[R-G] Private Spies: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing

[Anthony Fenton]

Private Spies: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing

by Tom Burghardt

Global Research, August 2, 2008
Antifascist Calling...
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=BUR20080802&articleId=9729


CACI Grabs Scottish Census Contract, Ignites Political Firestorm Over  
Torture Allegations

Glasgow's Sunday Herald reported July 27 that a British subsidiary of  
CACI International was awarded an £18.5 million ($36.6) contract by  
the Scottish government to carry out the country's next census. The  
announcement ignited a political firestorm.

Leading human rights and antiwar organizations have condemned the deal  
and threatened the Scottish National Party (SNP) government with a  
mass boycott should the agreement stand.

On June 30, the Center for Constitutional Rights and other law firms  
filed a series of civil lawsuits against CACI International, Inc.,  
CACI Premier Technology and L-3 Services Inc., a division of L-3  
Communications over allegations of torture at Iraq's infamous Abu  
Ghraib prison. AFC has previously reported on these landmark cases,  
see: "Abu Ghraib Torture Claims Spook CACI, L-3 Communications."

Sunday Herald investigations editor Neil Mackay writes,

     Granting CACI (UK) -- a subsidiary of the firm accused of torture  
-- the £18.5 million contract has not only badly wounded the SNP  
government's claims of being more ethical than Labour and putting  
human rights at the top of its agenda, but has also led to fears  
personal data on millions of Scots collected by the company might be  
sifted by the US government given the close relationship between the  
Bush administration and the CACI head office in Arlington, Virginia.  
("Scottish Government Hires Firm Accused of Torture in Iraq," Sunday  
Herald, 27 July 2008)

As strategic partners in Washington's "global war on terror," private  
corporations, particularly those in the defense and burgeoning  
"homeland security" industries, have been incorporated into the  
state's intelligence apparatus--with little or no accountability and  
even less oversight.

Human rights' lawyer John Scott told Mackay, "The government is  
opening itself up to significant and justified protest. Ordinary  
members of the public could refuse to have anything to do with the  
census. A boycott is something to be considered. It would be a  
legitimate step. We cannot ignore our principles."

As outrage grows over the deal, The Stop the War Coalition, a UK-wide  
organization that has mobilized mass opposition to the illegal  
invasion and occupation of Iraq, launched a petition drive against the  
contract. The SWC petition states "awarding millions of taxpayers'  
money to a subsidiary of a firm that has benefited from a contract at  
Abu Ghraib, profiting from an illegal and immoral occupation, is  
contrary to the views of the majority of the Scottish public."

Aamer Anwar, a prominent human rights attorney with the organization  
Scotland Against Criminalising Communities told the Sunday Herald,  
"the US government doesn't give a damn about people's rights, it'll  
gather data in any way possible how can we be sure that the census  
information will not be handed over to the US government in the  
interests of homeland security?"

Private Spies: A Cautionary Tale

Anwar's concerns are indeed justified. In May, the San Diego Union- 
Tribune reported on the case of Col. Larry Richards, a Marine  
reservist stationed at Camp Pendleton. According to investigative  
journalist Rick Rogers, Richards, a group of fellow Marines and law  
enforcement officers, including the cofounder of the Los Angeles  
County Terrorist Early Warning Center (LACTEW), stole secret files  
from the Strategic Technical Operations Center.

While Col. Richards and the other conspirators described below had no  
relationship to CACI or its web of worldwide affiliates their case  
however, is illustrative of the inherent dangers of employing private  
corporations with ties to the military-industrial-surveillance complex  
to perform sensitive public functions.

Created in 1996, the LACTEW has been described by the FBI and the  
Office of National Intelligence as "a model for others to emulate,"  
according to the ACLU. The LACTEW has since "evolved" into the the  
Joint Regional Intelligence Center (JRIC) in Los Angeles. When not on  
active duty, Richards worked as a "top specialist" at LACTEW,  
according to the Union-Tribune.

But when he was working at Camp Pendleton, Richards' private spy ring  
stole hundreds of classified files, including those marked "Top  
Secret, Special Compartmentalized Information," the highest U.S.  
Government classification. The files included surveillance dossiers on  
the Muslim community and antiwar activists in Southern California.

Members of the ring included a Marine Gunnery Sgt., Gary Maziarz, who  
was given access to Richards' "logon and password to access  
confidential computer accounts on the Joint Worldwide Intelligence  
Communications System and Secret Internet Protocol Router Network,"  
while Richards was deployed to Iraq, the Union-Tribune reported.

Another conspirator was Lauren Martin, an intelligence analyst at U.S.  
Northern Command (NORTHCOM) headquarters in Colorado Springs,  
Colorado. NORTHCOM manages information about potential terrorism  
operations nationwide, and "Martin was responsible for the region that  
included Southern California, Maziarz testified" during his court  
martial.

While the private spies claimed they were acting on "patriotic  
motives" and were seeking to "minimize the threat of a terrorist  
attack," Richards and the others, Rogers reported, "shared anti- 
terrorism intelligence with defense contractors in exchange for future  
employment."

Among the firms being "scrutinized" for possible links to the  
ultranationalist spy ring are Kroll Associates, described as "a risk- 
management firm," and MPRI International Group, a "private military  
contractor" owned by L-3 Communications, a codefendant in the CCR  
lawsuit. According to Richards' account to investigators, MPRI  
allegedly offered him "$300,000 to work in Afghanistan," the Union- 
Tribune reported.

Rogers reported that Kroll's clients included the city of San Diego  
and that some of its employees have had ties to the Los Angeles County  
Terrorist Early Warning Center. MPRI denied that Richards ever worked  
for the firm. Kroll refused to comment on the allegations to the Union- 
Tribune.

As the American Civil Liberties Union documents in their update on the  
groups' November 2007 report on Fusion Centers, which LACTEW served as  
a "model,"

     In the six months since our report, new press accounts have borne  
out many of our warnings. In just that short time, news accounts have  
reported overzealous intelligence gathering, the expansion of  
uncontrolled access to data on innocent people, hostility to open  
government laws, abusive entanglements between security agencies and  
the private sector, and lax protections for personally identifiable  
information. (Mike German and Jay Stanley, "Fusion Center Update,"  
ACLU, July 29, 2008)

While there was no CACI involvement in the scandal, the question must  
still be asked: will the "abusive entanglements between security  
agencies and the private sector" be replicated in Scotland?

Considering the breathtaking reach of the Official Secrets Act and the  
shocking abuses perpetrated by British intelligence agencies against  
their own citizens, many of which have been documented by the Pat  
Finucane Centre for Human Rights and Social Change, this is not an  
issue that should be taken lightly.

Will Data Be More Secure in Scotland?

Given serious and well-documented data-security breaches in the United  
States and elsewhere, egregious civil liberties violations, as well as  
the seamless relationships that exist among the military, law  
enforcement and private security contractors with a vested interest in  
hyping the "terrorist threat," the concerns of Scottish human rights'  
campaigners are hardly misplaced.

The Scottish government for its part, have denied the charges and  
defended its actions by claiming CACI (UK) was not involved in defense  
work and was a "separate legal entity from its US parent company.  
Allegations of improper conduct made against the parent company have  
been vehemently denied, but in any event there is no link between  
these allegations and the work of CACI (UK)," the Sunday Herald  
reported.

Claiming the government "would never be a party" with any company  
"convicted" of human rights abuses, SNP spokespeople asserted that  
their choice of the firm was based solely on claims that CACI's offer  
represented "the best and most competitively priced of the bids we  
received, delivering best value for tax-payers' money."

The government contended it "could not take unproven allegations into  
consideration". The SNP government also claimed that personal  
information would be protected through "independent audits of  
security," according to Mackay's report.

CACI (UK) maintained that allegations of abuse at Abu Ghraib "was not  
substantiated by any evidence or proof, and subsequent investigations  
by both CACI and the US government could not confirm it. No CACI  
employee was ever depicted in the shocking and disturbing photos seen  
in the press."

Despite CACI assertions to the contrary, photographic evidence indeed  
exits and was published more than two years earlier. In April 2006,  
Salon investigative journalist Mark Benjamin published a photograph of  
CACI International interrogator Daniel Johnson, a defendant in CCR's  
lawsuit against the company, interrogating an Iraqi prisoner in what  
Army investigators described as "an unauthorized stress position."  
According to Benjamin,

     The Army investigated the circumstances behind the photograph,  
found "probable cause" that a crime had been committed, and referred  
the case to the Justice Department for prosecution. (Salon obtained  
the photo from someone who spent time at Abu Ghraib as a uniformed  
member of the military and is familiar with the Army investigation  
there.) But in early 2005, a Department of Justice attorney told the  
Army that the evidence in the case did not justify prosecution. ("No  
Justice for All," Salon, April 14, 2006)

Indeed, the Army's Criminal Investigation Command (CID) told Salon  
their office had "investigated the circumstances" surrounding the  
incident and found "probable cause to believe a crime was committed by  
civilian contractors." However, after the case was referred to the  
Department of Justice, "an assistant U.S. attorney in Virginia told  
the Army that he had reviewed the Johnson case and found there was  
'insufficient evidence' to prosecute."

There the case against Johnson and other contractors languished until  
this May when CCR initiated a lawsuit in Los Angeles federal district  
court, brought by a former "ghost" detainee at the notorious Abu  
Ghraib prison and torture center. That case was filed against another  
former CACI contract employee, Steven Stefanowicz, aka "Big Steve."

As I reported in July, CCR attorneys were forced to file separate  
civil suits only after a federal District of Columbia judge in 2004  
refused the attorney's petition to consolidate some 237 victims' abuse  
claims as a class-action lawsuit. The judge ruled he "lacked  
jurisdiction," not that the charges were "baseless allegations," as  
CACI maintains. The original complaint is still pending. Why then, was  
CACI less than forthcoming?

How Is this Relevant to the Issue of the Scottish Census?

As the ACLU forcefully argues, "the elements of [a] nascent domestic  
surveillance system include: Watching and recording the everyday  
activities of an ever-growing list of individuals; channeling the flow  
of the resulting reports into a centralized security agency; sifting  
through ('data mining') these reports and databases with computers to  
identify individuals for closer scrutiny." (ACLU, op. cit.)

A centralized database of census information culled by a private  
corporation with long-standing ties to the military-industrial- 
surveillance complex sets up a system ripe with the potential for  
abuse, particularly if such data were to fall--or drop--into the wrong  
hands, as feared by human rights, antiwar and civil liberties advocates.

CACI is not some eager start-up; rather the firm has been described as  
"one of the Pentagon's favorite contractors" by Tim Shorrock in his  
essential book, Spies For Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence  
Outsourcing.

And according to Washington Technology's "Top 100 Federal Prime  
Contractors: 2008," CACI International, Inc. clocked-in at No. 17 with  
some $1,337,472,153 in total revenue. Some $1,105,765,855 or 82.6% was  
a result of defense-related contracts for IT and network services,  
data information, management services and what the publication terms  
"integrated security and intelligence solutions."

Meanwhile, the victims of heinous abuse and torture that resulted from  
policies crafted at the highest levels of the Bush administration, and  
with the alleged complicity of many of their "outsourced" partners,  
are still awaiting their day in court and a modicum of justice.

For more information on CCR's lawsuits see: "New Abu Ghraib Torture  
Claims Filed Against Military Contractors," Press Release, May 5, 2008  
and "CCR Files Four New Abu Ghraib Lawsuits Targeting Military  
Contractors in U.S. Courts," Press Release, June 30, 2008.

Tom Burghardt is a researcher and activist based in the San Francisco  
Bay Area. In addition to publishing in Covert Action Quarterly, Love &  
Rage and Antifa Forum, he is the editor of Police State America: U.S.  
Military "Civil Disturbance" Planning, distributed by AK Press.

Tom Burghardt is a frequent contributor to Global Research.  Global  
Research Articles by Tom Burghardt