Growing number of foreign companies do defense- and DHS-related work
The U.S. government wants to make the flight restrictions around Washington, D.C. permanent; critics charge that these restrictions add little to security while doing much harm to local businesses
The debate over the Dubai Ports World has served to illustrate a growing trend: Ever larger portions of the U.S. market are foreign owned — and this includes areas with sensitive security and homeland security connections. At least 98 foreign-owned firms have agreements with the Pentagon which allow them access to classified government programs, up from 58 a decade ago, according to the Defense Security Service, the office of the Pentagon which oversees companies that do classified work. Contracting experts say that the trend toward a more pronounced presence of foreign companies will continue because of the need for the best technology. Examples of foreign companies’ involvement in sensitive security work: An Italian-owned firm is designing the president’s new helicopter; a French firm is making the new radios for U.S. Special Operations Forces; at the Chesapeake Innovation Center, an Annapolis incubator for homeland security companies which has the National Security Agency among its partners, five of the twenty-four companies it has assisted were based overseas.
The Defense Security Service would not release the names of the foreign-owned companies with access to classified information. The agency did provide a list of their eighteen home nations. The list includes nine nations that are part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, such as France and Britain; all but four — Australia, Bermuda, Israel, and Singapore — are European.
Foreign-owned or controlled companies that work with classified information are subject to a special set of rules. The firms must set up U.S. subsidiaries with separate boards which include members approved by the Defense Department. The subsidiaries must have their own e-mail systems and network servers and must fully document communications with employees of the parent company. U.S. citizens must be involved in key roles and are the only individuals who can be cleared to have access to classified material. David Dempsey, a partner with Holland & Knight LLP who helps foreign companies comply with Pentagon regulations, says it can take up to nine months and cost as much as $600,000 to comply.
-read more in Ellen McCarthy’s Washington Post report
