Homeland Security Partnership Promoted by New Business Council – Border Lines
Private contracting by DHS – averaging more than $12 billion annually – now forms a fundamental part of a new national security complex comprising corporations with major intelligence, military, and homeland security divisions.
One sign of this broadened public-private partnership is the Homeland Security & Defense Business Council, which was created in 2004. The council says that it provides “a forum among the leading private-sector companies and senior federal government homeland security leaders to implement the administrative and legislative landscape dictated by the creation of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.”
Most of its members are traditional military contractors, including such corporations as Lockheed Martin, L-3 Communications, Northrup Grumman, Raytheon, and SAIC.
Marc Pearl, the business council’s president and CEO, told Congress that the council fosters the public-private partnership in Homeland Security because this “partnership provides our government with the ability to access the best solutions and capabilities to achieve mission success – a safer and more secure nation.”
