But what often goes unmentioned, as the Guardian’s Glenn
Greenwald pointed out, is that Hayden has a financial stake in keeping
Americans scared and on a permanent war footing against Islamist
militants. And the private firm he works for, called the Chertoff Group,
is not the only one making money by scaring Americans.
Post-9/11 America has witnessed a boom in private firms
dedicated to the hyped-up threat of terrorism. The drive to privatize
America’s national security apparatus accelerated in the aftermath of
the terrorist attacks, and it’s gotten to the point where 70 percent of
the national intelligence budget is now spent on private contractors,
as author Tim Shorrock reported. The private intelligence contractors
have profited to the tune of at least $6 billion a year. In 2010, the
Washington Post revealed that there are 1,931 private firms across the
country dedicated to fighting terrorism.
Here are five private companies cashing in on keeping you afraid.
1. The Chertoff Group
Former Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff had a
similar message when he appeared on ABC News August 4. Speaking about
the purported threat from an Al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen that led to the
closure of 19 U.S. embassies, Chertoff said that “the collection of
this warning information [about Al Qaeda] came from the kinds of
programs we’ve been discussing about, the ability to capture
communications overseas.”
CBS and ABC did not see fit to inform viewers that both
Hayden and Chertoff are employees of the Chertoff Group, a private firm
created in 2009 that companies hire to consult on best practices for
security and combatting terrorism. Some of the companies the firm
advises go on to win government contracts. Chertoff is the founder and
chairman of the group, while Hayden serves as a principal. So they
profit off a war on terror they say is crucial to keeping Americans
safe.
Though it’s unclear how much in total exactly the firm
makes, there are some known numbers. After the failed attempt in 2010 to
blow up an airliner on Christmas Day with a bomb hidden in underwear,
Chertoff pushed for better airport security procedures. One of the
suggestions Chertoff made was for the Transportation Security Agency to
use full-body scanners like the ones Rapiscan, one of the Chertoff
Group’s clients, made. And sure enough, after the Christmas Day plot,
the TSA ordered 300 Rapiscan machines. The Huffington Post
reported that Rapiscan made $118 million from the government between
2009-2010.
2. Booz Allen Hamilton
Despite the Snowden security breach, Booz Allen continues to work with the government. And they’re making a lot of money from the U.S. In the last fiscal year, the company made $1.3 billion from working in U.S. intelligence. In total, Booz Allen Hamiltion made over $5 billion last fiscal year. And the cash keeps coming: in January, the company announced that it had won a contract with the Defense Department to provide intelligence services. The amount of money it could make from the deal is up to $5.6 billion.
And like Hayden and Chertoff, Booz Allen’s vice president
Mike McConnell has publicly hyped up the threat of terrorism to blast
Snowden’s leaks. McConnell told a government contracting conference in
July 2013 that Snowden’s leaks have done “irrevocable damage” to the
U.S.’s ability to stop terrorism. “It’s going to inhibit our ability to
understand nuclear activity in North Korea, what’s going on in Syria,
what might be happening with the Taliban in Afghanistan,” said
McConnell.
3. Science Applications International Corporation
Sometimes referred to as “NSA West” because so many former
NSA employees go on to work for the formerly California-based Science
Applications International Corporation (SAIC), this firm makes a ton of
cash off government contracts. And they do so by hawking their expertise
in combatting the terrorist threat.
Browse through SAIC’s website and you’re constantly greeted with the
words “terrorist threat” and information on how the SAIC can help the
government and others battle it. SAIC developed a “Terrorism Protection
Manual” for Florida law enforcement that was developed to
fight “today’s national terrorist threat and implement recommended
security best practices.” They boast of their “experience meeting the
terrorism incident response training needs of a wide variety of
customers, from training for a national Weapons of Mass Destruction
(WMD) scenario, applicable at agency response levels, to lesser levels
of incidents affecting a city, a military installation or a special
facility.”
Back when John P. Jumper, the current CEO of SAIC, was an
Air Force general, he said the threat of terrorism is “greater than
Nazism, greater than communism. This threat that we have of terrorist
zealots is the most dangerous because these are people who care nothing
about life. They care nothing about our lives, for sure, and they care
nothing about their own lives.” And Larry Prior, a U.S. intelligence
veteran who used to run the company’s Intelligence and Security Group,
said in an internal newsletter that “the future of the nation rests on
their backs,” referring to employees in his group.
SAIC is an immensely lucrative and large company. It boasts
42,000 employees—20,000 of whom hold U.S. government security
clearances. It is the NSA’s largest contractor, according to CorpWatch,
and is deeply involved in the NSA’s collection of intelligence. Last
year it reported a net income of $525 million.
4. Center for Counterintelligence and Security Studies
U.S. intelligence agencies aren’t the only sectors of
government where the private sector has cashed in on the fear of
terrorism. The post-9/11 world has seen the blossoming of a cottage
industry of self-styled “experts” on Islam from private companies that
market their supposedly ironclad analysis of the threat from Islamists
to other federal agencies and state and local law enforcement. These
companies have profited from law enforcement taking part in the “war on
terror.”
Based in Virginia, the center “posits radical Islam as a
new global ideological menace on the order of the old communist threat
from the Soviet Union,” asPolitical Research Associates (PRA) noted in a
2011 report on private firms doing counter-terror training. Staff
members include former FBI, CIA and Defense Department personnel.
Their claim to fame is providing education and training to
members of the U.S. national security community—including law
enforcement agencies, according to their website. They say they have
trained over 67,000 people over the past decade.
It’s unclear exactly how much this firm makes per year. But
according to the PRA report, a five-day course for government employees
on the “Global Jihadist Threat Doctrine” costs $39,280. The firm also
lists the costs of individual courses on their website. For a 30-person
class titled “Dying to Kill Us: Understanding the Mindset of Suicide
Operations,” the cost is $7,856. For a three-day course for 30 people
on “Informant Development for Law Enforcement to FighTerrorism,” the
cost is $23,568.
The training pushes anti-Muslim ideology. On the section of
their website where they list feedback from participants of the
courses, one wrote: “An eye-opener. Especially how many Muslim
Brotherhood front organizations there are and that the government
doesn’t get it.”
5. Security Solutions International
At a 2009 conference sponsored by Police magazine, an SSI
instructor who is the company’s “expert” on Islam used a video that
showed a terrorist beheading a hostage. After the course was met with
criticism, the company’s CEO said “their religion got linked to
terrorism a long time ago.”
The conferences they hold are usually well-attended, and
this year SSI is putting on a conference in Orlando, Florida for three
days. The cost for each attendee is $400. The keynote speaker this year
is Steve Emerson, a well-known member of what’s been termed
the “Islamophobia industry.” SSI also makes money off its Counter
Terrorist magazine. A yearly subscription is $35, and the company says
it has 15,000 subscribers.
By Alex Kane > Global Research, September 22, 2014 > AlterNet
Criminal Insane America [CIA]
ReplyDeleteWhat would all the ROBED GAVEL TYRANTS DO w/o the Holocaust-WOE Industries!
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