The CIA is offering operatives a chance to peddle their expertise to private companies on the side — a policy that gives financial firms and hedge funds access to the nation’s top-level intelligence talent.
In one case, these active-duty officers moonlighted at a hedge-fund consulting firm that wanted to tap their expertise in “deception detection,” the highly specialized art of telling when executives may be lying based on clues in a conversation.
The CIA defends the policy as a vital tool to prevent brain-drain at Langley, which has seen an exodus of highly trained, badly needed intelligence officers to the private sector, where they can easily double or even triple their government salaries. CIA officers who want to participate in it must first submit a detailed explanation of the type of work involved and get permission from higher-ups within the agency.
Close ties between active-duty and retired CIA officers at Business Intelligence Advisors, based in Boston, shows the degree to which CIA-style intelligence gathering techniques have been employed by hedge funds and financial institutions in the global economy.http://www.mediafreedominternational.org/2010/04/09/cia-moonlights-in-corporate-world/