A Modern-Day Stasi State

[xchrom]

http://www.thenation.com/article/174746/modern-day-stasi-state#axzz2W8PyByq9


This photograph shows a copy of the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order requiring Verizon on an “ongoing, daily basis,” to give the National Security Administration (NSA) information on all landline and mobile telephone calls of Verizon Business in its systems. (AP Photo)

***SNIP

If that is so, then tens of thousands of Americans working for private intelligence contractors have access to the personal information of millions of their fellow citizens, including their phone and e-mail communications as well Internet chats on Yahoo, Google and other ISPs. Combine this private army of contractors with the outlandishly huge federal intelligence bureaucracy, and the term Stasi—the East German secret police frequently invoked by Bill Binney—doesn’t sound like an exaggeration. Except this is state surveillance plus capitalism: spying for profit.

Snowden’s revelations also belie the claim that the government uses contractors like Booz Allen only to fill technical gaps, provide a little analysis here and there, or for engineering or management skills. This is something I’ve heard frequently from agency and corporate flacks. It was also the theme of former Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell—who came from Booz and is back there now—when he ordered the government’s first and only press conference on the use of contractors.

In that 2008 briefing, Ronald Sanders, the associate DNI for human capital, confirmed that 70 percent of the intelligence budget goes to the private sector, as I’d reported a year earlier. These contractors, he argued, “augment our intelligence staffs—the military and civilian members of the intelligence community.” But he stressed that “the reason they’re are so important to us is because they provide flexibility, responsiveness, and in many cases very unique expertise in support of the intelligence mission.” Well, if Snowden was merely “augmenting” the NSA workforce, you have to wonder what the actual workforce is up to. (Interestingly, Sanders too is now in the private sector, working for—who else?—Booz Allen).

To be honest, all of this makes me a little jealous. When I was researching my 2008 book Spies for Hire, I interviewed dozens of people, including many contractors, and managed to ferret out a huge amount of information about what private companies do for the NSA, the CIA and the rest of the intelligence community. Their insights also helped me get deep inside some of the agencies (check out my chapter on imagery and geospatial intelligence, for example).



Read more: A Modern-Day Stasi State | The Nation http://www.thenation.com/article/174746/modern-day-stasi-state#ixzz2WCDrUaRL
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[Laelth]

1. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[marmar]

2. k/r

[dembotoz]

3. the more i learn about the stasi the more i become alarmed--nazi is old school --stasi more accurate