Outsourcing Intelligence

July 8, 2007 7:21 PM

The numbers are classified, the dollars are classified, but there's no doubt that the number of "Green Badgers" are catching up to, and sometimes surpassing, that of "Blue Badgers" in some of the US's most sensitive national security positions. Bob Baer is talking about it. Others have been, too. R.J. Hillhouse has been writing a blog for roughly six months now on the phenomenon: The Spy Who Billed Me.
posted by Emperor SnooKloze (17 comments total)

*cough* That second link is here. The contractors gremlins did it.
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 7:32 PM on July 8, 2007

badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger
mushroom mushroom
posted by wendell at 7:37 PM on July 8, 2007

From Bob Baer's article.

With contractors rumored to make up 50-60% of the CIA's workforce it is difficult to tell who is running the place.

The reply he received from the CIA:

Your figure for contractors is well off the mark, and you can expect that population to decrease as our force of staff officers continues to grow

From the salon link:

On May 14, at an industry conference in Colorado sponsored by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the U.S. government revealed for the first time how much of its classified intelligence budget is spent on private contracts: a whopping 70 percent.

The CIA was right. Bob Baer was underestimating the number by 10-20%.
posted by kisch mokusch at 8:11 PM on July 8, 2007

She was interviewed June third by Ian Masters. Back in the day, the cia was ran by the safari club. as told by Dave Emory
posted by hortense at 8:20 PM on July 8, 2007

@ kisch mokusch: You're comparing the wrong figures. The alleged 50 percent was a headcount statistic, the budget was in dollars. It's entirely possible that they spend 70% of their budget on contractors, but only have a 45% headcount. The two numbers aren't connected in any way that would be obvious from those two figures alone. You'd have to know the specifics of the contracts to be able to tell how much is being charged per man-hour.

Anyway, the whole thing doesn't surprise me. Government is run -- I don't mean administered, but I mean day-to-day operations stuff -- by contractors. Without contractors, the government would not function. Seriously. If all the contractors just decided not to show up for work tomorrow, the government would just remain closed.

Personally I think this is a direct result of the way the government handles hiring and promotion. When you hire a new government employee, you have them FOREVER. They're tough to fire, and difficult to avoid promoting to ever-higher salaries. So unless your project is one that's going to never, ever end, nobody is going to let you hire on new USG employees -- you're going to get contractors, because you can use them for the length of the project and then, when you're done, you just don't renew the contract. No long-term commitment.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:43 PM on July 8, 2007

Yeah, I did realise that, but only 5 minutes or so after I posted. It was a pedantic point anyway. There doesn't really seem to be a good reference point for what an appropriate amount should be spent on what within these agencies. Were the CIA spending their money better in the 60s, 70s, 80s or 90s? Can you even compare them, since government priorities change so much? Maybe they have just scrimped money from the paying-off-corrupt-officials-fund, so that more can be spent on contractors. I have no idea, and am going to stop commenting now.
posted by kisch mokusch at 9:15 PM on July 8, 2007

Why is it a big deal that they use contractors? Why would it be a problem to use 100% contractors? As long as there are quality controls, over sight, and an open bidding process, you'll end up with higher quality and lower costs.
posted by blue_beetle at 9:46 PM on July 8, 2007

"Why would it be a problem to use 100% contractors?"

If it is just information gathering, sure. But doesn't the CIA do things too? Should private corporations be training people in this stuff?

This reminds me of the corporation in Robocop.
posted by eye of newt at 9:53 PM on July 8, 2007

Badgers? We don't need no stinkin' Badgers.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 11:19 PM on July 8, 2007

so that last link was a fun thriller novel caricature
posted by Shakeer at 11:20 PM on July 8, 2007

Why is it a big deal that they use contractors? Why would it be a problem to use 100% contractors? As long as there are quality controls, over sight, and an open bidding process, you'll end up with higher quality and lower costs.

What contractors do you hire to design a quality control process? Who supervises whom? Who decides among the bids? Who puts together the bid requests? How do they decide where to put the bid requests? How do they ensure that the intelligence outsourcing market is open enough to ensure that specific sections of it aren't monopolized by companies or individuals acting in their own interests? How do you possibly evaluate one company or contractor versus another in once-in-a-lifetime scenarios?

Perhaps more poignantly: do you trust the market enough to have the entirety of national security handled by people who have money as their top priority? That is, after all, how the invisible hand works. Perhaps there are some situations where bare, straightforward capitalism isn't the right idea?

How many companies do you figure are out there which Congress could turn to and say "hi, we'd like you to take over for the CIA"? That's an extreme example, but let's say it happens. American Intelligence Corporation then becomes the government's authorized intelligence provider. In 2017, Los Angeles is hit by a dirty bomb. What does Congress do? Fire AIC? How many companies do you think will have been standing around ten years, waiting for that to happen, able to pick up when AIC gets fired?

Okay, now let's bring it back to reality: no one's saying Congress should do that. But there are large swaths of daily CIA operations which get taken care of by this or that company, and intelligence is complex enough that even those subsections of the CIA are difficult enough that the competition is probably very slim. On top of that, when an administration is too busy or too confused, self-interested companies can easily tailor their job descriptions, their fields of responsibility and jurisdiction, and their general indispensability, over time.

Once a contractor is indispensable and irreplaceable, the contract ceases to make sense. Indispensable irreplaceable intelligence contractors do not have as much motivation as I believe they ought to, if they are to defend a nation as their top priority rather than ensure their continued cash flow.

All of this aside, I do think that the US federal government is hopelessly flailing, I just don't think that contractors are the answer. Like Bob Baer says, they need to rebuild.

The government needs leadership. Like a... CEO or something? Chief... executive? Hmmm.
posted by blacklite at 11:25 PM on July 8, 2007 [2 favorites]

Outing Valerie Plame aided our enemies
posted by homunculus at 11:52 PM on July 8, 2007

CIA employees with you forever might not be a bad idea. After all, as contractors they would have to find other employment. Maybe with other governments.
posted by srboisvert at 12:53 AM on July 9, 2007

No Comment.
posted by MapGuy at 6:39 AM on July 9, 2007

Does this make Jason Bourne a Green Badger, or a Blue Badger?
posted by Ber at 8:35 AM on July 9, 2007

George W. Bush: the Bad CEO.
posted by Mental Wimp at 11:24 AM on July 9, 2007

Giant badgers terrorise Iraqi port city
posted by homunculus at 10:09 AM on July 11, 2007