The private sector is the part of the economy which is owned by private groups, usually as a means of establishment for profit or non profit , rather than being owned by the government .
15-600: Western Goals Foundation was a private domestic intelligence agency active in the United States. It was founded in 1979 by Major General John K. Singlaub , the publisher and spy John H. Rees , and Congressman Larry McDonald . It went defunct in 1986 when the Tower Commission revealed it had been part of Oliver North 's Iran–Contra funding network. After the Watergate and COINTELPRO scandals of
30-697: A private foundation, Western Goals collected information about alleged subversives and passed the information to law enforcement officials, akin to a "mini- deep state ". According to former employees, agencies receiving information from Western Goals included the Drug Enforcement Administration , the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives , Federal Bureau of Investigation , Central Intelligence Agency , and police departments. John Rees and Larry McDonald joined with Major General Singlaub to form Western Goals in 1979. Each founder
45-446: Is wider, and the state places fewer constraints on firms. In countries with more government authority, such as China , the public sector makes up most of the economy. States legally regulate the private sector. Businesses operating within a country must comply with the laws in that country. In some cases, usually involving multinational corporations that can pick and choose their suppliers and locations based on their perception of
60-747: The Soviet Union were also publicized in Reader's Digest and by the Reagan administration . Western Goals was sued by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) after a police officer was caught adding information from the disbanded Los Angeles Police Department "Red Squad" to a related computer bulletin board system . Western Goals raised funds for the Nicaraguan Contras starting in 1983, after Congress banned
75-660: The U.S. government is conducting espionage in the War on Terror . Some $ 56 billion (USD) or 70% of the $ 80 billion national intelligence budget of the United States was in 2013 earmarked for the private sector according to The New York Times ' Tim Shorrock. Functions previously performed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA), and other intelligence agencies are now outsourced to private intelligence corporations. Private sector The private sector employs most of
90-620: The workforce in some countries. In private sector, activities are guided by the motive to earn money, i.e. operate by capitalist standards. A 2013 study by the International Finance Corporation (part of the World Bank Group ) identified that 90 percent of jobs in developing countries are in the private sector. In free enterprise countries, such as the United States , the private sector
105-898: The Reagan administration from providing U.S. support. A Contra brigade of 2,000 was named the Larry McDonald Task Force to honor the Western Goals co-founder, who had been killed in the Soviet downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 . Singlaub was an intermediary in Oliver North ’s illegal weapons network for the Contras. Officials of the foundation were questioned in the Iran-Contra hearings of 1986. The organization founded an offshoot, Western Goals (UK) , later
120-676: The United States. Rees set up a computer database to track suspected radicals, and wrote many of Western Goals' published reports about domestic subversives, terrorism and communist threats. People in law enforcement sometimes leaked derogatory intelligence to Western Goals, which Rees then published in newsletters, which in turn were entered into the Congressional Record by McDonald , which shielded him from libel . Western Goals would then cite McDonald's statements in its own public reports. Unverified reports by Western Goals accusing American pacifist groups of ties to communism and
135-906: The Western Goals Institute, which was briefly influential in British Conservative politics. Private intelligence agency A private intelligence agency ( PIA ) is a private sector (non-governmental) or quasi-non-government organization devoted to the collection, analysis, and exploitation of information, through the evaluation of public sources ( OSINT or Open Source INTelligence) and cooperation with other institutions. Some private intelligence agencies obtain information deceptively or through on-the-ground activities for clients. Private agencies have made their services available to governments as well as individual consumers; they have also sold their services to large corporations with an interest or investment in
150-425: The activity of Archimedes Group as practicing "information warfare". Former anti-corruption prosecutor Aaron Sayne said private intelligence is "an industry that's largely undocumented and has very flexible ethical norms" as agencies collect and use sensitive information "for one purpose on day one and some completely contradictory purpose on day two". The private intelligence industry has boomed due to shifts in how
165-644: The category (e.g. crime , disease , corruption , etc.) or the region (e.g. Middle East , Vietnam , Prague , etc.) or to investigate perceived threats such as environmental groups or human rights groups. Some private intelligence agencies use online perception management, social media influencing/manipulation campaigns, strategic disinformation (such as fake news production/propaganda production ), opposition research and political campaigns using social media and artificial intelligence such as Psy-Group , Cambridge Analytica and Black Cube . The Atlantic Council 's Digital Forensic Research Lab described
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#1732779653390180-454: The early 1970s, several laws were passed to restrict police intelligence gathering within political organizations and tried to make it necessary to demonstrate that a criminal act was likely to be uncovered by any intelligence gathering proposed. Many files on radicals, collected for decades, were ordered destroyed. The unintended effect of the laws was to privatize the files in the hands of 'retired' intelligence officers and their operatives. As
195-535: The environment than the minimum that is legally required of them. There can be negative effects from the private sector. In the early 1980s, the Corrections Corporation of America pioneered the idea of running prisons for a profit. Today, corporate-run prisons hold eight percent of America's inmates. Since it is from the private sector, their main priority is not rehabilitation, but profit. This has resulted in many human rights violations across
210-458: The regulatory environment, local state regulations have resulted in uneven practices within one company. For example, workers in one country may benefit from strong labour unions , while workers in another country have very weak laws supporting labour unions, even though they work for the same employer. In some cases, industries and individual businesses choose self-regulation by applying higher standards for dealing with their workers, customers, or
225-733: Was also a member of the World Anti-Communist League , the John Birch Society , and similar organizations. One of its principal sponsors was the Texan billionaire Nelson Bunker Hunt . The organization was based in a townhouse in Alexandria , Virginia . It also said it had offices in West Germany and Austria . A former employee told Politico in 2018 that more of its funding came from West Germany than
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