{"id":61797,"date":"2015-08-03T12:00:49","date_gmt":"2015-08-03T11:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=61797"},"modified":"2015-07-31T18:15:40","modified_gmt":"2015-07-31T17:15:40","slug":"reaping-the-rewards-how-private-sector-is-cashing-in-on-pentagons-insatiable-demand-for-drone-war-intelligence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/08\/reaping-the-rewards-how-private-sector-is-cashing-in-on-pentagons-insatiable-demand-for-drone-war-intelligence\/","title":{"rendered":"Reaping the Rewards: How Private Sector Is Cashing In on Pentagon\u2019s \u2018Insatiable Demand\u2019 for Drone War Intelligence"},"content":{"rendered":"

30 Jul 2015 – <\/em>Some months ago, an imagery analyst was sitting in his curtained cubicle at Hurlburt Field airbase in Florida watching footage transmitted from a drone above one of the battlefields in the War on Terror. If he thought the images showed someone doing anything suspicious, or holding a weapon, he had to type it in to a chat channel seen by the pilots controlling the drone\u2019s missiles.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A U.S. Air Force analyst assigned to the 11th Intelligence Squadron reviews data prior to a full-motion exploitation mission on Hurlburt Field, Fla., June 11, 2015. The 11th IS executes procession, exploitation and dissemination of day and night imagery intelligence, from manned and unmanned aerial systems. (U.S. Air Force photo\/Airman Kai White\/Released)(Portions of this image were blurred for security or privacy concerns)<\/p><\/div>\n

Once an observation has been fed in to the chat, he later explained, it\u2019s hard to revise it \u2013 it influences the whole mindset of the people with their hands on the triggers.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a screener anything you say is going to be interpreted in the most hostile way,\u201d he said, speaking with the careful deliberation of someone used to their words carrying consequences.<\/p>\n

He and the other imagery analysts in the airbase were working gruelling 12-hour shifts: even to take a bathroom break they had to persuade a colleague to step in and watch the computer screen for them. They couldn\u2019t let their concentration or judgement lapse for a second. If a spade was misidentified as a weapon, an innocent man could get killed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe position I took is that every call I make is a gamble, and I\u2019m betting their life,\u201d he said. \u201cThat is a motivation to play as safely as I can, because I don\u2019t want someone who wasn\u2019t a bad guy to get killed.\u201d<\/p>\n

In spite of his vital role in military operations, the analyst wasn\u2019t wearing a uniform. In fact, he wasn\u2019t working for the Department of Defense, or indeed any branch of the US government.<\/p>\n

He was working for one of a cluster of companies that have made money supplying imagery analysts to the US military\u2019s war on terror.<\/p>\n

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism\u2019s award-winning drones team has spent six months exploring this intersection of corporate interests and global surveillance systems. Drawing on interviews with a dozen military insiders (including former generals, drone operators and imagery analysts), contracts\u00a0obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, scores of\u00a0contractor CVs publicly available on everyday job sites such as LinkedIn,\u00a0and the analysis of millions of federal procurement records, the\u00a0Bureau has identified ten private sector companies\u00a0operating at the heart of the US\u2019s\u00a0surveillance and targeting networks.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0private sector\u2019s involvement could grow: an Air Force official confirmed\u00a0they are considering bringing in more contractors as it struggles\u00a0to process the nearly half\u00a0million hours of video footage filmed each year by drones and other aircraft.<\/p>\n

Analysing this video can be a highly sensitive role. As one contractor analyst told the Bureau, \u201cwhen you mess up, people die\u201d.<\/p>\n

While the military\u2019s use of boots-on-the-ground contractors has prompted numerous congressional responses and tightened\u00a0procurement protocol, among the general public few are even aware of the private sector\u2019s role behind the scenes processing military surveillance video.<\/p>\n

\"Dickinson_Laura\"<\/a>\u201c<\/strong>I\u00a0think they\u2019ve fallen under the radar to some degree,\u201d said Laura Dickinson (pictured), a specialist in military contracting at George Washington University Law School and author of \u2018Outsourcing War and Peace\u2019. \u201cIt\u2019s not that these contractors are necessarily doing a bad job, it\u2019s that our legal system of oversight isn\u2019t necessarily well equipped to deal with this fragmented workforce where you have contractors working alongside uniformed troops.\u201d<\/p>\n

In theory, these contractors aren\u2019t decision-makers. Military officials and project managers are there to ensure they perform effectively, and according to the terms of their contracts.<\/p>\n

But past experience in Iraq and Afghanistan suggests that management of military contractors does not always work perfectly in practice, especially when demand for the services they provide is surging.<\/p>\n

As one commander told the Bureau, demand for Air Force intelligence against threats such as Islamic State is currently \u201cinsatiable\u201d.<\/p>\n

The ISR revolution<\/strong><\/p>\n

Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, or ISR as it is known in military jargon, has become central to American warfare in recent years.<\/p>\n

\"Air<\/a>

Air Force Distributed Common Ground System buildings (US Army Corps of Engineers)<\/p><\/div>\n

US counterterrorism operations such as the May 16\u00a0special forces raid on Islamic State commander Abu Sayyaf are critically dependent on the video captured by drones and other aircraft.<\/p>\n

Analysts\u00a0sitting thousands of miles away can tell a team on the ground the exact height of ladder they need to scale a building, or alert them to approaching militants. They can also establish a \u2018pattern of life\u2019, and what constitutes unusual movement in a particular place.<\/p>\n

The aircraft are flown by pilots and operators from bases in the US, whilst the imagery analysts poring through the video they transmit are mostly housed in clusters of analysis centres \u2013 part of a warfighting structure spreading from Virginia to Germany known as the \u2018Distributed Common Ground System\u2019.<\/p>\n

Remotely Piloted Aircraft, as the US military prefers to call drones, are more often associated with firing missiles\u00a0at\u00a0the tribal areas of Pakistan and Yemen than with gathering intelligence.<\/p>\n

But it is their intelligence capabilities \u2013 particularly the ability to collect and transmit video footage in close to real time \u2013 that have revolutionised warfare.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Kosovo the intelligence we would get was typically a photo, normally black and white, often from a plane that took it the day before,\u201d Lt Colonel David Haworth, director of combat operations at the US\u2019s Combined Air Operations Center in Qatar told the Bureau.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like being able to talk on a can and a string before, and now I have a smartphone.\u201d<\/p>\n

The number of daily drone combat air patrols (CAPs) \u2013 that is, the ability to observe a particular spot for 24 hours \u2013 went up from five in 2004 to 65 in 2014 as demand for the intelligence they offered soared in Iraq and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

Colonel Jim Cluff, the commander of the drone squadrons at Nevada\u2019s Creech Air Force Base, said the recent campaign against Islamic State has fuelled a new surge in demand.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re seeing just an insatiable demand signal,\u201d he\u00a0said. \u201cYou cannot get enough ISR capability to meet all the warfighters\u2019 needs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meeting this demand is not simply a question of having enough aircraft. By 2010, according to a presentation by David Deptula (pictured above), a now retired three star general who was asked to oversee the Air Force\u2019s rapidly evolving ISR expansion in 2006, the average Predator or Reaper CAP required 10 pilots and 30 video analysts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re drowning in data,\u201d he told the Bureau.<\/p>\n

\u2018Growth industry\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

The military has always used the private sector to help operate its drone programmes; according to defence writer Richard Whittle<\/a>, General Atomics, the manufacturer of the Predator, even supplied some of the pilots for the aircraft\u2019s first sorties.<\/p>\n

The defence industry\u2019s supply of\u00a0equipment to drone operations is well known, but the private sector\u2019s role in providing a workforce has been harder to pin down. Through extensive research, the Bureau has traced the contracting histories\u00a0of eight companies which have provided the Pentagon with imagery analysts in the past five years (the CIA\u2019s transactions remain classified). Two more companies have been linked to the imagery analysis effort.<\/p>\n

\"Military<\/a>

Military personnel in Air Force Distributed Common Ground System (by US Air Force)<\/p><\/div>\n

In 2007, defence industry behemoth SAIC \u2013 later rebranded Leidos \u2013 was contracted to provide services including imagery analysis to the Air Force Special Operations Command (Afsoc). A contracting document described SAIC\u2019s involvement as \u201cintelligence support to direct combat operations\u201d. Its 202 contractors embedded in Afsoc were providing \u201cdirect support to targeting\u201d among other functions (in military-speak, targeting can refer to surveillance of people and objects as well as lethal strikes).<\/p>\n

In a bidding war to renew the deal in 2011, SAIC lost out to a smaller defence firm, MacAulay-Brown.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to a copy of the contract obtained by the Bureau under a Freedom of Information Act request, MacAulay-Brown was tasked to \u201csupport targeting, information operations, deliberate and crisis action planning, and 24\/7\/365 operations.\u201d The company asked for $60 million to perform these functions over three years.<\/p>\n

Afsoc required MacAulay-Brown to provide a total of 187 analysts, some of whom were sourced through partnership with another company, Advanced Concepts Enterprises<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

A portion of this work was to be carried out outside the US, according to the contract. The Bureau found two CVs posted online by people who had worked for MacAulay-Brown in Afghanistan. Both were embedded with special\u00a0operations forces supporting targeting.<\/p>\n

In January this year the latest award for Afsoc intelligence support went to another company, Zel Technologies. According to a document describing the scope of the contract, Zel was set to provide fewer overall analysts than MacAulay-Brown, but more imagery experts. Zel was also required to offer subject matter experts \u201cin the areas of the Horn of Africa, Arabian Peninsula, Somalia, Syria, Iran, North Africa, Trans Sahel region, Levant region, Gulf States and territorial waters\u201d. Afsoc has paid out $12 million for the first year, with options on the contract due to last until January 2018.<\/p>\n

Although Zel Technologies is now the prime contractor, MacAulay-Brown is providing some of the intelligence specialists the contract demands. Indeed, it is not unusual for analysts to simply\u00a0move from company to company as contracts for the same set of services change hands. They market themselves on recruitment sites with a surreal blend of corporate and military jargon.<\/p>\n

One boasts of having supported the \u201ckill \/ capture\u201d of \u201cHigh Value Targets\u201d. Others go in to detail about their expertise in things like establishing a pattern of life and following vehicles.<\/p>\n

The Air Force is not the only agency that employs contractor imagery analysts. Intrepid Solutions, <\/strong>a small business based in Reston, Virginia, received an intelligence support contract with the Army\u2019s Intelligence and Security Command in 2012, scheduled to run until 2017.<\/p>\n

In 2012 TransVoyant LLC<\/strong>, a leading player in real-time intelligence and analysis of big data based in Alexandria, Virginia, was awarded a contract with a maximum value set at $49 million to provide full motion video analysts for a US Marine Corps \u201cexploitation cell\u201d deployed in Afghanistan.\u00a0Transvoyant had taken over this role from the huge Virginia-based defence company General Dynamics.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2010, the Army gave a million-dollar contract to a translation company, Worldwide Language Resources<\/strong>,\u00a0to provide US forces in Afghanistan with \u201cintelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance collection management and imagery analysis support\u201d.<\/p>\n

In the same year, the Special Operations Command awarded an imagery analyst services contract to the\u00a0firm L-3 Communications<\/strong>, which was to net the company $155 million over five years.<\/p>\n

Defence industry giants BAE Systems and NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden\u2019s former employer Booz Allen Hamilton are also involved in the\u00a0US\u2019s ISR effort.<\/p>\n

BAE Systems describes itself as \u201cthe leading provider of full-motion video analytic services to the intelligence community with more than 370 personnel working 24 hours a day\u201d. The Bureau has traced some of the activities it carried out through social media profiles of company employees. People identifying themselves as video and imagery analysts for BAE state that they have used real-time and geo-spatial data to support tracking and targeting.<\/p>\n

A job advert posted on June 10 by BAE gave further insight into the services provided. The posting\u00a0sought a \u201cFull Motion Video (FMV) Analyst providing direct intelligence support to Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO)\u201d to be \u201cpart of a high ops tempo team, embedded in a multi-intelligence fusion watch floor environment\u201d.<\/p>\n

Booz Allen Hamilton has also aided the intelligence exploitation effort for special operations command at Hurlburt Field. Its role included\u00a0\u201congoing and expanding full motion video PED operational intelligence mission\u201d, according to transaction records. A recent job ad shows the company is looking for video analysts to join its team \u201cproviding direct intelligence support to the Global War on Terror\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"MQ-1<\/a>

MQ-1 Predator drone (by Charles McCain\/Flickr)<\/p><\/div>\n

The hundreds of millions of dollars paid to these companies for imagery analysis represent just a fraction of the private sector\u2019s stake in America\u2019s global surveillance effort. The Bureau has found billions of dollars of contracts for a range of ISR services. These include the provision of smaller drones, the supply and maintenance of data collection systems, and the communications infrastructure to fly the drones and connect their sensors with analysts across the other side of the world.\u00a0These contracts have gone to companies including General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Ball Aerospace, Boeing, Textron and ITT Corporation.<\/p>\n

General Deptula believes\u00a0military demand for ISR will continue to grow.\u00a0\u00a0As he puts it, \u201cIntelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance is a growth industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Private eyes<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the Air Force at least, contractor imagery analysts are still in the minority of the work force. Around one in 10 of the\u00a0people working in the processing, exploitation and dissemination (PED) of intelligence is estimated to be either a government civilian or a contractor.\u00a0The Hurlburt Field analyst, who is here referred to as John (like other analysts interviewed, he didn\u2019t want his real name to be published because of the sensitivity of the subject matter) estimates that they represent around an eighth of the analysts working there in support of Special Operations.<\/p>\n

John argues that taking on even a small number of contractors helps ease the strain on the uniformed force without incurring the expense of pensioned, trained, health-insured employees.<\/p>\n

\u201cContractors are used to fill the gap to give enough manpower to provide flexibility necessary for military to do things like take leave,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Contractor imagery analysts are invariably ex-military, but the framework of their employment and their incentives are differently aligned once they join the private sector.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the military no-one\u2019s obligated to respect your time,\u201d explained John. \u201cThere were months you\u2019d never get off days \u2013 If they need you to clean the bathroom on your off day that\u2019s what you\u2019ve got to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a contractor you\u2019re not as invested in the unit\u2026your motivations are going to be more selfish.\u201d<\/p>\n

John and other analysts stressed however that contractors were highly professional, and able to provide a concentration of expertise.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the time an airman has built up enough experience to be competent at the job it\u2019s usually time to change their duty location. Age also has a lot to do with the professionalism of contractors. Most contractors are at the youngest\u00a0mid to late 20s, whereas Airmen are fresh out of high school,\u201d said one analyst. \u201cAs an FMV (analyst), you cannot identify something unless you\u2019ve seen it before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Screening for trouble<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to John the PED units at Hurlburt Field were much smaller than those of regular Air Force crews, consisting of only about three or four people.<\/p>\n

As well as an analyst to watch the video in near real-time, and one to make the call on whether to type an observation in to the chat channel (often described as a \u2018screener\u2019), units typically also need a geospatial analyst to cross-reference the images brought up on the screen with other data.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"US<\/a>

US Air Force imagery analysts at Hurlburt Field, Florida, June 2015 (by Airman Kai White)<\/p><\/div>\n

Sitting there watching a video screen sounds simple, but the herculean amount of concentration involved requires real discipline and commitment. According to analysts interviewed, between 80 and 85% of the time is spent on long-term surveillance, when very little is happening. \u201cYou can go days and weeks watching people do nothing,\u201d said John.<\/p>\n

Another contractor\u00a0interviewed said that because of the \u201clong durations of monotonous and low activity levels\u201d, a good analyst needs \u201cattention to detail and a vested interest in the mission.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of the younger analysts view the job as a game,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is critical to understand everything that happens, happens in real life. When you mess up, people die. In fact, the main role of the FMV analyst is to ensure that does not happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

The screeners type their observations in to a chat channel called mIRC, which is seen by the drone pilot and sensor operator, who are usually sitting in a different base. The Mission Coordinator, or Mission Intelligence Coordinator, typically sitting on the same base as the pilot and operator and communicating with them through a headset, helps ensure\u00a0they don\u2019t miss anything important in the mIRC.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, John said, the analysts and the Mission Coordinator will communicate directly with each other in what is known as a \u201cWhisper chat\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gives you a way to say \u2018this is what we think we saw\u2019,\u201d he explained, adding dryly, \u201ca large part of the job is an exercise in trying not to kick the hornets\u2019 nest.\u201d According to John, once you\u2019ve influenced the mentality of the pilot and operator by typing something which could signal hostility in to the chat, it\u2019s hard to retract it.<\/p>\n

He likens his role to that of a citizen tipping off armed police about criminals.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a civilian I don\u2019t have authority to arrest someone, but if I call the police and say \u2018this person\u2019s doing something\u2019, and say \u2018I think that guy\u2019s dangerous\u2019\u2026the police are going to turn up primed to respond to the threat, they\u2019ll turn up trusting my statement,\u201d he said. \u201cIt could be argued that I was responsible, but I\u2019m not the one shooting.\u201d<\/p>\n

John said that in his unit, imagery analysts usually took a back seat once the use of force had been authorised.<\/p>\n

Because there is usually a slight delay between the drone crew receiving the feed and the analysis crew seeing it, John said, \u201cin a situation where it gets high-paced they (military personnel)\u2019ll cut the screener out entirely\u201d.<\/p>\n

The other analyst\u00a0however said that in his experience the PED unit still maintained its function for \u201cidentifying and confirming IMINT (imagery intelligence) lock on the target\u201d once force is authorised. Video analysts, he said, had the capability to tell other crew members to abort a strike under some circumstances, and the analyst could receive \u201cblowback\u201d when things went wrong. The video analyst is the \u201csubject matter expert,\u201d he explained. \u201cAs such you have an important role in all the events that have led up to the determination for using force on the target. While you are not the one firing the missile, a misidentification of an enemy combatant with a weapon and a female carrying a broom can have dire consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inherently governmental?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Given\u00a0the Air Force\u2019s efforts to keep contractors out of sensitive, decision-making positions, the contractors\u2019 role in supporting targeting seems surprising, at first glance.<\/p>\n

Charles Blanchard was the Air Force\u2019s chief lawyer between 2009 and 2013\u00a0when\u00a0he advised the officials spearheading these efforts.<\/p>\n

He describes himself as a \u201cpurist\u201d when it comes to contractors flying armed drones. But for a function like imagery analysis, his view is more flexible.\u00a0\u201cI\u2019d be comfortable with some contractors sprinkled in to this framework because you have so many eyes on one target usually,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d be uncomfortable with contractors advising the commander \u2018here\u2019s where the target is\u2019, unless the data collected and analysed was so clear that the Commander could confirm this for themselves, as often happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

The constraints on using contractors are often more to do with command culture than the \u201cmushy\u201d legal framework surrounding inherently governmental functions, Blanchard explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cA commander in the military justice system has a lot more authority to take action where mistakes are made. Someone in blue uniform \u2013 or green or white \u2013 is someone they feel they have authority over.\u201d<\/p>\n

The\u00a0consensus seems to be that contractors effectively taking targeting decisions is undesirable.<\/p>\n

MacAulay-Brown\u2019s contract with Afsoc stipulated that the contractors were not to be \u201cplaced in a position of command, supervision, administration of control\u201d over military or civilian personnel.<\/p>\n

There are concerns that such safeguards\u00a0may be diluted in practice if contractor use goes up.<\/p>\n

One of the analysts interviewed said that contractors were already relied on for their greater expertise and experience, effectively placing them in the chain of command.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will always be military bodies or civilian government bodies as the overall in charge of the missions\u2026however you will have experienced contractors act as a \u2018right-hand man\u2019 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,\u201d\u00a0he said.<\/p>\n

The profit motive<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although it is hard for the military to discipline contractors, people are keeping tabs on them and providing them with an incentive to do their jobs well.<\/p>\n

John noted that the knowledge that \u201cyou can get fired\u201d is a motivational factor for contractors.<\/p>\n

In theory, the possibility of losing the contract should also incentivise the contractors\u2019 bosses to field the best possible staff and manage them closely.<\/p>\n

Jerome Traughber of the Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy is a former program manager for airborne reconnaissance acquisitions in the Air Force. He said that in his experience of intelligence support services, a company\u2019s bid and performance would be scrutinised closely, with incentive fees built in.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a contractor wasn\u2019t measuring up we\u2019d make a change very quickly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A large part of the monitoring is done through contracting officers, who liaise with other personnel inside the warfighting unit to evaluate the performance of the contractors embedded there.<\/p>\n

Traughber acknowledged, however, that during the surge in Afghanistan, when thousands of contracts needed to be overseen, contracting officers and their counterparts inside military units\u00a0were overwhelmed by their work load.<\/p>\n

Nor is it clear that poor performance would necessarily prevent a company getting another contract. Daniel Gordon, a retired law professor and previous Administrator of\u00a0Federal Procurement Policy, argues that the past performance criteria that contracting officers are supposed to take in to account when awarding bids might not always be\u00a0rigorously assessed.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as you start saying the contractor didn\u2019t do a good job you risk having\u00a0litigation, lawyers are going to get involved, it\u2019s just not worth it, so\u2026 everyone\u2019s ok, no-one\u2019s outstanding, which makes the rating system completely meaningless,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Another potential problem with\u00a0the profit motive as a way of delivering good performance is that contractor pay has reportedly gone\u00a0down.<\/p>\n

Mary Blackwell, the president of Advanced Concepts Enterprises<\/strong>, one of the subcontractors who provided analysts in Hurlburt Field, said that since mandatory defence budget caps took effect in 2013, the value of contracts has decreased.<\/p>\n

Imagery analysts, along with everyone else, have seen their pay cut by between 15 and 20%, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe military people \u2013 their pay is set. The only place where there\u2019s any room is the contracts.\u201d<\/p>\n

This could drive down quality in the long term, contractors say. \u201cIt is running good analysts off,\u201d said one. \u201cThe quality of force is suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism contacted all of the contractors named in this story with a series of questions. None provided a statement, though several directed queries towards the US military. The Pentagon and the US Air Force were contacted for comment with a series of questions about transparency and oversight for contractors involved in ISR.<\/p>\n

A spokeswoman for the Air Force said ISR was \u201cvital to the national security of the United States and its allies\u201d, and there was an \u201cinsatiable demand\u201d for it from combatant commanders. She said this demand was the reason for increasing use of contractors, which she said was a \u201cnormal process within military operations\u201d.<\/p>\n

On the issue of whether private contractors\u2019 assessments risk pre-empting the military\u2019s official decisions, she said the service had thorough oversight and followed all appropriate rules.<\/p>\n

\u201cCurrent AF Judge Advocate rulings define the approved roles for contractors in the AF IRS\u2019s processing, exploitation and dissemination capability,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAir Force DCGS [Distributed Common Ground System] works closely with the Judge Advocate\u2019s office to ensure a full, complete, and accurate understanding and implementation of those roles.\u00a0 Oversight is accomplished by Air Force active duty and civilian personnel in real time and on continual basis with personnel trained on the implementation of procedural checks and balances.<\/p>\n

Transparency gap<\/strong><\/p>\n

Contractors such as John pride themselves on their professionalism and skill. But as ISR demand continues to rise,\u00a0robust oversight is needed \u2013 in particular to ensure contractors do not creep into decision-making roles.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are\u00a0tremendous pressures for that ratio of contractors to governmental personnel to swell,\u201d she argued.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf that ratio balloons,\u00a0oversight could easily break down, and the current prohibition on contractors making targeting decisions could become meaningless.<\/p>\n

Laura Dickinson argues the lack of information about drone operations makes such oversight much harder. \u00a0\u201cWe urgently need more transparency,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The Department of Defense now publishes a quarterly report on the number of contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, with a breakdown of their functions, but Dickinson said she was not aware of any such\u00a0information\u00a0being released on contractors in drone operations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are\u00a0tremendous pressures for that ratio of contractors to governmental personnel to swell,\u201d she argued.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf that ratio balloons,\u00a0oversight could easily break down, and the current prohibition on contractors making targeting decisions could become meaningless.\u201d<\/p>\n

How We Got the Data \u2013 Click Here to See Our Research Methods<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

__________________________________<\/p>\n

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism is an independent not-for-profit organisation. Established in April 2010, the Bureau is the first of its kind in the UK, where philanthropically funded journalism is rare. Our\u00a0team of journalists<\/a>\u00a0bolsters original news by producing high-quality investigations for press and broadcast media with the aim of educating the public and the media on both the realities of today\u2019s world and the value of honest reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n

Please support our work – share this article.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 thebureauinvestigates.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When you mess up, people die \u2013 An intelligence contractor. A misidentification of an enemy combatant with a weapon and a female carrying a broom can have dire consequences \u2013 An unnamed intelligence contractor. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-militarism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61797\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}