company:saic

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 government contractors account for 80% of America’s surveillance workforce / Boing Boing
▻http://boingboing.net/2016/09/13/five-government-contractors-ac.html

http://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Leidos_Day_One_Party_-_John_P._Jumper__Stu_Shea.jpg?w=1600

All told, the Big 5 (Leidos, Booz, CSRA, SAIC, CACI) account for 80% of that $50B annual pork barrel paycheck for assisting America’s spy agencies. This is an unprecedented level of concentration in the intelligence-industrial complex. This situation has created a seller’s market for intelligence services, where too-big-to-fail contractors operate with impunity in a cash-rich, unsupervised, secret industry, able to call the NSA’s shots.

The Big 5 supply the majority of the spy agencies’ staff, including senior staffers who report directly to agency directors. The total numbers, and the money involved, are both secrets, and can only be estimated through indirect means.

#USA #espionnage

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.

The revolving door between #Google and the Department of Defense
▻http://pando.com/2014/04/23/the-revolving-door-between-google-and-the-department-of-defense

Many of Google Federal’s top managers come from the biggest and baddest military and intel outfits: US Army, Air Force Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Director of National Intelligence, USAID, SAIC, Lockheed… the list keeps going on and on.

Take Michele R. Weslander Quaid, Google’s Chief Technology Officer of Public Sector and “Innovation Evangelist.”

Chances are you’ve never heard of her. Neither had I. But Weslander Quaid took the top spot in Entrepreneur Magazine’s list of the seven most powerful women to watch in 2014.

The reason?

She helped bring the Google mindset to federal intelligence agencies.

(...)

#porte_tournante