Privatization of U.S. intelligence: accountability and ethical implications

Outsourcing U.S. Intelligence

Assessing the Implications and Potential for Improving

The nature of foreign policy and the many global conflicts that fuel its nature in the 21st century has outstripped the United States' ability to effectively anticipate and thwart threats arising in nations that are relatively unknown. Compounding the nature of these more complex, oblique and difficult threats and developments to track using traditional U.S. intelligence methods is the continual reduction in U.S. budgets for staffing intelligence-gathering agencies and organizations (Krishnan, 2011). This two primary factors and a myriad of others have led to the en masse hiring of outsourcing firms globally to manage U.S. intelligence aggregation, analysis, strategy development, planning and executing of special operations and long-term strategic planning that are influencing U.S. foreign policy today (Bean, 2013). It is common knowledge throughout the U.S. government that up to 70% of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence's budget is spent on contractors including Accenture, Booz Allen Hamilton, McKinsey, Price Waterhouse Coopers and many others. With the majority of government spending for intelligence aggregation, analysis and strategic recommendations being spent with contractors whose allegiance is to profits first and citizens second, clearly the U.S. government needs to enforce a much greater level of accountability, ethics and transparency. The intent of this report is to analyze how pervasive the use of contractors are doing privatized intelligence aggregation, analysis and strategy development, also illustrating how much influence contractors have over U.S. foreign policy today. The analysis concludes with recommendations on how to improve the ethical foundations of this pervasive practice in the U.S. government today.

Privatized Intelligence Aggregation, Analysis and Strategy Development

The hard reality for the U.S. intelligence community is that today they have more contractors on their payrolls today than they have employees to manage and direct them. The rapid escalation of the intelligence community as a result of the attacks of September 11th, 2001 and the ongoing tracking and battles with Al Qaeda, the Taliban and the many other factions in Afghanistan and throughout the Middle Eastern nations were the most powerful catalysts leading to the U.S. outsourcing intelligence to corporations globally. The U.S. intelligence community clearly has been in growth mode ever since, increasing the number of contractors annually at a double digit rate since 2001 to 2010 (Krishnan, 2011). Given the proliferation of contractors globally working on behalf of U.S. intelligence efforts it is not surprising there has been little accomplished in terms of governance and strategic orchestration across all contracting entities. From the emergence of a subscription service in Afghanistan to attract informants and build a knowledge network (Bean, 2013) to the creation of entire divisions of government agencies entirely staffed by contractors (Krishnan, 2011) the U.S. intelligence community has grown quickly and is ironically now more expensive to operate than the agencies doing the hiring.

In completing aggregation, analysis and strategy development based on outsourcers' accumulated efforts, the U.S. intelligence community has learned the following key lessons. First, the greater the level of outsourcing the more potential the actual data will be politicized based on the perceptions and bias of the analysts working for the outsourcers (Krishnan, 2011). Second, outsourcing inherently breeds greater corruption and gross inefficiencies over time which in turn lead ironically to more outsourcing in an attempt straighten out the problems and make the strategies more coherent and focused (Krishnan, 2011). Third, the quality level of intelligence outsourcing specifically in the areas of aggregation, analysis and strategy development vary widely in terms of quality and depth of insight delivered (Bean, 2013). This creates a void between the strict quality standards that are often complaint to Department of Defense (DOD) requirements within U.S. intelligence agencies and the much more agile yet less accountable approaches of government contractors engaging in U.S. intelligence operations. Fourth, and most troubling is how the pervasive practice of outsourcing is gradually leading to expertise edging away from the U.S. intelligence community to outsourcing firms who could easily sell the same e3xpertise to other nations as well.

Privatized Special Operations and Its Implications on U.S. Foreign Policy

At the center of the dilemma regarding the continual outsourcing of U.S. intelligence is the lack of consistency and management of security, controls and access levels to highly confidential data, governance and oversight, and most of all, accountability over how the data is being used. These factors taken together lead to the politicization of intelligence research and show the impact the pervasive practice of outsourcing can potential have on foreign policy. From the U.S. President's Daily Brief which is generated by contractors (Krishnan, 2011) to the reconnaissance reports in Afghanistan, Pakistan and throughout Iraq that influence foreign policy and decision-making in these regions, contractors are primarily driving these data capture efforts. The definition of potential targets and objectives for special operations throughout these regions are also defined by government contractors and all preliminary target definition is completed up to the point of the strategy being implemented. Supporters of this level of support by contractors point to the need for situational awareness on the ground in these nations at a scale simply not attainable by the U.S. agencies whose employees are often given multiple roles to fulfill already (Krishnan, 2011). With special operations missions being advocated across the world's most volatile regions by contractors, clearly there is a need for greater governance than exists today.