BBV: SAIC and BECHTEL

[LunaC]

My local paper has an article on the BBV Diebold issue referring to the State of Maryland report (which we at DU know was based on the SAIC report.) The SAIC recommended certain improvements and Diebold said "No problem." Case closed. Everybody's happy.

I wanted to write a Letter to the Editor about SAIC but first I wanted to know "who in the hell is SAIC, anyway, that everybody is so willing to go along with whatever they say?"

Well, http://www.saic.com/about/profile.html">SAIC was founded as a scientific consulting firm with a handful of government contracts for nuclear power and nuclear weapons effects study programs. Over time they expanded into "national and homeland security programs, non-nuclear energy studies, health care systems, environment-related businesses, information technologies, high-technology products, telecommunications, transportation and eSolutions services and products for commercial and government customers." In other words, they've got fingers in lots of money-making pies.

Among their subsidiaries is http://www.bscupdate.com/">Bechtel SAIC Company, LLC - "Our goal is to address the critical challenge of radioactive waste - specifically its safe and efficient disposal." Yeah, I bet that'll come in handy in Iraq, cleaning up all that leftover depleted uranium.

It should also be noted that one of Bechtel's major suppliers is Onset Technologies which, coincidentally, has Richard Perle on its Board. (Sorry, lost the link in the shuffle.)

In viewing the various SAIC http://www.saic.com/contractcenter/viewcon.html">contracts it's clear that they have a vested interest in keeping the Bush Admin in power to keep the government contracts and the money pipeline flowing. The SAIC reports should be viewed with a very skeptical eye!

Let's face it, they're ALL in it together!


Other corporate cozying:

AMSEC LLC - formed in June 1999 as a business partnership between SAIC and Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS). AMSEC LLC is a full service supplier to the commercial and Navy maritime industry, providing naval architecture and marine engineering, combat and electronic systems engineering, naval ship systems assessments, maintenance engineering and program development, shipyard industrial engineering, and complete logistics services, from technical manual development to provisioning documents, spare parts management and training.

http://www.amsec.com/about.asp

ANXeBusiness Corp - The company provides network management, 24/7 customer support, and remote access services.

http://www.saic.com/about/companies/anxebusiness.html

For a full list see: http://www.saic.com/about/companies/

[haele]

1. Here's a bit of information you might want to think about...

Y'know, this is getting to be too much; I work in government contracts and understand the process - it's obvious that there's a lot of people out here who are used to civilian-based work who are trying to spin a typical contracts driven company that began as an employee owned research and development service provider to universities and various government organizations into this big, bad organization that was formed specifically by the BFEE.

Yes, there are lazy, greedy, beltway bandit types in SAIC - that's a given, considering the nature of a company that has employed over a million people over the past thirty years in the field of government-funded research. From NASA to CDC, from NOAA to DOD and the State Department, from the EPA to OSHA or the CIA, SAIC goes where the contracts are.

From my understanding of the history of this company they no more support the Bush administration than they did the Clinton adminstration, or any other adminstration.
The critical thing to understand about SAIC and all of its subsidaries is that, like any other business that wishes to survive, they go where the contract and money are.

Their "political support" shows it -

I checked at www.opensecrets.org -

SAIC - SCIENCE APPLICATIONS INTERN
WASHINGTON,DC 20024
4/24/2002
$25,000
NRCC/Non-Federal

SAIC - SCIENCE APPLICATIONS INTERN
WASHINGTON,DC 20024
INFO REQUESTED
10/31/2002
$10,000
NRCC/Non-Federal

SAIC SCIENCE APPLICATIONS INTERNAT
WASHINGTON,DC 20006
3/30/2001
$30,000
DSCC/Non-Federal Corporate

SAIC SCIENCE APPLICATIONS INTERNAT
WASHINGTON,DC 20006
3/28/2002
$25,000
DSCC/Non-Federal Corporate

SAIC-SCIENCE APPLICATIONS INTERNAT
WASHINGTON,DC 20024
3/30/2001
$10,000
NRCC/Non-Federal

SAIC
MCLEAN,VA 22102
6/10/1998
$20,000
1998 Republican Senate/House Dinner Cmte

SAIC
WASHINGTON,DC 20004
6/23/1997
$7,500
DNC/Non-Federal-Corporate

SAIC
WASHINGTON,DC 20004
10/10/1997
$2,500
DSCC/Non-Federal Corporate

SAIC
WASHINGTON,DC 20004
9/28/1998
$5,000
DSCC/Non-Federal Corporate

SAIC
MCLEAN,VA 22102
3/14/1995
$250
DNC/Non-Federal Corporate

SAIC
MCLEAN,VA 22102
6/15/1995
$15,000
DNC/Non-Federal Corporate

SAIC
MCLEAN,VA 22102
5/22/1996
$15,000
DNC/Non-Federal Corporate

SAIC
WASHINGTON,DC 20004
6/6/1996
$10,000
1996 Republican Senate/House Dinner

SAIC - SCIENCE APPLICATIONS INTERN
WASHINGTON,DC 20004
2/16/1995
$3,000
NRCC/Non-Federal Account

SAIC - SCIENCE APPLICATIONS INTERN
WASHINGTON,DC 20004
6/12/1995
$200
NRCC/Non-Federal Account

SAIC VOLUNTARY
SAN DIEGO,CA 92121
7/10/1996
$2,500
DNC/Non-Federal Corporate

SAIC-SCIENCE APP INTL CORP
WASHINGTON,DC 20004
7/8/1996
$10,000
NRCC/Non-Federal Account

SAIC-SCIENCE APPLICATIONS INTL COR
WASHINGTON,DC 20004
7/7/1995
$20,000
NRCC/Non-Federal Account


My understanding is that Beyster himself, the corporate structure, and most of the board on average are moderate type Republicans with a few moderate Democrats thrown in, but as for the company, it's pretty clear that considering those "dinner donations", there's only about 5K difference in donations over the years between parties - and when considering "the price" of government contracts, looks as if more money went to the Dems to pay the price of admittance.

Again, the issue to remember with SAIC is that they make their profits through the amount of work they can get and the amount of full time employees they can keep. It is imperative to them as a business to insure that they can do what they contract to do, and if they can't, provide a solution to the reasons that keep them from keeping their customer happy (for the most part). SAIC does not get money from outside shareholders and other investors who drive bottomline profits; their "stock" is all internally issued - when an SAIC employee quits or gets laid off, they have to sell back their stock.
Example, when Telcordia had to lay off 500 employees ago due to restructuring and SAIC was hit with the loss of several critical contracts to Carlysle companies two years ago, all SAIC employees and subsidieries suffered - and they still haven't really recovered. See, even though there's a lot of irons in the fire, as it were, SAIC has very few "sole source" contracts with stable funding - the majority of the work they have with the government is on bid work where they are regularly audited and unless there's a major award rate bid into the contract upon completion, they generally just break even.

More SAIC divisions are losing contracts in this Bush administration, contracts than they did during the Clinton administration. It's common knowledge that in this administration, a company has to pay to play - and the word I've heard is that they aren't at all happy dealing with the crooked budgeting and contracts that the federal side is coming up with. (Hey, a crook would rather deal with an honest man rather than another crook, right? - same issue in business in the federal governments contracts side...)

From what I understand, the inside word is that many of the higher-ups at SAIC would actually support a Clark or Dean administration, where they could highlight the ability SAIC specializes in - to provide "solutions" in terms of cleaning up the messes that this administration is creating.
Again - SAIC doesn't really "create" anything physical or does any tangeble, physical hands-on type government work that would be useful in, say, a war - they make money where the contracts are, and it doesn't matter who's in charge - for this company, there's actually more money to be made in evaluating, research, and support, with the rare installation and/or maintenance - work for a customer - than there is in actually producing the end product or being a customer.

Look at the type of work they do. For every contract like this -

http://www.saic.com/news/dec02/news12-02b-02.html
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 02, 2002
SAIC Port Security Simulation System Provides Versatile, Portable Tool for Homeland Security
(ORLANDO, FL) – SAIC today announced major enhancements to its port security training system, including the ability to train under changing weather conditions and respond to possible terrorist attacks involving chemical and biological weapons. The system is being demonstrated at the Interservice/Industry Training Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC) at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Fla., from December 2 to 5. SAIC is located in exhibit space 1242.

there's items like this:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 04, 2002
SAIC Teams with EPA at Research Triangle Park
SAIC Team of Scientists Help EPA Spur Demand for High Performance Computing and Scientific Visualization Support
(RALEIGH, NC) – Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) announced today that its newly-opened branch office in Cary, N.C, will support the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) high performance computing and scientific visualization efforts at Research Triangle Park. SAIC's Systems Development Center (SDC) scientists will provide systems engineering solutions to EPA's National Computer Center, the National Environmental Supercomputing Center, and the Scientific Visualization Center.
"EPA has made significant investments to perform these complex operations that will support the scientific community in assessing global climate change impact, toxic impacts on the human respiratory system, and other elusive, but potentially significant, cause-and-effect relationships," said Mark Day, director of EPA's Office of Technology Operations and Planning. "We are convinced that we have the computing power to meet the demands of the environmental community, and we look forward to SAIC's scientific and systems engineering support in helping design and implement the software applications sought by that community."
or -
http://www.saic.com/news/dec98/news12-16-98.html
SAIC and Business Leaders Present BusinessLINC Report to Vice President Al Gore
(WASHINGTON) – Today Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) and other participants of the Clinton Administration's BusinessLINC Initiative presented Vice President Al Gore with a report that profiles successful business-to-business programs fostering economic development in distressed communities. At a reception hosted by the Department of Treasury, company CEOs were recognized for their involvement in revitalizing these communities by providing support and commitment to small business development.

........

Here's another SAIC company - SAIC/Fredrick...

http://www.biospace.com/company_profile.cfm?companyID=87104

SAIC-Frederick, Inc., a subsidiary of SAIC, is the Operations and Technical Support (OTS) Contractor for the National Cancer Institute at Frederick (NCI-Frederick) a federally funded research and development center. The mission of SAIC-Frederick, Inc. is to provide scientific, technical, management, administrative, and logistical support to National Institutes of Health (NIH) intramural laboratory research and development related to the causes of and cures for cancer and AIDS. Intramural research is that conducted by Government scientists operating within various units of NIH, principally the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and the largest institute of NIH. We also conduct basic and applied research in cancer and AIDS; operate and manage the Advanced Biomedical Computing Center (ABCC), the world's only supercomputer devoted exclusively to biomedical research; and conduct large drug and natural product screening programs.

There's also wildlife ecologists, alternative energy consultants, and NOAA oceanographers tracking global warming and weather patterns employed by SAIC and their subsidiaries.

Yeah, SAIC is a big company. But again, it's employee owned, and ultimately, it's the ability to remain employed and keep getting contracts based on a halfway decent reputation that drives the company, not getting profits and cheating customers. There's a certain amount of long-term thinking that goes on. While many of their employees tend to follow contracts around, allowing the occasional Hatfill wandering in on the coattails of a contract SAIC qualified for to end up employed, usually those folks end up out on their can once it's seen that there's a problem with either their program, their work habits, or their ethics.

......

Also a little bit of correction here - you got the AMSEC "LLC" information off the SAIC website, correct? And from what I can see, you seem to imply that this was a construct developed strictly for that particluar partnership...
Unfortunatly, a lot was left out of that snippet - like most of the other subidaries of SAIC, AMSEC was a established company that specilized in hiring former Navy personnel as systems experts (rather than depending on engineers who had never been out on the water other than on the occasional fishing trip) before they were approached by SAIC to be a subidiary, and the Newport News "partnership" was due to the original AMSEC leadership developing working relationship with the shipyard to provide services. From the AMSEC website - "Prior to the creation of the LLC, AMSEC had been a wholly owned subsidiary of SAIC since 1987 and has been in existence since 1981."

AMSEC did not restructure, nor did they change any of their work procedures when they gained their "LLC" status.

As for the work they do, again - what do you expect? They started out as a military contractor - as many other small businesses started up by military veterans in San Diego, Long Beach, New Orleans, Jacksonville, Virginia Beach/Norfolk, et all - and that's their specialty, for good or for bad. Again, for these thousands of people, to stay in business and keep employed, they have to keep working on their contracts. For many of them, it's a choice between this type of employment, or hoping to make it up to manager at a local RadioShack while one is sending out resumes in fields over-run by graduates of National University and ITT tech.

.......

Yes, I work for an SAIC subsidiary, and I can tell you this from experience - my division has lost over $3 million in revenues the past two years because of "war", and SAIC has lost far more than that, even as they are bidding for "Homeland Security".
Unless there's a sole source contract that has mandated funding, most contracts money dries up and the company has to let people go when things happen such as the fleet deploys to go to war, federal departments consolidate, programs aren't funded, contracts put on hold, or bases close.

SAIC's bosses might suck up to whomever is in charge whether they approve of them or not, just as all CEO types do to get the money flowing. Currently, in the federal government contractor world, the word is out - unless you're on the bandwagon, you get whatever is left over. So unless one wants to lose more contracts, one bites the bullet and hopes that someone more sane will take over soon.

Haele

[Ivory_Tower]

3. Good info - thanks

I could have never explained the life of a contractor that well.

I was recently involved in a software evaluation task similar to what SAIC had to do for Maryland (my project was on a vastly smaller scale), so I was interested to read the SAIC report. I haven't finished it yet, but from what I can tell it's very professionally done and not a whitewash. Interestingly, they seem to have reached some of the same conclusions that we did on our project -- the software is flawed, and risks can be minimized by tightening up the operating procedures.

The concern I have about that approach is that with the project I reviewed there is only one point of entry, i.e., one operations center that we need to tighten procedurally. The voting machine issue requires defining tight procedures over hundreds (thousands?) of sites. While it might not be logistically impossible, it will be a headache.

The other issue I have is that I haven't seen anything about verifying that SAIC's recommendations have been (will be) implemented properly -- it won't do anyone any good if the recommendations aren't correctly followed. I would hope there will be a follow-up review after a certain period of time, but I haven't seen anything that states this.

And finally, out of curiosity, I'd like to know how large the SAIC review team was, and how much time they spent on the review.

But so far it doesn't look like some big conspiracy to me. Still some risk there, but nothing outright nefarious.

(btw, the reason my project did not recommend a re-write of the software was due to schedule constraints -- holding off the entire project to write the software again would have been prohibitively expensive. Sometimes those are the tradeoffs that have to be made.)

[Zhade]

4. Odd mention, Telcordia - Avi Rubin (Johns Hopkins report) worked for them.

He's the guy who revealed the conflict of interest after the report on the Diebold code, right? Or am I thinking of someone else?

EDIT: my mistake - Rubin worked for Bell Communications Research, which became Telcordia. Small world!

[LunaC]

5. What losses from "war"?

Perhaps your division has lost a paltry $3 million over the past two years but overall SAIC is profiting substantially because of it, including Homeland Security.

November 2001 - A task order from the U.S. Navy Space and Naval Warfare System Command (SPAWAR) to provide SPAWAR with systems engineering and integration technical support. The task order has a potential ceiling value of more than $596 million.

Dec 2001 - An award from the Defense Information Systems Agency to support the Defense Information System Network Global
Solution. The maximum cumulative value is approximately $3 billion.

http://www.saic.com/about/timeline/2002.html


Revenues for the Fiscal Year ended January 31, 2002 (Fiscal 2003) were $5.9 billion, reflecting growth over the prior year of 2 percent

February 2002 - A contract from the Department of Interior's GovWorks Federal Acquisition Center for the Gateway/Defense Message System, the secure messaging system that will replace the Department of Defense's (DoD) legacy Automatic Digital Network. The five-year contract has a potential ceiling value of $1 billion.

June 2002 - A contract award from the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) to perform next generation engineering services for federal and DoD agencies worldwide. This multiple award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract will have a seven-year lifecycle and a total, overall contract ceiling value of $1 billion.

An award from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) to support arms control, nonproliferation, and homeland security initiatives by supplying research and development services for DTRA programs to reduce the threats from weapons of mass destruction. This is a 10-year contract with a total ceiling value of $690 million.

October 2002 - An award from the National Guard Bureau to provide environmental engineering, scientific, and remediation support services for the Air National Guard and Army National Guard. This multiple, IDIQ contract has a ceiling value of $598 million with one base and nine option years.

October 2002 - A contract from the National Security Agency (NSA) to provide the technology demonstration platform phase of the TRAILBLAZER program. This phase of the program currently is estimated at $280 million and will be performed over a period of 26 months.

For the energy industry, new contracts included providing consolidated information technology (IT) infrastructure and managed services for BP (British Petroleum, a participant in Cheney's Energy Task Force and recent recipient of a lucrative Iraqi oil contract), IT services for Calpine Corporation, (electric infrastructure - develops, builds, and operates modern natural gas-fired energy centers) and IT integration and software management for Alyeska Pipeline Service Company (oil again.)

http://www.saic.com/about/timeline/2003.html

It was truly amazing for you to go to such extraordinarily lengths in defense of a company that provides substantial assistance in supporting the Bush Admin agenda of war and oil.

[kcr]

2. This is interesting

Thanks for the info. It's important to remember that givernment cntract does not = evil automatically.

On edit:
CRAP on a stick. This was supposed to be inresponse to Haele's reply, NOT the original post

[PATRICK]

6. great information

I thought the BBV info on SAIC was scanty. There is enough linkage in these industries to taint everyone if one person turns out dishonest- which it is too murky to assume in most cases.

Still,one question. Our typical news reports and posts don't always give important details. WHO was this particular SAIC team and who appointed it? If a fix was in it certainly was not a name out of a hat. Nor considering this onformation does the actual hands on team have to be corrupted. Just the parameters of their job being defined, tweaked or edited, would be more than enough. The job itself was limited at the start and the common prejudice that is effect just is too corporate friendly. No lemon law at this level, just good will.

Further it could not be a whitewash. Rubin knows the score and has the files. They had to be as moderately honest about flaws as possible, admit to way more than enough to look honest THEN make the well prepared conclusion that Diebold already had a hand in by showing how it was already speedily fixing the flaws. THEN they(SAIC or the SOS?) took special time to rebut Rubin's concerns on a limited level a la the infamous Diebold rebuttals.

None of this looks anything else than a well coordinated rehabilitation campaign, on alevel higher than they are used, but no one seems to be paying much attention. or else why on earth would people swallow that hundreds of errors, many fatal, already used in elections make this a trustworthy product or company! First the technotalk, the cooperative good will, then the BIG ONE. "Complete confidence" That finally surpasses Brit Williams saying the security was so good the odds of fraud a "billion to one". How did the master scientist calculate that figure?

Finally. Who knows, who suspects, who winks, who blindly does the odd work without a clue in the organized vote fraud aspect? The methodology and organization rots of CIA
black bag containing the black box's deliberate open window code. These have already been sold overseas and more on the way. Then in 2000 some of these countries baosted how far ahead of us they were. Having the last ironic laugh on themafter all is not so very funny.

Who knows? Certain state pols like Gingrich and Hagel. Corporate heads and selct chocen technicians(Consider all the care in having relatives and dual positions on interlocking companies. Bushco without a doubt. Harris. Their great comfort is how completely sold most of the planet
is on the machine and the beauty of no evidence whatsoever. That is why the paper trail scares them. These machines don't even work when they are not being tampered with creatively.

[Bushfire]

7. Questions to pose to media, and election officials

feel free to use these:

questions to ask of vendors:

http://avirubin.com/vote/questions.html

and questions I'd like to see posed to our election officials (credit to Bev for these):

- According to Mark Radtke of Diebold, even though the SAIC report identified over 300 flaws, 26 of them critical, THEY ARE NOT FIXING THE MACHINES IN CALIFORNIA (read: a recall election in how many days using these riggable machines in 14 counties!) or GEORGIA or anywhere else they are using them.

- The SAIC tested a system that has NEVER been used in ANY election and is not even certified yet. They wanted to keep this a secret so they redacted the version number out! I believe what they tested was the touch screen AccuTouch TSx system and the high speed central count program -- There is no other reason to have redacted the version numbers, WHICH ARE REQUIRED TO BE ON THE NASED LIST.

- If there were over 300 security flaws and 26 critical ones (and that doesn't even include ANY of the optical scan systems by Diebold, which the memos show are making all kinds of errors, and it doesn't include the ballot preparation stage or the interface with voter registration) -- anyway:

--- How did this system get certified by Shawn Southworth at Ciber?
--- How did this system get certified by Wyle also?
--- How did this system get passed by Dr. Brit Williams?
--- How did this system get certified by all the state examiners?
--- If Diebold had over 300 security flaws, WHAT ABOUT ES&S which was apparently so similar they had patent lawsuits flying? What about Sequoia? What about Hart Intercivic?

[TinfoilHatProgrammer]

8. a bit of clarification

Just a brief post to correct Bev's claim to which you refer.

"Over 300 security flaws and 26 critical ones" refers, if you read the report, mostly to matters of election procedure. Very few of the reported flaws refer to actual "software bugs". The BBV crew intentionally misreports it, implying that there's over 300 security flaws in the software itself.

JC

[ParanoidPat]

11. Please provide a link to the "intentional" part of that!

:evilgrin: Can you say SLANDER boys and girls? Good, I knew you could!

[LunaC]

9. Yes, SAIC *does* have conflicts of interest which was my whole point!

This is from another thread but bears repeating.....http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=437283

Ohio replaces voting machine reviewer

09/30/03

Julie Carr Smyth
Plain Dealer Bureau


Columbus - Secretary of State Ken Blackwell has replaced a firm slated to help conduct the security review of Ohio's newly certified voting machines - after his office discovered that the firm had a financial interest in one of the machine makers.

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1064914213164350.xml

[creativelcro]

10. MORE ON SAIC

http://www.ecotalk.org/VoteHereSAIC.htm
Check out the piece on SAIC. Have not checked all the info, but most of it is good.

>>>>
Meanwhile SAIC is a piece of work all by itself.

"The federal government, its main customer, often doesn't want the public to know what the company is doing and, as one of the nation's largest employee-owned corporations, it escapes investor scrutiny," writes AP correspondent Elliot Spagat, in a July 26, 2003 article.

J. Robert Beyster founded SAIC on February 3, 1969, "with a couple of consulting contracts, one from Los Alamos and one from Brookhaven National Labs," according to the SAIC website. Today, SAIC has racked up more than $5.9 billion in annual revenues.

In a 1995 article in the Web Review, editor Stephen Pizzo paints a disturbing picture of SAIC. "In 1990 SAIC was indicted by the Justice Department on 10 felony counts for fraud in its management of a Superfund toxic cleanup site. (SAIC pleaded guilty.)

In 1993 the Justice Department sued SAIC, accusing it of civil fraud on an F15 fighter contract.

In May 1995, the same month SAIC purchased NSI (Network Solutions Inc.), the company settled a suit that charged it had lied about security system tests it conducted for a Treasury Department currency plant in Fort Worth, TX."

According to a January 1994 article in the highly regarded Crypt Newsletter, edited by George Smith, "In 1992 one of Scientific Applications (SAIC) government projects blew up in the firm's face when it was charged with fabricating environmental testing from toxic waste dumps. SAIC eventually conceded to false claims and paid $1.3 million in penalties, a small sum compared to the estimated $1.5 billion the firm is expected to earn in 1994.

The Los Angeles Times cites government officials declaring Science Applications (SAIC) guilty of the "largest environmental fraud . . . we've had here" and an example of "corporate greed."

On November 15, 2000, a joint venture between SAIC and Bechtel (Bechtel SAIC Company, LLC) was awarded the contract from the Department of Energy (DOE) to manage and operate the Yucca Mountain program and support extensive DOE studies of Yucca Mountain's geology, hydrology, and climate.

In a Nov 24, 2002 Associated Press reported, "Some workers at the Yucca Mountain Project said there were flaws in the process scientists used to determine whether the site was suitable for disposing the nation's nuclear waste. At least two workers claim they were either fired or transferred after raising concerns about the project's safety, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported in its Sunday editions. Susana Navarro said an audit by a prominent law firm found "among other things, that Mr. Mattimoe's conduct as a program manager for SAIC was inconsistent with a safety conscious work environment."

SAIC is perhaps most notorious among Internet aficionados for buying the company, Network Solutions Inc (NSI), which received the no-bid no-compete monopoly contract to privatize the government agency which registered domain names.

John Dillon reports in MediaFilter.org, "Initially, the service was subsidized by the government. But, in May 1993, the National Science Foundation privatized the name registry (InterNIC - Internet Network Information Center) and paid NSI $5.9 million to administer it. In September 1995, NSI instituted the fee system. A few months earlier, it had been bought out by Science Applications International Corp (SAIC)."

SAIC's control over internet domain names set off alarm bells.

"The shadow ruling-class within the Pentagon," describes SAIC to a tee, according to the Crypt. SAIC has strong business ties to the military and intelligence communities.

Dillon quotes James Warren, an Internet civil liberties activist, "I don't want a spook corporation, particularly a private spook corporation, to be anywhere near a control point on the global cooperative Internet."

It should be remembered that the CIA has a decades-long track record of assisting in the brutal overthrow of democratically elected governments around the world.

Recently, SAIC got the contract to assist other corporations, including Northrop Grumman, in training of the Iraqi Army.

The specter of corporations, littered with ex-CIA types, that both control the voting systems and train the armies of countries around the world, is an emerging and frightening reality.

"Currently on SAIC's board is ex-CIA director Bobby Ray Inman, director of the National Security Agency, deputy director of the CIA, and vice director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. According to the OC (*Orange County) Weekly, "Inman worked at the highest levels of American intelligence during an era (President Ronald Reagan) when it displayed a stunning lack of it. Inman's achievements include: failing to predict the peaceful collapse of the Soviet Union; prolonging violent, useless civil wars in Central America; and giving arms to terrorists in exchange for hostages (Iran Contra)."

"During the Bush administration, Inman, Perry and Deutch - while directors of Science Applications (SAIC), were also members of the National Foreign Intelligence Board (NFIB), an advisory group reporting to the President and the director of Central Intelligence, which deals with production, review and coordination of foreign intelligence," reports the Crypt. Both Inman and Deutch were former Directors of the CIA. William J. Perry was also a former Secretary of Defense during the Clinton Administration.

SAIC proudly lists DARPA in its annual report as one of its prime clients. DARPA is the controversial Department of Defense (DOD) subsidiary, which until recently employed Admiral John Poindexter of Iran-Contra fame. Poindexter was forced to resign when it was revealed that DARPA was prepared to trade "futures" in terrorist attacks. DARPA has also developed a program to spy on American citizens, which has civil libertarians in an uproar.
>>>>