What if I told you there was a company in America that has access to everything about you: what you buy, where you drive, what you eat, what you say, where you work, what you watch, and whether or not that thing you picked up at CVS was a pregnancy test? (and store brand too, you cheap bastard)
You’d think I’m crazy.
That’s besides the point of this discussion, and I’d appreciate it if you’d keep your dirty hands off my mattress wallpaper.
Also, this company is secretive. The most secretive company in the country.
I don’t just use that as an adjective either: half their workforce has top-secret security clearances with the U.S. government.
And most surprising—you can buy stock in this company right now.
So what is this mysterious organization? And why does it sound like a pillow fort I once put together that said “NO GIRLZ ALLOWD”? (still haven’t recovered from that discrimination lawsuit).
The company is Booz Allen Hamilton, and nobody outside of DC (comics) really knew who they were until it was revealed that Edward Snowden worked for them.
In “Edward Snowden’s Employer: 6 Shocking Facts About Booz Allen Hamilton”, T. Chase Meacham of PolicyMic heroically! takes the lid off this super secret, super cereal company.
The facts are as shocking as they are factual:
1. They Pay Well
Well, if they paid poorly, they wouldn’t be in business.
2. They’re Big
They have 24,500 employees, which is as many as Lowe’s Hardware hires on a seasonal basis.
3. Government Contracting Is Their Business
That’s right folks, a government contractor is in the business of government contracting.
4. They’re Working on Predictive Intelligence
SOUNDS SCARY. Until you listen to the description:
Among the group’s goals are “developing predictive intelligence services that include anticipatory cyber threat solutions, protection, and detection capabilities and the application of social media analytics designed to provide early identification of trends that would otherwise not be possible using after-the-fact analysis of traditional data sources.”
Yes, they check Twitter trends to prevent terrorist attacks. I don’t know why this is a big deal—if your number one job is to prevent a terrorist attack, you’d use any possible information necessary. But Meacham hysterically says:
In other words — they want to catch the bad guys before they do bad things. And they want to do it by leveraging social media (surprise, surprise).
The only shocking thing here is that Meacham thinks his readers are so stupid he has to call terrorists “the bad guys” who “do bad things”.
5. They’re Active in Washington
Yes, they’re located in a suburb of Washington, DC.
Booz Allen contributed $1.2 million in recent years to campaign finance, with $176,757 going to Barack Obama, $54,360 to Hillary Clinton, $51,951 to Mitt Romney, and $44,264 to John McCain. Fifty-five percent (55%) of their contributions went to Democratic candidates and causes, while 44% went to Republicans.
I love how the fact that they’re “active in Washington” is shocking, not the fact that they donated $54k to Hillary’s failed campaign. Also, in case you didn’t know, fifty-five percent equals (=) 55%.
6. They’re Distancing Themselves from Snowden
This is not shocking. What would’ve been shocking is if they didn’t.
He worked for them for 3 (three) months in Hawaii (HI), so you can hardly call him a veteran employee. In three months, most people’s bosses can’t even remember their name.
There’s nothing shocking about facts you could easily read in the first paragraph of a company’s Wikipedia article.
Meacham completely missed everything interesting about the company. He may as well have done an interview with their head of HR discussing her favorite brands of Chardonnay (but she’s totes more of a Skinnygirl drinker).
For instance: Booz Allen is a government contractor who works with nearly every government security agency—the NSA, the CIA, the Department of Homeland Security (which they helped build), every branch of the military, and the NRO (the National Reconnaissance Office, whose existence was not publicly acknowledged until 1992).
Therefore, they have access to more government intelligence than any private company in the world—because they work so intimately with government intelligence agencies.
But don’t worry, their intelligence (your sexts, the CVS receipt with credit card info, the footage of you fumbling with the “Summer’s Eve” package in the CVS parking lot) is perfectly secure. It’s not like someone’s going to make off with a bunch of hard drives and leak the data, then escape to Russia.
trust no bitch