Lockheed Martin, the giant weapons corporation, is doing more than supplying our government with nuclear weapons and combat aircrafts; it’s shadowing your every move. Although the company seems only interested in government contracts ($36 billion in 2008), they are involved with over two dozen government agencies such as the FBI, CIA, and even train the friendly Transportation Security Administration agents who pat us down at the airport. Because of the vast involvement within the government, this powerful military contractor knows a lot more about our lives than we think.
According to William D. Hartung, the director of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation, “… Lockheed Martin is now involved in nearly every interaction you have with the government. Paying your taxes? Lockheed Martin is all over it. The company is even creating a system that provides comprehensive data on every contract taxpayers have with theirs from phone calls to face-to-face meetings. Want to stand up and be counted by the US Census? Lockheed Martin will take care of it. The company runs three centers—in Baltimore, Phoenix, and Jeffersonville, Indiana—that processed up to 18 tractor-trailers full of mail per day at the height of the 2010 Census count. For $500 million it is developing the Decennial Response Information Service (DRIS), which will collect and analyze information gathered from any source, from phone calls or the Internet to personal visits.”
“Plan on committing a crime? Think twice. Lockheed Martin is in charge of the FBI’s Integrated Automatic Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS), a database of 55 million sets of fingerprints. The company also produces biometric identification devices that will know who you are by scanning your iris, recognizing your face, or coming up with novel ways of collecting your fingerprints or DNA.” The amount of government involvement and personal knowledge of Lockheed Martin seems excessive. Not to mention the company’s involvement with the National Security Agency, America’s largest spy outfit; in which Hartung accurately described the company as our “twenty-first century big brother.”
Title: Is Lockheed Martin Shadowing You?
Publication: MotherJones.com, January 12th, 2011
Author: William D. Hartung
URL: http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/01/lockheed-martin-shadowing-you
Faculty Evaluator: Noel Byrne, Sonoma State University
Student Researcher: Taylor Falbisaner, Sonoma State Unniversity