Bush wants "privatized intelligence"? Remember the Western Goals Foundation?

A new intelligence institution to be inaugurated soon by the Bush administration will allow government spying agencies to conduct broad surveillance and reconnaissance inside the United States for the first time. Under a proposal being reviewed by Congress, a National Applications Office (NAO) will be established to coordinate how the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and domestic law enforcement and rescue agencies use imagery and communications intelligence picked up by U.S. spy satellites. If the plan goes forward, the NAO will create the legal mechanism for an unprecedented degree of domestic intelligence gathering that would make the United States one of the world's most closely monitored nations. Until now, domestic use of electronic intelligence from spy satellites was limited to scientific agencies with no responsibility for national security or law enforcement.

The intelligence-sharing system to be managed by the NAO will rely heavily on private contractors, including Boeing, BAE Systems, L-3 Communications and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). These companies already provide technology and personnel to U.S. agencies involved in foreign intelligence, and the NAO greatly expands their markets. Indeed, at an intelligence conference in San Antonio, Texas, last month, the titans of the industry were actively lobbying intelligence officials to buy products specifically designed for domestic surveillance.

The NAO was created under a plan tentatively approved in May 2007 by Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell. Specifically, the NAO will oversee how classified information collected by the National Security Agency (NSA), the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and other key agencies is used within the United States during natural disasters, terrorist attacks and other events affecting national security. The most critical intelligence will be supplied by the NSA and the NGA, which are often referred to by U.S. officials as the "eyes" and "ears" of the intelligence community.

The NSA, through a global network of listening posts, surveillance planes, and satellites, captures signals from phone calls, email and internet traffic, and translates and analyzes them for U.S. military and national intelligence officials.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2422151&mesg_id=2422151

The Western Goals Foundation was a Right Wing group built by Extremist Anti-Communists, they were enraged by the fact that the government was forced to scrap programs like COINTELPRO and the intelligence kept on radicals inside the US, so they set up their own intelligence service to help RW'ers get the information they needed on their political opponents, the Foundation became a valued tool for the Right, it was funded by Right Wing Funder/Criminal Billionaire Nelson Bunker Hunt and became part of the infamous Iran-Contra network.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Goals_Foundation

Could we see a new Western Goals Foundation in the works?

They're generally called "terrorist organizations".

woops :blush: my bad, forgot about Halliburton, et al.

now I know we're not supposed to break the law or support breaking the law, but, here in Texasland where every intersection is now a red light camera intersection, I am all in favor of using those cameras for target practice, often, and with prejudice.

I can't wait until some gummint wannabe turns a spotlight and a camera on my house.

Can't find terrists abroad with your big flashy fascist DHL agency? Why, then make some up. Anyone caught jaywalking will have their nads electrode fried until they confess. Farting in the workplace will be punishable by gasboarding (an unfortunate version of waterboarding that involves bigass hairy Republican men farting in your face, causing the victim to believe they are dying).

What a fascist little world they would make this. FORTUNATELY, reality check.

All those republican jerks trying to get a quick handie in the airport bathroom, buying their weekly quarter oz of fishscale peruvian marching powder and banging their congressional pages are the very sinners who will vote this down once they realize it's THEIR ass what gonna be followed by satellite gps ATM record cell phone clap clinic monitoring.

snicker.