WP: Increase in Contracting Intelligence Jobs Raises Concerns

[deminks]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/19/AR2006031900978.html?nav=rss_nation/special

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 20, 2006; Page A03

AllWorld Language Consultants Inc., a Rockville firm, is seeking experienced military interrogators to work in Iraq for $153,500 a year plus bonuses, with proficiency in Arabic "preferred but not required," according to Yahoo's Hot Jobs listings.

The U.S. Army element of the Multi-National Force-Iraq is looking for a private contractor to provide airborne surveillance over that country that will "provide situational awareness of the entire area of operations," according to another Web announcement.

Lockheed Martin Corp. is seeking a counterintelligence analyst to work for the Pentagon's newest intelligence agency, the Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA), in its Colorado Springs facility to "create and deliver briefings, write reports, and represent Counterintelligence Field Activity," according to a Web classified ad.

These positions and thousands like them are part of a growing trend at the Pentagon to contract out intelligence jobs that were formerly done primarily by service personnel and civil service employees.

[spindrifter]

1. This has been going on for at least a

couple of years. There is a company in Florida that I ran across that has been providing interpreters for the military for quite a while. I hate to say it, but if they won't cook their own meals, relying instead on H*burton, why would they invest the money in training from Jump Street people with specialized language and other critical skills? Everyone knows that there is a nice brain drain going on--and always has been. You learn stuff in the schools the military sends you to--and when you are ready to leave, you get hired by a company that will utilize those skills--and you are still working in a military environment.

[Karmakaze]

2. Actually it's worse than that....

This is a direct result of the military knowing it is being ordered to carry out war crimes. By farming the risky jobs out to "civillians" they have plausible deniability when abuses are exposed. Some gets beat to death during an interrogation? It wasnt the military (and by extension the government) it was a "civillian contractor" and thus is a simple case of murder by an individaul rather than a war crime or crime against humanity by the US military and government.

[maddezmom]

3. another article: Foreign Firms a Mainstay Of Pentagon Contracting

By Ellen McCarthy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 18, 2006; Page D01

Edward Nadworny's bosses at CGI Group Inc. are just up the road in Montreal, but to the U.S. government he still works for a foreign company, which means logging every phone call to Canada, submitting his e-mails for audits, and being supervised by a local board whose members have been approved by the Defense Department.

If he and his colleagues from other parts of the company chat about work at happy hour, they must tell a Pentagon-approved security officer what they discussed. It's inconvenient but a fact of life for the dozens of foreign-owned companies authorized to do high-level security work for the U.S. government.
~snip~

As politicians battled in recent weeks over a Dubai firm's plan to take control of a company that operates U.S. ports, the fight stood in relief to a reality that local government contractors know well: Foreign-owned companies already help manage some of the nation's most sensitive business, working on classified weapons and information programs and dealing daily with government secrets.

At least 98 foreign-owned firms like CGI have agreements with the Pentagon that allow them access to classified government programs, up from 58 a decade ago, according to the Defense Security Service, the office of the Pentagon that oversees companies that do classified work. With joint defense projects among allies common, and the need for the best technology ever more acute, contracting experts say they expect the trend to continue.

more:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/17/AR2006031702121.html?nav=rss_technology/techpolicy