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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCorporate Fury Over NSA's Contracting Ties Is Why Snowdon In Trouble.
Few Americans knew that the NSA was contracted to corporate America let alone Booz Allen and its ties to the Carlyle Group and Bin Laden family. Snowden is in trouble for revealing how cozy corporations are with government operations. Nothing shows more clearly how deeply fascism infects our country.
There is an inherent conflict of interest. And the fact that the Bush family probably gets a nice paycheck along with all the other corruption shows you how much influence they still have.
You don't cross corporate America anymore without consequences. And Snowden would have been literally buried had he stayed in country. The Whistleblower Act is a joke.
The NSA operation was set up under Bush and most of our most important agencies were compromised and infiltrated by Bushies.
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Zorra
(27,670 posts)You don't cross corporate anywhere anymore without consequences.
Transnational corporations have no national allegiance, Their allegiances are to money, power, and profit, and the governments they own have no allegiance except to their corporate masters.
Elysium.
Enrique
(27,461 posts)Bob Schieffer just had Michael Hayden on his show. I didn't see it, but I am fairly positive they did not mention that Hayden is now with the Chertoff Group. I do know the Huffington Post article, that I saw posted here at DU, about the interview, failed to mention it. It's standard to disclose such an association, but with the Military/Surveillance Industrial Complex they rarely do it. They just present them as experts.
abelenkpe
(9,933 posts)Into a tiny number of giant corporations. They only report what benefits them and hurts their competition.
Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)around unaware that everything they see, hear, and read is churned out to forward this overarching agenda of control, shows how very very effective it is.
DirkGently
(12,151 posts)Especially for those who consider Snowden's leaks a dangerous breach of national security. We have tens of thousands of newly security-clearanced private personnel with access to much of this supposed government-shepherded information.
Even to the extent anyone is inclined to believe government employees would not abuse such access (though it's hard to forget the NSA used to pass around 'sex calls' on their lunch breaks) how can we trust private companies to be as careful as the Pentagon?
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)Like a child of the National Security Act...
What you mean, and this is an important distinction, is the heavy privatizing effort starting on 911.
Yes, call it a nit, but it matters
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)ineluctably---arrive at the oft-ridiculed-but-never-demolished MIHOP.
AS IF 3000 people in the planes and buildings would mean anything more than bugs.
snort
(2,334 posts)Didn't say it was wrong.
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)Homeland Security enabling pieces of legislation gets passed -
Just so people can see the type of disclosure that is involved...
kath
(10,565 posts)Ain't it great to live in a free country?
"A new Bill of Rights shall be drafted"...
snappyturtle
(14,656 posts)Edward Snowden with rabid viciousness....high ranking pocketbooks and
allegiances would be disclosed. The pre-emptive labeling of Edward
Snowden as a traitor serves them well too in garnering support of
those with misguided definitions of patriotism all under the guise of
national security. What a joke.
GoneFishin
(5,217 posts)avaistheone1
(14,626 posts)This uproar is all about money and the big private contractors who are enriched by it.
k&r
hootinholler
(26,449 posts)Appear to have been grown from seed and nurtured over the years. Whilst Poppy was getting his chops as a sekrit agent man with Zapatto Oil and stuffs, his daddy was bringing Nixon along.
The seed sprouted and prospered send its roots deep into the fertile intelligence capabilities. Then somehow Poppy gets the nod for some big wheel position at CIA along his way to the VP office.
You bet your ass they are picking up the fruit of the tree.
usGovOwesUs3Trillion
(2,022 posts)Or others might be tempted to do the same thing, and that has all the totalitarians shitting their pants.
But of course, they have a lot of other concerns, as you noted, too. But I do believe that is the biggie.
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)think deeply about those specific words.
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)beginning on about 9/12/2001.
Too many loose pieces left lying around--flying all those Bin Ladens & Saudi royalty out during the first 3 days post, etc. Something clicked in my head when I heard about the close ties between the BFEE & the Bin Ladens right after 9-11. Once clicked, it won't easily unclick.
Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)
Recursion
(56,582 posts)Maybe I have Beltway Syndrome, but I'm literally shocked that people hadn't heard of BAH before this.
uponit7771
(90,335 posts)...to our enemies and is running from the law?
...system being unfair to him!?... as if no brown or black person has ever faced that in the US...
He didn't think shit through
blackspade
(10,056 posts)closeupready
(29,503 posts)Merely casting the national surveillance gravy train in a bad light is enough to get you fired from the national media (just ask Phil Donahue), let alone the extent of what he did.
stonecutter357
(12,695 posts)
Th1onein
(8,514 posts)How OR you, by the way?
ConcernedCanuk
(13,509 posts).
.
.
yme fyne.
CC
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)to try to protect the funding for these Corporate Programs which have zero to do with 'Terror'. And now we know for sure that they were being used for BUSINESS purposes according to the latest revelations in Der Spiegel today. These programs were being used to SPY ON our ALLIES in the EU, their business practices, banking methods etc.
The whole scheme is being unpeeled like an onion and when the public realizes it had zero to do with terror, but was all about Wall St, there will be hell to pay. And THAT is why they are so angry at Snowden.
Deny and Shred
(1,061 posts)Somewhere in the late 90's it was replaced with the corpoate-speak word of Synergy. It wasn't a conflict between company and regulator, it was unlocking "value". Having a sleeper as the policeman of whatever you are trying to accomplish was hailed as efficient. Having the Senate Committee in your pocket, promising future lobbying or consulting gigs when their term runs out, being allowed to trade with your subsidiary (Enron CFO), creating a tax-payer funded contractor economy details of which are opaque to even the Senators charged with oversight, etc. - its all good for the bottom line; therefore, its all good. Simply ignore the potential downside.
I think its to the point that one who takes Conflict of Interest seriously has zero chance of arriving in those positions. I applaud the idea of 'hell to pay' but I don't think its forthcoming - more like Medals of Freedom to those who rubber stamp it all with a US Gevernment Seal of Approval.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)a conflict for someone like Clapper to come from the World of Private Corporations straight into Government and do what he sees as his job, represent the Corporate world.
I don't think the average American realizes how far strayed from democracy, yet. But I do have faith that the more people who become informed, the more likely it is that there will be a huge reaction, across the board.
I also believe that this is why the Government is lashing out at Snowden right now, the smear campaigns, the demonizing of anyone who speaks out against them. Because they are AFRAID their cozy little world is about to have some sunlight directed at it finally.
Deny and Shred
(1,061 posts)Sunlight to National Security is verboten, and Snowden crossed the line. Yes, he is guilty of several laws, but that isn't why they are pursuing him to this extent. They know how many contractors and actual employees have and have had access to sensitive material. Snowden is the example they desparately want to set. They want to avoid meaningful debate on his revelations, limit new revelations, and keep it about the man, his un-patriotic-ness.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Afraid the use and misuse of US intel for corporate gain isn't new. It's been part of the spy game from the very beginning.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/1994/05/company-spies
Company Spies
The CIA has opened a Global Pandora's Box by Spying on foreign competitors of American companies.
—By Robert Dreyfuss
| May/June 1994 Issue
< . . .>
Since the end of the Cold War, Washington has been abuzz with talk about using the CIA for economic espionage. Stripped of euphemism, economic espionage simply means that American spies would target foreign companies, such as Toyota, Nissan, and Honda, and then covertly pass stolen trade secrets and technology to U.S. corporate executives.
R. James Woolsey, President Clinton's CIA director, has said repeatedly that the CIA will not engage in corporate spy work. Targeting foreign companies and giving that information to American companies is "fraught with legal and foreign policy difficulties," Woolsey says. But there is not the slightest hesitation among other top CIA officials that such information, when obtained, ought to be shared with American automakers.
The idea of using the U.S. intelligence community to give American companies an edge is an explosive subject that has divided the CIA and provoked bitter debate in Congress. It also raises troubling questions about whether a free society can accept the kind of help that the CIA provides when the question is not one of national defense but simply dollars and cents.
< . . .>
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)things have changed drastically even regarding corporate spying. We have been told that the billions of dollars being spent on these programs was for TERROR. It appears now that we were blatantly lied to and if what is in Der Spiegel is correct, a huge portion of it is being spent on Corporate Spying and has zero to do with 'Terror'.
Additionally we are told that we must give up some of our rights in order to 'be safe'. That is an outright lie, even IF this was about terror. But it is even more of a lie if it is NOT.
I have not heard a single defender of this spying on the American people state that it is for Business. They insist it is 'for our safety'.
People only reluctantly went along with the excessive amounts of money and in some cases, invasions of privacy, BECAUSE they believed it was all about their safety. It is not, we know that now. They need to stop lying.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Before Bush made him CIA Director, Gen. Michael Hayden was head of the NSA. By the late 1990s, Hayden's Groundbreaker Project has already spent hundreds of millions to essentially privatize NSA and turn over many of its IT functions to the major telephone carriers and other private contractors. Today, Groundbreaker is widely described as having been a major technical flop and an immense waste of funding on programs that we are told didn't work. However, the project did complete a couple of large data centers, and was -- as this article shows -- already engaged in large-scale domestic phone interception before 9/11.
Spy Agency Sought U.S. Call Records Before 9/11, Lawyers Say
By Andrew Harris - June 30, 2006 18:46 EDT
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=abIV0cO64zJE
June 30 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. National Security Agency asked AT&T Inc. to help it set up a domestic call monitoring site seven months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, lawyers claimed June 23 in court papers filed in New York federal court.
The allegation is part of a court filing adding AT&T, the nation's largest telephone company, as a defendant in a breach of privacy case filed earlier this month on behalf of Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. customers. The suit alleges that the three carriers, the NSA and President George W. Bush violated the Telecommunications Act of 1934 and the U.S. Constitution, and seeks money damages.
``The Bush Administration asserted this became necessary after 9/11,'' plaintiff's lawyer Carl Mayer said in a telephone interview. ``This undermines that assertion.''
The lawsuit is related to an alleged NSA program to record and store data on calls placed by subscribers. More than 30 suits have been filed over claims that the carriers, the three biggest U.S. telephone companies, violated the privacy rights of their customers by cooperating with the NSA in an effort to track alleged terrorists.
``The U.S. Department of Justice has stated that AT&T may neither confirm nor deny AT&T's participation in the alleged NSA program because doing so would cause `exceptionally grave harm to national security' and would violate both civil and criminal statutes,'' AT&T spokesman Dave Pacholczyk said in an e-mail.
U.S. Department of Justice spokesman Charles Miller and NSA spokesman Don Weber declined to comment.
Pioneer Groundbreaker
The NSA initiative, code-named ``Pioneer Groundbreaker,'' asked AT&T unit AT&T Solutions to build exclusively for NSA use a network operations center which duplicated AT&T's Bedminster, New Jersey facility, the court papers claimed. That plan was abandoned in favor of the NSA acquiring the monitoring technology itself, plaintiffs' lawyers Bruce Afran said.
The NSA says on its Web site that in June 2000, the agency was seeking bids for a project to ``modernize and improve its information technology infrastructure.'' The plan, which included the privatization of its ``non-mission related'' systems support, was said to be part of Project Groundbreaker.
Mayer said the Pioneer project is ``a different component'' of that initiative.
Mayer and Afran said an unnamed former employee of the AT&T unit provided them with evidence that the NSA approached the carrier with the proposed plan. Afran said he has seen the worker's log book and independently confirmed the source's participation in the project. He declined to identify the employee.
Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)US.
JEB
(4,748 posts)
George II
(67,782 posts)Th1onein
(8,514 posts)You just go right ahead and believe that shit, if it makes you feel better. The rest of us kinda like reality.
ConcernedCanuk
(13,509 posts).
.
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And the US lawmakers are scared shitless for the World to know about their behaviour.
Too late, the World already knew what the USA is up to,
now they have PROOF!
Long overdue.
Empires die.
eom
CC
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)The merger of state and corporate power. It's right in your face.
WillyT
(72,631 posts)
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,000 posts)leveymg
(36,418 posts)By Thomas Heath and Marjorie Censer,June 11, 2013
The Carlyle Group owns a majority stake in contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.
The Carlyle Group owns a majority stake in contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters )
The Carlyle Group has spent years attempting to shed its image as a well-connected private equity firm leveraging Washington heavyweights in the defense sector. Instead, it nurtured a reputation as a financially sophisticated asset manager that buys and sells everything from railroads to oil refineries.
The recent disclosures involving National Security Agency surveillance on U.S. citizens by an employee of Booz Allen Hamilton, a Virginia consulting firm that is majority owned by Carlyle, has thrust two of Washington’s most prominent corporate entities uncomfortably into the limelight, bound by the thread of turning government secrets into profits.
Booz Allen employee Edward Snowden was fired Tuesday after he confessed to being the source of stories about NSA data collection programs. Federal investigators are examining how Snowden, who worked at an NSA facility in Hawaii and had also worked for the CIA, was able to gain access to sensitive information.
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,000 posts)muriel_volestrangler
(101,310 posts)and was there before. And James Woolsey, former CIA Director, was there too:
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”.
...
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.
...
Fast forward to 2007. Vice Admiral Michael McConnell (ret.), Booz Allen’s then-senior vice president of policy, transformation, homeland security and intelligence analytics, was hired as the second czar of the new “Office of the Director of National Intelligence”, a post that oversees the work of Washington’s 17 intelligence agencies, which was coincidentally located just three kilometres from the company’s corporate headquarters.
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.
http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/06/how-booz-allen-made-the-revolving-door-redundant/
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,000 posts)
Jack Rabbit
(45,984 posts)Do you have links to support these ideas? I would like to see them.
jmowreader
(50,556 posts)...and had it published in newspapers and posted on the Internet.
malaise
(268,952 posts)The privatization of national security by the enemies of the representative democracy - is it fascism yet?
SleeplessinSoCal
(9,112 posts)All they want is privatization. They don't want government doing anything. They won't admit Climate Change is real because it would mean the government might do something about it rather than private entities.
How do you fight the right over their deep desire for something some people see as "Fascism"?
malaise
(268,952 posts)They will wake up.
SleeplessinSoCal
(9,112 posts)how on earth would others?
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)leveymg
(36,418 posts)warrprayer
(4,734 posts)
Amonester
(11,541 posts)So, again, as long as this ^^^^ will not be done, forget about breaking the status quo.
silvershadow
(10,336 posts)during his administration all manner of dismantling occurred, and all manner of "re-organization" occurred. Voting was for the first time ever mandated to be computerized and "centralized". Wonder why that was? Yep, Bush was the death of our Democracy, not any other reason. That our President is struggling now to reign in the horses after they have left the barn is to be expected. It's just unfortunate. When will the Bushes ever be held to account for anything they do? It's not exactly like they are entitled to feast on our country...are they? And as to the whistleblower act being a joke, I'm in agreement.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Next thing you know - 911! Two wars! A second stolen election! An economic collapse! The election of a "transformative" president!
They didn't steal that election with good intentions. And they had no plans to relinquish power once they did. And they have not.
AzDar
(14,023 posts)
Gregorian
(23,867 posts)Kind of hard to rebut this.
SleeplessinSoCal
(9,112 posts)They don't like the government. They're privatizing everything they can. They see no harm in doing so. They use the government as a useful object for blaming our problems on. But they'd surely want all the privileges that go with it.