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The Private Outsourcing of US Intelligence Services
mrbluze writes "It appears that more and more of the data collection sanctioned by the US government is passed through the hands of private enterprise, Salon reports. 'Because of the cloak of secrecy thrown over the intelligence budgets, there is no way for the American public, or even much of Congress, to know how those contractors are getting the money, what they are doing with it, or how effectively they are using it. The explosion in outsourcing has taken place against a backdrop of intelligence failures for which the Bush administration has been hammered by critics, from Saddam Hussein's fictional weapons of mass destruction to abusive interrogations that have involved employees of private contractors operating in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Aftergood and other experts also warn that the lack of transparency creates conditions ripe for corruption.'"
I'm not defending this bullshit, but seriously, would you rather live in China, Venezuela, or Russia?
My country good or bad, but my country.
The nice thing is, we're about to hit a peak for this round of government incompetence and it's going to sour peoples stomachs on this style of governance for a long time to come. I think we're about to enter the clean up period, if we aren't already in the early stages of it now.
Im not paranoid, Im lazy and dont want to have to change my settings for every tom dick and harry website that doesnt need to retain my session on the CLIENT SIDE, which is insecure anyway. Its so hard to save session info on a server isnt it not that there is any session or anything of use to save anyway. Its just bad design by the gimps in technology today.
http://www.rense.com/general79/wdx1.htm
The purpose of outsourcing is avoiding the rules and laws of government, and achieving greater secrecy.
A secret government is a corrupt government.
The present intensification of secrecy began in the late 40's with establishment of the idea that the government could secretly manipulate governments and kill people to protect the profits of U.S. companies, particularly oil companies.
With enough secrecy, a government becomes a dictatorship.
Both Cheney and Junior are alcoholics, with typical alcoholic personalities. (Even though alcoholics may not be drinking, the personality persists.)
Alcoholics always or almost always have anger problems. Angry people who are powerful enough may act out their anger by killing people. Alcoholics almost always want to keep things secret, because part of their personality disorder is that they don't face their conflicts. For more about the effect of alcoholism, see The behavior of Bush and Cheney is consistent with the behavior of alcoholics. Bush and Cheney arrest Records.
It amazes me how easily U.S. citizens have given up their freedoms and the excellent principles on which the great country of the United States was founded. It amazes me that U.S. citizens are willing to work a full month every year to pay for the corruption, to pay for a few ignorant, conflicted people to have their way.
It's happening all through government. Military and GS people flipping over to contractors literally overnight. Same people doing the exact same job. Khaki on Friday, shirt and tie on Monday. Somehow they appear to have waived the conflict of interest clauses in military service that were supposed to keep that from happening.
I don't have that many contacts in the intelligence services but I wouldn't be surprised to find the same trend there. I'm betting a lot of the intelligence contracting were government people one day, private contractors the next.
Either way this is a bad trend. There are some things we want the government to do, even though you can argue it costs more and is less efficient. That's okay. Some services have considerations that need to go beyond the bottom line. Aside from that there appears to be little accountability in contract awards these days and many seem to have political overtones. High level positions going to people whose chief qualification seems to be that they graduated from Oral Roberts University.
If there's an encouraging sign it's that we're...finally...starting to see some outrage from those calling themselves conservatives. Better late than never I guess.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I'm not defending this bullshit, but seriously, would you rather live in China, Venezuela, or Russia?
:)
At the moment, for me, in my situation? Yes.
I'm an American that lives in China.
Never had any problems over here.
-I have a nice job that I like.
-I walk 15 minutes to work.
-I stop at the street vendor to buy a few beers on my way home.
-I'm learning a language most Westerners don't know
-I'm living in a country most Westerners will never see
-I see movies on DVD before most Americans see them in the theater.
Granted, living as an American in China, is different that living as a Chinese in China.
But, for now, for me....
Glad to be an American, and happy to live in China.
Does anybody else find the idea of transparency in spying to be an odd conception?
You're right -- it's trollish, mainly because it's wrong. Go to fact check here for the actual truth. Cheney has received some deferred compensation and turned over a bunch of his stock options to charity. Apart from that, he has no continuing interest.
Which is still complete bullshit. At the end of his term Haliburton will be paying Mr. Cheney plenty for speaking engagements or as a advisory. He's done what he can to defuse the direct appearance of corruption but still makes numerous choices to benefit this one organization at the expense of US tax payers and US future interests. Why were so many no bid contracts awarded to a company he had an association with? Both the president and the vice were major parts of this company. Why is so much money flowing in that direction. You basically have 2 Amoral corporate agents posing as your head of state and alternate.
Congratulations on the rapidly declining dollar. A direct consequence of people like you who ignore the big picture and dwell on simple PR talking points and who feel overly invested in a political position that has not worked in your interest for a long time now. You international political and economic influence is waning and you continue to make decision in both government and corporately to expedite the fall of the American empire.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
The ability to take the best from an infinite number of cultures and removing the worst, while intergrating those people seamlessly into our society, is just one of the things that makes America great that the right is trying to destroy, along with jury trials, a classless society, and the moral high ground.
Oh, and, apparently, a functioning military and intelligence community. What's going to happen when we say 'Okay, we're going to attack X' and all these private companies say 'No.'?
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
The 2006 estimate was that 26,783,383 people live in that country - did they deserve to have THEIR country leveled too ?
Prick ! You know what's funny? That sentiment is 10% neocon doctrine. The citizens of the country are responsible for their leaders. It was the German people's fault Hitler had power, it was the Iraqi people's fault Saddam was there. Just imagine their bleatings of consternation if someone turned around and said they were just as guilty for supporting Bush. "But Bush is no Hitler!" they would shriek. Yeah, they're right at that: Hitler actually served his country in time of war.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
That was something my father always talked about when he came to this country and noticed the lack of cooperation amongst individuals. I guess in "the old country" people used to get together and complain. It happened once here, I think it was called the labor movement. Despite what the unions are portrayed as today, right or wrong, it was a good thing at the time.
These days, it's the same thing, people just don't come together and protest _anything_ - it's a feeling of being powerless. I don't know where it comes from but it is weird.
My father used to joke that the ruination of America will be the same thing that made it great - the forgetting of the "old ways." I now get the joke even though I didn't at the time. Sure people had it worse at the time and so they wanted to throw the yoke off of their shoulders (get rid of the old ways) and start with a new gov't but as I see it, we've forgotten how to band together and flex our collective muscle (getting rid of the old ways).