Booz Allen, the World's Most Profitable Spy Organization | Hacker News Reader

Booz Allen, the World's Most Profitable Spy Organization

businessweek.com

93 pointsstanley11 comments

> Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH), focused more and more on government work. In 2008 it split off its less lucrative commercial consulting arm—under the name Booz & Co.—and became a pure government contractor, publicly traded and majority-owned by private equity firm Carlyle Group (CG).

Carlyle is the lynchpin. Booz is just one of its assets.

An informative look at Booz and Carlyle right before the sale happened:

http://www.zcommunications.org/carlyle-group-may-buy-major-c...

Here is a nice nugget: Carlyle also owns CRG West (which has since been sold/renamed) -- CRG West was one fo the bid Datacenter owners - and even at one point owned MAE West.

How do you think the NSA taps get in place?

http://coresite.com/data-center-locations.php

Those are major hub/ingress/egress points...

> How do you think the NSA taps get in place?

Insert old joke from 1970's about NSAT&T here.

That's completely inaccurate. Booz Allen was a private company that split into public and private consulting firms. The private side owned a larger stake of the overall company than it was "worth" so to do the split the public side sold some stock and took on debt to makeq up the difference when they split. After a few years they became a public company but at no point did where they owned by Carlyle.

> Booz Allen Hamilton is majority owned by private equity firm The Carlyle Group, while Booz & Company is owned and operated as a partnership.

> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booz_Allen_Hamilton

Majority ownership is vary different from actual ownership. Also next line "On November 17, 2010, Booz Allen's shares of common stock began trading at the New York Stock Exchange."

> That makes these jobs particularly hard to fill, since most people with security clearances are almost by definition overqualified for janitorial work.

Lost credibility with this right here. Anybody can get a security clearance regardless of intellectual qualifications. I know someone who got a security clearance before even knowing what job he wanted, just as résumé padding.

Anyway, the rest of this article reads as fluffy and sophomoric. I'd read this one with a watchful eye.

> I know someone who got a security clearance before even knowing what job he wanted

Your friend is bullshitting you. You don't get a security clearance for shits and giggles. Depending on the type it can be expensive to very expensive. And you don't apply for one directly, the company you work for applies for you.

This is why all the job sites have a security clearance jobs section. It's a pretty exclusive club and there are 2 ways to get in; join the military or get it through work.

Not that exclusive--Over 4 million people have security clearances.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/06/12...

Of that only 500k are going to private contractors. The majority of them are for military and government employees. Most of those military ones will separate and lose their clearances after 5 years, unless they get another job that renews it.

I think the point is that anyone with the time and resources to see the clearance process through probably isn't interested in janitorial work. Consider the opportunity cost of all those interviews and forms.

However the point about how there might be national secrets in the wastebasket is moronic - that is want shredders and burnbags are for.

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