The corporate takeover of U.S. intelligence

[babylonsister]

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/23183

The corporate takeover of U.S. intelligence
Submitted by davidswanson on Fri, 2007-06-01 11:42. Media

The U.S. government now outsources a vast portion of its spying operations to private firms -- with zero public accountability.
By Tim Shorrock

More than five years into the global "war on terror," spying has become one of the fastest-growing private industries in the United States. The federal government relies more than ever on outsourcing for some of its most sensitive work, though it has kept details about its use of private contractors a closely guarded secret. Intelligence experts, and even the government itself, have warned of a critical lack of oversight for the booming intelligence business.

On May 14, at an industry conference in Colorado sponsored by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the U.S. government revealed for the first time how much of its classified intelligence budget is spent on private contracts: a whopping 70 percent, or roughly $42 billion. The figure was disclosed by Terri Everett, a senior procurement executive in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the agency established by Congress in 2004 to oversee the 16 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence infrastructure. A copy of Everett's unclassified PowerPoint slide presentation, titled "Procuring the Future" and dated May 25, was obtained by Salon. (It has since become available on the DIA's Web site.) "We can't spy ... If we can't buy!" one of the slides proclaims, underscoring the enormous dependence of U.S. intelligence agencies on private sector contracts.
The DNI figures show that the aggregate number of private contracts awarded by intelligence agencies rose by about 38 percent from the mid-1990s to 2005. But the surge in outsourcing has been far more dramatic measured in dollars: Over the same period of time, the total value of intelligence contracts more than doubled, from about $18 billion in 1995 to $42 billion in 2005.

"Those numbers are startling," said Steven Aftergood, the director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists and an expert on the U.S. intelligence budget. "They represent a transformation of the Cold War intelligence bureaucracy into something new and different that is literally dominated by contractor interests."

Because of the cloak of secrecy thrown over the intelligence budgets, there is no way for the American public, or even much of Congress, to know how those contractors are getting the money, what they are doing with it, or how effectively they are using it. The explosion in outsourcing has taken place against a backdrop of intelligence failures for which the Bush administration has been hammered by critics, from Saddam Hussein's fictional weapons of mass destruction to abusive interrogations that have involved employees of private contractors operating in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Aftergood and other experts also warn that the lack of transparency creates conditions ripe for corruption.

more...

[bemildred]

1. Giant slush funds are a good thing, eh?

And what do we get for the money besides mountains of bullshit?

[jojo54]

2. Here's the $10,000 toilets again.

"Because of the cloak of secrecy thrown over the intelligence budgets, there is no way for the American public, or even much of Congress, to know how those contractors are getting the money, what they are doing with it, or how effectively they are using it."

Do we EVER know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about OUR money?????

[alittlelark]

7. This is MUCH WORSE than $10,000 toilet seats....

This is a completely different game.

[Flatulo]

3. Super - nexxt they'll fire the American employees and outsource to China... n/t

[Paranoid Pessimist]

4. "Frontline" - Spying on the Homefront goes into this

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/homefront/

Well worth seeing if you like being paranoid.

[babylonsister]

5. Thanks for the link; I don't like being paranoid, but I do like being

informed.

[Parmenion]

6. Unaccountable Clandestine Activities

A huge percentage of this outsourcing is going to merely corrupt contracts to companies that do relatively insignificant intel support, like data-mining, or designing programs that can transliterate Arabic characters into Latin characters, or supplying certain brands of water to insurgent groups we support. These contracts are benign in that the activities are relatively worthless and insignificant. The problem is that huge amounts of money is being forked over, most of it going to expense accounts of consultants in Dubai or Jedda.

The bigger problem is the smaller percentage of the outsourcing for clandestine and covert actions. U.S. intel agencies are crippled by hiring procedures that employ incompetent entry level personnel that lack language skills, cultural awareness, and foreign residency experience. These rube-like employees have trouble filling in for experienced officers, who themselves are flocking to contracting firms. The intel agencies thus have to rely on contractors with qualified employees to fulfill human intelligence requirements. These contractors are unaccountable to Congress and can commit all sorts of mayhem and illegal activities that can rebound negatively back onto the U.S.

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. scary shit.

[Faux pas]

9. The crap just never ends. I'm too old to pack up and become an

expat and too young to die.