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It’s Not Just Spying – How The NSA Has Turned Into A Giant Profit Center For Corrupt Insiders
Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
Dear NSA Employees, You Now Have a Green Light to Loot and Pillage. It’s Time to Get Paid:
Are you just another one of those frustrated NSA employees who feels that unconstitutionally spying on your fellow citizenry under false pretenses isn’t giving you same thrill it once did? If so, have no fear.
Are you are sick and tired of having to spilt your precious working hours defending the destruction of our nation’s founding document to those pesky terroristic media dinosaurs who still think investigative journalism belongs in Amerika? If so, have I got a solution for you.
While it may sound too good to be true, trust me it’s not. You see, in recent years almost all crony-capitalist criminal activities have been deemed legal in the land of the free (to pillage). This incredible opportunity allows you to directly leverage your intelligence skill-set to earn the big bucks you know you’ve always deserved. You can now do just that by working in the private sector without having to give up that cushy government day job! I mean if we’re going to have this banana republic thing going we may as well GET PAID. Am I right?
Keep at it patriots,
Michael Krieger
If the above sounds like a joke, unfortunately it is not. Last week, two very important stories came out; one from Reuters and the other from Buzzfeed. They both zero in on how current NSA employees are using their expertise and connections to make big money in the private sector while still working at the NSA. Let’s start with the Reuters story, which covers former NSA-head Keith Alexander’s business relationship with the NSA’s current Chief Technical Officer, Patrick Dowd.
Before we get into the meat of this story, I want to set the stage with a little background. In case you forgot, Keith Alexander launched his own cyber-security firm, IronNet Cybersecurity Inc., earlier this year. I highlighted this development in the post, Ex-NSA Chief Keith Alexander is Now Pimping Advice to Wall Street Banks for $1 Million a Month, in which I noted:
So what’s a Peeping Tom, anti-democratic, Constitution-trampling intelligence crony to do after leaving decades of “public service?” Move into the private sector and collect a fat paycheck from Wall Street, naturally. Following in the footsteps of some of the other top tier public sector cronies looking to cash out after doing their best to destroy the Republic, such as Banana Ben Bernanke collecting $250,000 per speech and Turbo Tax Timmy Geithner hopping over to private equity giant Warburg Pincus, Mr. Alexander is in good crooked company.
So what is Mr. Alexander charging for his expertise? He’s looking for $1 million per month. Yes, you read that right. That’s the rate that his firm, IronNet Cybersecurity Inc., pitched to Wall Street’s largest lobbying group the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), which ultimately negotiated it down to a mere $600,000 a month.
As if Mr. Alexander plowing right through the revolving door to earn $1 million per month from Wall Street less than a year after being at the center of perhaps the most expansive government violation of the Constitution in U.S. history wasn’t bad enough, he is now hiring top people still working at the NSA to concurrently work at his cyber-security firm. I wish I was making this up.
Reuters reports that:
(Reuters) – The U.S. National Security Agency has launched an internal review of a senior official’s part-time work for a private venture started by former NSA director Keith Alexander that raises questions over the blurring of lines between government and business.
Under the arrangement, which was confirmed by Alexander and current intelligence officials, NSA’s Chief Technical Officer, Patrick Dowd, is allowed to work up to 20 hours a week at IronNet Cybersecurity Inc, the private firm led by Alexander, a retired Army general and his former boss.
The arrangement was approved by top NSA managers, current and former officials said. It does not appear to break any laws and it could not be determined whether Dowd has actually begun working for Alexander, who retired from the NSA in March.
Current and former U.S. intelligence officials, some of whom requested anonymity to discuss personnel matters, said they could not recall a previous instance in which a high-ranking U.S. intelligence official was allowed to concurrently work for a private-sector firm.
Alexander, who was the eavesdropping and code-breaking agency’s longest-serving director, confirmed the arrangement with Dowd in an interview with Reuters. He said he understood it had been approved by all the necessary government authorities, and that IronNet Cybersecurity, not the government, would pay for Dowd’s time spent with the firm.
As if the entity paying Dowd for his time spent at the firm is the issue. Alexander is the definition of the word creep.
Dowd, he said, wanted to join IronNet, and the deal was devised as a way to keep Dowd’s technological expertise at least partly within the U.S. government, rather than losing him permanently to the private sector.
Oh I get it now. America has become so hopelessly corrupt, that the revolving door itself is becoming too much of a headache. So the solution is to just get rid of it completely.
“I wanted Pat to stay at NSA. He wanted to come on board,” Alexander said.
Alexander and Dowd have jointly filed patents based on technology they developed while at the NSA.
“If it isn’t structured very carefully, this runs the risk of conflict of interest and disclosure of national secrets,” Rothstein said. “It is a situation that in the interests of good government should be avoided unless there’s some very strong reason to do it.”
So Americans aren’t entitled to any privacy because of a trumped up terrorist threat, yet top NSA employees can moonlight for private businesses involved in the same areas as the NSA with apparently no threat to national security. America has gone completely insane.
Unsurprisingly, this is just the tip of the crony-capitalist fraud that the NSA has become. In fact, Buzzfeed broke a related story recently. It reports how one of the most powerful individuals at the NSA, Teresa H. Shea., has several intelligence related businesses run from her home. She is the registered agent for one of them, her husband holds that position for the other.
Teresa Shea is the director of Signals Intelligence, or SIGINT, which refers to all electronic eavesdropping and interception, including the controversial domestic surveillance program that collects information about Americans’ phone use. Naturally, no one is commenting.
On a quiet street in Ellicott City, Maryland, a blue-grey two-story clapboard house, set back from the road, is shaded by two sycamores and a towering maple. It’s the unassuming home of one of the National Security Agency’s most powerful officials, Teresa H. Shea.
In September, BuzzFeed News disclosed a potential conflict of interest involving Shea, the director of Signals Intelligence. Called SIGINT in espionage jargon, it refers to all electronic eavesdropping and interception, including the controversial domestic surveillance program that collects information about Americans’ phone use.
As BuzzFeed News reported, there’s a private SIGINT consulting and contracting business based at Shea’s home in that quiet neighborhood. Shea’s husband, a business executive in the small but profitable SIGINT industry, is the resident agent for the firm, Telic Networks.
In addition, James Shea also works for a major SIGINT contracting firm, DRS Signal Solutions Inc., which appears to do SIGINT business with the NSA.
DRS declined to comment, and the NSA declined to answer questions related to the Sheas, Telic Networks, or DRS.
Now there’s a new wrinkle, which the NSA has also declined to discuss: Yet another company, apparently focused on the office and electronics business, is based at the Shea residence on that well-tended lot.
This company is called Oplnet LLC.
Teresa Shea, who has been at the NSA since 1984, is the company’s resident agent. The company’s articles of organization, signed by Teresa Shea, show that the firm was established in 1999 primarily “to buy, sell, rent and lease office and electronic equipment and related goods and services.” An attorney who also signed the document, Alan Engel, said he couldn’t comment on client matters.
Records show Oplnet does own a six-seat airplane, as well a condominium property with an assessed value of $275,000 in the resort town of Hilton Head, South Carolina.
This summer the NSA turned down a Freedom of Information Act request for Shea’s public financial disclosure form. The agency said that, unlike every other federal agency, it could withhold the disclosure because of a sweeping 1959 law that allows it to keep almost everything secret.
Go ahead and read that twice. Read it three times. Still think we live in a free country?
Financial disclosure forms are central to public monitoring of ethics and potential conflicts of interests by federal officials. Without that form, journalists or concerned citizens must comb through corporate incorporations, property records, UCC filings, and court records to learn about an official’s financial interests outside of office. Often, these documents are not online and are in offices scattered across different states.
Teresa Shea, as head of SIGINT, has defended the program in declarations in two federal court cases.
Her husband has been involved in SIGINT as a private contractor and engineer since at least 1990, when he set up a company called Sigtek Inc., which would get hundreds of thousands of dollars in contracts with the federal government, according to a federal contracting database. On his LinkedIn page, James Shea says the company’s key markets included “Defense SIGINT.”
In 2010, Teresa Shea was appointed the director of all SIGINT at the NSA, after a period working in London. The same year, James Shea became vice president at a major SIGINT contracting firm, DRS Signal Solutions, a subsidiary of DRS Technologies.
As BuzzFeed reported in its first story on the Sheas, neither the NSA nor DRS will comment on whether the company has contracts with Teresa Shea’s directorate.
Asked if there was a conflict of interest, DRS spokesman Michael Mount said “I understand your story, and we’ll still decline to comment.” He said that when responding to BuzzFeed News about questions concerning James Shea, the company has coordinated with the NSA.
Matthew Aid, who has written a book about the NSA, The Secret Sentry, said it would be difficult to understand why Oplnet, this second home-based business, was set up by Ms. Shea, without knowing more.
But he adds that the fact that Shea’s husband works for a SIGINT contractor, and has a SIGINT related company at the couple’s home, is confounding.
“From a purely financial point of view, there’s so much potential of conflict of interest.”
“The fact that the NSA will not respond to your request raises in my mind a host of questions. If there was nothing there, they could have come back to you and said, ‘She’d been diligent. She’s in compliance.’ Then there’s no story. But they’ve said nothing. That to me is what could potential signal some problems.”
Welcome to the American Dream in 2014. Looks a lot like the Soviet Dream.
Utterly shameless.
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Forget the insider information nonsense. NSA workers are not smart enough to know who or what to look for and how to act.
This is standard fare for Maryland and Virginia. There are businesses all around DC that just do government contracting and then sub it out and collect the difference. If you're minority or women owned business, even better. Just skimming money constantly.
This seems like it's just writing the RFP at the NSA in such a way that only your spouse can win the business. Or even just starting a contractor business and awarding yourself the RFP. It doesn't matter, you see, as long as the correct boxes have been checked.
I suppose this Shea person will retire soon and collect pension as well. Getting the NSA to lease your summer home and private plane is a bit much though. I bet you could go through every federal department and find something like this. It's why they've become hypersensitive in recent years about leaks. They know this is the stuff that truly pisses people off. Not the actual violations of the constitution.
blurring of lines... big fascist bug lulz
"has turned into a profit center for corrupt insiders"
Turned into? Hell's bells man it always was from the beginning!
I wonder who maintains and repairs the Shea's cars, or who does their HVAC work for them.
"DRS Signal Solutions, a subsidiary of DRS Technologies." ...and DRS Tech "is a wholly owned subsidiary of Finmeccanica SpA, which employs approximately 70,000 people worldwide." per http://www.drs-ds.com/news/20141016.aspx and elsewhere. An Italian company owns this - not that anyone really believes in countries anymore.
I have a hunting buddy with a "civil service" position of 17 years. He has 7 weeks of paid vacation a year, 5 holidays with pay,, 5 "floating holidays" and 3 sick days. I am 59 and have not punched a clock or had a "shift work" type job since summer college jobs in the 70's. The buddies pension will pay him after only 25 years on the job and reaching the age of 50 close to 110 K a year until he dies. Lifelong full medical, dental and prescription coverage. Any guesses what he does? Hint, they pull you over for 35 in a 25.
Our government and their employees at all levels have run amok with power and the lust to control others. Don't tell me I can't say all either. I have waited an hour to pull a building permit while the employee at city hall ate her lunch,, applied new lipstick,,, chatted with friends at her desk on her lunch hour. One minute at her keyboard and a waddle over to her printer and 125 dollars later I can work on another sheeples home,,, but no.
Had enough? I doubt it. Evidently I haven't either,,, enough said. Oh,, i looked up what the fat lady clerk makes a year. 56K plus full benefits. Enjoy your day,,,,, I have tolls to pay on the tollway,,, oh,, and I didn't bulid that,,,,,,
Perhaps if you pull a Cheney on your hunting buddy, you save taxpayers millions. I would consider that heroic.
Great post Hunter....and I can vouch for what you said. I have several "trough feeders" as I call them, on the Uncle Sugar payroll that I've known as "friends"...funny....in recent years, I have been distancing myself from them...sickening....their blatant arrogance.....benefits for life....
FUCK THIS GOVERNMENT
Roger all that...here in The Peoples Republic of MA those same oinky oink numbers are more like 200 g's + with a DB pension and benes to match at 50. There is no stopping them now. They own the pols.
Having worked in government contracting and seen many blatant rip-offs of the taxpayer out in the open, I can guaran-damn-tee you that all "black" programs within the government must be gang rapings of the taxpayer. There is not even the pretense of any accountability.
Information can be very powerful and lucrative. Excessive power leads to excessive corruption. Most government workers are not corrupt; only dishonest in their work either by abuse of authority, not performing their duty, and simply just focused on sucking on the government teat. Most government work is non-essential and non-productive, and government needs significant downsizing.
Scumbags Unite!
Former DHS Head Michael Chertoff (now head of the Chertoff Group which supplies those toxic TSA radiation machines) and Gen Keith Alexander (head of IronNet, his own private NSA) have just announced a joint merger: SPY 'n FRY
You don't need to be a high level NSA turd to make money.
Let's see here, let us count the ways....
You have access to phone calls, emails, texts for CEO's, CFO's....do you trade on the information?
Shall we keep counting?
Keep in mind that you can't be prosecuted for insider trading, your job/crime is protected by secrecy concerns.
There is no way Teresa Shea could have even started the private companies she and her husband control without holding her position at the NSA. Indeed, these companies probably can’t even function profitably without her support from the inside. That’s the fundamental thing to understand, which shouldn’t be hard for anyone, especially those who work in the intelligence industry. It’s not so much about the need for cooperation and balance between the public and private sector. It’s about those with power to control that process doing so for their own extraordinary personal gain.
tyranny
[teerane ]
Noun. plural noun: tyrannies
1. The exercise of a power over others that no one should have.
"NSA Brokers. How can I help you, Senator?"
"That stock we talked about yesterday. Still a good buy?"
"Yessir! How many shares can I mark you down for?"
"Let me check my campaign fund, I'll call you back!"
Scum rises in the sickest culture on the planet. It's exceptional!
The really really great thing about Government agencies, and outsourced once government agencies run by former government employees is this:
If you've ever started a business you know that REVENUE is like blood in the body. Essential to survival, and hopefully, prosperity.
So if you could remove the single biggest headache from the things you need to succeed in a business, i.e. Sales, you would have enormous amounts of time, energy to devote to rendering the service, making or improving the product, free of survival worries.
In government there is no worry about revenue. You are given the revenue through taxes, primarily the withholding tax taken out each week from your pay. Add to that all the other mandatory fees, taxes, and surcharges exacted by all government agencies, collected for them by corporations (check your phone bill for further information) and THEN when that's not enough you go to J Yell and have her buy some government bonds (paper) which she goes to the Bureau of Engraving and it prints the FRNs, or she opens her IPAD and simply adds a digit other than zero, followed by a dozen or more zeros and VIOLA!!! the magic of creation becomes manifest.
Even god didn't do that, couldn't do that or ran out of days to do it.
What most of us missed was this essential fact. That government is literally a license to print money.
All you have to do is get a government position in the bureaucracy and figure out how to snatch some as it goes by.
How can you file for patents that you developed working for an organization? Doesn't that organization, in the case the US Government, own the rights to such patents? This is all highly criminal, every aspect. Where is the Justice Department? Haha
The COI issues are a no-brainer for investigation, ridiculous. But who is going to investigate the Stasi or SS?
There are laws on the books preventing convicted criminals from profiting from their crimes. For example, a murderer can't write a book about the murder and profit from it.
I guess you need a conviction first. Where is Holder when you need him?
He's looking for the real killers, of course.
If the glove don't fit - you must acquit!
"Oh I get it now. America has become so hopelessly corrupt, that the revolving door itself is becoming too much of a headache. So the solution is to just get rid of it completely."...
Says it all!
"So Americans aren’t entitled to any privacy because of a trumped up terrorist threat, yet top NSA employees can moonlight for private businesses involved in the same areas as the NSA with apparently no threat to national security. America has gone completely insane."...
Yes indeed it has gone "completely" insane!
It truly does have potential to become a US version of the KGB.
Soon, they'll be amongst us and we won't know for sure who they are. Careful what you say and to whom....
I can point to 2 Senior Defense Contracting officials who run their own firms from their homes too.
The sheer degree of corruption within elements of the US Government are straight out of a banana republic.