Will it ever end?
Despite the questions raised recently by Edward Snowden about the role of contractors working in the country’s classified programs suggesting scrutiny on Booz Allen, which receives much of its $5.76 billion in annual revenue from its defense business, the Wall Street Journal is reporting:
Booz Allen Wins Navy Cyber Work
Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. was one of 13 companies to win part of a $900 million contract to provide the U.S. military with support for its expanding cyber operations, the Defense Department announced Tuesday.
The award comes as Booz Allen is facing increased scrutiny as the company that last hired Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency contractor who used his position to take classified information on the nation’s surveillance programs and leak it to the world media.
The decision by the U.S. Navy was the first major military contract award for Booz Allen since Mr. Snowden revealed last month that he had used his job for the McLean, Va.-based company to take vast troves of classified government information.
I'm agast.
How Cash Secretly Rules Surveillance Policy
Have you noticed anything missing in the political discourse about the National Security Agency’s unprecedented mass surveillance? There’s certainly been a robust discussion about the balance between security and liberty, and there’s at least been some conversation about the intelligence community’s potential criminality and constitutional violations. But there have only been veiled, indirect references to how cash undoubtedly tilts the debate against those who challenge the national security state.
Those indirect references have come in stories about Booz Allen Hamilton, the security contractor that employed Edward Snowden. CNN/Money notes that 99 percent of the firm’s multibillion-dollar annual revenues now come from the federal government. Those revenues are part of a larger and growing economic sector within the military-industrial complex - a sector that, according to author Tim Shorrock, is “a $56 billion-a-year industry.”
For the most part, this is where the political discourse about money stops. We are told that there are high-minded, principled debates about security. We are also told of this massively profitable private industry making billions a year from the policy decisions that emerge from such a debate. Yet, few in the Washington press corps are willing to mention that politicians’ attacks on surveillance critics may have nothing to do with principle and everything to do with shilling for campaign donors.