Is America about tobe filled with ‘RockyMountain Spies’?
Aurora, Colorado: To Privatized Spy Game?By Cliff MontgomeryAccording to articles in The Denver Post and Government Executive magazine, the growing Denver suburb of Aurora, Colo. will play home to a major operations center for the National Security Agency (NSA), amid a broader move by the intelligence community to align its operations with the military. The word has spread that NSA’s electronic “eavesdroppers” were building a new “warning hub” at Buckley Air Force Base. National security historian William M. Arkin has stated that the base is a downlink for numerous intelligence satellites, including those of the NSA.Buckley also is home to the 460th Space Wing, which runs the Defense Support Program satellites, the “eyes in the sky” used to detect missile launches and warn the military.Given Colorado’s pivotal role in national security–U.S. Northern Command is at Peterson Air Force Base near Colorado Springs–there is a certain sense in such intelligence agencies as the NSA hoping to centralize operations there. (The CIA last year planned to move a division to Denver.)And there is something else which attracts the Neo-Cons running this White House. The corporate welfare gravy train has a major hub in Aurora–corporate taxes are cheaper than almost any other U.S. city. That makes the town a big draw for the corporate big shots selling their wares to the federal government. In fact, only Las Vegas and Colorado Springs have better corporate welfare rates than Aurora, according to The Kiplinger Letter.It’s therefore no surprise that some of the biggest names in the intelligence business, including Lockheed Martin Corp. and SAIC, have satellite offices in the Aurora region.As NSA has expanded its spying on American citizens, it has been running out of office space at its Fort George G. Meade, MD, headquarters, says James Bamford, author of the definitive books on the NSA–The Puzzle Palace: Inside America’s Most Secret Intelligence Organization (Penguin, 1983) and Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency (Anchor, 2002).Security concerns also prompted the move, says Bamford. After Sept. 11th, agency officials “got very nervous” that “all the facilities [including the counter-terrorism unit] were in one place, in a glass tower, which was one of the highest buildings around,” he says.NSA hasn’t said how many employees it will move to Aurora, but a spokesman told The Denver Post, “This strategy better aligns support to national decision-makers and combatant commanders.”But such corporate talk usually means help for the top honchos at the expense of everyone else.Says one former intelligence official who’s now a private contractor, Aurora “could easily become as much a place of synergy as Washington.”With this one difference, though: Washington officials are watched by the press and the American people, whereas the responsibility of private contractors is much more hazy.NSA’s expansion appears to be gathering steam. As Government Executive reported in 2004, “NSA is building a massive data storage facility in Colorado, which will be able to hold the electronic equivalent of the Library of Congress every two days.”Of exactly what all that information will consist was not clear. Could it be all those domestic phone calls and e-mails the NSA collects from both American citizens and visitors, often without a warrant? That was not immediately revealed, however.Harry Gatanas, NSA’s senior acquisition executive, said that the agency needed contractors to assist in knowledge management, high-end computing and analytic tool development. From 2000 to 2004, NSA doubled its dollars to contractors, and Gatanas said it would again by decade’s end.Privatizing the spy game is not a new idea. Bob Baer, a former CIA Middle East expert and author of See No Evil, told Inter Press Service (IPS) in a March 2005 interview that private groups have long worked for his former agency.”After 1997, practically all training is done by contractors…The CIA is even hiring contractors as station chiefs in other countries.”But Baer says there is a problem with such an arrangement.”I think [outsourcing] was…[employed] to get around personnel limits and get rid of severance problems. But these companies don’t vet people, you cannot keep track of who they are working for and of course they are not efficient.[…] Their job is to make money and so they will tell you whatever you want to hear.”
