News Articles
| US/AFGHANISTAN/PAKISTAN: U.S. Is Still Using Private Spy Ring, Despite Doubts by Mark Mazzetti, New York Times May 15th, 2010 Top military officials continue to rely on a secret network of private spies set up by Michael D. Furlong, despite concerns about the legality of the operation. A New York Times review found Mr. Furlong’s operatives still providing information, with contractors still being paid under a $22 million contract, managed by Lockheed Martin and supervised by a Pentagon office. |
| AFGHANISTAN/US: Outsourcing intelligence by David Ignatius, Washington Post March 17th, 2010 The headline read like something you might see in the conspiracy-minded Pakistani press: "Contractors Tied to Effort to Track and Kill Militants." But the story appeared in Monday's New York Times, and it highlighted some big problems that have developed in the murky area between military and intelligence activities. |
| AFGHANISTAN/US: Contractors Tied to Effort to Track and Kill Militants by DEXTER FILKINS and MARK MAZZETTI, New York Times March 15th, 2010 Under the cover of a benign government information-gathering program, a Defense Department official set up a network of private contractors in Afghanistan and Pakistan to help track and kill suspected militants, according to military officials and businessmen in Afghanistan and the United States. The official, Michael D. Furlong, hired contractors from private security companies that employed former C.I.A. and Special Forces operatives. |
| US/CHINA: U.S. Holds Fire in Google-China Feud by JAY SOLOMON, IAN JOHNSONAnd JASON DEAN, Wall Street Journal January 12th, 2010 U.S. government officials and business leaders were supportive but wary of taking sides in Google Inc.'s battle with China, a sign of the delicate tensions between the growing superpower and the West. Google has threatened to bolt from China over censorship and alleged cyber spying. |
| AFGHANISTAN: Lost in Limbo: Injured Afghan Translators Struggle to Survive by Pratap Chatterjee, ProPublica December 17th, 2009 Local translators are hidden casualties of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. military uses defense contractors to hire local residents to serve as translators for the troops. These local translators often live, sleep and eat with soldiers. And yet when they are wounded, they are often ignored by the U.S. system designed to provide them medical care and disability benefits, according to an investigation by the Los Angeles Times and ProPublica. |
| US: Cash-rich SAIC hits the acquisition trail by Sami Lais, Washington Technology August 6th, 2009 Making a big splash in recent weeks, Science Applications International Corp. bought two companies, adding new capabilities in cybersecurity, energy and disaster recovery — areas in which government spending is expected to grow. |
| IRAN: Iran's Web Spying Aided By Western Technology by Christopher Rhoads and Loretta Chao, Wall Street Journal June 22nd, 2009 The Iranian regime has developed one of the world's most sophisticated mechanisms for controlling and censoring the Internet. The Iranian government appears to be engaging in a practice often called deep packet inspection. The monitoring capability was provided, at least in part, by a joint venture of Siemens AG, the German conglomerate, and Nokia Corp., the Finnish cellphone company. |
| US: Contractors Vie for Plum Work, Hacking for U.S. Government by CHRISTOPHER DREW and JOHN MARKOFF, New York Times May 30th, 2009 The Obama administration’s push into cyberwarfare has set off a rush among the biggest military companies for billions of dollars in new defense contracts. Nearly all of the largest military companies — including Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon — have major cyber contracts with the military and intelligence agencies. |
| US: Contracting Boom Could Fizzle Out by Dana Hedgpeth, Washington Post April 7th, 2009 The surge in the U.S. military contracting workforce would ebb under Defense Secretary Gates's budget proposal as the Pentagon moves to replace private workers with full-time civil servants. The move could affect companies such as CACI and SAIC. "We are right-sizing the defense acquisition workforce so we can improve our contract oversight and get a better deal for the taxpayers," said the Pentagon's director of defense procurement and acquisition policy. |
| IRAQ: U.S. to Fund Pro-American Publicity in Iraqi Media by Karen DeYoung and Walter Pincus, Washingtom Post October 3rd, 2008 The Defense Department will pay private U.S. contractors in Iraq up to $300 million over the next three years to produce news stories, entertainment programs and public service advertisements for the Iraqi media in an effort to "engage and inspire" the local population to support U.S. objectives and the Iraqi government. |
| US: Foggo pleads guilty in Wilkes case: Former CIA official fraudulently sent contracts to friend by Paul M. Krawzak, San Diego Union Tribune – Washington Bureau September 30th, 2008 Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, the former No. 3 official in the CIA, pleaded guilty yesterday to fraudulently steering intelligence contracts to his lifelong friend, former Poway defense contractor Brent Wilkes. |
| UK: Qinetiq buys US spy services firm BBC News August 4th, 2008 Qinetiq, once owned by the Ministry of Defence (MOD), said it would it pay $104.5m (£53m) in cash for the firm. |
| IRAQ: Iraq Case Sheds Light On Secret Contractors by Siobhan Gorman and August Cole, Wall Street Journal July 17th, 2008 Court documents and interviews with whistleblowers shed light on persistent problems in the operations of private military and security company MVM, Inc., a top provider of secret security to U.S. intelligence agencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. |
| US: Court dismisses lawsuit on secret kidnapping by Adam Tanner, Reuters February 14th, 2008 A federal judge, saying the case involved a state secret, dismissed a lawsuit on Wednesday against a unit of Boeing Co that charged the firm helped fly terrorism suspects abroad to secret prisons. |
| US: Bush Presses House to Approve Bill on Surveillance
by ERIC LICHTBLAU, The New York Times February 13th, 2008 The president’s remarks came the morning after the Senate handed the White House a major victory by voting to broaden the government’s spy powers and to give legal protection to phone companies that cooperated in President Bush’s program of eavesdropping without warrants. |
| US: CIA Likely Let Contractors Perform Waterboarding by SIOBHAN GORMAN, The Wall Street Journal February 8th, 2008 The CIA's secret interrogation program has made extensive use of outside contractors, whose role likely included the waterboarding of terrorist suspects, according to testimony yesterday from the CIA director and two other people familiar with the program. |
| UK: FBI wants instant access to British identity data
by Owen Bowcott, The Guardian (UK) January 15th, 2008 Americans seek international database to carry iris, palm and finger prints |
| US: Wider Spying Fuels Aid Plan for Telecom Industry by Eric Lichtblau, James Risen and Scott Shane, New York Times December 16th, 2007 The Bush administration is waging a high-profile campaign to persuade Congress to pass legislation protecting companies from lawsuits for aiding the National Security Agency's warrantless eavesdropping program. At stake is the federal government's partnership with industry to conduct a wide range of secret surveillance operations in fighting terrorism and crime. |
| US: Failure to Launch: In Death of Spy Satellite Program, Lofty Plans and Unrealistic Bids by Philip Taubman, New York Times November 11th, 2007 Collapse of a government funded project to build new spy satellites was all but inevitable. |
| US: Intel official: Say goodbye to privacy by Pamela Hess , Associated Press November 11th, 2007 Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguards people's private communications and financial information. |