NSA, etc= Cash Cow for Contractors...HUGE Cost To Taxpayers

[kpete]

NSA, etc= Cash Cow for Contractors...
doing whatever it is they do at a huge cost to taxpayers.
http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2012398987_topsecret20.html

That's not something they will willingly give up. Government officials, like Clapper--a past (and future?) employee of Contractor Booz Allen--are strong defenders of the Contractor Gravy Train. Follow the money.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/10/us/booz-allen-grew-rich-on-government-contracts.html

...As evidence of the company’s close relationship with government, the Obama administration’s chief intelligence official, James R. Clapper Jr., is a former Booz Allen executive. The official who held that post in the Bush administration, John M. McConnell, now works for Booz Allen (who gets 99% of their Revenue from the Federal Government"....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/10/booz-allen-hamilton-revenue_n_3415451.html

For Fiscal Year 2014, the Obama administration requested $48.2 billion for the National Intelligence Program...
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/06/10/2127511/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-intelligence-communitys-contractors/

...Of that amount, according to a 2007 article, an amazing 70 percent goes towards private contractors...


http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/06/10/2127511/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-intelligence-communitys-contractors/

[Katashi_itto]

1. They even pay better than Costco

Bigger selection of products too

[NightWatcher]

2. they dont care about spying on citizens, or the enemy, or really getting anything done

It's all about securing the contracts for the next term. I worked for a contractor and the only priority was staying within specs so that you can keep the contract for another year. It's a product for them, not a security measure, but a product to sell. They aren't judged by bad guys they ferret out, they are paid by the number they spit out.

[Scuba]

3. No one could have predicted that.

[AzDar]

4. Follow the $$$

Every. Fucking. Time.

[woo me with science]

5. I just saw an absurd attempt at a propaganda smear

trying to stoke outrage that "there is money to be made" by Snowden and/or Greenwald by exposing these crimes. I kid you not. Confronted with a nation-blanketing, multi-billion-dollar CORPORATE surveillance state (and this article talks only about the money going to contractors...We haven't even *touched* the potential financial uses for the *content* of the spying...),

...THAT is the "money to be made" that concerned this poster.

You can't make this shit up.

[nashville_brook]

8. they've been floating that talking point for a while.

must have tested well early on in the saga.

[Autumn]

6. #5 thanks for posting this.

Follow the money, always.

[Wilms]

7. ^