This is the only article I ever published in the Washington Post. The only reason I got it in was because I first sent it to Dana Priest, one of the Post’s finest investigative reporters, who recommended it to her editors. Since then I’ve tried (and given up) trying to publish there because they don’t seem to be interested in anything that challenges the empire. So be it. On my point about contractors, however, I wasn’t completely right; turns out that much of the material leaked to Wikileaks came from actual CIA operatives.
WASHINGTON – When WikiLeaks released more than 8,000 files about the CIA’s global hacking programs this month, it dropped a tantalizing clue: The leak came from private contractors. Federal investigators quickly confirmed this, calling contractors the likeliest sources. As a result of the breach, WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange said, the CIA had “lost control of its entire cyberweapons arsenal.”
Intelligence insiders were dismayed. Agencies “take a chance with contractors” because “they may not have the same loyalty” as officers employed by the government, former CIA director Leon Panetta lamented to NBC.
But this is a liability built into our system that intelligence officials have long known about and done nothing to correct. As I first reported in 2007, some 70 cents of every intelligence dollar is allocated to the private sector. And the relentless pace of mergers and acquisitions in the spies-for-hire business has left five corporations in control of about 80 percent of the 45,000 contractors employed in U.S. intelligence. The threat from unreliable employees in this multibillion-dollar industry is only getting worse.
To read on, click here.
