Connecting the Intelligence Dots—It's Easy

This is from The Americas Program. -Rick

http://americas.irc-online.org/

Within
the intelligence community, it's easy to connect the dots.
Corporations like IBM, CACI, and Lockheed Martin—among the main
intelligence contractors—are making it easier all the time.

U.S. corporations have become more present in the intelligence community.

Corporate mergers, acquisitions, and the intelligence community's
revolving doors are making it easier than ever to understand who's in
control and to assess the motivations of U.S. intelligence operatives.
The effectiveness and reliability of U.S. intelligence is in
increasing question. Decades of intelligence failures, abuses,
politicized intelligence, and wildly wrong intelligence assessments have
cast persistent doubts about the reliability and integrity of the 16
agencies that comprise the U.S. intelligence community.

Things
aren't getting much better under the Obama administration and the
Democratic Congress, which, respectively, has failed to fill the CIA's
vacant inspector general position and which relies on national security
sycophants like Rep. Silvestre Reyes (TX) to provide congressional
oversight as chairman of the House Select Intelligence Committee.

It's been hard monitoring the intelligence community because its
budget is classified, congressional oversight hearings are classified,
and, well, they are spooks. But two factors over the past decade are
making it easier at least to understand some of the main players in
intelligence: the rapid increase in outsourcing intelligence to private
contractors (now constituting about 70% of the intelligence budget),
and the emergence of communications and information technology as the
leading growth area in intelligence—and most areas of national
security.

IBM's
acquisition this week of the National
Interest Security Company (NISC), which is a conglomerate of
intelligence, homeland security, and defense consulting firms,
illustrates both these trends. According to Forbes, IBM's
"purchase of an intelligence firm signals boom time in the spy
business" and "shows that the technology sector believes it can find
growth servicing the government with high-end intelligence services."
Another business publication Information
Week Government noted: "Big Blue's buyout of NISC deepens its
presence in sensitive areas like homeland security, defense, and
intelligence."

The deal also highlights another common feature of high-tech
intelligence, homeland security, and defense contracting—the critical
role of high finance in configuring the new players of the national
security complex.

In this case, the key hidden player is DC Capital Partners,
which describes itself as a Washington, DC investment firm whose
"domain expertise provides a competitive advantage, primarily in the
defense, aerospace, government services, information technology, and
business services industries."

Lately, to understand intelligence and, indeed, the entire
spectrum of national security you need to follow the flows of venture
capital.

Among NISC's "continuum of services" are information systems
development, datamining, cybersecurity initiatives, information
assurance, and multilingual data-exploitation and mining. NISC says it
is dedicated to providing innovative information technology,
information management, and management technology consulting services
in support of the national interest and security."

Among the federal government departments the company "supports"
are: Defense Intelligence Agency, Department of Homeland Security,
National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance
Office, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Department of
Defense (DOD), and "other classified agencies."

NISC says its "main markets" are intelligence, homeland security,
defense, energy, and federal health.

With more than a thousand employees, NISC is headquartered in
Fairfax, Virginia. The company has "$200 million in revenues and 80%
of its employees hold security clearances and mostly work on classified
contracts," according to Forbes.

According to DC Capital Partners, NISC was established
through the acquisitions of a series of other high-tech companies
specializing in intelligence and security. Since its establishment a
few years ago NISC, through the investment strategy of DC Capital
Partners, has acquired the following intelligence-related firms: Edge
Consulting, MITI, Information Manufacturing Corporation, Technology and
Management Services, Omen Inc., National Intelligence Support
Services, Athenyx, Kaseman, and Strategic Intelligence Group. It is
unclear if all these subsidiaries will be transferred to IBM.

The company's published descriptions of these integrated firms help
illuminate the dimensions of the current merger of private
contractors, intelligence operations, and intrusive technology.

Information Manufacturing Corporation provides "a
wide range of information technology and knowledge management services
to the intelligence community, the Department of Defense, and other
federal agencies," with services including data capture, convergence,
manipulation, mining, and exploitation."

Omen Inc. provides the intelligence community with analysis
of communications and electronic intelligence.

Kaseman offers "critical operational support" to State
Department and Homeland Security in "anti-terrorism, counter-terrorism,
and counter-narcotics training," and "technical security advisory and
assessment services, and risk analysis."

Strategic Intelligence Group is "an intelligence consulting
firm specializing in the development and implementation of innovative
business platforms for human, financial, and technical intelligence
collaboration in the public and private sectors."

Government Insiders Come Out

General Michael Hayden, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and former head of the National Security Agency, has strong ties to private intelligence companies.

Like most homeland security, intelligence, and DOD contractors, NISC
is a home for former high government officials. NISC's chief executive
officer, for example, is Andrew Maner, who served as chief financial
officer for the Department of Homeland Security (2002-2006). Maner also
served as chief of staff at Customs and Border Protection, which
includes the Border Patrol.

Among the members of its board of directors are General Michael
Hayden, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and former
head of the National Security Agency. Hayden is also a principal at the
Chertoff Group, a national security consulting agency formed by
former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

Other NISC board members include former Senator Chuck Hagel,
Ambassador Henry Crumpton, and five former retired generals and
admirals, including General Anthony Zinni and General Michael Hagel.

The Forbes report of IBM's purchase (which will be completed
this quarter) of NISC noted that DC Capital Partners realized "$180
million and making nine times its original investment of $19.6 million
in the company in less than three years."

In a press release, IBM said NISC "will enable IBM to expand its
capabilities with federal, state, and local government entities,
particularly in the fast-growing areas of defense, health care, energy,
logistics, and security."

"THINK" is the longtime slogan of IBM. That thinking has led IBM
to follow the lead of other major corporations like Lockheed Martin,
CACI, and Boeing in the
emerging national security complex to pursue profits in the
booming business of intelligence.

Tom Barry, a senior policy analyst at the Center for International Policy in
Washington, directs the TransBorder
Project of CIP's Americas
Program. He blogs at: http://borderlinesblog.blogspot.com/.

To reprint this
article, please contact americas@ciponline.org.

For More Information

New National Security Complex:
Bringing Together Homeland Security, Intelligence, and Defense
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6440

Chertoff's Challenge to Obama
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5647

A Legal Storm Trooper: Chertoff No Friend of Immigrants
http://www.counterpunch.org/barry04012005.html