http://www.thenation.com/article/how-private-contractors-have-created-shadow-nsa/#
What we have now is a national-security class that simultaneously bridges the gap between private and public, merging government careers with jobs as corporate executives and consultants. By retaining their security clearances, many of its members have access to the most highly guarded intelligence, which they use to the benefit of their corporate and government clients. The power they wield is exponentially greater than that of their Cold War predecessors.
To see the difference, let’s take a closer look at the Chertoff Group and its best-known executive, Michael Hayden. Chertoff founded his consultancy in March 2009, barely two months after President Obama’s inauguration. The group’s cofounder was Chad Sweet, who had served as Chertoff’s chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and had earlier worked in the CIA’s National Clandestine Service. In effect, the pair re-created the national-security team that had provided much of the intelligence advice to Bush and Cheney, and they said as much in their literature. According to the firm’s website, the Chertoff Group provides “business and government leaders with the same kind of high-level, strategic thinking and diligent execution that have kept the American homeland and its people safe since 9/11.”
When Hayden came on board in April 2009, he emphasized continuity. “After serving for decades at the highest levels of the U.S. military and the U.S. intelligence services, I grew accustomed to working alongside remarkably talented and dedicated professionals,” the former NSA director wrote. “I wanted an opportunity to re-create the experience in the private sector.” And he did just that. One of the firm’s early recruits was Charles E. Allen, a legendary intelligence official who had recently served as director of intelligence for Chertoff’s DHS. Another principal with extensive NSA experience is Paul Schneider, Chertoff’s deputy secretary at DHS; from 2002 to 2003, he was Hayden’s senior acquisition executive at the NSA. That would have put him in charge of all of the NSA’s hugely expensive contracting, which exploded during Hayden’s reign from 1999 to 2005.
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