Obama Right and Wrong About Arizona Law

Obama was right to criticize Arizona for passing the highly controversial Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhood Act (SB 1070). He was right, too, in underscoring the federal government’s own irresponsibility in the intensifying immigration policy crisis. 

Obama lambasted the bill for threatening “to undermine basic notions of fairness,” adding that the law puts community trust in the police at risk while endangering civil liberties. "Our failure to act responsibly at the federal level will only open the door to irresponsibility by others,'' said Obama. Moreover, he warned that “if we continue to fail to act at a federal level, we will continue to see misguided efforts opening up around the country.''

The president, however, got it wrong about the full extent of the federal government’s responsibility for the Arizona law. The failure of Congress to act on a comprehensive immigration bill is certainly part of the reason why Arizona and other states are taking the initiative on immigration law.

But sins of omission are only part of the federal government’s responsibility. The president also needs to own up to signs of commission.

The president has failed to acknowledge that it has been the federal government, not Arizona, which is has been leading the way in fostering the involvement of local police in the enforcement of immigration law. Nor did President Obama mention that it has been the Department of Homeland Security, not Arizona, which has led the way in the criminalization of immigrants with such programs as Operation Streamline.

Two Dueling Agendas

The new anti-illegal immigrant law in Arizona highlights the two dueling strategies to address what is commonly regarded as a broken immigration system: comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) and “attrition through enforcement.”

The responsible strategy, according to the president, would a comprehensive immigration reform. The centerpiece of such a reform would be a pathway to citizenship for the existing illegal immigrant population. While proponents differ on the mix, a CIR package would likely include the following components in addition to legalization: increased border security measures, biometric identification or some system of worker verification, tough immigration enforcement, and a new guestworker program.

Since 2005 the proposed CIR bills have become increasingly responsive to arguments that border security and tough immigration enforcement must be in place before any pro-immigration measures, such as legalization and temporary worker programs, are considered. In addition, the proposed pathway to citizenship has also become increasingly strewn with conditions that would reduce the number of unauthorized immigrants who would be deemed eligible.

Even as CIR proposals have increasingly incorporated measures aimed to appeal to the political right and to those deeply concerned about the growth of the immigrant population, the consensus for reform has narrowed – much to the consternation of CIR proponents who had hoped that the adoption of an “enforcement first” position would create the political space for Republicans and for moderate and conservative Democrats to support CIR.

Among liberals and CIR advocates, the Arizona law is regarded as yet another reason why the federal government needs to act quickly to pass immigration reform. But the passing of the harsh law also highlighted the seemingly unstoppable march of the “attrition through enforcement” agenda.

With the prospects for CIR fading – even as the new “tough but fair” version of CIR is loaded with border security, immigration enforcement, and “get right with the law” provisional legalization measures – the “attrition through enforcement” approach to the country’s immigration policy crisis has become the prevailing response.

The federal government has not explicitly endorsed this response, but its actions are closely attuned with this restrictionist agenda.

Even as the White House and DHS continued to insist that only a CIR strategy will fix the broken immigration system, it has systematically moved to make it increasingly difficult for unauthorized immigrants (illegal border crossers and those overstaying their visas) and for legal immigrants who have violated criminal laws (mostly drug use) to live and work in the country. At the same time, DHS has steadily strengthened border control through increased checkpoints, increased agents, and increased border-control infrastructure.

Without immigration reform, this federal response is effectively attrition through enforcement -- albeit not as much enforcement and attrition as the restrictionist forces demand. And this is where the Arizona law comes in – with new measures to see that federal law is enforced and with new measures to criminalize immigrants.

The Arizona law is the latest manifestation of the “attrition through enforcement” strategy advocated by immigration restrictionists and allied conservatives. The introduction to the Support Local Law Enforcement Act clearly identifies the bill with this strategy:

“The legislature finds that there is compelling interest in the cooperative enforcement of federal immigration laws throughout all of Arizona. The legislature declares that the intent of this act is to make attrition through enforcement the public policy of all state and local government agencies in Arizona. The provisions of this act are intended to work together to discourage and deter the unlawful entry and presence of aliens and economic activity by persons unlawfully present in the United States.”

Like most nonviolent, nonvigilante strategies to address what is regarded as “mass immigration,” the latest legislative initiative in Arizona did not emerge independently but can be readily traced to the research, analysis, and policy advocacy of the restrictionist policy institutes in Washington, DC. These are the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), NumbersUSA, and Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).

Although all three institutes have been leading voices of the “attrition through enforcement” response to illegal immigration, the restrictionist think-tank CIS can be credited as being the first to articulate the logic and dimensions of this strategy. In April 2006 CIS published a policy backgrounder titled "Attrition through Enforcement: A Cost-Effective Strategy to Shrink the Illegal Population."

CIS analyst Jessica Vaughn outlined a six-part plan to systematically decrease the number of illegal immigrants residing in the country. While supporting the Secure Border Initiative – launched by DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff in 2005 and continuing with Secretary Janet Napolitano’s commitment to “border security” – Vaughn argued that even with tightened border security the country would still be burdened with an “illegal alien” population of 11.5 million or more.

Given that mass deportation would be both politically infeasible and immensely expensive, Vaughn explained that a much less-costly and more politically feasible strategy would be to escalate immigration enforcement by federal and local agencies. Two points in her six-point plan referred to local law enforcement measures that would make living and working in participating communities increasingly unbearable to unauthorized immigrants.

As part of this “attrition through enforcement” plan, she recommended:

·      *  “Increasing apprehensions and detention of illegal immigrants through partnerships between federal immigration and state and local law enforcement agencies.”

·        *“Passing state and local laws to discourage the settlement of illegal aliens and to make it more difficult for illegal aliens to conceal their status.”

Other elements of the strategy, as outlined in the CIS report, include mandatory employer verification, cracking down on the use of false identity documents, reducing visa overstays, and doubling the number of deportations through immigration raids and other federal enforcement measures. To a large extent, DHS is pursuing these four recommended initiatives as part of a dual strategy to demonstrate that it is committed to enforcing immigration law and to lay the political foundation for immigration reform.

Law Enforcement Partnerships

The Obama administration has also proved an ardent advocate of increased federal-local cooperation in immigration enforcement. Among other things, it has strongly supported collaborative programs initiated by the Bush administration such as Operation Community Shield, Criminal Alien Program, Fugitive Operation Teams, Operation Stonegarden, Border Enforcement Security Taskforces (BEST), and the 287(g) program – all of which involve local police and sheriff deputies in the enforcement of immigration law.

In addition, the Obama administration has consolidated and promoted the Secure Communities program, which was developed under DHS Secretary Chertoff as a pilot project to encourage and facilitate the checking of the immigration status of all those arrested by local law enforcement. Secure Communities is advancing rapidly under Secretary Napolitano, who has prioritized the detention and removal of all those DHS and the Justice Department identity as “criminal aliens.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the DHS agency responsible for immigration investigations and interior enforcement, has a special program to promote what its calls “law enforcement partnerships.” ICE Access (Agreements of Cooperation in Communities to Enhance Safety and Security) “provides local law enforcement agencies an opportunity to team up with ICE to combat specific challenges in their communities.”

Established in 2007, ICE Access underscores the increasing outreach of DHS to local law enforcement officials in immigration and other homeland security matters. The program supports “a multi-agency/multi/authority approach that encompasses federal, state, and local resources, skills, and expertise.”

According to ICE ACCESS:

 “State and local law enforcement play a critical role in protecting our homeland because they are often the first responders on the scene when there is an incident or attack against the United States. During the course of daily duties, they will often encounter foreign-born criminals and immigration violators who pose a threat to national security or public safety.”

The Arizona law highlights a deepening conundrum for the federal government. By no means is DHS opposed on principle to having local law enforcement join in immigration enforcement. But it does insist that such cooperation be on the terms it sets. Having opened the door to federal-local cooperation, DHS is finding it hard to control the eagerness of localities to join in the immigrant crackdown.

DHS is also finding it hard to make a coherent, persuasive argument against those who contend, as Arizona Republicans do, that local law enforcement should allowed and indeed should be supported in their commitment to arrest all lawbreakers, including unauthorized immigrants.

The CIS report projected a 51% drop in five years in the number of unauthorized immigrants if, along with increased border security through the Secure Border Initiative, the attrition strategy were fully adopted. Increased enforcement certainly has resulted in a drop in the size of immigrant community living illegally in the country.

According to DHS, the estimated number of unauthorized immigrants decreased by 800,000 in 2008 to 10.8 million in January 2009. Interior immigration enforcement, increased deportations, and the recessionary economy all played a part in this decrease or “attrition”, as CIS and Arizona legislators would say.

Arizona-Style Attrition

With its Support Local Law Enforcement Act, Arizona not only adopted the “attrition through enforcement’ framework of the restrictionist institutes. It also adapted parts of the federal playbook for immigration enforcement: identifying new ways to increase what DHS calls “law enforcement partnerships” and extending the federal government’s own focus on the expanding category of “criminal aliens.”

Rather than waiting for DHS to reach out and expand its own federal-local collaborative programs, Arizona politicians have asserted the state’s right to enforce existing federal immigration laws.  In the view of the supporters of the new law, the main problem they are attempting to address is not some inadequacy in federal immigration law. Rather it’s the failure of the federal agencies to adequately enforce the law.

Under SB 1070 suspects are required to produce proof of legal residency if police determine there is a reasonable suspicion that they are in the country illegally. The Support Local Law Enforcement Act breaks new legislative ground by defining the presence of an unauthorized immigrant in the state as “trespassing,” making it a state crime to be an illegal immigrant in Arizona.

SB creates a state charge of "willful failure to complete or carry an alien registration document." Defenders of the law note that this state charge doesn’t trump federal law but is an adjunct to the Alien Registration Act of 1940, which requires that “every alien, eighteen years of age or older, shall at all times carry with him and have in his personal possession any certificate of alien registration….”

The new law no only target illegal immigrants themselves, but it is also includes provisions aimed to target those who support illegal immigrants by hiring them for day labor or who knowingly transport them. What is more, the act prohibits state, city, or county officials from limiting or restricting "the enforcement of federal immigration laws to less than the full extent permitted by federal law.”

Prepared with the assistance of the Immigration Reform Law Institute, SB 1070 is peppered with language designed to protect the law against legal challenges. The law, for example, mandates that police must have a “reasonable suspicion” that a suspect is an unauthorized immigrant and that police can’t independently determine the immigration status of a suspect but must appeal to federal authorities to make such a determination.  The law also states that a person’s “race, color, or national origin” can’t be the sole reason for questioning about immigration status.

As Dan Stein, president of the restrictionist institute FAIR, notes: 

“SB 1070 is a good bill. I should know. We and our legal affiliate, the Immigration Reform Law Institute, had a hand in developing the language based on years of expertise and experience to ensure it would survive court challenge. The law ‘takes the handcuffs’ off local police to work with federal authorities in enforcing U.S. immigration law. This law is both constitutional and effective.”

The legal challenges to SB 1070 are already lining up. Most will contend that the law will foster a climate of enforcement that will lead to a pattern of violations of the U.S. constitution’s equal protection clause and the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unwarranted searches and seizures.  

ACLU, MALDEF, and the National Immigration Law Center have announced that they plan to challenge the law, contending that it encourages racial profiling, endangers public safety, and betrays American values. The Justice Department is also considering blocking the implementation of the law, which is scheduled to take effect in August, on the grounds that it violates the supremacy clause of the constitution and the doctrine of preemption. Basically, the federal concern is that the Arizona law illegally intrudes into the enforcement of immigration law, which is defined as primarily a federal responsibility.

Challenge to Comprehensive Immigration Reform

It’s likely that SB 1070 will be judged, in whole or in part, as unconstitutional and will never be fully implemented. Even so the Arizona law marks another step forward in the consolidation of the attrition through enforcement strategy, just as its Legal Workers Act of 2008, which the courts have upheld, signaled the deepening dimensions of immigration law enforcement.

The only possible redeeming feature of SB 1070 is to raise the level of alarm about the increasingly ugly manifestations of the immigrant crackdown. But criticism of Arizona should not obscure the reality that, with or without SB 1070, attrition through enforcement is the law of the land.

Tom Barry directs the TransBorder Project at the Center for International Policy in Washington, DC. Barry blogs at http://borderlinesblog.blogspot.com/

International Policy Report:
Fallacies of High-Tech Fixes for Border Security

by Tom Barry, TransBorder Project, April 2010

The Center for International Policy announces the release of its new report, Fallacies of High-Tech Fixes for Border Security, which examines the promises and impact of remote surveillance technologies in the drive by the Department of Homeland Security to secure the border. Lately, public calls for more “border security” are rising as drug-related killings intensify in Mexico’s northern borderlands and fears escalate on the U.S. side of the border that this violence will spill over. Observers of immigration policy say that a secure border is fundamental to passing comprehensive immigration reform. This report is a cautionary note about the high costs and dubious results of two high-tech fixes for border security: the attempts to construct a “virtual fence” through the Secure Border Initiative and the new enthusiasm for unmanned aerial vehicles to patrol the border. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) professes a commitment to protecting the homeland against the entry of “dangerous people and goods.” Yet it lacks a strategy that prioritizes actual threats, and its high-tech initiatives are shockingly unfocused and nonstrategic. Despite the vast sums being spent, DHS, through its Secure Border Initiative, points to illegal border crossers and pounds of marijuana captured as its main indicators of success in protecting the homeland. With little or no in-house technological expertise and with seemingly unlimited funds, DHS has recklessly pursued border security strategies that are not tied to threat assessments and cost-benefit evaluations. Fallacies of High-Tech Fixes for Border Security was written by Tom Barry, director of the TransBorder Project of the Center for International Policy.

Center for Immigration Studies Strikes Back

A lengthy report by the Center for Immigration Studies released on March 18, 2010 is titled “Immigration and the SPLC: How the Southern Poverty Law Center Invented a Smear, Served La Raza, Manipulated the Press, and Duped its Donor.”  

The report targets SPLC and the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) for their role in an ongoing campaign to fight hate against immigrants and Latinos. According to the new report, “The SPLC’s decision to smear FAIR [Federation for American Immigration Reform] was the work of a kangaroo court, one convened to reach a pre-determined verdict by inventing or distorting evidence. The ‘Stop the Hate’ campaign would more accurately be labeled as a campaign to ‘Stop the Debate.’”

Although highly critical of SPLC’s methodology and motives, the CIS report doesn’t closely examine the details of SPLC’s charge that FAIR is hate group and as such bears responsibility for hate crimes against Latinos. Nor does the report examine the existence of hate groups and hate crimes in relation to the escalation of the immigration debate in this country.

Instead, the CIS reports strikes back at two of the principals in the campaign to delegitimize the immigration restrictionist institutes, including CIS. The new report examines the integrity and credibility of SPLC and the National Council of La Raza, the civil rights group that relies on SPLC research for its “Stop the Hate” website.

According to the CIS report, “Rather than engage in a debate, La Raza and its allies have waged a campaign to have the other side shunned by the press, civil society, and elected officials. It is an effort to destroy the reputations of its targets. It also seeks to intimidate and coerce others into silence. It undermines basic principles of civil society and democratic discussion.”

Written by former journalist Jerry Kammer, currently a senior research fellow at CIS, the report is a must read for those who closely follow the immigration debate.

While making little contribution to our understanding of the virulence of anti-immigrant rhetoric in the public debate, the CIS report offers fascinating observations about the role of John Tanton. The current and historical links of FAIR, CIS, and NumbersUSA have formed the core of the criticism of these restrictionist institutes by immigrant-rights groups.

The report notes these connections:

“John Tanton founded FAIR in 1979. Six years later he was one of several individuals who were instrumental in starting the Center for Immigration Studies. CIS operated under FAIR’s non-profit umbrella for about six months, until its independent non-profit status was approved. In the late 1990s Tanton helped launch NumbersUSA. Because of the prominent role these organizations have played in the national immigration debate, he can rightly be described as the father of the modern movement to restrict immigration.”

According to Kammer, “[T] small-town doctor from Northern Michigan combines relentless organizational energies with a provincial temperament and a tin ear for the sensitivities of immigration. In an arena that requires the ability to frame issues in a way that broadens consensus, he sometimes speaks with a free-wheeling bluntness that can upset even those who admire him. Some say that Tanton has shown a tendency to be unnecessarily provocative, a tendency that some have seized upon to change the topic from immigration to Tanton himself.”

An interview with Roger Conner, the first executive director of FAIR, also touches on motivations and perceptions in the immigration debate. Conner told Kammer, “Immigration touches so many sensitivities and stirs so many passions that it requires careful handling by those who seek to change policy. Talking about Tanton, Conner said, “It is not enough to “be racially inclusive in your heart,” he said. “You have to avoid even the appearance of bigotry.”

Kammer writes, “Conner has a blunt message to those who complain of a double standard: ‘You’re right — it isn’t fair. Get over it.’” “‘Motives matter on immigration,” said Conner, “The risk of a big-tent philosophy was — and is — that if you don’t explicitly exclude the fringe groups from your tent, you can ruin it for the majority of Americans — those of us who are just as opposed to intolerance or racism as we are to excessive immigration.”

SPLC and its allies in this campaign stand on their strongest ground when they point to the highly objectionable activities and rhetoric of many of the grassroots groups associated with FAIR.

FAIR’s publications and media statements generally stick closely to the institute’s contentions about mass immigration and the “open borders” goals of CIR advocates. But there is ample evidence that grassroots organizations and activists allied with FAIR do indeed have white supremacist and nativist agendas.  

Does this make FAIR itself a “hate group,” which is responsible for the words and actions of its grassroots allies? The CIS report doesn’t weigh in directly on this issue, but the quoted observations of a former FAIR executive director about risks of a big-tent organizing tactics are clearly relevant to assessing FAIR’s own objectionable practices.

NCLR is a pro-CIR civil rights group that restrictionist institutes and anti-immigrant groups love to criticize because of its controversial name and its history of identity politics. CIS associates itself with that sniping tradition in this report. The report unprofessionally and routinely identifies NCLR not by its name or its initials but simply as La Raza.


The inclusion of the term “la raza” in NCLR’s name is explicable historically given NCLR’s origins in 1968 as part of the Chicano self-awareness and civil -rights movement. The members of that movement commonly used “la raza” as descriptor of Mexican-American and Mexican identity and of their common bonds. The Spanish word raza is variously defined to mean race, breed, and family; and when in conjunction with the article la (the), raza is commonly used among Mexican American activists to mean “our community” or “our people.”


NCLR has considered changing its name to avoid the criticism that it is a supremacist or racist group – “the race” – but instead has tried to avoid the criticism by routinely referring to itself as NCLR.


NCLR also has a special page on its website that “answers critics” and explains its name. As NCLR notes, “the full term coined by [José] Vasconcelos, ‘La Raza Cósmica,’ meaning the “cosmic people,” was developed to reflect not purity but the mixture inherent in the Hispanic people.”


By allying itself with SPLC in this badly targeted campaign, NCLR has again opened itself up to criticism about its name, politics, and motivations.


CIS moves into this opening in a section of the report titled “If FAIR Played the Same Game,” which begins with this observation: “If FAIR chose to adopt the tactics of the SPLC and its allies, it would seek to divert attention from the substantive issues of immigration. It would probe for suspect motivation and association. It would take out full-page ads in Roll Call and Politico, taunting La Raza for controversial moments in its history.”


Coupled with this justifiable criticism of NCLR’s “Stop the Hate” campaign are helpful observations about Tanton and Vasconcelos. Kammer writes, for example, that “Vasconcelos was in some ways an intellectual opposite of the scientifically and quantitatively oriented John Tanton. But in a few fundamental respects, they were similar. Both became highly cultured, accomplished men with an inclination toward moralizing and intellectual arrogance. Both thought constantly of the meaning of national identity and cultural unity.”


Seized as a tactic to delegitimize their opponents, the smear campaign against the restrictionist institutes has been, at best, a debilitating distraction in the struggle for immigration reform.  The ongoing campaign highlights the all-too-common willingness of those who are convinced of the righteousness of their cause to stoop to character assassination and shoddy analysis and research. But worse still is that the effort to tar the restrictionist institutes with the "hate group" label has left us with no better understanding of the anti-immigrant backlash movement.


It’s time for NCLR, America’s Voice, Center for American Progress, Center for New Community, and the foundations that have supported this smear campaign to disassociate themselves from such character-assassination tactics. The immigration debate has been ill served by such tactics, and the reputation of the liberal immigration reform movement needlessly damaged. 

Photo: John Tanton

Synergy in Security: National Security Complex

(This is a feature article in the March/April issue of Dollars & Sense magazine, at: http://dollarsandsense.org/archives/2010/0310barry.html )

By Tom Barry

In his January 17, 1961 farewell address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower cautioned: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”

Five decades later, this complex, which Eisenhower defined as the “conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry,” is no longer new. And while Eisenhower’s warning is still pertinent, the scale, scope, and substance of the complex have changed in alarming ways. It has morphed into a new type of public-private partnership—one that spans military, intelligence, and homeland-security contracting, and might be better called a “national security complex.”

Not counting the supplemental authorizations for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, current levels of military spending are, adjusting for inflation, about 45% higher than the military budget when Eisenhower left office. Including the Iraq and Afghanistan war budgets, military spending stands about 30% higher, adjusted for inflation, than any of the post-WWII highpoints—Korea, Vietnam, and the Reagan build-up in the 1980s. Private military contracting, which constituted about half of the Pentagon’s spending in the 1960s, currently absorbs about 70% of the Department of Defense (DoD) budget. No longer centered exclusively in the Pentagon, outsourcing to private contractors now extends to all aspects of government. But since 2001, the major surge in federal outsourcing has occurred in the “intelligence community” and in the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Since Sept. 11, 2001, a vastly broadened government-industry complex has emerged—one that brings together all aspects of national security. Several interrelated trends are responsible for its formation and explosive growth: 1) the dramatic growth in government outsourcing since the early 1990s, and particularly since the beginning of the George W. Bush administration, 2) the post-Sept. 11 focus on homeland security, 3) the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, 4) the Bush-era surge in intelligence budget and intelligence contracts, and 5) the cross-agency focus on information and communications technology.

The term “military-industrial complex” no longer adequately describes the multi-headed monster that has emerged in our times. The industrial (that is, big business) part of the military-industrial complex has become ever more deeply integrated into government—no longer simply providing arms but also increasingly offering their services on the fronts of war and deep inside the halls of government—commissioned to carry out the very missions of the DoD, DHS, and intelligence agencies. In the national security complex, it is ever more difficult to determine what is private sector and what is public sector—and whose interests are being served.

Different Departments, Same Companies

In 2008, the federal government handed out contracts to the private sector totaling $525.5 billion—up from $209 billion in 2000. That’s about a quarter of the entire federal budget. The DoD alone accounts for about $390 billion, or nearly three-quarters of total federal contracts.

The living symbol of the new national security complex is Lockheed Martin, whose slogan is “We Never Forget Who We’re Working For.” That’s the U.S. government—sales to which account for more than 80% of the company’s revenues, with most of the balance coming from international weapons sales and other security contracts facilitated by Washington. In addition to its sales of military hardware, Lockheed is the government’s top provider of IT services and systems integration (see Table 1, below).

Whether it is military operations, interrogations, intelligence gathering, or homeland security, the country’s “national security” apparatus is largely in the same hands. Various components of the U.S. national-security state are divvied up among different federal bureaucracies. But increasingly, the main components are finding a common home within corporate America. Corporations such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, L-3 Communications, and Northrop Grumman have the entire business—military, intelligence, and “homeland security”—covered.

Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Boeing led the top ten military contractors in 2008 (see Table 2).

The 2003 creation of the Department of Homeland Security has helped spawn an explosion of new companies, and new divisions of existing companies, providing “homeland security” products and services. Before President Bush created DHS in the wake of Sept. 11, the agencies that would be merged into the new department did very little outsourcing. From less than 1% of federal contracts (as a total dollar amount) in 2000, outsourcing by DHS has quadrupled as a portion of federal contracting from 2003 to 2009.

Although DHS contracts with scores of new companies, its top contractors are all leading military contractors that have established “homeland security” divisions and subsidiaries.

The top ten DHS contractors in 2008 were Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, IBM, L-3 Communications, Unisys, SAIC, Boeing, Booz Allen Hamilton, General Electric, and Accenture, all leading military contractors. Other major military contractors among the top 25 DHS contractors include General Dynamics, Fluor, and Computer Sciences Corp (see Table 3).

There is no public list of corporations that contract for U.S. intelligence agencies. But based on company press releases and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Tim Shorrock concludes in his new book Spies for Hire that the top five intelligence contractors are probably Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, SAIC, General Dynamics, and L-3 Communications. Other major contractors include Booz Allen Hamilton, CACI International, DRS Technologies, and ManTech International, also leading military contractors.

Within the past eight years—since Sept. 11, 2001—the intelligence budget has soared, rising from an estimated $30 billion in 2000 to an estimated $66.5 billion today. Intelligence agencies have channeled most of the new funding to private contractors, both major companies like CACI and thousands of individual contractors. Private contracts now account for about 70% of the intelligence budget. Intelligence community sources told the Washington Post that private contractors constituted “a significant majority” of analysts working at the new National Counterterroism Center, which provides the White House with terrorism intelligence.

The major military contractors are now moving their headquarters from their production centers, often in California and Texas, to the Washington Beltway in pursuit of more intelligence, military, and homeland security contracts. The gleaming Beltway office buildings of the security corporations are now the most visible symbol of this national security complex.

Boots on the Ground, Computers in Cubicles

Another feature of this evolving, ever-expanding complex is that all the U.S. government departments involved in national security—DoD, State Department, DHS, and intelligence—are outsourcing the boots-on-the-ground components of their missions through the use of private security and military provider firms. Companies such as ArmourGroup (which includes Wackhenhut), DynCorp, MPRI, and Xe (formerly Blackwater Worldwide) have injected the private sector directly into the public sector through their work as interrogators, military trainers, prison guards, intelligence agents, and war-fighters.

Five dozen of these security contractors have organized themselves into the International Peace Operations Association (IPOA). After Blackwater came under worldwide scrutiny for its massacre of unarmed Iraqis in central Baghdad on Sept. 17, 2007, the firm left IPOA, whose code of conduct for “peacekeeping” operations it had flagrantly ignored. Blackwater created a new association of private military contractors called Global Peace and Security Operations—conveniently without any potentially embarrassing code of conduct.

Private contractors are not only on the frontlines of war and clandestine operations, but have also penetrated the national security bureaucracy itself. Reacting to a March 2008 GAO report on conflicts of interest within the Pentagon, Frida Berrigan of the New America Foundation’s Arms and Security Initiative observed that alarming numbers of “cubicle mercenaries” are now working within federal bureaucracies as administrators, contract managers, intelligence analysts, and cybersecurity chiefs. No longer does the “large arms industry” that Eisenhower warned about just peddle goods like weapons and missiles, it also sells itself through its services.

Common Dominators of the New Complex: Information and Security

Private contractors are also in control of the core of the complex’s information and intelligence systems. Information and communications technology is the fastest-growing sector in government contracting. The DHS’s expanding involvement in cybersecurity, information systems, and electronic identification programs, for example, is adding billions of dollars annually to the national security boom.

Lockheed Martin led the ranks of information technology (IT) contractors in 2008, followed by Boeing and Northrop Grumman. Although IT contracts are expanding rapidly, there are few new entrants to the list of top IT providers to the government. Among the top 100 IT contractors, there were just twelve new entrants, as traditional military giants dominated the list (see Table 4).

One of the largest sources of federal contracting at DHS has been the EAGLE (Enterprise Acquisition Gateway for Leading Edge Solutions) IT program, which awarded $8.2 billion in contracts in the past three years. Among the leading contractors are CACI, Booz Allen Hamilton, Lockheed Martin, SAIC, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, and BAE Systems—all major military contractors. Most of the EAGLE IT bonanza is in the form of “indefinite-delivery, indefinite quantity contracts” that provide generous operating room for IT firms to determine their own solutions to DHS’ vast IT and cybersecurity requirements.

The major military corporations have quickly formed new branches to focus on these new opportunities outside of their traditional core contracts with the Pentagon. This year, for example, Northrop Grumman created a new Information Systems division to seek military, homeland security, and intelligence IT contracts. Recognizing the interest in the Obama administration in cyber-security and information war, corporations such as Booz Allen Hamilton and Hewlett-Packard, among others, have created new cybersecurity divisions or subsidiaries. Similarly, the new administration’s focus on transnational disease has led military companies such as General Dynamics to acquire medical subsidiaries.

Revolving-Door Security Consultants

Another manifestation of the new national security complex is the rise of a new series of consulting agencies that act as an interface between government and their clients. That’s an easy connection for such companies as the Chertoff Group, Ridge Global, and RiceHadley Group, since all their principals recently left government, where they had presided over the unprecedented wave of outsourcing.

Two of these national security agencies are headed by the DHS’s first two secretaries, Michael Chertoff and Tom Ridge, while the newest group brings together Condoleezza Rice and Stephen Hadley, who only a year ago were serving as secretary of state and national security adviser, respectively.

When announcing his group’s formation, Chertoff boasted, “Our principals have worked closely together for years, as leaders of the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the National Security Agency and the CIA.” Indeed, a leading member of this new group is former CIA director Michael Hayden (2005-2009), who also directed the National Security Agency (1999-2005). Others include former DHS deputy Paul Schneider (who was head of acquisitions for NSA and the U.S. Navy prior to his position at DHS); Admiral Jay Cohen (Ret.), who was DHS director of science and technology and previously the Navy’s technology chief; and Charlie Allen, who was the intelligence chief at DHS and, according to Michael Chertoff, “pretty much head of everything you could be for the CIA.”

The Chertoff Group has now hooked up with Blue Star Capital, a transatlantic investment company specializing in mergers and acquisitions in the security business. In its announcement of the new partnership, Blue Star emphasized their joint interest in “generating opportunities” across the national security spectrum—“in the homeland security, defense, and intelligence markets.”

Chertoff himself applauded the value of the merger: “I believe there are many areas of opportunity within the Homeland Security, Intelligence and Defense sectors where the synergies between Blue Star and the Chertoff Group will provide real value.”

Taking Back Security

The “unwarranted influence” that concerned Eisenhower during the Cold War now pervades national politics and is rarely questioned. Nor has there been any evaluation of the achievements of the increasingly privatized national security complex. In his 2010 State of the Union address, President Obama talked about the need for fiscal restraint, but exempted “national security” from the planned spending freeze. Despite manifold evidence of vast waste and scandalous profiteering in the security apparatus—to say nothing of “unnecessary wars”—the president didn’t see fit to scale back the security agencies. By failing to do so, he has all but guaranteed that the outsourcing bonanza will continue. With “national security” off limits for budget cuts, Obama signaled that safeguarding the nation against the “unwarranted influence” and “rise of misplaced power” will not be priorities for this administration.

As major corporations such as Lockheed Martin and security consulting agencies such as the Chertoff Group extend their corporate tentacles into the intelligence, military, and homeland security terrains, the greater threat they pose. The corporate penetration of all the government’s information-gathering, communications, intelligence, and data systems undermines democratic governance. The new corporate domination of data-mining, communications, and cybersecurity systems—with little or no government oversight —threatens individual liberty and privacy. This also creates a powerful vested interest in a large and growing “national security” apparatus—and one that is deeply integrated with the top echelons of the intelligence agencies, military, and other parts of this secretive state-within-the-state.

In the end, it’s not the contractors that are the central problem with the national security complex—it’s the outsourcers, that is, the elected politicians and the government administrators they appoint or confirm. The contractors are working to maximize profits, and are answerable mainly to company shareholders. The outsourcers, however, are ultimately answerable, at least in principle, to the public. What is at stake is who really controls public policy—a democratically accountable government, or an unaccountable fusion of governmental and corporate power.

Tom Barry is a senior policy analyst and director of the TransBorder Project at the Center for International Policy in Washington, D.C. Barry is the author of numerous books on U.S. foreign policy, and he blogs on border security, immigration, and homeland security issues at borderlinesblog.blogspot.com.

Sources: Center for Defense Information, “Military Budgets 1946-2009,”; Center for Arms Control and NonProliferation, “2008-2009 U.S. Defense Spending Highest Since WWII,” Feb. 20, 2008; FedSpending.org, a project of OMB Watch; USASpending.gov; Tim Shorrock, New Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing, 2008; FY2009 Intelligence Budget, GlobalSecurity.org; F.J. Hillhouse, “Outsourcing Intelligence,” The Nation, July 24, 2007; Walter Pincus, “Lawmakers Want More Data on Contracting Out Intelligence,” Washington Post, May 7, 2006: David Horowitz, ed., Corporations and the Cold War, 1969; GAO, “Defense Contracting: Army Case Study Delineates Concerns with Use of Contractors as Contract Specialists,” March 2008; Frida Berrigan, “Military Industrial Complex 2.0,” TruthOut, Sept. 14, 2008; “2009 Top 100,” Washington Technology; DHS, Enterprise Solutions Office, EAGLE contracts; Global Homeland Security 2009-2019, VisionGain, June 23, 2009; Chertoff Group web pages, chertoffgroup.com; Homeland Security & Defense Business Council web pages, AntiWar.com, July 28, 2008; Allison Stanger, One Nation Under Contract: The Outsourcing of American Power and the Future of Foreign Policy (Yale University Press, 2009); Project on Government Oversight (POGO); Deborah Avant, The Market for Force: The Consequences of Privatizing Security(Cambridge University Press, 2005); Center for Public Integrity, “Making a Killing: The Business of War,” 2002, “The Shadow Pentagon,” 2004; Peter Singer, Corporate Warriors (Cornell University Press, 2003).

The Homeland Security Department Disaster

(This is the second in a series on the state of the Department of Homeland Security. The first part is at: http://borderlinesblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/americas-failing-homeland-security.html )

The Department of Homeland Security is a disaster.

Since its early days DHS has been an “area of risk,” according to the Government Accountability Office. Employee morale is abysmal, ranking among the worst of all federal agencies. Within DHS, private contractors outnumber federal employees. Seven years after its creation DHS is still grappling with a debilitating identity crisis.

DHS is a $55 billion department in search of a separate identity and a clear mission. A mash-up of 22 separate agencies, DHS continues to struggle to define itself – and to define exactly what is homeland security.

Since its beginning it has been the object of widespread criticism and frustration. Its signature feature – the color-coded terror advisory alerts – is commonly regarded as useless or even comical. DHS failed spectacularly its first big test in responding to Hurricane Katrina of August 2005, and the launch by DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff of its immigrant crackdown that same year has been widely derided as mean-spirited, ideologically driven, and largely disconnected from the post-9/11 national commitment to homeland security.

From the beginning DHS has been dogged by questions about its role with respect to DOD, FBI, and the CIA. Initially the U.S. public -- and even the department’s first secretary Tom Ridge – believed that the new department would consolidate and oversee the intelligence about threats to the U.S. homeland. Upon taking control of the new department, however, Ridge learned that DHS wouldn’t have a central role in homeland security-related intelligence but would be obligated to rely on the CIA, FBI, and DOD for threat assessments and most other intelligence.

The absence of a prime role in intelligence for the new Homeland Security Department highlighted the existential crisis at DHS. What is the vision, the mission, the essential justification for the creation and continued existence of this megabureaucracy of 220,000 employees?

The new department certainly has important governmental functions, such as border control, immigration policy enforcement, emergency management, transportation security, Coast Guard, and Secret Service. But since its creation DHS has been on a search for unifying identity. Apart from describing its parts, DHS hasn’t been able to say simply and clearly what it is as a whole.

One way DHS has faced this challenge is by simply declaring that it is a unified whole. In the introduction to One Team, One Mission, Securing Our Homeland: DHS Strategic Plan 2008-2013, Chertoff stated:

“We are a unified Department with a shared focus: strengthening our Nation – through a partnership with individual citizens, the private sector, state, local, and tribal governments, and our global partners. We must also coordinate across Federal agencies, while shaping homeland security policy and coordinating incident management.”

So what was that one mission for which this one team is responsible for?

The DHS mission, according to its strategic plan, is:

“We will lead the unified national effort to secure America. We will prevent and deter terrorist attacks and protect against and respond to threats and hazards to the Nation. We will secure our national borders while welcoming lawful immigrants, visitors, and trade.”

The DHS vision statement, animating this mission, is: “A secure America, a confident public, and a strong and resilient society and economy.”

A telling shortcoming  – one that has existed since the creation of DHS – is that DHS doesn’t have a leadership role in counterterrorism. In actual matters of homeland security, DHS is subservient to the same competing constellation of federal agencies – CIA, FBI, DOD, and NSA – that was responsible (along with the Bush White House) for the failures of communication and intelligence coordination that left the country open to the Sept. 11 attacks.

By the end of the Bush administration DHS had yet to establish, let alone demonstrate, that it was a leader in security, that it had a unified team, or that there was some important new role the department was playing moving the country toward its vision of a secure America, a confident society, and a resilient economy.

Its statements of leadership, purpose, and unity couldn’t gloss over what a mess the department was – evident even to the casual observer and documented by an embarrassing stream of critical reports from its own inspector general, the Government Accountability Office, and House oversight committees.

The Obama administration has done its best to shore up the credibility and integrity of DHS. The appointment of Janet Napolitano as the new DHS secretary went a long way to show that DHS would be moving beyond the ideological fervor, mean-spiritedness, and corporate coziness that characterized Chertoff’s tenure. Napolitano has ordered major reviews and overhauls within the vast bureaucracy, and she has proved to be smart, effective, and serious about her job.

With Napolitano at its helm and under a new administration, DHS has become a fixture in U.S. governance, passing from a start-up venture created in throes of the U.S 9/11 response to an increasingly consolidated institution in the DC firmament. Less dogmatic and more honest than her predecessor, Napolitano has made a “unified DHS” a goal rather than merely stating it as an accomplishment.

In implicit recognition of its problems, DHS now notes on its website:

“Six years on since the Department's creation, our goal is simple: one DHS, one enterprise, a shared vision, with integrated results-based operations. Through a consolidated headquarters, we are bringing 35 locations together. We are implementing a series of wide-ranging efficiency initiatives that leverage the economies of scale in our Department in order to recover hundreds of millions of dollars and create a culture of responsibility and fiscal discipline.”

But determination, better management, leadership skills, along with an improved team of top officials, won’t be enough to rescue DHS.

Dressing up immigration enforcement in new and less divisive language and eliminating some of the excesses of the previous administration haven’t altered the severity, tragedy, and divisiveness of the immigrant crackdown. The recent integration of the Homeland Security Council into the National Security Council, while appropriately recognizing that homeland security and national security overlap, also raises new questions about the defining duties of DHS.

It’s an immense new federal bureaucracy that has yet to explain what it is doing that its member agencies weren’t doing – or couldn’t have done -- before its creation. What’s the added value, if any, of our Department of Homeland Security?

Next: The Much-Vaunted Resiliency of the Homeland Security Enterprise

National Magazine Award Nomination

Some personal news. That article I wrote for the Boston Review, "Death In Texas," has been nominated along with the magazine and its editors, Deb Chasman and Joshua Cohen, for a National Magazine Award in the Public Interest category.

Here's the link to the announcement: http://magazine.org/ASME/ABOUT_ASME/ASME_PRESS_RELEASES/nma-2010-finalists-list.aspx

This type of article is rare, mostly because there are few publications and editors that provide the kind of moral support and freedom to delve into a topic that the Boston Review did for me.

The Public Interest category certainly fits this piece, which is also just a small part -- in many ways a product -- of the inspiring public interest advocacy on these issues by such groups as Detention Watch Network, Grassroots Leadership, ACLU, and Justice Strategies.

I have a new article in the latest issue of another Boston-area publication, Dollars & Sense, that explores the evolution of the military-industrial complex. Here's a link to the magazine's table of contents: http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2010/0310toc.html It's titled: Synergy in Security: Rise of the National Security Complex.

Concern about the uses and crimes of this complex is how many of us got involved in progressive politics. Most of those concerns remain, decade after decade, but what's so shocking and difficult to comprehend is why we accept, decade after decade, that billions, trillions of dollars are wasted in the name of national security. I will circulate the article here when there is an online version.