Leaker’s Employer Is Paid to Maintain Government Secrets

New York Times ^ | June 9, 2013 | BINYAMIN APPELBAUM and ERIC LIPTON

[lbryce]

Edward J. Snowden’s employer, Booz Allen Hamilton, has become one of the largest and most profitable corporations in the United States almost exclusively by serving a single client: the government of the United States.

Over the last decade, much of the company’s growth has come from selling expertise, technology and manpower to the National Security Agency and other federal intelligence agencies. Booz Allen earned $1.3 billion, 23 percent of the company’s total revenue, from intelligence work during its most recent fiscal year.

The government has sharply increased spending on high-tech intelligence gathering since 2001, and both the Bush and Obama administrations have chosen to rely on private contractors like Booz Allen for much of the resulting work.

[lbryce]

And the New York Times looks to getting paid by revealing government secrets.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

With so many people watching the lives of others, this was bound to happen sooner rather than later.

The only thing that bothers me is that this total informant thing is a one-way street. Ubama gets to know everything about us, but we get to know nothing about him, like his publisher's press release saying he was born in Kenya, or all those social security numbers he has used, or where he was during the time he was ostensibly attending Columbia University, or why a Saudi prince pulled strings to get him into Harvard law school.

Tell us a few things about yourself, Barry, and we won't feel so screwed--blue and tattooed.

[RoosterRedux]

Leaker’s Employer Is Paid to Maintain Government Secrets

You don't say? I would have never guessed!

[txhurl]

This situation is turning out to be one hell of a surprise Rorschach test for everyone paying attention.

He couldn’t have survived his entire working history at the CIA, NSA and contractors if he didn’t have his employers’ trust.

He did talk some $hit about the CIA.. probably a bad idea.

[Tallguy]

The best part about the loss of privacy — from a Democrat-electoral standpoint — is that you have a ready supply of dirt on all your political operatives. You needn’t even lift a finger! Some politically-motivated hack buried in one of these alphabet-soup agencies will simply dial-up the relevant database and collate every known fact about Republican Candidate X, then leak it to a sympathetic “journalist” (read pro-Dem hack with a Public Policy degree) who will plaster it complete with innuendo on the commentary page.

I remember some lemming from Ohio’s bureaucracy trolled through Joe-the-Plumber’s background simply because he had the temerity to ask Obama a difficult question, and in so doing made the Messiah look bad.

Then you had the son of some Democrat politician who hacked Sarah Palin’s personal email account.

Now that was tame stuff compared to the Magnum Loads they’ll be firing in the coming election cycles.

[pepsionice]

The leaker was getting paid $200,000 a year. Toss in social security, benefits, and shipping benefits....the government was easily paying $260,000 for the guy, and the mark-up from Booze-Allen? They had to be getting $500,000 for that one billet.

If I were NSA, I’d be asking questions over the loyalty of the remaining employees....maybe even challenge the company on half of them.

[SnuffaBolshevik]

Is it true this guy only had a GED?
Very unusual, at best.

These days almost all such job applications require a sheepskin of some sort to get to first base. Especially in the Intelligence Community.

[RavenATB]

Here's the thing to remember. This “leaker” was a CIA employee before he moved to “Booze Allen.” So it's logical to conclude that if he had a TS/SBI background investigation it happened while he was at CIA, and his clearance was still valid when he became a contractor. So I suspect (although I'm not sure, to be fair) that this guy's integrity and trustworthiness was established by his tenure in the “agency,” and Booze Allen...as would any contractor...accepted a current clearance as legitimate.

I understand that B/A is embarrassed. But I'm not sure why anyone would think that they somehow screwed up by hiring this guy.

[Katya]

This is very accurate... an old friend of mine retired from them for ten years, was lured back post Obama election 08 with monetary carrots.

[pepsionice]

Yep, GED. He went onto a local community college for about a year, then joined the Army. He was around the Army for eighteen months....had some kind of accident....might have been related to his epilepsy. So he ends up at Fort Meade Maryland as a security guard for NSA for about a year. He gets picked up after that, as a IT technician for security stuff (GS worker, probably low-level, GS11, etc). He does that for a year, and the CIA then pick him up for local work in DC (GS worker again), and then gets recruited to do a tour in Switzerland (GS worker again). He appears to be negative about doing GS work after that...going contractor after two years at the overseas duty in Switzerland.

GED, no degree of any type. He probably has a number of weeks at some Army technical school....computer security, I’m betting.