Does Blackwater have current FEMA or DHS contracts? If so, for what and for how much?

[OregonBlue]

Contact YOUR house member and ask them that question.

Member Name DC Phone DC FAX Email
Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS) 202-225-5876 202-225-5898 http://benniethompson.house.gov/HoR/MS02/
Contact+Bennie/Contact+Bennie.htm
Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) 202-225-2965 202-225-5859 http://www.lorettasanchez.house.gov/forms/contact.html
Edward J. Markey (D-MA) 202-225-2836 202-226-0092 http://markey.house.gov/index.php?option=com_email_form&Itemid=124
Norman D. Dicks (D-WA) 202-225-5916 202-226-1176 http://www.house.gov/dicks/contact.html
Jane Harman (D-CA) 202-225-8220 202-226-7290 http://www.house.gov/harman/contact/email.shtml
Peter A. DeFazio (D-OR) 202-225-6416 202-225-0032 http://www.house.gov/formdefazio/contact.html
Nita M. Lowey (D-NY) 202-225-6506 202-225-0546 http://www.house.gov/lowey/get_address.htm
Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) 202-225-8050 202-225-3002 http://www.norton.house.gov/forms/contact.html
Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) 202-225-3072 202-225-3336 http://lofgren.house.gov/emailform.shtml
Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX) 202-225-3816 202-225-3317 http://www.jacksonlee.house.gov/feedback.cfm?
campaign=jacksonlee&
type=Let%27s%20Talk
Donna M. Christensen (D-VI) 202-225-1790 202-225-5517 http://www.house.gov/writerep/
Bobby Etheridge (D-NC) 202-225-4531 202-225-5662 http://www.house.gov/etheridge/contactbob.htm
James R. Langevin (D-RI) 202-225-2735 202-225-5976 http://langevin.house.gov/comments.shtml
Henry Cuellar (D-TX) 202-225-1640 202-225-1641 http://www.house.gov/cuellar/zipauth.htm
Christopher Carney (D-PA) 202-225-3731 202-225-9594 http://carney.house.gov/contact.shtml
Yvette Clarke (D-NY) 202-225-6231 202-226-0112 http://www.house.gov/writerep/
Al Green (D-TX) 202-225-7508 202-225-2947 http://www.house.gov/writerep/
Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) 202-225-2645 202-225-5278 http://perlmutter.house.gov/IMA/issue_subscribe.htm

[babylonsister]

1. Yes, and this is from just a cursory google search (WARNING:

might make your blood boil):

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060605/scahill

snip//

Tens of thousands of Hurricane Katrina victims remain without homes. The environment is devastated. People are disenfranchised. Financial resources, desperate residents are told, are scarce. But at least New Orleans has a Wal-Mart parking lot serving as a FEMA Disaster Recovery Center with perhaps the tightest security of any parking lot in the world. That's thanks to the more than $30 million Washington has shelled out to the Blackwater USA security firm since its men deployed after Katrina hit. Under contract with the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Federal Protective Service, Blackwater's men are ostensibly protecting federal reconstruction projects for FEMA. Documents show that the government paid Blackwater $950 a day for each of its guards in the area. Interviewed by The Nation last September, several of the company's guards stationed in New Orleans said they were being paid $350 a day. That would have left Blackwater with $600 per man, per day to cover lodging, ammo, other overhead--and profits.

Shortly after the hurricane hit, Blackwater "launched a helicopter and crew with no contract, no one paying us, that went down to New Orleans," says company vice chairman Cofer Black. "We saved some 150 people that otherwise wouldn't have been saved. And, as a result of that, we've had a very positive experience." Indeed. It was only days after the company arrived that it started reeling in lucrative deals.

According to Blackwater's government contracts, obtained by The Nation, from September 8 to September 30, 2005, Blackwater was paid $409,000 for providing fourteen guards and four vehicles to "protect the temporary morgue in Baton Rouge, LA." That contract kicked off a hurricane boon for Blackwater. From September to the end of December 2005, the government paid Blackwater at least $33.3 million--well surpassing the amount of Blackwater's contract to guard Ambassador Paul Bremer when he was head of the US occupation of Iraq. And the company has likely raked in much more in the hurricane zone. Exactly how much is unclear, as attempts to get information on Blackwater's current contracts in New Orleans have been unsuccessful.

more...

[ananda]

2. Disgusting.

More than disgusting.

[OregonBlue]

3. We really need to know what government agencies they've contracted with, for what

and for how much!!!!!!!!!!! What does our government have planned for US?

[tetedur]

4. Jeremy Scahill seems to be the only one on this story.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051010/scahill


Officially, the company boasted of its forces "join the hurricane relief effort." But its men on the ground told a different story.

Some patrolled the streets in SUVs with tinted windows and the Blackwater logo splashed on the back; others sped around the French Quarter in an unmarked car with no license plates. ... several Blackwater guys cleared out what had apparently been someone's apartment. ... More than a dozen troops from the 82nd Airborne Division stood in formation on the street watching the action.

In an hourlong conversation I had with four Blackwater men, they characterized their work in New Orleans as "securing neighborhoods" and "confronting criminals." ...

When asked what authority they were operating under, one guy said, "We're on contract with the Department of Homeland Security." Then, pointing to one of his comrades, he said, "He was even deputized by the governor of the state of Louisiana. We can make arrests and use lethal force if we deem it necessary." The man then held up the gold Louisiana law enforcement badge he wore around his neck. Blackwater spokesperson Anne Duke also said the company has a letter from Louisiana officials authorizing its forces to carry loaded weapons.

...Blackwater is not alone.... ercenaries from companies like DynCorp, Intercon, American Security Group, Blackhawk, Wackenhut and an Israeli company called Instinctive Shooting International (ISI) are fanning out to guard private businesses and homes, as well as government projects and institutions. ...

A possibly deadly incident involving Quinn's hired guns underscores the dangers of private forces policing American streets. On his second night in New Orleans, Quinn's security chief, Michael Montgomery, who said he worked for an Alabama company called Bodyguard and Tactical Security (BATS), was with a heavily armed security detail en route to pick up one of Quinn's associates and escort him through the chaotic city. Montgomery told me they came under fire from "black gangbangers" on an overpass near the poor Ninth Ward neighborhood. "At the time, I was on the phone with my business partner," he recalls. "I dropped the phone and returned fire."

Montgomery says he and his men were armed with AR-15s and Glocks and that they unleashed a barrage of bullets in the general direction of the alleged shooters on the overpass. "After that, all I heard was moaning and screaming, and the shooting stopped. That was it. Enough said."

Then, Montgomery says, "the Army showed up, yelling at us and thinking we were the enemy. We explained to them that we were security. I told them what had happened and they didn't even care. They just left." Five minutes later, Montgomery says, Louisiana state troopers arrived on the scene, inquired about the incident and then asked him for directions on "how they could get out of the city." Montgomery says that no one ever asked him for any details of the incident and no report was ever made. "One thing about security," Montgomery says, "is that we all coordinate with each other--one family." That co-ordination doesn't include the offices of the Secretaries of State in Louisiana and Alabama, which have no record of a BATS company. ...

Unlike ISI or BATS, Blackwater is operating under a federal contract to provide 164 armed guards for FEMA reconstruction projects in Louisiana. That contract was announced just days after Homeland Security Department spokesperson Russ Knocke told the Washington Post he knew of no federal plans to hire Blackwater or other private security firms.... Before the contract was announced, the Blackwater men told me, they were already on contract with DHS and that they were sleeping in camps organized by the federal agency.

...

In May Blackwater's Jackson testified before Congress,... saying Blackwater understands "the value to the government of one-stop shopping." With President Bush using the Katrina disaster to try to repeal Posse Comitatus...and Blackwater and other security firms clearly initiating a push to install their paramilitaries on US soil, the war is coming home in yet another ominous way. As one Blackwater mercenary said, "This is a trend. You're going to see a lot more guys like us in these situations."