Random question that popped up and I couldn’t seem to find a good answer online…
How is it that foreign-based companies can do classified work? That has to be a corporate management and logistical nightmare, right?
Take CGI for example. Huge IT services company that does plenty of classified work. They’re a Canadian-based company, so not exactly a “red flag” country, but still begs the question of how this happens.
The Five Eyes agreement probably helps.
Ahh, that’s an interesting point. I know it enables the sharing of intelligence, but I wonder if it would further enable foreign companies or the governments involved in the treaty to perform intelligence work on behalf of one another.
My observations for this instance is they create a separate division with a “firewall” between that subcompany or division and the main company.
The Securitas contract to provide background investigators is an example of this action.
BAE Systems has been around for a while as well. I am sure some of us have even worked for them.
There’s a company called Cobham which is a UK company that does a lot of Defense work. They actually engineered some kind of deal where they sold themselves to some US-based holding company so they could go after even more US defense business.