Reply #19: I'm looking for info on the Cunningham/MZM/CIFA stain

[donkeyotay]

I saw something on C-span's ticker about one of the contractors??? I didn't quite catch it.

Here's one current article from rolling stone:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/9962459/the_pentagons_new_spies

Ever since 1878, when the Posse Comitatus Act barred the U.S. military
from taking part in law enforcement, the responsibility for domestic security has traditionally resided with the police and the FBI. The Defense Department, for the most part, has been confined to protecting U.S. military bases. But shortly after September 11th, the Pentagon began muscling in on the FBI's turf. In 2002, in a move that received little public attention, the Bush administration created Counterintelligence Field Activity and charged the new agency with consolidating all Pentagon intelligence to "protect DOD and the nation against espionage, other intelligence activities, sabotage, assassinations and terrorist activities."

The agency got another boost last year when a commission appointed by Bush urged that CIFA be empowered to collect and analyze intelligence "both inside and outside the United States." Three of the commission's consultants, it turns out, were employees of MZM -- one of CIFA's primary contractors -- and federal prosecutors are now looking into whether Pentagon personnel have committed crimes in steering CIFA contracts to MZM. Nevertheless, the president agreed last October to significantly broaden the agency's mission, giving it the authority to actually direct military intelligence operations. From a small unit designed as a clearinghouse for reports, CIFA was transformed overnight into a major arm of domestic intelligence. Both its budget and its staff, thought to be in excess of 1,000 people, are classified. <end>

You'd think the military spying on citizens would be newsworthy.