Top NSA Official Has a Lucrative Side-Business

By Murtaza Hussain, The Intercept

20 October 14

new report suggests that a high-ranking NSA official may have a profitable side-gig in the “electronics” business.

Last month a Buzzfeed’s Aram Roston published a story documenting potential self-dealing by the head NSA’s Signals Intelligence Directorate, Teresa O’Shea. O’Shea happens to be married to the Vice President of DRS Signal Solutions – a company which circumstantial evidence suggests was the beneficiary of significant contracting work from the agency.

Now, it looks as though in addition to her work at the NSA, O’Shea might be a successful businessperson in her own right:

“Yet another company, apparently focused on the office and electronics business, is based at the Shea residence on that well-tended lot. This company is called Oplnet LLC.

Teresa Shea, who has been at the NSA since 1984, is the company’s resident agent. The company’s articles of organization….show that the firm was established in 1999 primarily “to buy, sell, rent and lease office and electronic equipment and related goods and services.

Records show Oplnet does own a six-seat airplane, as well a condominium property with an assessed value of $275,000 in the resort town of Hilton Head, South Carolina.”

O’Shea’s company has apparently procured a “1972 Beechcraft Bonanza aircraft” which for some reason has been flying all over the country over the past several years. It’s unclear what these flights have been about, but the destinations include Hilton Head, where the condominium is located and which BuzzFeed conspicuously describes as a “resort town.” As of now there is no evidence that O’Shea’s company has done work for the federal government.

The NSA declined to comment to Buzzfeed about this story. But with the potential suggestion of high-level corruption in the agency, it’s clear that that some answers are going to be needed. After all, if top NSA officials are apparently spending their time running secret side-businesses, it’s going to be difficult for them to focus on their day jobs of spying on American citizens and eroding the country’s civil liberties.