New Spy Chief’s “Total Information” Ties

“John Michael McConnell, the retired vice admi­ral slated to become America’s new top spy, [has some] long­time asso­ci­a­tions [which] may cause him headaches dur­ing Senate con­fir­ma­tion hear­ings,” Newsweek​.com notes.“One such tie is with another for­mer Navy admi­ral, John Poindexter, the Iran-​​contra fig­ure who started the con­tro­ver­sial ‘Total Information Awareness’ pro­gram at the Pentagon in 2002.“

The inter­na­tional con­sul­tancy that McConnell has worked at for a decade as a senior vice pres­i­dent, Booz Allen Hamilton, won con­tracts worth $63 mil­lion on the TIA “data-​​mining” pro­gram, which was later can­celled [kinda sorta — ed.] after con­gres­sional Democrats raised ques­tions about inva­sion of pri­vacy… While his role in the TIA pro­gram is unlikely to derail McConnell’s nom­i­na­tion, spokes­peo­ple for some lead­ing Democratic sen­a­tors such as Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Ron Wyden of Oregon say it will be exam­ined care­fully.
McConnell was a key fig­ure in mak­ing Booz Allen, along with Science Applications International Corp., the prime con­trac­tor on the project, accord­ing to offi­cials in the intel­li­gence com­mu­nity and at Booz Allen who would dis­cuss con­tracts for data min­ing only on con­di­tion of anonymity because of the sen­si­tiv­ity of the sub­ject. “I think Poindexter prob­a­bly respected Mike and prob­a­bly entrusted the TIA pro­gram to him as a result,” said a long­time asso­ciate of McConnell’s who worked at NSA with him…
Intel experts agree that McConnell will need all the good will he can get from the intel­li­gence and defense com­mu­ni­ties. “It’s a good appoint­ment for a bad office,” says John Arquilla, who teaches intel­li­gence at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. “The direc­torate of national intel­li­gence should not exist. It’s very redun­dant.” Insiders say Negroponte was frus­trated by his lack of bud­get­ing con­trol over Pentagon intel­li­gence, and the resis­tance of the CIA to his direc­tion since his office was cre­ated in 2004 as part of the Bush administration’s post-​​9/​11 reforms.

And by the way, Rutty asks in the com­ments (I’m para­phras­ing heav­ily here): What was McConnell’s role in Echelon — the NSA’s mas­sive infor­ma­tion sweeper, which got some much atten­tion dur­ing the Clinton years? (The project had been around for decades, remember.)

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