Friday, December 22, 2006

Bush Administration: Not Nice, Definitely Naughty

Santa determined the White House needs a big lump of coal this Christmas. After checking reports by both the General Accounting Office and Department of Homeland Security’s own internal response, Mr. Claus concluded the Bush team to have been naughty for several years.

It turns out Homeland Security rifled through American’s information drawers without permission. It sought more tidbits than promised and on people it said it wouldn’t. That would be two checks in the naughty column.

DHS acknowledged they did not comply with the law, but in Bush like form refused to admit they broke it! That deserves another check in the not nice column, doesn’t it Santa?

Homeland Security used a contractor, EagleForce Associates in conducting the analysis. The company’s website is bare bones but a little luck produced more information. One press release stated “The company was founded in 2001 by a group of world renowned information management scientists.” Their first online news available on the company showed up in 2002. It appears EagleForce benefited from $57 million in Defense appropriations.

EagleForce Associates has been selected by SAIC to serve as the Transition/Commercialization agents for the Advanced Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Management (AIM) Program. Funded by the Defense Advanced Research Program Administration (DARPA), the AIM system represents the state of the art in providing Intelligence and Operational Commanders with the ability to dynamically manage and synchronize a wide range of tactical information gathering and weapons deployment assets. AIM integrates the Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) Collection Strategies with Multi-Asset Synchronization components to optimize and task information gathering assets, whether in space, in the air or on the ground. By using AIM, Commanders can quickly and easily test their asset allocation strategies and get maximum utility from their resources. The AIM Program represents a $57M research and development investment by DARPA.

To be clear on this, DARPA developed the system and then selected EagleForce to commercialize it? How many companies would like the Feds to conduct and pay for their R&D? Santa delivered quite a present to the executives at EagleForce that year.

In four short years, the company expanded their client base to include the Air Force, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Missile Intelligence Agency and the Transportation Security Agency. EagleForce has since partnered with Google to sell their combined technological capabilities. A news release on their partnership stated:

Essentially, EagleForce has engineered the next generation of search engine technology that goes beyond key word retrieval. EagleForce technology combines key word and concept search with pattern analysis. The partnership with Google will be a launching pad to make use of this groundbreaking technology for government, as well as the private sector and general public.

Welcome to BushWorld, where Big Brother is watching. Heck, our President even brags about it! A round of coal for all involved…

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