Excerpt: "Corporate staff are reviewing top-secret data and helping uniformed
colleagues decide whether people under surveillance are enemies or civilians."
An X-47B drone combat aircraft. (photo: Jason Reed/Reuters)
Corporate Killers: Private Companies at the Heart of US Drone Warfare
By Abigail Fielding-Smith, Crofton Black, Alice Ross and James Ball, Guardian UK
01 August 15
Corporate staff are reviewing top-secret data and helping uniformed colleagues
decide whether people under surveillance are enemies or civilians
The overstretched US military has hired hundreds of private-sector contractors
to the heart of its drone operations to analyse top-secret video feeds and help
track suspected terrorist leaders, an investigation has found.
Contracts unearthed by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reveal a
secretive industry worth hundreds of millions of dollars, placing a corporate
workforce alongside uniformed personnel analysing intelligence from areas of
interest.
While it has long been known that US defence firms supply billions of dollars’
worth of equipment for drone operations, the role of the private sector in
supplying analysts for combing through intelligence material has remained
almost entirely unknown until now.
Approximately one in 10 people involved in the effort to process data captured
by drones and spy planes are non-military. And as the rise of Islamic State
prompts what one commander termed “insatiable” demand for aerial surveillance,
the Pentagon is considering further expanding its use of contractors, an air
force official said.
Companies that stand to reap the benefits include BAE Systems and Edward
Snowden’s former employer Booz Allen Hamilton.
The US dependence on armed contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan has attracted
close scrutiny, partly because of the notorious 2007 incident in which
employees of the company then known as Blackwater killed 14 civilians in
Baghdad. But the use of private companies in drone operations has so far
happened largely under the radar.
The contractors review live footage gathered by drones and spy planes flying
over areas of interest, and help uniformed colleagues decide whether people
they spot are potential enemies or civilians.
Though private contractors do not formally make life-and-death choices – only
military personnel operate armed drones and take final targeting decisions –
there is concern that they could creep in to this function without more robust
oversight.
Even now, contractors are aware that any errors of analysis they make could
lead to the wrong people getting killed. “A misidentification of an enemy
combatant with a weapon and a female carrying a broom can have dire
consequences,” one told the bureau.
The ability to transmit live footage from above the villages and towns through
which its enemies move has become central to the US war machine, and the air
force has struggled to keep up with demand. Each day, armed and unarmed drones
and surveillance planes gather 1,100 hours of video data – all of which needs
to be analysed.
Most of the time the analysts are conducting long-term surveillance –
establishing what constitutes “normal” in a particular place. Some monitor
images as they unfold in near-real time, while others scrutinise individual
shots more closely to make sense of them.
In so-called “kinetic” situations – those that entail lethal force – the
assessments passed on by the analysts can affect whether someone on the ground
is seen as a threat.
Missions include long-term surveillance of suspected militants and their
resources – known in military jargon as “high-value targets” – and gathering
intelligence for special forces or standard military operations on the ground.
Almost exclusively ex-military, contractors say they are more experienced in
what they are looking at than their uniformed counterparts, who are frequently
moved between posts.
Some openly advertise their skills on sites such as LinkedIn: one even boasted
of assisting with the “kill/capture of high-value targets”.
Another contractor suggested that at times their skills in effect placed them
within the military chain of command.
“It will always be military bodies or civilian government bodies as the overall
in charge of the missions … however, you will have experienced contractors act
as a ‘righthand man’ many times because typically contractors are the ones with
subject matter expertise, so the military/government leadership lean on those
people to make better mission-related decisions,” the analyst said.
By analysing and cross-referencing a database of millions of federal spending
records, military contracts, interviews with current and former contractors and
online job ads, the bureau has identified 10 companies that have supplied the
US government with image analysts in the past five years.
The contracts identified relate only to operations of conventional military and
special forces. CIA contracts, which cover the agency’s controversial
operations in Pakistan and Yemen, remain classified, so any role of the private
sector in their controversial drone operations remains unknown.
The companies involved are a mixture of large defence contractors and smaller
tech and intelligence-focused firms, and offer image analysis alongside other
services ranging from logistics to translation.
Among the largest known users of image analysis contractors are branches of the
Special Operations Command, which conducts drone operations and supports
commando raids on the ground. A 16 May swoop on the Isis commander Abu Sayyaf,
in which Sayyaf was killed and his wife captured, was supported by Predator
surveillance, according to media reports.
Federal transaction records show that a company called Zel Technologies is
supplying analysts to Air Force Special Operations Command (Afsoc) in a
contract worth $12m in its first year. According to a copy of the contract
obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, Zel is providing more than 100
analysts. The contract also requires Zel to provide experts “in the areas of
the Horn of Africa, Arabian peninsula, Somalia, Syria, Iran, north Africa,
Trans-Sahel region, Levant region, Gulf states, and territorial waters”.
A further Afsoc contract details how an Ohio-based firm called MacAulay-Brown
was tasked to “support targeting, information operations, deliberate and crisis
action planning, and 24/7/365 operations”.
Meanwhile, New York-based L-3 Communications won a contract with Special
Operations Command (Socom) in 2010 that was to bring in $155m over five years.
Booz Allen Hamilton, which has been given a contract for supporting special
operations, posted a job ad calling for personnel “providing direct
intelligence support to the global war on terror”. British defence company BAE
Systems, too, has advertised for video analysts to be “part of a high ops tempo
team”.
Laura Dickinson, a specialist in military contracting at George Washington
University law school, called for the Pentagon to make more information
available about the role and scope of private contractors in drone operations.
“We urgently need more transparency,” she said. “The issue is not that some
contractors may be doing imagery analysis. The problem is the ratio of
contractors to government personnel. If that ratio balloons, oversight could
easily break down, and the current prohibition on contractors making targeting
decisions could become meaningless.”
A spokeswoman for the air force said ISR (intelligence, surveillance and
reconnaissance) was “vital to the national security of the United States and
its allies”, and in “insatiable demand” from combatant commanders. She said
this demand was the reason for increasing use of contractors, which she said
was a “normal process within military operations”.
On the issue of whether private contractors’ assessments risk pre-empting the
military’s official decisions, she said the service had thorough oversight and
followed all appropriate rules.
“Current AF [air force] judge advocate rulings define the approved roles for
contractors in the AF IRS’s processing, exploitation and dissemination
capability,” she said.
“Air force DCGS [distributed common ground system] works closely with the judge
advocate’s office to ensure a full, complete and accurate understanding and
implementation of those roles. Oversight is accomplished by air force active
duty and civilian personnel in real time and on a continual basis with
personnel trained on the implementation of procedural checks and balances.”
The Pentagon declined to comment.
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An X-47B drone combat aircraft. (photo: Jason Reed/Reuters)
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/30/revealed-private-firms-at-heart-of-us-drone-warfarehttp://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/30/revealed-private-firms-at-heart-of-us-drone-warfare
Corporate Killers: Private Companies at the Heart of US Drone Warfare
By Abigail Fielding-Smith, Crofton Black, Alice Ross and James Ball, Guardian UK
01 August 15
Corporate staff are reviewing top-secret data and helping uniformed colleagues
decide whether people under surveillance are enemies or civilians
he overstretched US military has hired hundreds of private-sector contractors
to the heart of its drone operations to analyse top-secret video feeds and help
track suspected terrorist leaders, an investigation has found.
Contracts unearthed by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reveal a
secretive industry worth hundreds of millions of dollars, placing a corporate
workforce alongside uniformed personnel analysing intelligence from areas of
interest.
While it has long been known that US defence firms supply billions of dollars’
worth of equipment for drone operations, the role of the private sector in
supplying analysts for combing through intelligence material has remained
almost entirely unknown until now.
Approximately one in 10 people involved in the effort to process data captured
by drones and spy planes are non-military. And as the rise of Islamic State
prompts what one commander termed “insatiable” demand for aerial surveillance,
the Pentagon is considering further expanding its use of contractors, an air
force official said.
Companies that stand to reap the benefits include BAE Systems and Edward
Snowden’s former employer Booz Allen Hamilton.
The US dependence on armed contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan has attracted
close scrutiny, partly because of the notorious 2007 incident in which
employees of the company then known as Blackwater killed 14 civilians in
Baghdad. But the use of private companies in drone operations has so far
happened largely under the radar.
The contractors review live footage gathered by drones and spy planes flying
over areas of interest, and help uniformed colleagues decide whether people
they spot are potential enemies or civilians.
Though private contractors do not formally make life-and-death choices – only
military personnel operate armed drones and take final targeting decisions –
there is concern that they could creep in to this function without more robust
oversight.
Even now, contractors are aware that any errors of analysis they make could
lead to the wrong people getting killed. “A misidentification of an enemy
combatant with a weapon and a female carrying a broom can have dire
consequences,” one told the bureau.
The ability to transmit live footage from above the villages and towns through
which its enemies move has become central to the US war machine, and the air
force has struggled to keep up with demand. Each day, armed and unarmed drones
and surveillance planes gather 1,100 hours of video data – all of which needs
to be analysed.
Most of the time the analysts are conducting long-term surveillance –
establishing what constitutes “normal” in a particular place. Some monitor
images as they unfold in near-real time, while others scrutinise individual
shots more closely to make sense of them.
In so-called “kinetic” situations – those that entail lethal force – the
assessments passed on by the analysts can affect whether someone on the ground
is seen as a threat.
Missions include long-term surveillance of suspected militants and their
resources – known in military jargon as “high-value targets” – and gathering
intelligence for special forces or standard military operations on the ground.
Almost exclusively ex-military, contractors say they are more experienced in
what they are looking at than their uniformed counterparts, who are frequently
moved between posts.
Some openly advertise their skills on sites such as LinkedIn: one even boasted
of assisting with the “kill/capture of high-value targets”.
Another contractor suggested that at times their skills in effect placed them
within the military chain of command.
“It will always be military bodies or civilian government bodies as the overall
in charge of the missions … however, you will have experienced contractors act
as a ‘righthand man’ many times because typically contractors are the ones with
subject matter expertise, so the military/government leadership lean on those
people to make better mission-related decisions,” the analyst said.
By analysing and cross-referencing a database of millions of federal spending
records, military contracts, interviews with current and former contractors and
online job ads, the bureau has identified 10 companies that have supplied the
US government with image analysts in the past five years.
The contracts identified relate only to operations of conventional military and
special forces. CIA contracts, which cover the agency’s controversial
operations in Pakistan and Yemen, remain classified, so any role of the private
sector in their controversial drone operations remains unknown.
The companies involved are a mixture of large defence contractors and smaller
tech and intelligence-focused firms, and offer image analysis alongside other
services ranging from logistics to translation.
Among the largest known users of image analysis contractors are branches of the
Special Operations Command, which conducts drone operations and supports
commando raids on the ground. A 16 May swoop on the Isis commander Abu Sayyaf,
in which Sayyaf was killed and his wife captured, was supported by Predator
surveillance, according to media reports.
Federal transaction records show that a company called Zel Technologies is
supplying analysts to Air Force Special Operations Command (Afsoc) in a
contract worth $12m in its first year. According to a copy of the contract
obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, Zel is providing more than 100
analysts. The contract also requires Zel to provide experts “in the areas of
the Horn of Africa, Arabian peninsula, Somalia, Syria, Iran, north Africa,
Trans-Sahel region, Levant region, Gulf states, and territorial waters”.
A further Afsoc contract details how an Ohio-based firm called MacAulay-Brown
was tasked to “support targeting, information operations, deliberate and crisis
action planning, and 24/7/365 operations”.
Meanwhile, New York-based L-3 Communications won a contract with Special
Operations Command (Socom) in 2010 that was to bring in $155m over five years.
Booz Allen Hamilton, which has been given a contract for supporting special
operations, posted a job ad calling for personnel “providing direct
intelligence support to the global war on terror”. British defence company BAE
Systems, too, has advertised for video analysts to be “part of a high ops tempo
team”.
Laura Dickinson, a specialist in military contracting at George Washington
University law school, called for the Pentagon to make more information
available about the role and scope of private contractors in drone operations.
“We urgently need more transparency,” she said. “The issue is not that some
contractors may be doing imagery analysis. The problem is the ratio of
contractors to government personnel. If that ratio balloons, oversight could
easily break down, and the current prohibition on contractors making targeting
decisions could become meaningless.”
A spokeswoman for the air force said ISR (intelligence, surveillance and
reconnaissance) was “vital to the national security of the United States and
its allies”, and in “insatiable demand” from combatant commanders. She said
this demand was the reason for increasing use of contractors, which she said
was a “normal process within military operations”.
On the issue of whether private contractors’ assessments risk pre-empting the
military’s official decisions, she said the service had thorough oversight and
followed all appropriate rules.
“Current AF [air force] judge advocate rulings define the approved roles for
contractors in the AF IRS’s processing, exploitation and dissemination
capability,” she said.
“Air force DCGS [distributed common ground system] works closely with the judge
advocate’s office to ensure a full, complete and accurate understanding and
implementation of those roles. Oversight is accomplished by air force active
duty and civilian personnel in real time and on a continual basis with
personnel trained on the implementation of procedural checks and balances.”
The Pentagon declined to comment.
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