NationStates Jolt Archive

why's that? so they can TRY and claim to be beyond 'freedom of information act'?
sorry.
we can allow them to not be able to claim "trade secret" or some other such non-sense for such obvious non-"trade secret" type of stuff.
and besides,
if they operate under a public corporation,
we can just revoke the corporate charter and everything becomes
open to the public anyway.
(which might be why they didn't do Blackwater as a public corporation).
but it's not like "national security" can be "trade secreted" in any way, anyway.




Outsourcing Intelligence: Author R.J. Hillhouse on How Key National Security Projects Are Contracted to Private Firms
Amy Goodman interview
Democracy Now, July 26th, 2007
Author R.J. Hillhouse caused a stir in Washington last month when she revealed more than 50 percent of the National Clandestine Service has been outsourced to private firms. Now Hillhouse has exposed private companies are heavily involved in the nation's most important and most sensitive national security document - the President's Daily Brief. And there appears to be few safeguards from preventing corporations from inserting items favorable to itself or its clients into the President's Daily Brief in order to influence the country's national security agenda. [includes rush transcript]

I always figured it was to save money. Why spend a lot more for in-house security when you could use private security for a lower cost?

I always figured it was to save money. Why spend a lot more for in-house security when you could use private security for a lower cost?


i always figured it was to hide all the crimes against humanity stuff the cia used to do beyond the freedom of information act. (or try to hide them).
oh, and profit, war is a racket, afterall. or so said major general smedley darlington butler d. us marine corps, the most decorated soldier in us history

i always figured it was to hide all the crimes against humanity stuff the cia used to do beyond the freedom of information act. (or try to hide them).
oh, and profit, war is a racket, afterall. or so said major general smedley darlington butler d. us marine corps, the most decorated soldier in us history

Does this thread have any merit whatsoever?

i always figured it was to hide all the crimes against humanity stuff the cia used to do beyond the freedom of information act. (or try to hide them).

oh, and profit, war is a racket, afterall. or so said major general smedley darlington butler d. us marine corps, the most decorated soldier in us history

I don't think the security guards doing desk duty at the State Department or the IRS are committing crimes against humanity...the vast majority of these security expenditures are being used for general purposes, not the kind of stuff Blackwater is doing in Iraq or Afghanistan.

What is wrong with outsourcing? When you have H&R Borg do your taxes you're outsourcing. When you pay a kid to shovel your driveway you're outsourcing.

Outsourcing means hiring someone else to do a job so that you have more time to do other, more important things yourself. It also usually saves money.

Does this thread have any merit whatsoever?
I'd keep it. The OP, as it is, is a total loss but the thread may yet provide some thoughtful discussion if the right people get involved.

What is wrong with outsourcing? When you have H&R Borg do your taxes you're outsourcing. When you pay a kid to shovel your driveway you're outsourcing.

Outsourcing means hiring someone else to do a job so that you have more time to do other, more important things yourself. It also usually saves money.


Which is fine when it comes to private enterprise. However, when the government outsources the man power for important tasks, it jeopardizes the integrity of any action that that government may take. It's a conflict of interests, as it were, and, more importantly, leaves to question who is to bear the brunt of responsibility for any illegal actions taken.

Why should the government get special treatment? How is a government different from a business except for its ability to constantly operate in the red and change laws so it is never in violation of the local legal code?

the thread may yet provide some thoughtful discussion if the right people get involved.

What? That's like McCoy and the Genesis Device.

This is really what the founding fathers intended. Think about it. There is no mention of a standing army in the constitution. It just says that congress shall have a Navy, no army. The founders of America wanted the defense of the country to be carried out by its rifle-owning citizens, not a federally funded national army. You could easily argue that the army of America is in fact unconstitutional. But then again, most laws in America are unconstitutional. Politicians lie to get us to give away our freedoms all the time it seems.

Richard Henry Lee said,"A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves."

It certainly beckons some interesting questions. Most people from these private companies are ex-SOF and what not so they don't suffer from a lack of experience or training, that's for sure. It seems more of a paramilitary sort of plausible deniability thing. I'm not suggesting though that we should ban them because they are purposeful.

Why should the government get special treatment? How is a government different from a business except for its ability to constantly operate in the red and change laws so it is never in violation of the local legal code?

A government's purpose is to directly represent the will of the citizens it governs. A business has no such responsibility and, at best, indirectly represents the will of the people it sells to.

You could propose a government that is based on a business model...but that isn't what, well, any stable country in the world has. Really that's pretty much what feudalism amounted to anyway.

A government's purpose is to directly represent the will of the citizens it governs.
BAWHAHAHAHA! Thank you, I needed a good laugh. No. the purpose of a government is to control people and elevate the useless to positions of great power and wealth.

A business has no such responsibility and, at best, indirectly represents the will of the people it sells to.
A business has to keep its customers happy or they'll go somewhere else and it'll die. They may not have anything formally demanding that they do what the people tell them but self-preservation is usually enough motivation.

You could propose a government that is based on a business model...but that isn't what, well, any stable country in the world has. Really that's pretty much what feudalism amounted to anyway.
No, feudalism was all about elevating the useless few to positions of obscene power and wealth and controlling the people.

A business has to keep its customers happy or they'll go somewhere else and it'll die. They may not have anything formally demanding that they do what the people tell them but self-preservation is usually enough motivation.

Not always. Some businesses are natural monopolies, which when combined with the already existent delay in the emergence of new firms makes it difficult for the consumer to seriously affect the activities of that business.

The government's first duty should be to protect the free and competitive market. Unfortunately, it is so inept and easily manipulated that the exact opposite tends to happen...

No, feudalism was all about elevating the useless few to positions of obscene power and wealth and controlling the people.

Actually, a government modeled after a business is a centrally planned economy, in the vein of the USSR or the PRC prior to the reforms of Deng Xiaopeng and his successors.

Unlike a business, however, there is no competition or a real market to compete against externally or to provide the functions necessary to determine prices/output/resource allocation, and the end result is predictable. Just looking at the stagnation, decline, and ultimate fall of many large firms who dominated their industries without significant competition is a pretty strong sign of how a centrally planned economy will function.

However, the CPE has even more limitations because it lacks any kind of market, which leads to a chaotic and irrational system of prices that ultimately lead to complete imbalance of supply and demand, which in turn produces the lines and alternating periods of abundance and empty shelves that so characterized the centrally planned economies, especially as they approached ultimate disintegration.

When I think of a government run like a business I meant one which had to compete for funding with other, equally capable providers of the same services in a market. As it stands right now the governmet has a monopoly on several services and this allows those involved somewhere along the line to manipulate costs and draw more funds to their departments.

The only thing you should ever lie about is how much time you'll need to do something. Always multiply your work estimates by a factor of four so you'll get the reputation of a miracle worker.