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| Edward Snowden's NSA leak prompts |
| Edward Snowden's NSA leak prompts questions over US reliance on contractors
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| UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
, 11-June-2013
4:9:32 AM |
| The US government may have to reconsider how much it relies on outside defense contractors who are given top security clearances after an NSA contractor exposed top-secret phone and internet surveillance programs.
Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old systems technician at Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp BAH.N, admitted on Sunday that he divulged details of the National Security Agency's programs to The Guardian and Washington Post.
Booz shares fell 2.6 percent on Monday, and peers such as SAIC SAIN and General Dynamics GDN fell as much as 1.7 percent.
"We do need to take another, closer look at how we control information and how good we are at identifying what people are doing with that information," said Stewart Baker, former general counsel at the NSA and former assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security.
Baker said Snowden's leaks show the need for the government to tighten up what can be seen by contractors, as well as government employees.
"Are we challenging him, are we auditing him? Are we taking measures to be sure he doesn't have wide-ranging access to stuff that is not relevant to him?" Baker said of a theoretical contractor with wide-ranging access.
Companies like Booz became a cornerstone of the U.S. government's national security efforts after the September 11 attacks. With a massive ramp-up in security operations came the need for organizations that could move quickly to implement new rules, regulations and screening protocols.
But that did not always go smoothly. A notorious example is the company formerly known as Blackwater, which agreed last summer to pay fines for trying to operate in Sudan despite sanctions. The company had previously been a source of strained U.S.-Iraqi relations over shootings there.
The US government spends more than 300 billion dollars a year on services that are contracted out, according to Scott Amey,
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