The Spy Who Billed Me: CIA Rendition Team more like Austin Powers than Bond

About

About R J Hillhouse

Dr. Hillhouse has run Cuban rum between East and West Berlin, smuggled jewels from the Soviet Union and slipped through some of the world’s tightest borders. From Uzbekistan to Romania, she's been followed, held at gunpoint and interrogated. Foreign governments and others have pitched her for recruitment as a spy. (They failed.)

A former professor and Fulbright fellow, Dr. Hillhouse earned her Ph.D. in political science at the University of Michigan. Her latest novel, OUTSOURCED (Forge Books) is about the turf wars between the Pentagon and the CIA and the privatization of national security.

Dr. Hillhouse is an expert on national security outsourcing. Her controversial work has twice elicited a formal response by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence--the only times that office has ever publicly responded to the writings of a private citizen.

She is a regular media guest and available for interviews.

R J Hillhouse in the News

Dr. Hillhouse is quoted in Reuters UK story about Blackwater USA.

Forbes calls R J Hillhouse "The Tom Clancy of the corporate military and intelligence age."

Article by Dr. Hillhouse "Outsourcing National Intelligence The Nation: Private Corporations Are Now Able To Insert Their Agendas Into President's Briefings"

"The investigative blogger RJ Hillhouse...regularly breaks news on the clandestine world of private contractors and US intelligence..."
--The Guardian [U.K.]

"Author R.J. Hillhouse caused a stir in Washington last month when she revealed more than 50 percent of the National Clandestine Service has been outsourced to private firms. Now Hillhouse has exposed private companies are heavily involved in the nation's most important and most sensitive national security document – the President's Daily Brief."
Link to transcript of nationally syndicated TV interview wtih Dr. Hillhouse and streaming video

Article by Dr. Hillhouse breaking the story on contractor involvement in the President's Daily Brief
"Outsourcing Intelligence"

Dr. Hillhouse's controversial opinion piece that was one of the most emailed and blogged about on the Washington Post website: "Who Runs the CIA?"

The Associate Director of National Intelligence responds to Dr. Hillhouse's WaPo piece and Dr. Hillhouse responds by pointing out how we've been hearing these same tired excuses for Intelligence Community failings for years.

"We asked 12 notable figures--in fields from showbiz to politics--what they consider to have been the riskiest moves of their lives....But as far as life-threatening adventures go, R.J. Hillhouse, author of the new intelligence thriller Outsourced, may have them all beat."
--Forbes

"Hillhouse creates vivid images of stark violence and high emotions that amplify her strongest gift: the ability to depict an utter lack of morality both in and out of Baghdad's Green Zone. " "[Outsourced] is the political thriller we deserve."
--Los Angeles Times

"...intelligence blogger R.J. Hillhouse used functions in PowerPoint to uncover the figures entered in a spreadsheet to generate the graph.... Using these figures, Hillhouse estimated that the intelligence budget for fiscal year 2006 was closer to $60 billion, nearly 25 percent higher than the $45-48 billion figure typically projected."
--UPI

UPI analysis piece on Dr. Hillhouse's reverse-engineering of the national intelligence budget

"Author R. J. Hillhouse... runs an unusual blog on security and intelligence called The Spy Who Billed Me. She is both skeptical and sympathetic toward private military contractors." --The New York Times

"R.J. Hillhouse, who operates a website about military outsourcing, scored an interview with Gary Jackson, president of Blackwater USA." --LA Times Online

"The Spy Who Billed Me, la pÃ¡gina que ha destapado el dato, sugiere a la oficina gubernamental que del dinero presupuestado para los gastos de la DIA contrate a alguien con conocimientos suficientes para manejar adecuadamente el software para presentaciones, alguien que no revele datos reservados a las primeras de cambio."
--El Pais [Madrid]

Also featured in:

Kudos

"This gripping blog is filled with compelling posts on private intel corporations, mercenaries, the CIA, and the War on Terror."
--TypePad.com

Contact RJH

Add RJH as a MySpace friend.

Rent-A-SEAL

Rent-A-Lobbyist

Blog Roll

Search this blog!

WWW
TheSpyWhoBilledMe.com

Web Stuff

OUTSOURCED.

Copyright Notice

« Blackwater reaches for the Starr | Main | The Hired Gun Who Couldn't Shoot Straight »

November 01, 2006

CIA Rendition Team more like Austin Powers than Bond

The UK's Guardian newspaper has a delightful article on the CIA rendition team's taste for luxury and comical tradecraft--as in making sure they got point in customer loyalty programs for CIA-sponsored stays in luxury hotels, etc.

Bring on the frequent flier miles, baby. Groovy.

The article draws from the work of the British Journalist Stephen Grey who has released a new book in the UK on rendition flights. The anecdotes are fun, but nothing that the Neue Zürcher Zeitung hasn't already reported.

Posted by R J Hillhouse on November 01, 2006 in CIA | Permalink

Technorati Tags: Austin Powers, CIA, James Bond, rendition

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83452150569e200d835241d6353ef

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference CIA Rendition Team more like Austin Powers than Bond:

Comments

The comments to this entry are closed.

OUTSOURCED

Acknowledgements

A tip of the hat to investigative journalist Tim Shorrock who inspired the name of this blog with his path-breaking 2005 article, "The Spy Who Billed Me."

Shorrock has a dedicated web page on outsourcing in intel. It links to many of his articles which are must-reads for anyone interested in the privatization of intelligence.

The Spy Who Billed Me