[R-G] Domestic Spying, Inc.

[Anthony Fenton]

Domestic Spying, Inc.

by Tim Shorrock , Special to CorpWatch
November 27th, 2007

A new intelligence institution to be inaugurated soon by the Bush
administration will allow government spying agencies to conduct broad
surveillance and reconnaissance inside the United States for the first
time. Under a proposal being reviewed by Congress, a National  
Applications
Office (NAO) will be established to coordinate how the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) and domestic law enforcement and rescue agencies
use imagery and communications intelligence picked up by U.S. spy
satellites. If the plan goes forward, the NAO will create the legal
mechanism for an unprecedented degree of domestic intelligence gathering
that would make the U.S. one of the world's most closely monitored
nations. Until now, domestic use of electronic intelligence from spy
satellites was limited to scientific agencies with no responsibility for
national security or law enforcement.

The intelligence-sharing system to be managed by the NAO will rely  
heavily
on private contractors including Boeing, BAE Systems, L-3 Communications
and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). These  
companies
already provide technology and personnel to U.S. agencies involved in
foreign intelligence, and the NAO greatly expands their markets. Indeed,
at an intelligence conference in San Antonio, Texas, last month, the
titans of the industry were actively lobbying intelligence officials to
buy products specifically designed for domestic surveillance.

The NAO was created under a plan tentatively approved in May 2007 by
Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell. Specifically,  
the NAO
will oversee how classified information collected by the National  
Security
Agency (NSA), the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and  
other
key agencies is used within the U.S. during natural disasters, terrorist
attacks and other events affecting national security. The most critical
intelligence will be supplied by the NSA and the NGA, which are often
referred to by U.S. officials as the “eyes” and “ears” of the  
intelligence
community.

The NSA, through a global network of listening posts, surveillance  
planes,
and satellites, captures signals from phone calls, e-mail and Internet
traffic, and translates and analyzes them for U.S. military and national
intelligence officials.

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), which was formally
inaugurated in 2003, provides overhead imagery and mapping tools that
allow intelligence and military analysts to monitor events from the  
skies
and space. The NSA and the NGA have a close relationship with the
super-secret National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which builds and
maintains the U.S. fleet of spy satellites and operates the ground
stations where the NSA’s signals and the NGA’s imagery are processed and
analyzed. By law, their collection efforts are supposed to be  
confined to
foreign countries and battlefields.

The National Applications Office was conceived in 2005 by the Office of
the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), which Congress created in
2004 to oversee the 16 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence
community. The ODNI, concerned that the legal framework for U.S.
intelligence operations had not been updated for the global “war on
terror,” turned to Booz Allen Hamilton of McLean, Virginia -- one of the
largest contractors in the spy business. The company was tasked with
studying how intelligence from spy satellites and photoreconnaissance
planes could be better used domestically to track potential threats to
security within the U.S.. The Booz Allen study was completed in May of
that year, and has since become the basis for the NAO oversight plan. In
May 2007, McConnell, the former executive vice president of Booz Allen,
signed off on the creation of the NAO as the principal body to  
oversee the
merging of foreign and domestic intelligence collection operations.

The NAO is "an idea whose time has arrived," Charles Allen, a top U.S.
intelligence official, told the Wall Street Journal in August 2007 after
it broke the news of the creation of the NAO. Allen, the DHS's chief
intelligence officer, will head the new program. The announcement came
just days after President George W. Bush signed a new law approved by
Congress to expand the ability of the NSA to eavesdrop, without  
warrants,
on telephone calls, e-mail and faxes passing through telecommunications
hubs in the U.S. when the government suspects agents of a foreign power
may be involved. "These [intelligence] systems are already used to  
help us
respond to crises," Allen later told the Washington Post. "We anticipate
that we can also use them to protect Americans by preventing the  
entry of
dangerous people and goods into the country, and by helping us examine
critical infrastructure for vulnerabilities."

Donald Kerr, a former NRO director who is now the number two at ODNI,
recently explained to reporters that the intelligence community was no
longer discussing whether or not to spy on U.S. citizens: “Our job  
now is
to engage in a productive debate, which focuses on privacy as a  
component
of appropriate levels of security and public safety,'' Kerr said. ''I
think all of us have to really take stock of what we already are willing
to give up, in terms of anonymity, but [also] what safeguards we want in
place to be sure that giving that doesn't empty our bank account or do
something equally bad elsewhere.''

What Will The NAO Do?

The plan for the NAO builds on a domestic security infrastructure  
that has
been in place for at least seven years. After the terrorist attacks of
September 11, 2001, the NSA was granted new powers to monitor domestic
communications without obtaining warrants from a secret foreign
intelligence court established by Congress in 1978 (that warrant-less
program ended in January 2007 but was allowed to continue, with some
changes, under legislation passed by Congress in August 2007).

Moreover, intelligence and reconnaissance agencies that were  
historically
confined to spying on foreign countries have been used extensively on  
the
home front since 2001. In the hours after the September 11th, 2001  
attacks
in New York, for example, the Bush administration called on the NGA to
capture imagery from lower Manhattan and the Pentagon to help in the
rescue and recovery efforts. In 2002, when two deranged snipers  
terrified
the citizens of Washington and its Maryland and Virginia suburbs with a
string of fatal shootings, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)  
asked
the NGA to provide detailed images of freeway interchanges and other
locations to help spot the pair.

The NGA was also used extensively during Hurricane Katrina , when the
agency provided overhead imagery -- some of it supplied by U-2
photoreconnaissance aircraft -- to federal and state rescue operations.
The data, which included mapping of flooded areas in Louisiana and
Mississippi, allowed residents of the stricken areas to see the  
extent of
damage to their homes and helped first-responders locate contaminated
areas as well as schools, churches and hospitals that might be used  
in the
rescue. More recently, during the October 2007 California wildfires, the
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) asked the NGA to analyze
overhead imagery of the fire zones and determine the areas of maximum
intensity and damage. In every situation that the NGA is used
domestically, it must receive a formal request from a lead domestic
agency, according to agency spokesperson David Burpee. That agency is
usually FEMA, which is a unit of DHS.

At first blush, the idea of a U.S. intelligence agency serving the  
public
by providing imagery to aid in disaster recovery sounds like a positive
development, especially when compared to the Bush administration’s  
misuse
of the NSA and the Pentagon’s Counter-Intelligence Field Activity (CIFA)
to spy on American citizens. But the notion of using spy satellites and
aircraft for domestic purposes becomes problematic from a civil  
liberties
standpoint when the full capabilities of agencies like the NGA and  
the NSA
are considered.

Imagine, for example, that U.S. intelligence officials have determined,
through NSA telephone intercepts, that a group of worshippers at a  
mosque
in Oakland, California, has communicated with an Islamic charity in  
Saudi
Arabia. This is the same group that the FBI and the U.S. Department  
of the
Treasury believe is linked to an organization unfriendly to the United
States.

Imagine further that the FBI, as a lead agency, asks and receives
permission to monitor that mosque and the people inside using
high-resolution imagery obtained from the NGA. Using other technologies,
such as overhead traffic cameras in place in many cities, that mosque
could be placed under surveillance for months, and -- through cell phone
intercepts and overhead imagery -- its suspected worshipers carefully
tracked in real-time as they moved almost anywhere in the country.

The NAO, under the plan approved by ODNI’s McConnell, would determine  
the
rules that will guide the DHS and other lead federal agencies when they
want to use imagery and signals intelligence in situations like this, as
well as during natural disasters. If the organization is established as
planned, U.S. domestic agencies will have a vast array of technology at
their disposal. In addition to the powerful mapping and signals tools
provided by the NGA and the NSA, domestic agencies will also have access
to measures and signatures intelligence (MASINT) managed by the Defense
Intelligence Agency (DIA), the principal spying agency used by the
secretary of defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

(MASINT is a highly classified form of intelligence that uses infrared
sensors and other technologies to “sniff” the atmosphere for certain
chemicals and electro-magnetic activity and “see” beneath bridges and
forest canopies. Using its tools, analysts can detect signs that a  
nuclear
power plant is producing plutonium, determine from truck exhaust what
types of vehicles are in a convoy, and detect people and weapons hidden
from the view of satellites or photoreconnaissance aircraft.)

Created By Contractors

The study group that established policies for the NAO was jointly funded
by the ODNI and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), one of only two
domestic U.S. agencies that is currently allowed, under rules set in the
1970s, to use classified intelligence from spy satellites. (The other is
NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.) The group was
chaired by Keith Hall, a Booz Allen vice president who manages his  
firm’s
extensive contracts with the NGA and previously served as the  
director of
the NRO.

Other members of the group included seven other former intelligence
officers working for Booz Allen, as well as retired Army Lieutenant
General Patrick M. Hughes, the former director of the DIA and vice
president of homeland security for L-3 Communications, a key NSA
contractor; and Thomas W. Conroy, the vice president of national  
security
programs for Northrop Grumman, which has extensive contracts with the  
NSA
and the NGA and throughout the intelligence community.


> From the start, the study group was heavily weighted toward  
> companies with
>
a stake in both foreign and domestic intelligence. Not surprisingly, its
contractor-advisers called for a major expansion in the domestic use of
the spy satellites that they sell to the government. Since the end of  
the
Cold War and particularly since the September 11, 2001 attacks, they  
said,
the “threats to the nation have changed and there is a growing  
interest in
making available the special capabilities of the intelligence  
community to
all parts of the government, to include homeland security and law
enforcement entities and on a higher priority basis.”

Contractors are not new to the U.S. spy world. Since the creation of the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the modern intelligence system in
1947, the private sector has been tapped to design and build the
technology that facilitates electronic surveillance. Lockheed, for
example, built the U-2, the famous surveillance plane that flew  
scores of
spy missions over the Soviet Union and Cuba. During the 1960s, Lockheed
was a prime contractor for the Corona system of spy satellites that
greatly expanded the CIA’s abilities to photograph secret military
installations from space. IBM, Cray Computers and other companies built
the super-computers that allowed the NSA to sift through data from
millions of telephone calls, and analyze them for intelligence that was
passed on to national leaders.

Spending on contracts has increased exponentially in recent years along
with intelligence budgets, and the NSA, the NGA and other agencies have
turned to the private sector for the latest computer and communications
technologies and for intelligence analysts. For example, today about  
half
of staff at the NSA and NGA are private contractors. At the DIA, 35
percent of the workers are contractors. But the most privatized  
agency of
all is the NRO, where a whopping 90 percent of the workforce receive
paychecks from corporations. All told the U.S. intelligence agencies  
spend
some 70 percent of their estimated $60 billion annual budget on  
contracts
with private companies, according to documents this reporter obtained in
June 2007 from the ODNI.

The plans to increase domestic spying are estimated to be worth billions
of dollars in new business for the intelligence contractors. The market
potential was on display in October at GEOINT 2007, the annual  
conference
sponsored by the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF), a
non-profit organization funded by the largest contractors for the NGA.
During the conference, which took place in October at the spacious Henry
B. Gonzalez Convention Center in downtown San Antonio, many companies  
were
displaying spying and surveillance tools that had been used in  
Afghanistan
and Iraq and were now being re-branded for potential domestic use.

BAE Systems Inc.

On the first day of the conference, three employees of BAE Systems Inc.
who had just returned from a three-week tour of Iraq and Afghanistan  
with
the NGA demonstrated a new software package called SOCET GXP. (BAE  
Systems
Inc. is the U.S. subsidiary of the UK-based BAE, the third-largest
military contractor in the world.)

GXP uses Google Earth software as a basis for creating three-dimensional
maps that U.S. commanders and soldiers use to conduct intelligence and
reconnaissance missions. Eric Bruce, one of the BAE employees back from
the Middle East, said his team trained U.S. forces to use the GXP  
software
“to study routes for known terrorist sites” as well as to locate opium
fields. “Terrorists use opium to fund their war,” he said. Bruce also  
said
his team received help from Iraqi citizens in locating targets. “Many of
the locals can’t read maps, so they tell the analysts, ‘there is a  
mosque
next to a hill,’” he explained.

Bruce said BAE’s new package is designed for defense forces and
intelligence agencies, but can also be used for homeland security and by
highway departments and airports. Earlier versions of the software were
sold to the U.S. Army’s Topographic Engineering Center, where it has  
been
used to collect data on more than 12,000 square kilometers of Iraq,
primarily in urban centers and over supply routes.

Another new BAE tool displayed in San Antonio was a program called
GOSHAWK, which stands for “Geospatial Operations for a Secure Homeland –
Awareness, Workflow, Knowledge.” It was pitched by BAE as a tool to help
law enforcement and state and local emergency agencies prepare for, and
respond to, “natural disasters and terrorist and criminal incidents.”
Under the GOSHAWK program, BAE supplies “agencies and corporations” with
data providers and information technology specialists “capable of  
turning
geospatial information into the knowledge needed for quick decisions.” A
typical operation might involve acquiring data from satellites, aircraft
and sensors in ground vehicles, and integrating those data to support an
emergency or security operations center. One of the program’s special
attributes, the company says, is its ability to “differentiate levels of
classification,” meaning that it can deduce when data are classified and
meant only for use by analysts with security clearances.

These two products were just a sampling of what BAE, a major player  
in the
U.S. intelligence market, had to offer. BAE’s services to U.S.
intelligence -- including the CIA and the National Counter-Terrorism
Center -- are provided through a special unit called the Global Analysis
Business Unit. It is located in McLean, Virginia, a stone’s throw  
from the
CIA. The unit is headed by John Gannon, a 25-year veteran of the CIA who
reached the agency’s highest analytical ranks as deputy director of
intelligence and chairman of the National Intelligence Council.  
Today, as
a private sector contractor for the intelligence community, Gannon  
manages
a staff of more than 800 analysts with security clearances.

A brochure for the Global Analysis unit distributed at GEOINT 2007
explains BAE’s role and, in the process, underscores the degree of
outsourcing in U.S. intelligence. “The demand for experienced, skilled,
and cleared analysts – and for the best systems to manage them – has  
never
been greater across the Intelligence and Defense Communities, in the  
field
and among federal, state, and local agencies responsible for national  
and
homeland security,” BAE says. The mission of the Global Analysis  
unit, it
says, “is to provide policymakers, warfighters, and law enforcement
officials with analysts to help them understand the complex intelligence
threats they face, and work force management programs to improve the
skills and expertise of analysts.”

At the bottom of the brochure is a series of photographs illustrating
BAE’s broad reach: a group of analysts monitoring a bank of computers;
three employees studying a map of Europe, the Middle East and the  
Horn of
Africa; the outlines of two related social networks that have been  
mapped
out to show how their members are linked; a bearded man, apparently from
the Middle East and presumably a terrorist; the fiery image of a car  
bomb
after it exploded in Iraq; and four white radar domes (known as radomes)
of the type used by the NSA to monitor global communications from dozens
of bases and facilities around the world.

The brochure may look and sound like typical corporate public relations.
But amid BAE’s spy talk were two phrases strategically placed by the
company to alert intelligence officials that BAE has an active presence
inside the U.S.. The tip-off words were “federal, state and local
agencies,” “law enforcement officials” and “homeland security.” By
including them, BAE was broadcasting that it is not simply a contractor
for agencies involved in foreign intelligence, but has an active  
presence
as a supplier to domestic security agencies, a category that includes  
the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the FBI as well as local and  
state
police forces stretching from Maine to Hawaii.

ManTech, Boeing, Harris and L-3

ManTech International, an important NSA contractor based in Fairfax,
Virginia, has perfected the art of creating multi-agency software  
programs
for both foreign and domestic intelligence. After the September 11th,  
2001
attacks, it developed a classified program for the Defense Intelligence
Agency called the Joint Regional Information Exchange System. DIA  
used it
to combine classified and unclassified intelligence on terrorist threats
on a single desktop. ManTech then tweaked that software for the  
Department
of Homeland Security and sold it to DHS for its Homeland Security
Information Network. According to literature ManTech distributed at
GEOINT, that software will “significantly strengthen the exchange of
real-time threat information used to combat terrorism.” ManTech, the
brochure added, “also provides extensive, advanced information  
technology
support to the National Security Agency” and other agencies.

In a nearby booth, Chicago, Illinois-based Boeing, the world’s second
largest defense contractor, was displaying its “information sharing
environment” software, which is designed to meet the Office of the
Director of National Intelligence’s new requirements on agencies to stop
buying “stovepiped” systems that can’t talk to each other. The ODNI  
wants
to focus on products that will allow the NGA and other agencies to  
easily
share their classified imagery with the CIA and other sectors of the
community. “To ensure freedom in the world, the United States  
continues to
address the challenges introduced by terrorism,” a Boeing handout said.
Its new software, the company said, will allow information to be “shared
efficiently and uninterrupted across intelligence agencies, first
responders, military and world allies.” Boeing has a reason for  
publishing
boastful material like this: In 2005, it lost a major contract with the
NRO to build a new generation of imaging satellites after ringing up
billions of dollars in cost-overruns. The New York Times recently called
the Boeing project “the most spectacular and expensive failure in the
50-year history of American spy satellite projects.”

Boeing’s geospatial intelligence offerings are provided through its  
Space
and Intelligence Systems unit, which also holds contracts with the  
NSA. It
allows agencies and military units to map global shorelines and create
detailed maps of cities and battlefields, complete with digital  
elevation
data that allow users to construct three-dimensional maps. (In an
intriguing aside, one Boeing intelligence brochure lists among its
“specialized organizations” Jeppesen Government and Military Services.
According to a 2006 account by New Yorker reporter Jane Mayer, Jeppesen
provided logistical and navigational assistance, including flight plans
and clearance to fly over other countries, to the CIA for its
“extraordinary rendition” program.)

Although less known as an intelligence contractor than BAE and  
Boeing, the
Harris Corporation has become a major force in providing contracted
electronic, satellite and information technology services to the
intelligence community, including the NSA and the NRO. In 2007,  
according
to its most recent annual report, the $4.2 billion company, based in
Melbourne, Florida, won several new classified contracts. NSA awarded  
one
of them for software to be used by NSA analysts in the agency’s “Rapidly
Deployable Integrated Command and Control System,” which is used by the
NSA to transmit “actionable intelligence” to soldiers and commanders in
the field. Harris also supplies geospatial and imagery products to the
NGA. At GEOINT, Harris displayed a new product that allows agencies to
analyze live video and audio data imported from UAVs. It was developed,
said Fred Poole, a Harris market development manager, “with input from
intelligence analysts who were looking for a video and audio analysis  
tool
that would allow them to perform ‘intelligence fusion’” --  combining
information from several agencies into a single picture of an ongoing
operation.

For many of the contractors at GEOINT, the highlight of the symposium  
was
an “interoperability demonstration” that allowed vendors to show how  
their
products would work in a domestic crisis.

One scenario involved Cuba as a rogue nation supplying spent nuclear  
fuel
to terrorists bent on creating havoc in the U.S.. Implausible as it was,
the plot, which involved maritime transportation and ports, allowed the
companies to display software that was likely already in use by the
Department of Homeland Security and Naval Intelligence. The “plot”
involved the discovery by U.S. intelligence of a Cuban ship carrying  
spent
nuclear fuel heading for the U.S. Gulf Coast; an analysis of the social
networks of Cuban officials involved with the illicit cargo; and the
tracking and interception of the cargo as it departed from Cuba and  
moved
across the Caribbean to Corpus Christi, Texas, a major port on the Gulf
Coast. The agencies involved included the NGA, the NSA, Naval  
Intelligence
and the Marines, and some of the key contractors working for those
agencies. It illustrated how sophisticated the U.S. domestic  
surveillance
system has become in the six years since the 9/11 attacks.

L-3 Communications, which is based in New York city, was a natural  
for the
exercise: As mentioned earlier, retired Army Lt. General Patrick M.
Hughes, its vice president of homeland security, was a member of the  
Booz
Allen Hamilton study group that advised the Bush administration to  
expand
the domestic use of military spy satellites. At GEOINT, L-3 displayed a
new program called “multi-INT visualization environment” that combines
imagery and signals intelligence data that can be laid over photographs
and maps. One example shown during the interoperability demonstration
showed how such data would be incorporated into a map of Florida and the
waters surrounding Cuba. With L-3 a major player at the NSA, this
demonstration software is likely seeing much use as the NSA and the NGA
expand their information-sharing relationship.

Over the past two years, for example, the NGA has deployed dozens of
employees and contractors to Iraq to support the “surge” of U.S. troops.
The NGA teams provide imagery and full-motion video -- much of it beamed
to the ground from Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) -- that help U.S.
commanders and soldiers track and destroy insurgents fighting the U.S.
occupation. And since 2004, under a memorandum of understanding with the
NSA, the NGA has begun to incorporate signals intelligence into its
imagery products. The blending technique allows U.S. military units to
track and find targets by picking up signals from their cell phones,
follow the suspects in real-time using overhead video, and direct  
fighter
planes and artillery units to the exact location of the targets -- and
blow them to smithereens.

That’s exactly how U.S. Special Forces tracked and killed Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi, the alleged leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, the NGA’s director,
Navy Vice Admiral Robert Murrett, said in 2006. Later, Murrett told
reporters during GEOINT 2007, the NSA and the NGA have cooperated in
similar fashion in several other fronts of the “war on terror,”  
including
in the Horn of Africa, where the U.S. military has attacked Al Qaeda  
units
in Somalia, and in the Philippines, where U.S. forces are helping the
government put down the Muslim insurgent group Abu Sayyaf. “When the NGA
and the NSA work together, one plus one equals five,” said Murrett.

Civil Liberty Worries

For U.S. citizens, however, the combination of NGA imagery and NSA  
signals
intelligence in a domestic situation could threaten important
constitutional safeguards against unwarranted searches and seizures.  
Kate
Martin, the director of the Center for National Security Studies, a
nonprofit advocacy organization, has likened the NAO plan to “Big  
Brother
in the Sky.” The Bush administration, she told the Washington Post, is
“laying the bricks one at a time for a police state.”

Some Congress members, too, are concerned. “The enormity of the NAO’s
capabilities and the intended use of the imagery received through these
satellites for domestic homeland security purposes, and the unintended
consequences that may arise, have heightened concerns among the general
public, including reputable civil rights and civil liberties
organizations,” Bennie G. Thompson, a Democratic member of Congress from
Mississippi and the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee,
wrote in a September letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Michael
Chertoff. Thompson and other lawmakers reacted with anger after  
reports of
the NAO and the domestic spying plan were first revealed by the Wall
Street Journal in August. “There was no briefing, no hearing, and no  
phone
call from anyone on your staff to any member of this committee of why,
how, or when satellite imagery would be shared with police and sheriffs’
officers nationwide,” Thompson complained to Chertoff.

At a hastily organized hearing in September, Thompson and others  
demanded
that the opening of the NAO be delayed until further studies were
conducted on its legal basis and questions about civil liberties were
answered. They also demanded biweekly updates from Chertoff on the
activities and progress of the new organization. Others pointed out the
potential danger of allowing U.S. military satellites to be used
domestically. “It will terrify you if you really understand the
capabilities of satellites,” warned Jane Harman, a Democratic member of
Congress from California, who represents a coastal area of Los Angeles
where many of the nation’s satellites are built. As Harman well knows,
military spy satellites are far more flexible, offer greater resolution,
and have considerably more power to observe human activity than  
commercial
satellites. “Even if this program is well-designed and executed, someone
somewhere else could hijack it,” Harman said during the hearing.

The NAO was supposed to open for business on October 1, 2007. But the
Congressional complaints have led the ODNI and DHS to delay their plans.
The NAO "has no intention to begin operations until we address your
questions," Charles Allen of DHS explained in a letter to Thompson.  
In an
address at the GEOINT conference in San Antonio, Allen said that the  
ODNI
is working with DHS and the Departments of Justice and Interior to draft
the charter for the new organization, which he said will face “layers of
review” once it is established.

Yet, given the Bush administration’s record of using U.S. intelligence
agencies to spy on U.S. citizens, it is difficult to take such  
promises at
face value. Moreover, the extensive corporate role in foreign and  
domestic
intelligence means that the private sector has a great deal to gain  
in the
new plan for intelligence-sharing. Because most private contracts with
intelligence agencies are classified, however, the public will have  
little
knowledge of this role. Before Congress signs off on the NAO, it should
create a better oversight system that would allow the House of
Representatives and the Senate to monitor the new organization and to
examine how BAE, Boeing, Harris and its fellow corporations stand to
profit from this unprecedented expansion of America’s domestic
intelligence system.


Tim Shorrock has been writing about U.S. foreign policy and national
security for nearly 30 years. His book, Spies for Hire: The Secret World
of Outsourced Intelligence, will be published in May 2008 by Simon &
Schuster. He can be reached at timshorrock at gmail.com.