Five Corporations Now Dominate Our Privatized Intelligence Industry

5 Corporations Now Dominate Our Privatized Intelligence Industry | The Nation
►https://www.thenation.com/article/five-corporations-now-dominate-our-privatized-intelligence-industry

five corporations that together employ nearly 80 percent of the private-sector employees contracted to work for US spy and surveillance agencies.

(…) For the first time since spy agencies began outsourcing their core analytic and operational work in the late 1990s, the bulk of the contracted work goes to a handful of companies: #Leidos, #Booz_Allen_Hamilton, #CSRA, #SAIC, and #CACI_International. This concentration of “pure plays”—a Wall Street term for companies that makes one product for a single market—marks a fundamental shift in an industry that was once a highly diverse mix of large military contractors, small and medium technology companies, and tiny “Beltway Bandits” surrounding Washington, D.C.

As I argue below, these developments are incredibly risky for a country more dependent than ever on intelligence to fight global wars and prevent domestic attacks.

#silicon_army #complexe_militaro-industriel #États-Unis

Five Corporations Now Dominate Our Privatized Intelligence Industry
►https://www.thenation.com/article/five-corporations-now-dominate-our-privatized-intelligence-industry

As I argue below, these developments are incredibly risky for a country more dependent than ever on intelligence to fight global wars and prevent domestic attacks. “The problem with just five companies providing the lion’s share of contractors is that the client, the U.S. government, won’t have much alternative when a company screws up,” says David Isenberg, the author of Shadow Force: Private Security Contractors in Iraq.

Moreover, the fact that much of this privatized work is top secret—and is generally underreported in the press—undermines the accountability and transparency of our spy agencies. That should deeply concern the American public.