Gonzaga Debate Institute 2010

PMC’s Bad – National Security

PMC’s are used in so many government functions that they compromise security and intelligence gathering.
Isenberg 10 (David Isenberg Author, Shadow Force: Private Security Contractors in Iraq, June 2, 2010, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david–isenberg/are–private–contractors–t_b_597778.html)KM

We hear so much about the use of private military and security contractors by the Defense and State departments that it is easy to forget that outsourcing goes far beyond those two government departments. Private contractors are present in every aspect of government; constituting a fourth branch of government from homeland security to public diplomacy As a case in point nearly two years ago I reviewed Spies For Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing by Tim Shorrock; an excellent book on the intelligence community's use of private contractors. It is an important topic which does not receive the attention it merits so I was happy to see it discussed in this 2009 paper "Security outsourced: is it safe?" by Judit Nénye . Here is what she writes: But what happens if the work of such US governmental organizations as the CIA, the DIA (Defence Intelligence Agency), the NRO (National Reconnaissance Office) or the NSA (National Security Agency) is outsourced? Strange as it may seem at first sight, the US government spends on foreign and domestic intelligence about 60 billion USD each year, 42 billion USD of which was the cost of activities outsourced to private contractors in 2006. The number of contractors exceeds the CIA‟s full-time workforce of 17,500. In 2006 it was altogether 5,400 companies that sought to do business with CIA. The activity of NRO, responsible for the maintenance of reconnaissance satellites, is outsourced to contract employees of private companies. It is the most privatized part of the intelligence activity, controlling over 7 billion USD of the entire annual budget (which is about 8 billion). A case–study of such public–private partnerships can be Retired Admiral John Michael "Mike" McConnell, Director of National Intelligence (DNI) since February 2007. Beforehand, he was vice president and director of Booz Allen & Hamilton's Infrastructure Assurance Center of Excellence. He was also the former chair of the board of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA), the private intelligence industry‟s lobbying arm, of which Booz Allen & Hamilton is a founding member. One would expect a considerable rise in effectiveness to justify such a degree of outsourcing. However, it is not the case. The NSA was unable to analyze much of the gathered information in 2006. Only 5 % of it was translated from its digital form into text and sent for analysis. The rest was thrown away. The dependence of the government intelligence on private companies makes every phase of intelligence gathering, processing and preserving extremely vulnerable. Even one of the most sensitive U.S. intelligence documents, the Presidential Daily Briefing, is prepared in part by private companies, despite having the official seal of the U.S. intelligence apparatus! It is better not to think of how a private company could tamper intelligence and thus influence national or even international policy if its corporate interest requires so. Consequently, the same risks apply to the outsourcing of intelligence tasks as to the privatization of other military and security activities: impunity for abuse, lack of oversight (public or congressional), leakage of classified information and loss of such traditional professionalism that can only be formed in the course of long years of service – but in the service of state and not of corporate institutions. As Tim Shorrock points out, the joining of former intelligence officers to the private sector (and this phenomenon started in the early 1990s) means that the institutional memory of the United States intelligence community now resides in the private sector.
And, PMCs even control national security documents

Scahill 7 (Jeremy, Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute, is the author of the bestselling Blackwater, The Independent, Aug 10, http://www.uruknet.info/?p=35239 ) ET

Perhaps it is no surprise then that the current head of the DNI is Mike McConnell, the former chair of the board of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, the private intelligence industry’s lobbying arm. Hillhouse also revealed that one of the most sensitive U.S. intelligence documents, the Presidential Daily Briefing, is prepared in part by private companies, despite having the official seal of the U.S. intelligence apparatus.

PMC’s Bad – Security Coalitions

PMCs turn any NATO NB – PMC’s undermine functions that should be exclusive to the state, rendering security coalitions obsolete.
Scahill 7 (Jeremy Scahill August 15, 2007 from Indypendent Website, http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_blackwater08.htm)KM

This unprecedented funding of such enterprises, primarily by the U.S. and U.K. governments, means that powers once the exclusive realm of nations are now in the hands of private companies with loyalty only to profits, CEOs and, in the case of public companies, shareholders. And, of course, their client, whoever that may be. CIA–type services, special operations, covert actions and small-scale military and paramilitary forces are now on the world market in a way not seen in modern history. This could allow corporations or nations with cash to spend but no real military power to hire squadrons of heavily armed and well–trained commandos. “It raises very important issues about state and about the very power of state. The one thing the people think of as being in the purview of the government — wholly run and owned by — is the use of military power,” says Rep. Jan Schakowsky. “Suddenly you’ve got a for-profit corporation going around the world that is more powerful than states, can effect regime possibly where they may want to go, that seems to have all the support that it needs from this administration that is also pretty adventurous around the world and operating under the cover of darkness. “It raises questions about democracies, about states, about who influences policy around the globe, about relationships among some countries. Maybe it’s their goal to render state coalitions like NATO irrelevant in the future, that they’ll be the ones and open to the highest bidder. Who really does determine war and peace around the world?”
PMC’s undermine the monopolization of force by states, undermining the credibility of international coalitions like the UN.
SALZMAN 9 (“PRIVATE MILITARY CONTRACTORS AND THE TAINT OF A MERCENARY” REPUTATION ZOE New York University School of Law INTERNATIONAL LAW AND POLITICS [Vol. 40:853 May 14, http://law.nyu.edu/ecm_dlv4/groups/public/@nyu_law_website__journals__journal_of_international_law_and_politics/documents/documents/ecm_pro_058877.pdf)KM

The monopolization of force by states allows states, at least in theory, to regulate the use of force under international law through Security Council sanctions, International Court of Justice decisions, and political and economic pressures on other states. If force is a commodity that can be bought and sold like any other, however, these limits are likely to become even less effective than they are now. The underlying concept of the United Nations system fails where there are powerful actors outside of the control of states in possession of the means of violence.