Contractors playing major role in U.S. intelligence

Private contractors, including for-hire intelligence analysts, computer technicians and spies, now form a “key part” of the overall intelligence workforce, according to a survey by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The hiring of contractors has surged since the Sept 11, 2001, attacks, said the report’s author, the office’s chief human capital director, Ron Sanders.

Intelligence agencies hired contractors to fill gaps caused by downsizing after the Cold War ended in the early 1990s, as well as new slots created by funding of the war on terrorism.

Sanders would not say how many private intelligence workers are under contract to government agencies, saying that would compromise security. The number of government employees in intelligence work also is secret.

What is known is that the survey, presented to intelligence committees in Congress last week, found that about 40% of all contract intelligence officers have been hired to collect or analyze information, traditionally the province of career employees at the major intelligence agencies such as the CIA and National Security Agency.

In all, 16 civilian and military agencies make up the “intelligence community.”

Sanders said the number of intelligence contractors is lower than the number of contractors employed by NASA, the Environmental Protection Agency and other large federal agencies.

Sanders agreed to discuss his findings but did not release the report, which he said was classified.

Among his other findings:

• Nearly 50% of contractors perform management and planning tasks, computer upgrades and maintenance functions or work as personnel or payroll officers.

• About a quarter of private contractors were employed to skirt federal hiring limits.

• Contractors are typically paid more than government employees.

• The discrepancy has caused some “talented individuals” to quit government jobs but has not caused a “mass exodus.”

“Contractors allow us to expand quickly and contract quickly,” Sanders said. “I don’t believe we’re overly reliant on contractors.”

The survey, the first to attempt to account for intelligence contracting, was begun last year, in part because of concerns by intelligence service leaders that too many government workers were quitting to take private work.

Last September, CIA Director Michael Hayden said his agency needed to guard against becoming a “farm system for contractors.”

A separate study of the impact of contracting at the CIA is continuing, spokesman Paul Gimigliano said.

Stephen Marrin, who teaches intelligence studies at Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pa., says hiring higher-paid contractors raises a “fairness issue” and can impact morale. Marrin, who worked as a CIA analyst for 2½ years in the mid-1990s, later returned to the agency as a contract analyst for about a 25% raise. Hiring contractors, he said, can save the federal government money on retirement benefits.

Intelligence service contractors have figured in at least one high-profile abuse case.

Last year, David Passaro, a CIA contractor, was convicted of four counts of assaulting an Afghan terrorism suspect who later died. Passaro was sentenced to eight years and four months in federal prison.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-04-25-contractors-intel_N.htm

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