The pentagon is asking Congress to authorize an undercover operation for the US military aimed at the surveilling the overseas civilian sector.
“The conflict with al-Qaeda and its affiliates, and other developments, have required the regular conduct of small-scale clandestine military operations to prepare the battlefield for military operations against terrorists and their sponsors,” the Pentagon said in its proposal to Congress, Inside Defense reported.
The US Department of Defense (DoD) asked Congress to revise its legal authorities and allow America’s undercover units to send spies into the offices of foreign military contractors.
This would mean that the spies posing as businessmen would be sent by the Pentagon into the industry to conduct clandestine operations.
Seeking more power in overseas intelligence work, the US Defense Department wants to be able to use clandestine operations, which mean it could keep the country’s sponsorship of the program a secret, and deny the existence of the mission entirely.
The Pentagon also proposed that the authority for overseeing human spying be given to the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, instead of the US Defense Intelligence Agency.
Currently serving as the US Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, Michael Vickers is one of the Pentagon’s leading advocates of the transformation of special operations forces into elite intelligence operatives.
“Expansion of this authority is necessary to permit DoD to conduct revenue-generating commercial activities to protect such operations and would provide an important safeguard for US military forces conducting hazardous operations abroad,” the Pentagon added.
Meanwhile, critics say that sending spies into the civilian sectors would open up a new foreign front for US operations and it could expose innocent workers to the dangerous world of international warfare.
——Agencies