a sophisticated surveillance operation that targets employees, journalists, stockholders and critics of the company. The claims were made by Bruce Gabbard, who was fired last month for intercepting and recording phone calls to and from a New York Times reporter. Gabbard told The Wall Street Journal he was part of a broader surveillance operation run out of Wal-Mart’s Arkansas headquarters. Gabbard also revealed that Wal-Mart infiltrated the group Up Against the Wal last year by sending a long-haired employee wearing a wireless microphone to one of the group’s meetings. A Wal-Mart surveillance van was stationed outside the meeting in order to listen in to what was happening. Wal-Mart also reportedly closely monitored the Internet and phone usage of employees at work. Managers received a list of email addresses and phone numbers with which their employees have communicated, and a list of websites visited. Wal-Mart also developed a system to read the personal emails of workers sent or received from private accounts such as Hotmail or Gmail.