Improving Government Oversight of Intelligence Contractors

Chapter 5 examines how, from the mid-2000s onwards, the executive and legislative branches of government made substantial efforts to palliate gaps in the accountability regime for intelligence contractors. This chapter sheds a more positive light on the relationship between intelligence accountability and outsourcing, and emphasizes the progress government accountability holders made in four main areas: government access to information on contractors, acquisition management, the definition of core government functions, and balancing the public and private components of the intelligence workforce.