“We can’t spy if we can’t buy.”

Edward Snowden didn’t actually work for the National Security Administration (NSA). He worked for a private surveillance contractor called Booz Allen Hamilton.

So, if Snowden didn’t work for the NSA, how could he expose illegal NSA spying?

The answer lies with the revolving door politics of Washington and the integration of the private contractor community with federal surveillance agencies. The result has been the emergence of a new American Intelligence Industry inhabited by former high level Washington ‘spooks’.

Private security contractor, Booz Allen Hamilton is owned by the Carlyle Group. The list of CEO’s at Booz Hamilton reads like an intelligence rolodex from the federal government.