Teresa Shea used to be the National Security Agency’s director of signals intelligence, plus the wife of an executive in the business of selling things to agencies like hers, plus the host of a home-based signals intelligence business, plus the owner, via yet another business, of a six-seat airplane and resort-town condo.
She’s going to have to drop the first arrangement. After controversy in the press about her apparent conflicts of interests, Shea is stepping down from the NSA, according to Buzzfeed’s Aram Roston.
Roston, who has been diligently documenting Shea’s family businesses, revealed last month that the director’s husband was vice president at a signals intelligence contractor that appeared to be working for, or bidding to work for, the NSA. The same husband was also linked to a signals intelligence-related company registered at the couple’s home. Then last week Roston showed that Shea herself had evidently incorporated an obscure business in her name that nonetheless owned its own airplane and condominium in Hilton Head. All of this came while Shea was serving at the highest levels in one of the most significant divisions within the NSA.
All the NSA would tell BuzzFeed is that Shea’s exit from her role was routine and long planned — “well before recent news articles” — and that she would remain employed in some capacity.
Shea is not the only high-ranking current or former NSA official coming under scrutiny for their financial dealings. Former agency director Keith Alexander was engaged in commodity trading linked to countries such as Russia and China — countries upon which the NSA spied heavily — while he was working at the agency.
As documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden have shown, the NSA was keenly interested in economic espionage. One would hope that the people entrusted with gathering such information would adhere to some basic standards of ethical conduct in their own financial dealings.
Photo: Win Mcnamee/Getty Images
eh ? anyone recall lois lerner and those missing emails ? ssssssshhhh no one knows where they went OR EXACTLY WHAT WAS CONTAINED within–right ?
now Y couldn’t the NSA have been CALLED to assist ?
pppssssst spread IT AROUND-NoSuchAgency is all NSA stands for.
more bs and everyone KNOWS what BS stands for.
The next big question is whether people at the NSA have been involved in stealing cryptocurrency wallets.
Some major thefts would not have been technologically possible without a class of information available only through government surveillance.
It seems, relevant. Let’s acknowledge and agree to the position, and abide by the law, seems relevant. Let’s agree, and continue. Response awaited. Accepted.
It seems, you don’t know the proper use of a comma and are unable to form a coherent sentence. Let’s acknowledge and agree, based on this and your several other incoherent posts and tiresome “let’s act as if” verbiage, that you’re more or less…a fool, seems reasonable. Let’s agree, and continue to ignore you. Except in this case. Response given. Accepted.
“Adhere to some basic ethical standards”
I had regain my composure, before I could respond to this article.
From the perspective of the Five Eyes Alliance, and the governments of these nations, “basic ethical standards”, are for the peasants, the 99.9%ters.
The Plutocracy, meaning the .01%ters, use the Five Eyes Alliance, purely for commercial purposes, and on occasion will report some “success”, in preventing some nefarious activity, to keep the peasants believing the fiction.
“One would hope that the people entrusted with gathering such information would adhere to some basic standards of ethical conduct in their own financial dealings.”
– what kind of sleazy innuendo is that??
What has happened to America.
Progressive Democrats should be ashamed.
Just one more example of the truism that the primary purpose of government is the looting of the governed.
Murtaza – you spelled the lady’s name wrong, again…
Does The Intercept have an editor?
Darn that means she’s going to make enough to afford the w.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/world/united-nations-reports-7-billion-humans-but-others-dont-count-on-it.html?_r=0 eyes in the back of her head and phreak repellent , and her respect from her inside industry colleageu army will still stand by her/them even if they are told they could have all participated in htw.investorideas.com/NS/ and not lost the live deadly fire ones?
Darn that means she’s going to make enough to afford the http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/world/united-nations-reports-7-billion-humans-but-others-dont-count-on-it.html?_r=0 eyes in the back of her head and phreak repellent , and her respect from her inside industry colleageu army will still stand by her/them even if they are told they could have all participated in http://www.investorideas.com/NS/ and not lost the live deadly fire ones?
I just read the MnClatchey DC link you provided in your article and I quote, “The CIA should not face it’s past with a redaction pen, and the white house should not allow it to do so, said Udall, who called the CIA program “brutal and ineffective.””
What slapped me in the face were the last three words of the quote. It’s as if there are people who can actually get past the brutality part if it proves effective. Who are these people? Please tell me you don’t let them out of their cages and just wander around perhaps at night or on weekends. I’ve heard these attempts at justification before but this time it finally struck home. My God, people, what kind of monsters have been created by this perpetual war mentality with “terrorists” behind every bush? They(the monsters) actually were able to spark debate on the effectiveness of torture and the consequent justification that would allow. Once again.WOW
Sorry for the rant. Cross posted from Dan’s article. Good article, by the way.
Conflict of interest, torture, drone-striking innocents, gunning down black people in the street, dirty wars, security fraud, economic espionage…
No one punishes the establishment with imprisonment for these things, for the establishment is above the law.
If only this were a nation of laws which applied to all.
Thank you for the rant. In my present position as target, with the perpertrators in my condo, I had begun to believe that all that was left is monsters. Your rant reassures me that some humans remain among the sociopaths.
Conflict of interest in these situations is more than mildly unethical, but American media and much of the brainwashed populace calls these wretched people ‘successes’ and ‘go-getters.’
Until the culture changes from being in awe of the corruptions of greed, massive vanity and intimidating force – until the US rejects these (ha ha) – the avoidable nightmare of egotism (with its ensuing inequalities and indifference toward the powerless) will go on. And on. And on.
“One would hope that the people entrusted with gathering such information would adhere to some basic standards of ethical conduct in their own financial dealings.”
Yes, one would hope, and I would hope many more. There’s a flaw in that hope when one considers that these are all part of a ruling clique who are responsible for setting the standards to which those entrusted should adhere. While I don’t expect any real change in the self enriching climate that pervades the ruling class, thanks for pointing this one out and please keep it up. I’ll keep talking if you keep typing. Just kidding, I’d keep talking anyway.
NSA can watch you take a bath through you smart phone camera but they didn’t know what their own director of SIGINT was up to?
And should we act all surprised when hearing she’s accepted a job like Michael Hayden’s for 10 to 20 times what she made at the NSA…?
Pfffft…