Outlaw outsourcing of intelligence work

Re “Spy Agencies Outsourcing to Fill Key Jobs,” Sept. 17

The article about U.S. spy agencies outsourcing jobs to private contractors fails to mention the worst problem with this practice: These contractors are immune from the regulation and oversight that prevent our government employees from committing horrible human rights abuses. They are free to kidnap or torture anyone they want. The brilliant minds in the Bush administration have created a private Gestapo of rogue agents, mercenaries and hit men whose allegiance is not to the United States but to the U.S. dollar.

This is far worse than just another failed Republican experiment in privatization; it is a treasonous abrogation and dereliction of duty.

STEVE WELLER

Encinitas

*

Outsourcing spy agency work? We have already outsourced much of the Iraq war. And, before that, we effectively outsourced the Afghanistan war to local warlords, which may have allowed Osama bin Laden to escape to relative safety.

D.A. PAPANASTASSIOU

San Marino