Shadow Elite: The Spy Who Came in From... Wall Street?

By Janine R. Wedel Author, "Shadow Elite"
Huffington Post
Posted: February 4, 2010 09:05 AM

During the Cold War, we took it for granted that officers of the Central Intelligence Agency worked solely for the good of the USA -- or at least their version of the good. They were loyal first, last, and always only to one institution, the CIA.

Americans assumed that they had one boss, and one boss alone: the CIA director. But this week came a revelation that shakes that longstanding belief to the core.

Today, CIA officers are allowed to moonlight, and ply their espionage skills elsewhere in their free time.

I wish I could say this was a stunning revelation, but it is not. It is just the sort of dilution of loyalty, authority, and the government's "brain" that enables the top players of power and influence -- the shadow elite -- to serve their own agendas, rather than the public's, as they move seamlessly across government, business, think tank, and media organizations. In my new book Shadow Elite, I argue that this trend threatens our democracy, and often, even our security.

Here is what is detailed by reporter Eamon Javers, in his new book Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy: The Secret World of Corporate Espionage.

And it reads like a bit of farce from a John Le Carre novel, recast to 21st century Wall Street. Some active duty CIA officers, Javers reports, have been on the payroll of a company called BIA (deliberately named to resemble the CIA). For BIA, they reportedly practice "deception detection" to aid Wall Street companies and hedge funds in their business transactions. Like the TV series, "Lie To Me", in which a psychologist analyzes facial, body, and vocal expressions to ferret out who's lying and who's not in criminal investigations, these officers use their CIA training to read the cues that CEO's and market analysts unwittingly send off. They help clients, including Goldman Sachs, figure out if other executives are on the up-and-up when they tout the health of their company. It conjures up an absurd image of an elite, precision-trained spy, sitting and watching and scrutinizing.... business news on CNBC.

Continue reading here.