18 October 2008

James Bamford, The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America, 2008, pp. 197-201:

The NSA's willingness to outsource eavesdropping, plus the warrantless eavesdropping and other new programs, thus became a giant boom to a growing fraternity of contractors who make their living off the NSA. Headquarters for what might be termed the surveillance-industrial complex is the Nation Business Park, "NBP" in NSA lingo. Located just across the Baltimore-Washington Parkway from the agency's secret city, it is nearly as secret and nearly as protected as the agency itself. The centerpiece is NBP-1, a tall glass office building belonging to the NSA's Technology and Sytems Organization.

Stretching out below NBP-1, hidden from the highway and surrounded by tall trees, National Business Park is a large compound of buildings owned by the NSA's numerous high-tech contractors. The NSA's problem is trying to keep up with the enormous volume of incoming information, including the warrantless monitoring, which, like any system when restraints are removed, tends to expand exponentially. NBP fills the need as sort of a private-sector NSA. ...

Making up the surveillance-industrial empire are both high-profile Wall Street giants and little-known park dwarfs. What they have in common is great profits from the NSA's very deep pockets -- more than ever since the start of the 9/11 eavesdropping boom. By 2007, excluding the military, the intelligence community's budget was $43.5 billion, about a third larger than during the pre-9/11 years. Adding the military and tactical budget brought the total to about $60 billion. ...

At the same time Hayden was building his empire within Fort Meade, he was also creating a shadow NSA: of the $60 billion going to the intelligence community, most of it -- about $42 billion, an enormous 70 percent -- was going to outside contractors. To some inside the agency, it seemed that an idea, no matter how pie-in-the-sky, regardless of its impracticality in the real world, got funded. The numbers told the story. In October 2001, the NSA had 55 contracts let out to 144 contractors. But by October 2005, the agency had 7,197 contracts and 4,388 contractors. ...

For many years, the surveillance-industrial complex was managed from a white two-story building at 141 National Business Park, just down the street from the NSA's NBP-1. Behind the double doors to Suite 112 was a little-known organization called the Security Affairs Support Association (SASA), which since its founding in 1980, had served as the bridge between the intelligence and industrial communities. From 1999 to 2002, SASA's president was Lieutenant General Kenneth A. Miniham, who retired as director of the NSA in 1999. Its executive vice president for many years was retired air force major general John E. Morrison, Jr., a former head of operations at the NSA and long one of the most respected people in the intelligence community.

In 2003, with an influx of money as a result of the post-9/11 intelligence boom, the organization changed its name to the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA). It also moved closer to the centers of power, establishing itself in a nondescript building in Ballston, a nexus between the intelligence agencies, the Pentagon, and the contractors. "The effectiveness of the U.S. intelligence and national security communities depends on strong relationships within the industry," said the former NSA director McConnell, a member of SASA and then chairman of INSA before being named director of national intelligence.

http://www.insaonline.org/

INSA Founding Members

INSA’s founding members are a select group of companies or individuals who firmly believe in advocacy for intelligence as part of the U.S. national security structure, who understand the critical need to rebuild and strengthen the public-private partnership between government and industry, and who believe in the mission of INSA in supporting intelligence and national security. The founding members are:

BAE Systems
Booz Allen Hamilton
CSC
General Dynamics
Hewlett Packard
Lockhead Martin
ManTech
Microsoft
Potomac Institute for Policy Studies
SAIC

INSA Current Board Members

Ms. Maureen A. Baginski (ex-NSA)
Mr. John O. Brennan, Chairman (ex-CIA)
Mr. Robert A. Coleman (ManTech)
Dr. Mary Connell
Ms. Joan A. Dempsey (ex-CIA)
Ms. Barbara A. Duckworth (ex-DIA)
Lt Gen Lincoln D. Faurer, USAF (Ret.)
Dr. Robert L. Gallucci
Mr. Keith R. Hall (ex-NRO)
MG Robert A. Harding, USA (Ret.)
Dr. Leo A. Hazlewood (ex-CIA)
Mr. Tom Hempfield
LTG Patrick M. Hughes, USA (Ret.) (ex-DIA)
Ms. Joanne O. Isham
Mr. Michael J. Jacobs
Ms. Terry S. Kees
Dr. Laura Manning
Ms. Ellen E. McCarthy
Ms. Carmen Medina (ex-CIA)
Mr. James R. O'Neill
Mr. Lloyd B. Rowland
Mr. Richard C. Schaeffer, Jr. (ex-NSA)
Mr. James Sheaffer
Mr. William G. Shernit
Mr. Garnett Stowe
Admiral William O. Studeman, USN (Ret.)
Mr. Lou Von Thaer
Ms. Caryn A. Wagner (ex-CIA)
Ms. Linda K. Zecher

See also: Spies for Hire, by Tim Shorrock