The Private-Intelligence Boom, By The Numbers - MoJo

[WillyT]

The Private-Intelligence Boom, by the Numbers
By Tim Murphy| MoJo
Thu Jun. 13, 2013 3:40 AM PDT

<snip>

Edward Snowden revealed to the world the startling breadth of the National Security Agency's surveillance efforts, but his story also highlighted another facet of today's intelligence world: the increasingly privatized national security sector, in which a high school dropout could bring in six figures while gaining access to state secrets. Over the last decade, firms like Booz Allen Hamilton, where Snowden worked for three months, have gobbled up nearly 60 cents out of every dollar the government spends on intelligence. A majority of top-secret security clearances now go to private contractors who provide services to the government at stepped up rates.

"I like to call Booz Allen the shadow <intelligence community>," Joan Dempsey, a vice president at the firm, said in 2004, as captured in Tim Shorrock's book, Spies for Hire. No kidding. Here's a look at our mushrooming intelligence contracting sector:







<snip>

More: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/06/national-security-inc-our-private-intelligence-apparatus-numbers

[DirkGently]

1. Yep. Profit, not protection. And we're all paying.

And of course, private enterprise would neeeeeever abuse access to vast swaths of private information.

You can trust them. They're from Capitalism, and they're here to help you.

[Vinnie From Indy]

2. Privatization is really a code word for looting

From public utilities to prisons and now to surveillance.

[forestpath]

12. +1000

[bahrbearian]

3. Of Course we need contractors, how else can we pay those salaries.

[nashville_brook]

4. k and r

[G_j]

5. K&R

[WillyT]

6. Kick !!!

[Hissyspit]

7. kick nt

[flamingdem]

8. hire me hire me

sounds like a juicy gig

I promise I won't tell

[marmar]

9. k/r

[MrScorpio]

10. Thanks, WillyT

You've given us more exposure about this issue than Greenwald and Snowden ever has.

[scarletwoman]

11. Kick.