Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing: Tim Shorrock: 9780743282253: Amazon.com: Books

Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing: Tim Shorrock: 9780743282253: Amazon.com: Books




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Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing Paperback – May 26, 2009
by Tim Shorrock (Author)
3.9 out of 5 stars 29 customer reviews

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly


Even James Bond is temping these days. According to investigative journalist Shorrock, the CIA and other intelligence agencies now have more contractors working for them than they do spies of their own. Often former staff hired back at double or triple their former government salaries, these private contractors do everything from fighting in Afghanistan to interrogating prisoners, aiming spy satellites and supervising secret agents. Shorrock gives a comprehensive—at times eye-glazing—rundown of the players in the industry, and his book is valuable for its detailed panorama of 21st-century intelligence work. He uncovers serious abuses—contractor CACI International figured prominently in the Abu Ghraib outrages—and nagging concerns about corrupt ties between intelligence officials and private corporations, industry lobbying for a national surveillance state, the withering of the intelligence agencies' in-house capacities and the displacement of an ethos of public service by a profit motive. However, the bulk of the outsourcing Shorrock unearths is rather pedestrian, involving the management of mundane IT systems and various administrative services, and this exposé insinuates more skullduggery than it demonstrates. (May)
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Review


"Tim Shorrock is walking, and mapping, a startling fault line of these crazy days: the way government is outsourcing its most basic functions at a time of peril. Replacing public service with private transactions -- often shadowy and unaccountable -- is what helped bring down Rome. Without fierce scrutiny, and the kind of sharp-eyed disclosures this book provides, it can bring down America. A must read." -- Ron Suskind, author of The One Percent Doctrine

"Spies for Hire is an excellent roadmap to the daunting new terrain of U.S. intelligence, in which the explosive growth of intelligence contracting threatens to overwhelm any possibility of independent oversight. In this groundbreaking work, Tim Shorrock explores who has benefitted, who has paid, and why it matters to us all." -- Steven Aftergood, Project on Government Secrecy, Federation of American Scientists

"Tim Shorrock is a digger, and he has penetrated a secret and fascinating world to write a telling and readable book." -- Evan Thomas, editor at large of Newsweek, author of Sea of Thunder

"Tim Shorrock's well-researched and convincing book reveals how the intelligence community now subcontracts out most of its work -- 70 percent -- to private-sector companies that inevitably have their own agendas, which may or may not accord with the national interest. By laying out very specifically how all this works, Shorrock has provided a very important service to the country." -- Burton Hersh, author of The Old Boys: The American Elite and the Origins of the CIA





" A sterling example of why investigative journalists are valuable....A remarkable job." -- USA Today




"A disturbing overview of the intelligence community." -- The New York Times




"Valuable.... Contains some important, timely truths about the influx of private entrepreneurs into America's spy agencies." -- The Washington Post Book World




"A definitive book." -- The Nation




"Path-breaking.... Destined to be the gold standard on intelligence contracting." -- Asia Times


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Top customer reviews

Jake Bernstein
5.0 out of 5 starsGovernment contractors run amokOctober 22, 2017
Format: Paperback|Verified Purchase

You have no doubt heard of the military industrial complex. Tim Shorrock brings you its mirror image: the intelligence industrial complex. These are the private-sector contractors who are secretly running America's intelligence activities. Shorrock shows how with limited oversight they are feasting on billions of taxpayers dollars and involving themselves in some of the darkest operations the U.S. government undertakes. While the book is now, post-Snowden, somewhat dated, it continues to be an essential primer.

Jake Bernstein
Journalist

Author of “Secrecy World: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite” http://amzn.to/2hVuohf
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Glen Robertson
5.0 out of 5 starsExcellent bookDecember 27, 2013
Format: Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase

This book really goes into detail about how the intelligence field and it's spy work is being outsourced today. Yes James Bond still has a place in this world but he would most likely be a private contractor instead of employed at CIA or MI6
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George
4.0 out of 5 starsVery Good ReadJanuary 2, 2014
Format: Hardcover|Verified Purchase

The book is well-referenced, making skillful use of first-person sources. Each chapter is filled with information and provide deeper insight into what, in some books, is just a listing of factual information.
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Jason
5.0 out of 5 starsTimely, Must readJuly 31, 2013
Format: Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase

This is an absolute must read for anyone interested in the world of modern intelligence. Very well researched and written.
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C. H. Fuller
4.0 out of 5 starsWHO IS GUIDING THE SHIP?November 29, 2014
Format: Hardcover|Verified Purchase

INTERESTING DOCUMENTARY OF GOVERNMENT USE OF PRIVATE INTELLIGENCE SUPPORT.
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Topcat
5.0 out of 5 starsFive StarsFebruary 22, 2015
Format: Hardcover|Verified Purchase

Excellent quality, price and service. Highly recommended.
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Jim DiGloria
5.0 out of 5 stars"The Contractor ripoff"July 12, 2013
Format: Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase

This is a real eye opener. Great info on cost and who is involved. Read this if you want great information.
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David M. Dougherty
VINE VOICE
4.0 out of 5 starsExcellent Subject, Many Facts, But Not ImpartialOctober 8, 2008
Format: Hardcover|Verified Purchase

Author Shorrock does the nation a great service in providing a basis for discussion of the out-sourcing of intelligence and IT support functions to private industry by federal agencies. For this I would have given him five stars, but it is evident his theme is that such out-sourcing is generally a subversion of the proper function of government and its control by representatives of the people. To this end, he seems to select those incidents that favor his viewpoint, rather than presenting the situation in an impartial manner for the reader to draw his own conclusions. By this I do not mean that the author should not present his own analysis and conclusions -- only that the facts should not be presented with perjorative adjectives and snide comments concerning personal and corporate motives. As an ex-intelligence officer, I certainly would have moved into a private corporation where my skills could have been used to help fulfill the security mission of the Federal Government had personal circumstances not intervened, and I like to think my motives would have been more aligned with satisfaction in accomplishing the mission than for personal profit.

At any rate, this is an important work, and my views of Shorrock's book are almost isomorphic with those contained in the reviews by Steele and "Retired Reader."

With respect to the issue of private corporations being restricted to not breaking the law (either international, US, or any any other country's), one must realise that the gathering of covert HUMINT essentially ALWAYS involves breaking someone's laws. If a contractor is expressly forbidden to do this or is to be held accountable for such trangressions, then contractors cannot perform positive intelligence gathering functions. Unfortunately, at the present time the CIA and all other agencies involved in covert intelligence gathering are clearly incapable of fulfilling their missions in this regard without using private contractors. Regardless of the reasons for this lack of in-agency capability, to eliminate private contractors as the author seems to desire, would be to put America's security at grave risk.

There are solutions to this problem, but the author seems more intent on promoting his leftist agenda than in addressing the issues with the clear goal of improving America's intelligence. Yes, the use of private contractors has gone too far, but what level of private contracting and for what functions would be appropriate? And how do we get to that appropriate level? Alas, these questions were missing in this book, and unfortunately I have not found them yet in any other.

Lastly, allow me to register my disappointment with the reaction to this book. To date, there have been only six reviews and judging from the ratings pro and con on the reviews, I would estimate that the number of readers of the reviews are not more than forty. That's pretty insignificant when one considers the importance of the book's topic, and shows the lack of public interest in this subject. Something is terribly wrong with the US reading public when banal books like those by Friedman and Zakaria promoting the U.S.'s submission to international organizations and globalism receive thousands of reviews and ratings and books on the condition of the CIA and intelligence out-sourcing draw almost no interest.
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