Defense Agency Proposes Outsourcing More Spying

This administration has been very good to the military contractors. Now Bush wants to outsource our national security. The recent gift by the Democrats to Dubya will allow him run amok with his spying activities, apparently without any safeguards. Where will this all lead:

The Defense Intelligence Agency is preparing to pay private contractors up to $1 billion to conduct core intelligence tasks of analysis and collection over the next five years, an amount that would set a record in the outsourcing of such functions by the Pentagon's top spying agency.

The proposed contracts, outlined in a recent early notice of the DIA's plans, reflect a continuing expansion of the Defense Department's intelligence-related work and fit a well-established pattern of Bush administration transfers of government work to private contractors.

The potential for abuse is frightening:

[Congressman]Price asked during the debate whether contractors should be involved in intelligence collection and analysis, interrogation, and covert operations, or whether those activities are so sensitive that "they should only be performed by highly trained intelligence community professionals."

In a statement Friday, Price questioned whether "a contract award of this scale is consistent with the DNI's commitment to reduce the alarming portion of the intelligence budget that goes to private contractors." (DNI refers to the director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell.)