Maybe I miss it, but seems to me that one of the big elephants in the room is Booz-Allen.

[rhett o rick]

Why arent we looking closer at them. It appears that one of their lower level employees had access and stole a very large amount of data. Why did he have unrestricted access? Why has his supervisor not been questioned? Just what is the relationship between Booz-Allen and those that are in charge of our intelligence agencies? Who owns Booz-Allen? Do they do business with foreign governments? Do they store data or just have access?

[dkf]

1. Contractors can do things the government can't.

[cantbeserious]

2. All Part Of The Institutional Military Industrial Complex

eom

[flamingdem]

3. I have to wonder if

Snowden had help. In a big elephant like Booz-Allen he might have found that especially if they don't vet employees that well.

[Whisp]

4. I would like to know more about them too.

Nice blackmail set up for politicians - maybe that's why so many in congress and senate and wherever seem like stunned doofuses.

[JDPriestly]

52. Precisely. Abramoff was an amateur compared to what was happening at Booz Allen is my GUESS.

That's just a guess, but the possibilities are really frightening. That is especially true for those of us for whom the assassinations of Robert and John Kennedy and of Martin Luther King among others are far from forgotten.

Remember Wellstone? That wasn't long ago really. Wellstone's death may have been really an accident. Same for the computer programmer who was about to testify about the 2004 election computers in Ohio. Same for some other important people who died young and under strange circumstances. We still don't know what caused Michael Hastings' accident. And even if these events were not the result of some political plot, the examples of their accidents would chasten independent politicians.

[rhett o rick]

56. Whisp, I dont think I've said this before, but I agree with you. nm

[Savannahmann]

5. Posted a long essay on that this very morning.

To bring the issue back around to what the hell is our Government doing.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023183803

[Union Scribe]

6. They do business with the UAE

w/ thanks to Katashi itto: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023081879

[nineteen50]

39. They are part of the global 1% power-elite.

[spanone]

7. Behind the Curtain: Booz Allen Hamilton and its Owner, The Carlyle Group

According to writers Thomas Heath and Marjorie Censer at the Washington Post, The Carlyle Group and its errant child, Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH), have a public relations problem, thanks to NSA leaker and former BAH employee Edward Snowden. By the time top management at BAH learned that one of their top level agents had gone rogue, and terminated his employment, it was too late.

For years Carlyle had, according to the Post, “nurtured a reputation as a financially sophisticated asset manager that buys and sells everything from railroads to oil refineries”; but now the light from the Snowden revelations has revealed nothing more than two companies, parent and child, “bound by the thread of turning government secrets into profits.”

And have they ever. When The Carlyle Group bought BAH back in 2008, it was totally dependent upon government contracts in the fields of information technology (IT) and systems engineering for its bread and butter. But there wasn't much butter: After two years the company’s gross revenues were $5.1 billion but net profits were a minuscule $25 million, close to a rounding error on the company’s financial statement. In 2012, however, BAH grossed $5.8 billion and showed earnings of $219 million, nearly a nine-fold increase in net revenues and a nice gain in value for Carlyle.

Unwittingly, the Post authors exposed the real reason for the jump in profitability: close ties and interconnected relationships between top people at Carlyle and BAH, and the agencies with which they are working. The authors quoted George Price, an equity analyst at BB&T Capital: "[Booz Allen has] got a great brand, they've focused over time on hiring top people, including bringing on people who have a lot of senior government experience." (Emphasis added.)

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/15696-behind-the-curtain-booz-allen-hamilton-and-its-owner-the-carlyle-group

[xtraxritical]

41. George H. W. Bush.

[progressoid]

8. It's a big elephant and a big donkey

if you know what I mean.

[think]

9. Nice Article on Booz: "How Booz Allen Made the Revolving Door Redundant"

How Booz Allen Made the Revolving Door Redundant
By Pratap Chatterjee

WASHINGTON, Jun 17 2013 (IPS) - Edward Snowden, a low-level employee of Booz Allen Hamilton who blew the whistle on the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), unexpectedly exposed a powerful and seamless segment of the military-industrial complex – the world of contractors that consumes some 70 percent of this country’s 52-billion-dollar intelligence budget.

~Snip~

To best understand this tale, one must first turn to R. James Woolsey, a former director of CIA, who appeared before the U.S. House of Representatives in the summer of 2004 to promote the idea of integrating U.S. domestic and foreign spying efforts to track “terrorists”.

One month later, he appeared on MSNBC television, where he spoke of the urgent need to create a new U.S. intelligence czar to help expand the post-9/11 national surveillance apparatus.

On neither occasion did Woolsey mention that he was employed as senior vice president for global strategic security at Booz Allen, a job he held from 2002 to 2008.

~Snip~

Booz Allen also won a chunk of the Pentagon’s infamous Total Information Awareness contract in 2001 to collect information on potential terrorists in America from phone records, credit card receipts and other databases – a controversial programme defunded by Congress in 2003 but whose spirit survived in the Prism and other initiatives disclosed by Snowden.

~Snip~


Full article:

http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/06/how-booz-allen-made-the-revolving-door-redundant/

[rhett o rick]

27. Thank you. nm

[muriel_volestrangler]

61. This is the important article: 2 DNIs were Booz Allen Hamilton VPs before the govt job

and McConnell went back to them after being Director of National Intelligence. From your article:

Upon retiring as DNI, McConnell returned to Booz Allen in 2009, where he serves as vice chairman to this day. In August 2010, Lieutenant General James Clapper (ret), Booz Allen’s former vice president for military intelligence from 1997 to 1998, was hired as the fourth intelligence czar, a job he has held ever since. Indeed, one-time Booz Allen executives have filled the position five of the eight years of its existence.

John Michael "Mike" McConnell (born July 26, 1943) is a former vice admiral in the United States Navy. During his naval career he served as Director of the National Security Agency from 1992 to 1996. His civilian career includes serving as the United States Director of National Intelligence from 20 February 2007 to 27 January 2009 during the Bush administration and seven days of the Obama administration. He is currently Vice Chairman at Booz Allen Hamilton.
...
McConnell is the second person to hold the position of Director of National Intelligence. He was nominated by President George W. Bush on January 5, 2007, and was sworn in at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C. on February 20, 2007.[4][5] McConnell's appointment to the post was initially greeted with broad bipartisan support, although he has since attracted criticism for advocating some of the Bush administration's more controversial policies.[6][7]

Before his nomination as DNI, McConnell had served as a Senior Vice President with the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, focusing on the Intelligence and National Security areas.[8] From 2005 until his confirmation as DNI in 2007, he was also chairman of the board of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, the "premier not-for-profit, nonpartisan, private sector professional organization providing a structure and interactive forum for thought leadership, the sharing of ideas, and networking within the intelligence and national security communities" whose members include leaders in industry, government, and academia.[9]
...
On January 24, 2009, it was announced that McConnell would return to Booz Allen as a Senior Vice President.[14][15]
...
In early April 2010, Admiral McConnell called for expanding the powers of the DNI by giving him tenure and creating a Department of Intelligence for the DNI to oversee and fully control to settle the continued fighting amongst agencies within various departments.[35]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Michael_McConnell

The message from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper also sought to reassure private contractors, whose major U.S. intelligence operations have come under scrutiny since Edward Snowden, who worked at huge government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, identified himself as the source of the leaks.

"Contractors are an integral part of our workforce and are critical to our national security efforts. No matter what color badge you wear, you prove every day how much you care about our nation," Clapper said in the message sent on Monday, which was described to Reuters.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/11/james-clapper-nsa_n_3423329.html

Well, we would say that, wouldn't he?

And there's more - from 2007:

The spy who came in from the boardroom

Why John Michael McConnell, a top executive at a private defense contractor, should not be allowed to run our nation's intelligence agencies.

...
With revenues of $3.7 billion in 2005, Booz Allen is one of the nation’s biggest defense and intelligence contractors. Under McConnell’s watch, Booz Allen has been deeply involved in some of the most controversial counterterrorism programs the Bush administration has run, including the infamous Total Information Awareness data-mining scheme. As a key contractor and advisor to the NSA, Booz Allen is almost certainly participating in the agency’s warrantless surveillance of the telephone calls and e-mails of American citizens.
...
Among the many former spooks on Booz Allen’s payroll are R. James Woolsey, the well-known neoconservative and former CIA director; Joan Dempsey, the former chief of staff to CIA Director George Tenet and recently executive director of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board; and Keith Hall, the former director of the National Reconnaissance Office, the super-secret organization that oversees the nation’s spy satellites.

For his part, McConnell was head of the National Security Agency from 1992 to 1996. Prior to that he was the chief intelligence officer for Colin Powell at the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the first Gulf War, where he worked closely with Dick Cheney. On Friday, McConnell told the New York Times that his work at Booz Allen had allowed him to “stay focused on national security and intelligence communities as a strategist and as a consultant. Therefore, in many respects, I never left.” That is an understatement. As a senior vice president at Booz Allen, McConnell is in charge of the firm’s assignments in military intelligence and information operations for the Department of Defense. In that work, his official biography states, McConnell has provided intelligence support to “the US Unified Combatant Commanders, the Director of National Intelligence Agencies, and the Military Service Intelligence Directors.”

And in a relationship that has been completely missed in media coverage of his appointment, McConnell is the chairman of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, the primary business association of NSA and CIA contractors. As INSA chairman, I’ve been told, McConnell is presiding over an initiative to enhance ties between the intelligence agencies and their contractors and domestic law enforcement agencies.

http://www.salon.com/2007/01/08/mcconnell_5/

There's more in that article that everyone needs to read - beyond what I can fit is 4 paragraphs. Anyone think I should make a separate thread for it? The author deserves kudos for pointing out the huge conflicts of interest, back in 2007. And that's without taking Clapper's jobs into account.

[HiPointDem]

10. carlyle group owns booz, since 2008.

[think]

17. Nothing wrong with good old fashion capitalism

The Carlyle Group
C for capitalism
Jun 26th 2003

ON the day Osama bin Laden's men attacked America, Shafiq bin Laden, described as an estranged brother of the terrorist, was at an investment conference in Washington, DC, along with two people who are close to President George Bush: his father, the first President Bush, and James Baker, the former secretary of state who masterminded the legal campaign that secured Dubya's move to the White House. The conference was hosted by the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm that manages billions of dollars, including, at the time, some bin Laden family wealth. It also employs Messrs Bush and Baker....

~Snip~

Perhaps there would be less reason to worry about Carlyle if there were rival clubs of ex-political heavyweights competing within the iron triangle. Alas, this firm seems to be an aspiring monopolist, hoovering up former public officials from across the political divide and, increasingly, from across the world. It is becoming more ambitious in Europe, and keenly eyeing China. Perhaps there would be less reason to worry if Carlyle's activities were more open—but as a private equity firm, it has largely escaped America's recent efforts to improve the governance and transparency of companies, which is unfortunate. ...

~Snip~

Full article:

http://www.economist.com/node/1875084

[Octafish]

45. What a small, small world.

And very, very bad.



Jaws should drop when they find out that bin Laden and Poppy and W were in business on 9-11, but for some cough brainwashed reason too many people just don't seem to give a figgin' flapoodle.

Carlyle's way

Making a mint inside "the iron triangle" of defense, government, and industry.

by Dan Briody, Red Herring, 8 January 2002

EXCERPT...

Perhaps even more disconcerting than Carlyle's ties to the Pentagon are its connections within the White House itself. Aside from signing up George Bush Sr. shortly after his presidential term ended, Carlyle gave George W. Bush a job on the board of Texas-based airline food caterer Caterair International back in 1991. Since Bush the younger took office this year, a number of events have raised eyebrows.

Shortly after George W. Bush was sworn in as president, he broke off talks with North Korea regarding long-range ballistic missiles, claiming there was no way to ensure North Korea would comply with any guidelines that were developed. The news came as a shock to South Korean officials, who had spent years negotiating with the North, assisted by the Clinton administration. By June, Mr. Bush had reopened negotiations with North Korea, but only at the urging of his own father. According to reports, the former president sent his son a memo persuasively arguing the need to work with the North Korean government. It was the first time the nation had seen the influence of the father on the son in office.

But what has been overlooked was Carlyle's business interest in Korea. The senior Bush had spearheaded the group's successful entrance into the South Korean market, paving the way for buyouts of Korea's KorAm Bank and Mercury, a telecommunications equipment company. For the business to be successful, stability between North and South Korea is critical. And though there is no direct evidence linking the senior Bush's business dealings in Korea with the change in policy, it is the appearance of impropriety that excites the watchdogs. "We are clearly aware that former President Bush has weighed in on policy toward South Korea and we note that U.S. policy changed after those communications," says Peter Eisner, managing director at the Center for Public Integrity, a watchdog group in Washington, D.C., which has an active file on the Carlyle Group. "We know that former President Bush receives remuneration for his work with Carlyle and that he is capable of advising the current president, but how much further it goes, we don't know."

SNIP...

And the controversy is expected only to increase as Carlyle's investments in Saudi Arabia are scrutinized during the war on terrorism. Mr. Eisner says that very little is known about Carlyle's involvements in Saudi Arabia, except that the firm has been making close to $50 million a year training the Saudi Arabian National Guard, troops that are sworn to protect the monarchy. Carlyle also advises the Saudi royal family on the Economic Offset Program, a system that is designed to encourage foreign businesses to open shop in Saudi Arabia and uses re-investment incentives to keep those businesses' proceeds in the country.

But the money flowing out of Saudi Arabia and into the Carlyle Group is of even more interest. Immediately after the September 11 attacks, reports surfaced of Carlyle's involvement with the Saudi Binladin Group, the $5 billion construction business run by Osama's half-brother Bakr. The bin Laden family invested $2 million in the Carlyle Partners II fund, which includes in its portfolio United Defense and other defense and aerospace companies. On October 26, the Carlyle Group severed its relationship with the bin Laden family in what officials termed a mutual decision. Mr. Bush Sr. and Mr. Major have been to Saudi Arabia on behalf of Carlyle as recently as last year, and according to reports, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is currently looking into the flow of money from the bin Laden family. Carlyle officials declined to answer any questions regarding their activities in Saudi Arabia.

CONTINUED...

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/linkscopy/CarlylesWay.html

Carlyle, Booz Allen's parent, makes a most disgusting group, the very embodiment of the warmongering corruption that is buy-partisan and the cultural norm in Wall Street on the Potomac.

[grasswire]

55. figgin' flapoodle

You just came up with a great name for a band, methinks.

[Mojorabbit]

58. oh my! nt

[KittyWampus]

11. I'd call it a huge elephant turd from our chewed up tax dollars. Yeah, you'd think Congress

would force some accountability...

[randome]

14. They will if we unite on the things we agree on.

This is one of them.

* Privatization run amok.
* More transparency and less secrecy.
* More detailed oversight.

Screw Snowden. These are the things we should unite about.

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[SunSeeker]

20. +1000000000000000000000000000000000!

[randome]

22. Okay, now you're just making numbers up.

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]The truth doesn’t always set you free.
Sometimes it builds a bigger cage around the one you’re already in.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[think]

30. Great synopsis of what should be focused on.

[Union Scribe]

12. And they're involved in implementing the ACA

w/ a hat tip to cali: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023173256

[BeyondGeography]

13. My impression is they do a superb job of getting paid

and the biggest scandal here is bureaucratic empire building and private-sector profiteering, with competency and overall effectiveness way down on the list of priorities.

[Bluenorthwest]

15. This is why so many have the agenda of making it all about Snowden and Greenwald

they don't want it to be about Booz Allen and the very idea of important security issues pawned off to private profit driven Carlyle Group interests.

[nineteen50]

40. and especially not about Obama.

[KittyWampus]

50. LOL! Snowden made it about himself when he decided to leak info to foreign countries. He could have

been anonymous.

[rhett o rick]

66. Where did you get the info that he actually gave data to foreign countries? nm

[Bluenorthwest]

68. So he's the one who decides what this is about for you? Why?

I think of him as a bad hire in a dark industry, he's bad and his bosses are worse. I'm not about to allow the likes of them to decide what is and is not important. You can, if you'd like.

[xiamiam]

16. 40 billion PROFIT annually booz-allen

profit for surveillance by private contractors.. yep, its gotta stop. Ridiculous.

[Berlum]

18. Bingo

Occult corporate totalitarian info-pig, Inc.

[Warpy]

19. I've pointed that out from Day One

The real scandal here and what Snowden should be praised for alerting us to is the way the gutting of the Fourth Amendment has been parceled out to private corporations with no public oversight, at all.

It's bad enough when the government does this stuff with safeguards in place. There are no safeguards at a corporation.

[antigop]

21. Democracy Now: Spies for Hire (video)

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/19/spies_for_hire_the_secret_world

Spies for Hire: Carlyle Group to Become Owner of "One of America’s Largest Private Intelligence Armies"

[byeya]

23. Unless I missed it, I don't think you can mention The Carlyle Group w/o naming the Bush clan.

[rhett o rick]

35. Is the bin Ladin family associated with the Carlyle Group? nm

[byeya]

42. This is from the Center for Global Research from 2003...can't vouch for them but I remember

news stories in a similar vein at that time:

"The Group is managed by a team of former US Government personnel including its president Frank Carlucci, former deputy director of the CIA before becoming Defence Secretary. His deputy is James Baker II, who was Secretary of State under George Bush senior. Several high profile former politicians are employed to represent the company overseas, among them John Major, former British Prime Minister, along with George Bush senior, one time CIA director before becoming US President.

The financial assets of the Saudi Binladen Corporation (SBC) are also managed by the Carlyle Group. The SBC is headed up by members of Osama bin Laden’s family, who played a principle role in helping George W. Bush win petroleum concessions from Bahrain when he was head of the Texan oil company, Harken Energy Corporation - a deal that was to make the Bush family millions of dollars. Salem, Osama bin Laden’s brother, was represented on Harken’s board of directors by his American agent, James R. Bath.

The connection between the Bush and bin Laden families can also be traced to the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) in the 1990s. Members of the Anglo Pakistani bank’s board of directors included Richard Helms and William Casey, business partners of George Bush senior and former CIA agents. During their time at BCCI both Helms and Casey worked alongside fellow director, Adnan Khasshoggi, who also represented the bin Laden family’s interests in the US."

This came up from a Google search for "carlyle bin laden"

This is part of a much longer article and, as I said, I have no way of knowing if it's true or not but the BCCI was all over the news and especially the left press 10 years ago.

[rhett o rick]

47. Thank you. nm

[HipChick]

24. Fault lies with CIA..they are the agency that granted him TS security

all BAH did was transfer to them...that's a normal process

BAH are like 10th on the list that have these types of contracts...they are only the tip of the iceberg

[rhett o rick]

69. Just because you have TS security doent mean you are allowed to access a ton of data.

Booz-Allen/NSA/Carlyle Group are responsible.

[HipChick]

70. You are allowed whatever is needed for the project you are working on

but it is never total access...not what Snowden is claiming anyway

[Skidmore]

25. Bookmarking for later.

Thanks for the thread.

[silvershadow]

26. Because their employees are screened by a hedge fund, that's why. It would create all kinds of

problems for the big-money boys, and those who continue to push privatization as the answer. imho

[siligut]

28. My search on Booz-Allen found a link to the Deseret News

But the article had been removed.

[movonne]

29. Why are we just going after Snowden and not the

place the employed him???

[Segami]

31. PRISM and Other Spy Tools

PRISM has been in use since about 2003 based on a resume of a user and likely indicates PRISM collection well before recent publication of PRISM access to Internet servers, beginning with Microsoft in 2007. Numerous similar spying tools and programs are described below.


http://cryptome.org/2013/06/prism-spy-tools.htm

[Democracyinkind]

32. Why the access?

According to the rather interesting NY Times article on Snowdens resume, this might be explained by the nature of his job: cyber counterintel. There's a good chance that he was tasked with breaking into our own systems in order to detect vulnerabilities. The fact that work of such magnitude has been outsourced should be enough for anyone to question the motives of the whole apparatus. Protecting America is not what it's about, IMO.

[Cleita]

33. Because they are the boss of our government. You don't investigate the boss.

You know since Reagan there has been an effort by major corporations and their subsidiaries to own our government in order to funnel taxpayer money to their interests. They have succeeded. All our politicians should have patches of the logos of the companies who fund their campaigns sewn all over their jackets. I'm sure Booz-Allen is connected with any number of larger corporations who do contract business with us.

[orpupilofnature57]

34. The same reason we don't look at certain groups

http://www.bilderbergmeetings.org/index.php

[Crow73]

36. You mean USIS?

USIS are the ones that OPM contract to have Booz-Allen use to screen. In turn and not shocking at all USIS employ low-wage workers as screeners.

You want the system to work pay all US contractors living wages.

[yurbud]

37. former CIA agent Robert Baer talked about this on pacifica

He said he's never heard of these data mining programs working to catch a plot before it happens. At best, once you know who did an attack, you can find out more about them after the fact.

Like most defense and security contracts, the real goal is to put our money in the pockets of the contractors, whether the system world or not.

If it's really all about filling their pockets with our money, hiring a high school dropout makes sense. You can pay him less and increase your profit margin more. Whether he can actually do the job is immaterial.

[nineteen50]

38. I blame privatizing and contracting out our government security

responsibilities because they believe it is cheaper is it now?.

[DallasNE]

43. I Have Been Preaching That For Nearly A Month

Even questioning why they didn't required two people to grant security access as protection against internal espionage of the likes of Snowden. (Later they reported that that change had been put in place but that is classic closing the barn door after the horse got out). It is next to impossible to understand how that was not already built into the system. Another breech is how did Snowden simply walk out the door with Booz-Allen computers under his arm -- this shows a gross lack of physical security. Lastly, where was the government audit function to insure that these minimum security measures were not already in place. Deregulating security has big time consequences. How can heads not roll at Booz-Allen and that means at least the CEO, CIO, Snowden's superiors and those responsible for physical security.

[rhett o rick]

48. Exactly. nm

[KittyWampus]

51. And I'm sure it isn't just Booz-Allen. Who are the other parasites?

[RVN VET]

44. BAH is bad

And there's more sleaze to this story than we'll ever learn.

ES maybe committed a crime. But, if so, he was able to do it only because NSA and BAH teamed up to combine their incompetence and greed to make it possible for him to do so. NSA found a way to hire top security people on the cheap, to save a few bucks and a lot of paper work by letting the private sector do its hiring.

I have to wonder what other areas of our "top security" State are really just open fields for pvt contractors to plunder?

We don't know whether BAH or any other contractor would actually use the intelligence it gathers to get richer and richer. We do know that BAH was paying ES $125,000 or so. But that was just the shavings off the top of the fatter contract BAH signed with NSA. ES may have gotten $125,000. But you, I, and the rest of the taxpayer-saps in the Country paid BAH at least double that amount for ES's services.

The beat goes on.

[elehhhhna]

46. Owned by Crlyle meaning a BUNCH of rich FOREIGNERS and their pals

and they market this shit to Corporations and other governments.

What could possibly go wrong?

[JDPriestly]

49. How can anyone be surprised that "lower level employees had access . . . . [to] a very large amount

of data."

If you work for a company as a "lower level employee," you soon learn that the "lower level employees" do the work and therefore have to have access to whatever materials the company is working with. In this case Booz Allen was working with large amounts of data. That is what they did. That was their job, so, naturally, their "lower level employees" had to work with that data.

It's different from the Manning case. They could have narrowed Manning's access to the database and the informatino.

Here, it sounds like Snowden's task was to manage and access that huge database.

So the answer is in my view: because that is what Snowden was hired to do.

[rhett o rick]

53. That makes me feel so much better knowing he was intended to have that kind of access.

I wonder how many others have similar access? I wonder if they decided to steal it, what they would do? But I still dont understand why his supervisor had no clue as to what he was doing.

Please tell me that you post isnt intended to defend Booz-Allen-Hamilton.

[JDPriestly]

54. No. It really isn't intended to defend anything just to make an observation.

People who haven't held "lower level" jobs don't realize how much power in a business the "lower level" employees really have.

If you go into a courtroom, remember the court clerk may be the most powerful person in the room.

Many judges rely on their clerks to keep their calendar and organize their cases. Be nice to the clerks in the courtrooms.

In many offices, the secretaries organize the boss's calendar and appointments, take and convey messages, type memos (and sometimes edit them depending on the boss) and ride herd over the customers or clients or whatever.

Want to have your samples thrown in the trash? Insult the secretary.

"Lower level employees" run the world. I am not at all surprised that Snowden had all this access.

In many offices, along with the secretaries, the computer systems manager is the person with the most access to the widest scope of information -- if he/she wants to access it. Usually the computer systems manager is not that interested in what is in the documents on the computers that he or she fixes, manages, coordinates, etc. But if one systems manager is and if the person has a small auxiliary drive, I hate to think of what they could find out about the business or carry out of the business.

And of course the millionaire "bosses" have no idea how dependent they are on the "lower level employees" they hire for low wages and fire without cause.

The bosses are sometimes just rich fools with business degrees. Well compensated but not always the brightest stars in the business. That is not always the case. There are lots of brilliant, creative managers. But don't assume "lower level" employees are fools. And never insult or abuse a lower level employee. Smile and be kind to your waitress even if she does seem to be a simpleton or spills something. You never know. She could be a boss some day.

Message from one who has lived a long time and had a lot of different jobs.

[siligut]

62. This is so true about clerks, secretaries and assistants

And they are so easily overlooked.

[Cronus Protagonist]

57. I've had the highest level access to companies assets for many years now

Tech guys like me often do. We have full root access to the web server to be able to make it work for the end users, we also have system administrator access to the database in order to troubleshoot any issues with the web site or data manipulation mechanisms, and also commonly have administrator level access to pretty much all the most important servers in the company.

Although I'm not a low level employee, I might as well not exist as far as the CEO knows, or the employees who consume the data and use the systems that I work on. When working in a system admin job, I oil the machinery of corporate storage and delivery systems, change the filters, backflush the radiator, tighten the brakes, fix the clutch and such like, if I may stretch a metaphor. To do things like that, you need the highest access levels. I know it stretches the metaphor really far, but imagine if your mechanic had to get permission on paper to fix the front left brake, and while fixing that, he noticed the rear right brake, being part of the same system, was also weak. Would he get much done if he had to go and get permission slips to look at and work on that too? Of course not, he would just go and look, and he would have access to do that, just like a system administrator would do when working on a complex data storage system.

We system administrator / white hat types tend to have strong ethics. And although Snowden and I are miles apart politically, as tech guys with high level access, I have to think that he's just the kind of person to be an ethical whistleblower even if the people who built the system sold their souls to the Devil, he was not willing to stay on the crew when he found out what was really going on, so he squealed. And he was ethically right to do so.

Snowden broke the cardinal rule of systems administration. He told the public and aired out his company's dirty laundry. In this case, due to the illegality of what he found regarding the operating practices of his company, it may have been the most ethical thing to do - at least I assume that is the case from what I know of the situation, which is the same as what you all know. He knew if he complained about the illegal stuff internally, he would be fired and nothing would be done. So he did what would let him keep his integrity and also be best for the country. He blew the whistle on the crooks that he was working for, and in doing so, pretty much sentenced himself to a life in some kind of prison. That takes guts. It takes ethics, and I commend him for his courage.

[Rex]

59. You missed nothing, a lot of people are purposely not mentioning them.

Spot on.

[The Straight Story]

60. More on them (one bit from 2001):

http://www2.ntia.doc.gov/

They are working on the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (which helps get broadband access to communities across the US)

More from a gov site search:

just google Booz-Allen site .gov

April 2001:

NSA PRESS RELEASE
2 April 2001
For further information contact:
NSA Public and Media Affairs, 301-688-6524

National Security Agency Awards Concept Studies for TRAILBLAZER

The National Security Agency (NSA) awarded three prime contracts on 29 March for concept studies, launching the Agency's transformation efforts. The studies will define the architecture, cost, and acquisition approach for TRAILBLAZER 1, the NSA program to develop analytic capabilities to meet the challenge of rapidly evolving, modern telecommunications. The prime contracts were awarded to Booz Allen & Hamilton, Inc. (Annapolis Junction, MD), Lockheed Martin Corporation (Hanover, MD), and TRW (Systems & Information Technology Group, Columbia, MD). These prime contractors will have over thirty industry partners, in total, associated with their efforts.

The award of these contracts culminates a process that began last August when over 130 potential industry partners participated in a TRAILBLAZER Industry Day at NSA Headquarters. Suggestions from industry, together with definition of the Agency's requirements, led to the subsequent release in October of a draft Request for Proposals (RFP) to obtain detailed industry inputs. The final RFP was released in early December and proposals were submitted in January. The NSA Program Office completed this initial phase with the evaluation of seven proposals from a very broad cross-section of industry, including over 100 enterprises in the sectors of defense and intelligence, advanced information technology, internet dotcoms, commercial business process re-engineering, and academia.

The evaluation of the proposals reflected the Agency's emphasis on innovation to rapidly apply commercial information technology while at the same time providing overall program management through a disciplined acquisition process. The evaluation of this best value procurement took a few weeks longer than planned, due to the complexity of the proposals and the large response from industry. These contracts include a base period of performance and an option for analysis and integration of the results of the studies from all three contracts and other on-going NSA programs and architecture efforts.

The kick-off for these studies will be conducted in early April and subsequent analyses and deliverables will be focused on preparing for a limited production decision in 2002.

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/press_room/2001/trailblazer.shtml

[Doctor_J]

63. I think this is part of a really, really big point

A few corporations in the US run everything - including making their own laws. And since they're "private", we the people they rule have no oversight. This is the problem with privatizing government.

[rhett o rick]

64. I agree. I also believe there is a cabal that coordinates the Corp-Rule.

Carlyle Group is a likely candidate.

[Doctor_J]

65. Damn right there is.

All of their Boards Of Directors overlap. If you were able to really dig deeply into Carlyle, the Kochs, the Waltons, and a few more under the radar, you'd find they're tightly coupled and coordinating their takeover.

[rhett o rick]

67. Here's a thread on Booz-Allen-Hamilton.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023190986