Amazon Received $600 Million CIA Computer Cloud Contract: Surveillance Shopping?

[Emit]

Wednesday, 21 August 2013 14:39

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Jeff BezosIt would make a good front page Washington Post story to learn a bit about the more than a half of a billion dollars that the CIA is going to pay Amazon to develop a spook computer cloud. (For those who don't follow computer technology, "clouds" are the next stage in digital data storage.)

According to the website "Quartz," "Amazon is staffing up for its $600 million cloud for spooks":

You can now add “spymaster” to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’s various titles. On Friday June 14, a US Government Accountability Office (GAO) report elaborated on previous reports that Amazon had won a $600 million contract to build a “private cloud” for the CIA. (The GAO report was generated when IBM, which had been competing for the contract, protested that it had lost unfairly.)

More than half a billion dollars will buy you a lot of cloud computing, and now, according to postings on Amazon’s own jobs site, the company is staffing up to meet the demand the new contract will require. Specifically, Amazon is looking for engineers who already have a “Top Secret / Sensitive Compartmented Information” clearance, or are willing to go through the elaborate screening process required to get it. TS/SCI is the highest security clearance offered by the US government, and getting it requires having your background thoroughly vetted.

BuzzFlash at Truthout found out about the contract through Heidi Boghosian, author of the just released "Spying on Democracy: Government Surveillance, Corporate Power, and Public Resistance. (...) Just look at the two key players in spying on democracy in Boghosian's book title: government surveillance and corporate power. In Bezos's purchase of the Washington Post, you have the critical mass combination. And that's not to mention the potential for combining intelligence surveillance, customer buying habits and marketing information, and news preferences.

It may also be mere coincidence that both the CIA and Amazon are both investing in a quantum computer company, D-Wave. But given the financial interlinking of media, corporations and government, one can argue that Amazon and the CIA have grown quite chummy when it comes to the bottom line.

~snip~

http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/18151-amazon-received-600-million-cia-computer-cloud-contract-surveillance-shopping

[Little Star]

1. k&r

[FarCenter]

2. It would be a nice sale, but it is small for Amazon

Revenue rose 22% to $15.7 billion on strength in North America, especially in shoes and apparel and health and beauty.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/zacks/2013/08/07/amazon-misses-earnings-estimates-despite-rise-in-revenues/

[hootinholler]

3. This is a really bad idea. n/t

[mick063]

4. People are not connecting the dots.

I am personally challenging folks here to think this through.

[RobertEarl]

5. Bought a newspaper the other day

The paper in the hometown of the CIA. Remarkable coinkydink?

Oh, noes, another CT on DU. Quick, call the usual state protectors, there is a CT on the loose! Alert! Alert! Code Orange!

[bemildred]

6. No surprise there. nt

[arcane1]

7. Heidi Boghosian's book sounds interesting.

Maybe I'll buy it on Amazon

[Aerows]

8. So the owner of the Washington Post

has a $600 million contract with the CIA. This will end well.

[JDPriestly]

9. Basically, viewed from the perspective that money is fungible,

that means that the CIA by paying for the contract for the cloud is fronting the money for Bezos to buy the Washington Post.

I realize that is an extreme oversimplification, but you have to admit that there is some truth to it.

Bezos is assured a not-too-small, steady stream of income so he can afford to risk the a bit of the fortune he already has amassed on the Washington Post venture.

And the CIA can be assured that Bezos will not be publishing anything that would embarrass it in the future.

Remember, the accounts of Bezos' different companies are separate. But he can put money in and take money out as long as he somehow accounts for the movements. Money is fungible. A dollar to Amazon taken out by Bezos under some other rubrik is a dollar that he can invest in what he wants -- like buying the Washington Post.

So it is just a tiny bit different from the CIA buying the Washington Post -- or maybe Bezos is buying both.

You can put this down to conspiracy theories, but, it definitely has a bit of truth in it. Money is fungible.

How much did Bezos pay for the Washington Post?

In Monday's deal, Bezos agreed to buy the Post and a handful of other newspaper assets from the Washington Post Co for $250 million. Going by the valuations of other newspaper deals and publicly traded media companies, though, the Washington Post would have been worth closer to $60 million.

The average sale of a metro U.S. newspaper has commanded a valuation of 3.5 to 4.5 times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), according to Reed Phillips, managing partner of the media investment bank DeSilva and Phillips.

Morningstar analyst Liang Feng estimated that the Washington Post's newspaper division posted EBITDA of $15 million last year, not including pension liabilities. Washington Post CEO Donald Graham said the newspaper division was profitable last year but declined to give a figure.

http://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-bought-the-washington-post-for-four-times-its-worth-2013-8

I wondered why anyone would want to by a newspaper in this day of digital news rooms.