In 2006, under considerable pressure from the public to provide information about the use of tax dollars in matters of national security, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) conducted the first comprehensive study of the use of private intelligence contractors since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Alarmingly, it found that “confronted with… uncertain funding, components (of the U.S. government intelligence community) are left with no choice but to use contractors for work that may be borderline ‘inherently governmental’.” In fact, it is estimated that around 70% of the budget for national security is spent on private contractors, and the government is more reliant on corporations for executing matters of national security and intelligence than ever before. Interrogating prisoners of war, flying spy aircraft, and tracking terrorist threats are now some of the many tasks performed by private corporations.
In the aftermath of budget cuts to the US intelligence apparatus in the 1990s, many skilled workers that had previously been employed in the public sector moved to private companies. After 9/11, however, Congress and the Bush Administration authorized the CIA and other agencies to hire thousands of intelligence analysts to support their efforts. Since the ‘90s, the “industrial-intelligence complex” has exploded in terms of profitability; business in that sector has doubled in the past ten years.
Blurring the lines between government and the private sector to create a “blended” workforce has raised concerns in the intelligence industry, and many observers believe the extent to which contractors are being used is inappropriate. In 2007, when the General Services Administration needed help organizing an investigation into the incompetent behavior and fraud demonstrated by private contractors, they hired another contractor, CIAC International, to do the work. Despite the seemingly obvious conflict of interest, and the exorbitant cost ($104 of taxpayer money per employee, per hour), and the fact that CIAC itself had been under investigation for similar issues in the past, they were hired anyway.
Ironically, the competition in the market which is supposed to streamline the nation’s cost is nonexistent, since less than half of the contracts handed out by the government were subject to open bidding.
Furthermore, despite the fact that no solid data exists demonstrating that private contractors are more efficient than government run agencies, Congress has continued to allow previously governmental jobs to be sent to the private sector, which is not accountable to the public and not always required to disclose the tasks they are performing. Many intelligence companies now rely almost exclusively on government business, creating an intelligence industry subsidized by the government, where executives can line their pockets with money from a public, to whose will they are not accountable.
Even more unsettling, the U.S. intelligence budget is shrouded in secrecy and it is impossible to know how much money the government spends on private companies annually. In addition, it is unclear what constitutes an “inherently governmental” function; it is difficult to imagine where the line is being drawn when the President receives most of his daily security information from private corporations.
On February 25, the House heard arguments pertaining to the FY2010 intelligence authorization act, which would require the Director of National Intelligence to disclose to Congress the extent to which private contractors were being used. With an increasingly calamitous war on terror looming over the nation, it is remarkable how trusting Congress is in companies who admit to having no motivation other than profit. Without the Intelligence Authorization Act, as well as other clear legislation outlining what the role of private contractors should be in the intelligence industry, it is unlikely that there will be any meaningful oversight in our bought-and-paid-for national security sector.
