Comments on: U.S. intelligence gathering: bought and sold

By: Spychief Plan To Police Internet Is Likely Tied To S 1959, Thought Crime Prevention Bill

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 15:28:32 +0000

[...] program. Heâ€™s also a big fan of privatizing national security functions, favoring everything from outsourcing background checks to enlisting credit bureaus to handle the work of verifying identities. I find it not at all [...]

By: Acetracy

Acetracy — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 13:16:26 +0000

Go to an industry website: Washington Technology. It lists contracts sent out for bid, those who win the contracts, and describes in detail what these contracts are suppose to do.

The vast majority of the most lucrative ones are “evaluating” or “reviewing” an existing system.

Just start to Google the names of the winning companies, then Google the names of their directors and leading executives. You will immediately see connections to the Defense Department, etc.

This is literally the biggest rip off of the American Taxpayer and everyone in Washington (from Bush to Hillary) is in on this caper.

By: Elaine

Elaine — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 10:38:52 +0000

Martin,

This is a really good piece. I am going to have to re-read it again though…it is the weekend after all.

Also for some reason I am thinking of Ghost In The Shell. I need to go and find hubby and his collection of DVDs…

By: The Oracle

The Oracle — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 02:22:05 +0000

This is the price America is paying for twelve years of Republican corruption and greed, along with six and a half years of the worst administration in American history.

The outsourcing of all of our democratic government functions to people whose first loyalty is to profit, and not to our Constitution or our democratic form of government.

The Communists couldn’t have come up with a better, more insidious subversion of our democracy than what the “culture of corruption” Republicans have accomplished in pursuit of their totalitarian, monopolistic goal for our freedom-loving society.

Evil is as evil does, and the evil that the Republican Party has unleashed on our democratic republic is bound to be providing much amusement for the Communists (and al Qaeda), I’m certain.

By: Anon

Anon — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 01:27:59 +0000

Those arguing for “war on terror” stand to reap profits. Those who committed torture and abuse were those who were paid; those who gathered information illegally, were paid. Those who used illegally captured information to implement abuse and illegal toruture were paid.

Doesn’t matter if you call them contractorss, US goernment offiicals, or what: SOmeone is paying someone else to commit war crtimes, transfer information that was illgally captured, and using this inforation to implement illegal violations of Geneva.

Congress doesn’t see fit to impeach; nor go after the legal community which allowed these illegal contractors to get written; time to stop waiting for Congress to impeach. Time for the public to put pressure on the state attorney generals to prosecute the President and VP and contractors for illegal activity. Talk to Jonathan Turley at Georgetown about prosecuting the President and VP outside impeachment.

By: Styve

Styve — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 23:06:33 +0000

DEFUND WARS==>STOP BUSH

See “Why We Fight”, “Terror Storm”, “Loose Change, FC”, and “America: Freedom to Fascism”.

http://www.warresisters.org

By: NoOneYouKnow

NoOneYouKnow — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 21:45:01 +0000

Of course, the people who have created this system seem to think that they can manipulate it so it won’t blowback on themselves or their loved ones. Big if.
No, I meant the successful manipulation, not whether corporate/conservatives are able to love.
Until we can block the revolving door and get legalized bribery out of Congress and the rest of government, we’re not going to make much progress with this stuff. We’re getting some traction, but it’s going to be a huge struggle against the human equivalent of greased, squirming, angry, desperate pigs.

By: Sam Smith

Sam Smith — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 20:50:11 +0000

Here was the part of the Vanity Fair article that woke me up:

It is a simple fact of life these days that, owing to a deliberate decision to downsize government, Washington can operate only by paying private companies to perform a wide range of functions. To get some idea of the scale: contractors absorb the taxes paid by everyone in America with incomes under $100,000. In other words, more than 90 percent of all taxpayers might as well remit everything they owe directly to SAIC or some other contractor rather than to the IRS.

This is why I