New, Rare and Unreleased Material from the DMZ Empire
New, Rare and Unreleased Material from the DMZ Empire
My latest, published in LobeLog, a great publication on U.S. foreign policy. Here’s how Antony Loewenstein, the great Australian investigative journalist, just introduced the article on Twitter: @TimothyS on interest in making $ from “nation-building” in the #MiddleEast; #disastercapitalism by…
I just published a story at The Nation about the recent kidnapping of three U.S. contractors in Baghdad. The tale underscores an important truth about the vast expansion of military contracting in war zones over the past 15 years: it’s…
In January 2010, a few days after a Nigerian terrorist came close to blowing up a US passenger plane on its way to Detroit, President Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser made an extraordinary confession. “I told the President today I let him…
The New York Times just posted a story shedding new light on that big fight in 2004 between the George W. Bush White House and the Justice Department over the post-9/11 mass collection of domestic calling data by the NSA. …
The Senate Committee’s Report on the C.I.A.’s Use of Torture concludes that torture programs were “overwhelmingly outsourced operations.” Here’s the section on these Psycho-Contractors, as summarized by the Washington Post: The CIA contracted with two psychologists to develop, operate, and…
The US just launched a new air war against ISIS. This week, Bill O’Reilly proposed that Blackwater send its private sector mercenaries to fight. I don’t know why; mercs are already there in force. My latest, from Salon: A massive,…
So you think this is what only the government and the military can do? Think again – my latest, in Salon: And here’s the contractors leading the way on this $400 million contract:
There was only one person I wanted to contact when I read the Wall Street Journal’s astonishing report that the NSA has built a surveillance system capable of spying on 75 percent of all U.S. Internet traffic: Bill Binney. Binney…
Read this unbelievable story from today’s Washington Post: There’s not much lower you can go as a company, or a contractor, or a country. Weeks after winning dismissal of a case alleging that CACI International employees directed mistreatment of Abu Ghraib detainees,…
That’s basically what I argue in this op-ed I just posted at the New York Times – my first byline ever in the Gray Lady. We’ve allowed contractors to conduct our most secret and sensitive operations with virtually no oversight.…
Here it is, the 2007 ODNI slide that says , in bright color, exactly how much of the U.S. intelligence budget goes to contractors. I first reported this amazing figure in Salon on June 1, 2007, and I’ve been citing it…
My latest, in Salon. I was interviewed about this article today on Democracy Now! “The largest concentration of cyber power on the planet is the intersection of the Baltimore Parkway and Maryland Route 32,” says Michael V. Hayden, who oversaw…
The Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA): A Field Guide By Tim Shorrock INSA was originally founded in 1979 as a forum for informal discussions between the NSA and its many contractors, and had its headquarters in the National…
In the wake of the amazing stories from The Guardian and the Washington Post on the expansion of NSA surveillance, I’ve been tweeting links to stories and websites on the contractors who help the world’s largest spying agency analyze all…
Palantir Technologies and Booz Allen Hamilton, for starters. My latest in Salon on what NBC’s isn’t telling you about their oh-so-objective national security analysts. Compared to the near-hysterical reporting on Fox and the mistake-prone efforts at CNN, the handling of…
On March 28, I appeared on a segment of Huff Post Live today with NSA whistleblowers Tom Drake and Bill Binney, along with their attorney Jesselyn Radack and Ben Freeman of the Project on Government Oversight. We got deep into Thin Thread…
My latest, published today in The Nation: In the annals of national security, the Obama administration will long be remembered for its unprecedented crackdown on whistleblowers. Since 2009, it has employed the World War I–era Espionage Act a record six…
As soon as I can figure out how to upload the PDF, I will re-publish a short analysis and polemic I wrote in 1980 about the emergence of the Pacific Rim economy. I did this during a time of very…
Today I made my first appearance on HuffPostLive, talking about the Pentagon’s latest cyber security programs, the NSA, privacy and the role of contractors. It was an interesting discussion and well-moderated. I hate the kind of shouting matches people often…
It was probably one of the weirdest and most absurd press conferences in Washington history. Today, a full week after the terrible massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, NRA President Wayne LaPierre called for an “armed security” force in every school in America,…
Last year, I got a surprise call from a staffer on the Senate Homeland Security Committee: would I be willing to provide some input about an upcoming hearing on intelligence contractors? As the author of SPIES FOR HIRE and many…
TIME Magazine, of all places, has an amazing article about Washington this week. It’s called “Bubble on the Potomac,” and it’s about the “new affluence” that sets this gilded city “apart from the country it governs.” To me, the brilliance…
“The anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks began publishing on Monday more than five million emails from a U.S.-based global security analysis company that has been likened to a shadow CIA,” Reuters reports. Here’s what WikiLeaks has to say on this massive release:…
A report on Michael Moore’s first stop on his “living room” book tour – in which I ask him something about Nader I’ve been burning to know for years. Last Friday I had the good fortune to be invited to…
Blackwater, the notorious mercenary company now known as “Xe,” has a new Chief Operating Officer (COO) – Charles (Chuck) Thomas, formerly of the British-owned defense and intelligence contractor BAE Systems Inc. According to today’s press release from Blackwater owner USTC…