dagblog - Comments for "Privatizing warfare, prisons and security clearances-a recipe for disaster"

Bringing to the fore the

jollyroger — Fri, 24 Jan 2014 13:41:13 +0000

In reply to The fraud is alleged to be

Bringing to the fore the questioin:"who the fuck got the idea that what we really, really needed to do was put the private sector in charge of vital governmental functions?" Oh yeah, Ronaldus Maximus, iirc. The Alzheimer's president. Slick move, right wingers, slick move...

The fraud is alleged to be

artappraiser — Fri, 24 Jan 2014 09:55:34 +0000

In reply to 45% of security clearances

The fraud is alleged to be straight from the top and was hugely broad, according to the A.P. report:

According to one internal company document, a USIS employee said, "They will dump cases when word comes from above, such as from" the president of the investigative service division and the president and chief executive.

The background investigations that were dumped spanned most government agencies — including the justice department, the department of homeland security, the defense department, the defense intelligence agency, the department of health and human services, the transportation department and the treasury department.

45% of security clearances

jollyroger — Thu, 23 Jan 2014 20:16:06 +0000

In reply to Privatizing warfare, prisons and security clearances-a recipe for disaster

45% of security clearances were fraudulent..." Flushed everything like a dead goldfish "

An aggrieved government files suit against the private firm chosen since 1996 to oversee security clearances. Case backlogs were solved by "flushing".

Shit, even I coulda' gotten cleared! If only I had known, I wouldn't have turned my back on nuclear physics after I got elected president of the Student Peace Union at Brown.

Failure of accountability

jollyroger — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 19:37:42 +0000

In reply to And the politicos getting the

Failure of accountability coupled with the collective responsibility that accrues to (nominal) elective democracies=the Bin Laden Doctrine (I'm blowing up your towers because you voted for the politicians who are basing troops-t-shirt wearing sluts!-in the Hejaz...)

the verb in question,

jollyroger — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 19:35:02 +0000

In reply to Seems as if there should be

the verb in question, "flush", is reminiscent of the use of the verb "purge" when (outsourced) mortgage modification paperwork was destroyed so that supplicant homeowners could be gulled into irredemable default.

Jail is appropriate, but unlikely in both events.

Bottom line: Government functions should be restricted to government personnel--only they are ultimately accountable via elections-as-oversight.

O/T, nice to see you back 'round, Oxy.

Seems as if there should be

Oxy Mora — Sat, 28 Sep 2013 19:16:44 +0000

In reply to Privatizing warfare, prisons and security clearances-a recipe for disaster

Seems as if there should be some criteria governing what the hell can be outsourced---security clearances, obviously not. I suppose by outsourcing security clearances the increased costs could be buried so deeply in the defense budget that no individual Senator would have to take responsibility for spending more of our gummint money.

And will the executives who gave orders to "flush", etc., ever see the inside of a jail, public or private,?

The scariest words ever

NCD — Sat, 28 Sep 2013 17:16:51 +0000

In reply to Precisely stated, NCD. It's

The scariest words ever spoken: "I'm a Republican, and I am here to outsource your government services".

And the politicos getting the

NCD — Sat, 28 Sep 2013 17:13:26 +0000

In reply to The oddest thing about the

And the politicos getting the graft can just blame it on some nameless low level employees of the given private company, and wash their hands of it all. As your second link states 'accountable to no one'.

Precisely stated, NCD. It's

artappraiser — Sat, 28 Sep 2013 16:50:06 +0000

In reply to Aside from disasters in

Precisely stated, NCD. It's the catch-22 of the Grover Norquist theory of drowning the Federal government to get taxation and its effects closer to where the people paying live. Instead, taxpayers end up with even less transparency and less accountability. In a way, it's adding more layers of bureaucracy instead of removing them, and, of course, it goes without saying, introducing a lot more payola factor.

The oddest thing about the

jollyroger — Sat, 28 Sep 2013 16:05:36 +0000

In reply to Aside from disasters in

The oddest thing about the privitazition fetish is that it is evident (from the value placed upon the stock of the resulting enterprizes) that a huge profit is being extracted at the same time as the performance of the various duties is shoddily done.

Thus we have brutalization of prisoners, corners cut in security clearances, and rogue agents whose cowboy tactics blowback onto us, the general population.