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How Private Contractors Have Created a Shadow NSA
"the cyberintelligence- industrial complex is qualitatively different fromand more dangerous thanthe military-industrial complex"
http://www.thenation.com/article/208481/how-private-contractors-have-created-shadow-nsa
How Private Contractors Have Created a Shadow NSA
A new cybersecurity elite moves between government and private practice, taking state secrets with them.
Tim Shorrock May 27, 2015 | This article appeared in the June 15, 2015 edition of The Nation.
<snip>
This small company, and INSA itself, are vivid examples of the rise of a new class in America: the cyberintelligence ruling class.
These are the peopleoften referred to as intelligence professionalswho do the actual analytical and targeting work of the NSA and other agencies in Americas secret government. Over the last 15 years, thousands of former high-ranking intelligence officials and operatives have left their government posts and taken up senior positions at military contractors, consultancies, law firms, and private-equity firms. In their new jobs, they replicate what they did in governmentoften for the same agencies they left. But this time, their mission is strictly for-profit.
<snip>
Well, enough, you might say: Isnt this simply a continuation of Washingtons historic revolving door?
The answer is no. As I see it, the cyberintelligence- industrial complex is qualitatively different fromand more dangerous thanthe military-industrial complex identified by President Eisenhower in his famous farewell address. This is because its implications for democracy, inequality, and secrecy are far more insidious.
<snip>
How Private Contractors Have Created a Shadow NSA
A new cybersecurity elite moves between government and private practice, taking state secrets with them.
Tim Shorrock May 27, 2015 | This article appeared in the June 15, 2015 edition of The Nation.
<snip>
This small company, and INSA itself, are vivid examples of the rise of a new class in America: the cyberintelligence ruling class.
These are the peopleoften referred to as intelligence professionalswho do the actual analytical and targeting work of the NSA and other agencies in Americas secret government. Over the last 15 years, thousands of former high-ranking intelligence officials and operatives have left their government posts and taken up senior positions at military contractors, consultancies, law firms, and private-equity firms. In their new jobs, they replicate what they did in governmentoften for the same agencies they left. But this time, their mission is strictly for-profit.
<snip>
Well, enough, you might say: Isnt this simply a continuation of Washingtons historic revolving door?
The answer is no. As I see it, the cyberintelligence- industrial complex is qualitatively different fromand more dangerous thanthe military-industrial complex identified by President Eisenhower in his famous farewell address. This is because its implications for democracy, inequality, and secrecy are far more insidious.
<snip>
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How Private Contractors Have Created a Shadow NSA (Original Post)
bananas
May 2015
OP
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)1. Remember the CEO of ENRON
claiming they knew more than the NSA and CIA combined.
F4lconF16
(3,747 posts)2. It's the secrecy that's dangerous.
What people (and I mostly mean establishment Democrats) don't seem to understand is that any level of secrecy in our state organizations cannot be permitted beyond what is necessary to protect privacy and to prevent immediate and demonstratable danger to people.
Yet another reason for socialism. This type of thing cannot happen in a worker's democracy, whereas the power structures of capitalism mandate it. Secrecy is of the utmost importance when you're fucking over the proletariat.