Former head of NSA calls for the internet to be "re-engineered" so as to eliminate anonymity

Mike McConnell, the WashPost & the dangers of sleazy corporatism
By Glenn Greenwald

Mar. 30, 2010

In a political culture drowning in hidden conflicts of interests, exploitation of political office for profit, and a rapidly eroding wall separating the public and private spheres, Michael McConnell stands out as the perfect embodiment of all those afflictions. Few people have blurred the line between public office and private profit more egregiously and shamelessly than he. McConnell's behavior is the classic never-ending "revolving door" syndrome: public officials serve private interests while in office and are then lavishly rewarded by those same interests once they leave. He went from being head of the National Security Agency under Bush 41 and Clinton directly to Booz Allen, one of the nation's largest private intelligence contractors, then became Bush's Director of National Intelligence (DNI), then went back to Booz Allen, where he is now Executive Vice President.

But that's the least of what makes McConnell such a perfect symbol for the legalized corruption that dominates Washington. Tellingly, his overarching project while at Booz Allen and in public office was exactly the same: the outsourcing of America's intelligence and surveillance functions (including domestic surveillance) to private corporations, where those activities are even more shielded than normal from all accountability and oversight and where they generate massive profit at the public expense. Prior to becoming Bush's DNI, McConnell, while at Booz Allen, was chairman of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, the primary business association of NSA and CIA contractors devoted to expanding the privatization of government intelligence functions.

Then, as Bush's DNI, McConnell dramatically expanded the extent to which intelligence functions were outsourced to the same private industry that he long represented. Worse, he became the leading spokesman for demanding full immunity for lawbreaking telecoms for their participation in Bush's illegal NSA programs -- in other words, he exploited "national security" claims and his position as DNI to win the dismissal of lawsuits against the very lawbreaking industry he represented as INSA Chairman, including, almost certainly, Booz Allen itself. Having exploited his position as DNI to lavishly reward and protect the private intelligence industry, he then returns to its loving arms to receive from them lavish personal rewards of his own.

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