Your Call 072408 Spies for Hire

When intelligence is privatized, how do you ever get it back under public control? On the next Your Call we talk with investigative journalist Tim Shorrock, author of Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing. Private contractors have been a part of the American military since the war of independence, but American spies used to have government employee ids. Shorrock tells how all of that changed since 9-11, and now more than three-quarters of the $60 billion intelligence budget is spent on intelligence contracting. When the contractors who collect the intelligence work for the same companies that will be hired to act on the intelligence, who will know what the true picture is? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guest:

Tim Shorrock in San Francisco
Author of Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing

Click to Listen: Spies for Hire