Federal intelligence agencies must provide Congress with a detailed report by April 2008 of all the private contractors performing intelligence work for the U.S. government under language inserted into the Intelligence Authorization Bill on Thursday by U.S. Rep. David Price, a Chapel Hill Democrat, Barb Barrett reports.
The report would include specific programs and responsibilities of contractors, the justification for hiring private companies to do such work, and an estimate of the costs or savings of hiring private contractors for intelligence work.
“We want to know exactly what the government is asking contractors to do,” said Paul Cox, Price’s spokesman. “We have serious concerns about prisoner interrogation, about private surveillance, about the transfer of prisoners between countries.”
The bill, which provides annual authority for intelligence programs, passed the House Thursday night.
Price had the language inserted because of increasing concerns about the roles of private security contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Comments
Contract work
May 11, 2007 - 3:16pm — AnglicoThey'll just lie.
I applaud Congressman Price's desire to get to the bottom of this, but I have zero hope of getting a straight answer. BushCo doesn't care what Congress thinks and has proven again and again that they won't answer Congress's questions. They will just lie.