Intel Contractors...can't do without them now...

From Secrecy News:

MANAGING INTELLIGENCE CONTRACTORS

For better or worse, contractors are now an indispensable part of the
U.S. intelligence workforce, and greater attention is needed to manage
them effectively, argues a recent study by a military intelligence
analyst.

The author presents criteria for evaluating contractor support to
various intelligence functions, and applies them in a series of case
studies.

"This study assesses the value of current commercial activities used
within DoD elements of the Intelligence Community, particularly dealing
with operational functions such as analysis, collection management,
document exploitation, interrogation, production, and linguistic
support."

In the best case, interactions with contractors can serve as a spur
towards modernization of the intelligence bureaucracy itself, suggests
the author, Glenn R. Voelz, a U.S. Army Major.

"Collaborative effort with nongovernmental entities offers a powerful
mechanism to diversify and strengthen the IC's collection and
analytical capabilities, but to fully realize the benefit of these
resources the management and oversight of commercial providers must
become a core competency for all intelligence organizations."

A copy of the study, published by the Joint Military Intelligence
College, was obtained by Secrecy News.

See "Managing the Private Spies: The Use of Commercial Augmentation for
Intelligence Operations" by Maj. Glenn J. Voelz, Joint Military
Intelligence College, June 2006:

http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/voelz.pdf

Also on the general subject of contractors, there is a January 2003
U.S. Army Field Manual entitled "Contractors on the Battlefield," FM
3-100.21:

http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-100-21.pdf

Among the more or less successful intelligence collaborations with
industry that were examined by Maj. Voelz, there is nothing quite like
the Bush Administration's use of telephone companies to support the
warrantless interception of domestic communications, a probable
violation of the law for which the Administration is now urgently
seeking retroactive immunity.

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