High-Level NSA Official Tied To Husband's Private Signals Intelligence Business, Has A Second Business That Owns A Plane

from the where's-your-Moses-data-now? dept

Buzzfeed's Aram Roston has uncovered more evidence linking the NSA's SIGINT (signals intelligence) director to a number of private contractors known to do business with the US government -- perhaps even the agency itself.

Roston previously exposed the close ties between Teresa Shea's position and her husband James' employer, DRS Signal Solutions, a company focused on "SIGINT systems." Not only that, but business records indicated that James Shea apparently runs Telic Networks, another SIGINT-focused business operating out of their hometown (Ellicott City, Maryland).

Needless to say, neither Teresa Shea, her husband, her husband's employer, nor the NSA itself have offered anything in the way of comments on this suspicious-looking arrangement. The NSA did offer some boilerplate about "robust internal controls," but simultaneously stiff-armed Buzzfeed's request for Teresa Shea's financial disclosure statements, citing the National Security Act of 1959. (This citation is also agency boilerplate, or at least was until Jason Leopold challenged it with a lawsuit. This move forced former NSA head Keith Alexander's financial disclosure statements out of its hands. In light of this recent decision, it appears Shea's statements will be released as well.)

This all looked conflicted enough, but Roston has uncovered more suspicious-looking information.

Yet another company, apparently focused on the office and electronics business, is based at the Shea residence on that well-tended lot.

This company is called Oplnet LLC.

Teresa Shea, who has been at the NSA since 1984, is the company’s resident agent.

The company’s articles of organization, signed by Teresa Shea, show that the firm was established in 1999 primarily “to buy, sell, rent and lease office and electronic equipment and related goods and services.” An attorney who also signed the document, Alan Engel, said he couldn’t comment on client matters.

Roston and Buzzfeed were unable to come up with any hard evidence linking Teresa Shea's home business with federal contracts, but it did uncover a very interesting purchase.

Records show Oplnet does own a six-seat airplane, as well a condominium property with an assessed value of $275,000 in the resort town of Hilton Head, South Carolina.

Flight records for this aircraft show it has made a majority of its landings at three airports -- one of them being Ft. Meade, Maryland, home of the NSA. It is not uncommon for people who own their own planes to actually set up a company to own that plane for a variety of legal and tax reasons -- and it's possible that's what's happened here -- though it is notable that James Shea has a pilot's license, while Teresa does not.

Perhaps it's indicative of nothing at all, other than the overwhelming gravitational pull of the Beltway. But then, there's this timeline.

1984 - Teresa Shea joins the NSA as an engineer working in SIGINT issues.

1990 - James Shea sets up Sigtek, Inc., which goes on to receive "hundreds of thousands of dollars in contracts with the federal government, according to a federal contracting database."

1999 - Teresa Shea registers Oplnet, using their home address.

2000 - James Shea sells Sigtek, Inc. for $20 million to a British firm, while remaining listed as President of the company.

2007 - James Shea sets up Telic Networks, his newest SIGINT-focused company. This too is "based" at the Sheas' shared home address.

2010 - Teresa Shea is promoted to Director of SIGINT. Nearly simultaneously, James Shea is named vice president of major SIGINT contractor DRS Signal Solutions.

Much of the Sheas' shared success hinges on SIGINT -- both the government's expansion of dragnet surveillance and simultaneous growth of SIGINT-focused contractors. Maybe there's nothing to this, but the silence from everyone involved seems to indicate there's at least the "appearance of impropriety," if not flat-out misconduct and abuse of power.

More will be known when (and always appended when dealing with the NSA, if) Shea's financial disclosure documents are released. At the very least, they'll at least confirm the information Buzzfeed has dug up and prevent the NSA from boilerplating this whole situation into non-existence. The NSA is taking a second look at Keith Alexander's post-NSA activities. If it's willing to go that far, it's willing to dig up dirt on lower-level officials. You can't be too careful in the intelligence business these days, not with the eyes of legislators, activists and a whole bunch of pissed-off Americans watching your every move.

Filed Under: conflict of interest, failures, james shea, nsa, sigint, theresa shea
Companies: drs signal solutions, opinet, sigtek, telic networks

NSA Official Handing Off Contracts To Government Contractor Spouse?

from the the-fix-is-ALWAYS-in dept

Aram Roston at Buzzfeed has seemingly uncovered a very cozy link between an NSA official and a government contracting firm.

The NSA official, Teresa H. Shea, is director of the Signals Intelligence Directorate, which means she oversees electronic eavesdropping for intelligence purposes. She's held that crucial position since 2010. SIGINT, as it is called, is the bread and butter of NSA espionage operations, and it includes intercepting and decoding phone calls, whether cellular or landline; radio communications; and internet traffic. Shea's directorate was involved in the controversial domestic surveillance program, much of which was revealed by Edward Snowden.

As for Shea’s husband, James, he is currently a vice president at DRS Signal Solutions, part of DRS Technologies, a major American defense contracting company owned by the Italian defense giant Finmeccanica. On his LinkedIn page, he boasts of his “core focus” in “SIGINT systems,” and cites his employer, DRS, for its work in “signals intelligence, cyber, and commercial test and measurement applications.”

Shea's husband is also a resident agent for Telic Networks (Roston calls the company's website "rudimentary," which is a compliment) -- another SIGINT-focused business located in the Sheas' hometown of Ellicott City, Maryland. James Shea declined to comment on this story, somewhat inadvertently.

Telic Networks has a telephone number listed on its website, and on Monday, James Shea answered the phone. "Jim Shea!" he said. But after he was told what the call was about, he said, "I'm in the middle of a meeting right now. I'll try giving you a call later." He didn't answer subsequent calls.

Teresa Shea and her agency have declined to comment beyond some emailed boilerplate about the agency's "robust financial disclosure program" and the NSA's (unproven) track record of heading off conflicts of interest before they become a problem.

Meanwhile, James Shea's DRS Signal Solutions is hiring for a SIGINT-related contract located in Fort Meade, Maryland. The NSA's "robust financial disclosure program" is internal only, so there's no way to tell how this was awarded or the total cost of the contract.

This may seem like a small issue, but there are larger ramifications. The NSA is charged with protecting a nation against threats, but any sort of favoritism that intrudes on bidding processes undermines the quality of the contractor appointed. Handing a contract out to an official's husband doesn't ensure the agency is getting the best company for the job. And if this is commonplace enough, certain bidders will just stop submitting estimates.

Even if what appears to be happening is actually happening, it's only part of much larger incestuous relationship between the government and its contractors. Pure nepotism may be rare, but there's lots of similarly shady tactics being deployed that never trigger ethics probes or recusals.

First off, there's the vested interest in keeping the whole scheme -- national security -- running. This depends on legislators, administration representatives and official spokespeople constantly maintaining a climate of fear. Government agencies -- the NSA included -- put a lot of effort into staying viable year after year with little discernible dropoff in budget. Being truly essential flies under the government radar. Appearing to be completely essential seems to be more important.

Even as research appears that suggests Snowden's leaks didn't have much impact on terrorist behavior, the ODNI's (James Clapper's) office is complaining that ~$53 billion a year isn't enough money to keep the counterterroism apparatus afloat.

The nation's capitol is surrounded by government contractors, most of them setting up shop in Maryland and Virginia. It makes sense to move closer to the money and those who control it. From there, money flows to contractors and some the money flows back -- financial contributions to legislators -- offered in hope of receiving advantageous legislation or budget increases for the agencies they work with. Not only does the money flow back and forth, but so does the personnel. Legislators exit to become board members, lobbyists or figureheads of heavily government-invested companies... and vice versa.

Nothing illegal. Nothing immoral. Nothing but the same gamesmanship and cliqueishness that make the government a closed circuit where money races circles around itself ensuring the longevity of those who manage to make their way inside.

The Sheas' potential ethics conflict is only a marriage certificate away from complete legitimacy. Government agencies will run open bidding and still hand off the project to an inside favorite. Or they'll find loopholes to avoid opening bids at all. There's no way to tell how common this is in the NSA or other agencies covered by the classified "Black Budget," but the cloak of secrecy does a whole lot more than just protect means and methods. It also prevents the American public from uncovering conflicts of interest or questionable bidding processes.

Scott Amey, the general counsel of the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight, objected to such blanket secrecy: “We don’t know how many contracts DRS has, whether they have contracts, what they are for. We’re kind of in the dark, and that’s not how we want our government to operate.”

But yet it does, and it appears to be unlikely to change at any point in the near future. Everyone on the "inside" would like to keep it that way. It keeps companies from having to explain their domestic surveillance offerings and it keeps the ODNI from having to explain why the current secret budget just isn't enough to keep America safe.

Filed Under: contractors, jim shea, nepotism, nsa, sigint, teresa shea
Companies: drs signal solutions, telic