(11.6.2013) We can only assume that the other companies at these heights—a list that includes SAIC, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, CSC, CACI, ManTech and many others—are doing the same.

If that is so, then tens of thousands of Americans working for private intelligence contractors have access to the personal information of millions of their fellow citizens, including their phone and e-mail communications as well Internet chats on Yahoo, Google and other ISPs. Combine this private army of contractors with the outlandishly huge federal intelligence bureaucracy, and the term Stasi—the East German secret police frequently invoked by Bill Binney—doesn’t sound like an exaggeration. Except this is state surveillance plus capitalism: spying for profit.