"Booz Allen Hamilton: Edward Snowden's US contracting firm"

[KoKo]

(Many DU'ers tried to TELL YOU about those "PRIVATE CONTRACTORS"...)

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Booz Allen Hamilton: Edward Snowden's US contracting firm

$6bn company that employed the NSA whistleblower is closely connected to US intelligence community and its leaders

Snowden's decision to reveal his identity as a computer systems administrator for Booz Allen Hamilton, directly handling National Security Agency IT systems, raises significant image problems for the $6bn company and its 25,000-strong staff, which has traded on a bond of trust with sensitive clients, particularly the intelligence establishment.

"Booz Allen is a committed partner not only to our clients, but also to the institution of government, the business community, the communities in which we work, and the global community," the website declares. "We leverage our management and technology consulting capabilities to help clients in a number of ways."

The company marketing is heavily oriented towards handling its client computer systems needs. Under the heading "improving public safety with analytics", it offers expertise in helping cope with large amount of collected data. In a line that reflects some of the functions Snowden performed for the NSA, the Booz Allen Hamilton said its expertise in analytics "enables organizations to process, interpret, and use massive data stores in weeks or months".

Snowden's decision to become a whistleblower also seems likely to reinvigorate a long-running debate in Washington over the role of private contractors in highly sensitive security roles. The Washington Post estimated that about a third of Americans with top secret security clearances are private contractors.

In his Senate confirmation hearings in 2010, Clapper defended the private sector's role saying: "I worked as a contractor for six years myself, so I think I have a good understanding of the contribution that they have made and will continue to make."

Booz Allen is in turn majority owned by the Carlyle Group, a giant US-based investment fund with $17bn in assets.

MUCH, MUCH MORE AT:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/booz-allen-hamilton-edward-snowden?guni=Network%20front:network-front%20full-width-1%20bento-box:Bento%20box osition1:sublinks

[scarletwoman]

1. K&R just for the cartoon alone!

AND it's a great post!

[KoKo]

8. Gotta keep posting this for that GRAPHIC which explains much!

Thanks!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. And, the administration, and some here are blaming the whistle blower for outing them.

[Vinnie From Indy]

3. I may be wrong, but I think Carlyle is in the 100 billion asset range

I believe they are the fourth largest investment firm in the US. I could be wrong though!

Cheers!

[TheDebbieDee]

4. Isn't Carlyle Group a Bush Family Enterprise?!?!?!

[KoKo]

5. Well...mucho ties to Bushies...so that could be "Family Enterprise" for sure...

The ex-presidents' club The Guardian
Oliver Burkeman and Julian Borger Wednesday October 31, 2001

It is hard to imagine an address closer to the heart of American power. The offices of the Carlyle Group are on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC, midway between the White House and the Capitol building, and within a stone's throw of the headquarters of the FBI and numerous government departments. The address reflects Carlyle's position at the very center of the Washington establishment, but amid the frenetic politicking that has occupied the higher reaches of that world in recent weeks, few have paid it much attention. Elsewhere, few have even heard of it...

But since the start of the "war on terrorism", the firm - unofficially valued at $13.5bn - has taken on an added significance. Carlyle has become the thread which indirectly links American military policy in Afghanistan to the personal financial fortunes of its celebrity employees, not least the current president's father. And, until earlier this month, Carlyle provided another curious link to the Afghan crisis: among the firm's multi-million-dollar investors were members of the family of Osama bin Laden
More At.......
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/31/september11.usa4

AND:



Carlyle's Way Red Herring Business Magazine
Dan Briody, author of The Iron Triangle Wednesday January 8, 2002

Like everyone else in the United States, the group stood transfixed as the events of September 11 unfolded. Present were former secretary of defense Frank Carlucci, former secretary of state James Baker III, and representatives of the bin Laden family. This was not some underground presidential bunker or Central Intelligence Agency interrogation room. It was the Ritz-Carlton in Washington, D.C., the plush setting for the annual investor conference of one of the most powerful, well-connected, and secretive companies in the world: the Carlyle Group. And since September 11, this little-known company has become unexpectedly important...

And as the Carlyle investors watched the World Trade towers go down, the group's prospects went up. In running what its own marketing literature spookily calls "a vast, interlocking, global network of businesses and investment professionals" that operates within the so-called iron triangle of industry, government, and the military, the Carlyle Group leaves itself open to any number of conflicts of interest and stunning ironies. For example, it is hard to ignore the fact that Osama bin Laden's family members, who renounced their son ten years ago, stood to gain financially from the war being waged against him until late October, when public criticism of the relationship forced them to liquidate their holdings in the firm. Or consider that U.S. president George W. Bush is in a position to make budgetary decisions that could pad his father's bank account. But for the Carlyle Group, walking that narrow line is the art of doing business at the murky intersection of Washington politics, national security, and private capital; mastering it has enabled the group to amass $12 billion in funds under management.
More...

http://www.hereinreality.com/carlyle.html#.UbUxXdih5IA

[Autumn]

6. Carlyle Group

there it is

[KoKo]

7. Kick...for the Chart..