Are We Any Safer? (Part Two)

You can find the second installment of the Washington Post's series "Top Secret America" at this link. Today's article describes the extent to which the United States now relies on private contractors to conduct the intelligence gathering and analysis once performed by government employees. This privatization was supposed to save the government money, but the opposite is true and, in fact, many of the employees working for the outside contractors are former government employees with top secret clearances who have been recruited from the military and agencies such as the CIA. And aside from the costs, the reliance on contractors raises obvious questions of conflicts of interest:  does a private contractor owe its loyalty to the government or to its shareholders?