Crooks target National Security Agency: Intelligence agency repeatedly scammed

The Baltimore Sun reports:

For 11 years, prosecutors say, William Turley and two of his children used their Maryland manufacturing business to brazenly bill nearly $1.5 million in overcharges to a single customer: the National Security Agency.

The scam, described in a federal indictment, seems a foolish venture; after all, the NSA is the intelligence agency that helped find Osama bin Laden. Even more surprising — the scam is not unique.

The Turleys, who all pleaded not guilty this month in Baltimore's U.S. District Court, are just the latest in a string of people prosecuted by the Maryland U.S. attorney's office for similar crimes involving non-classified work for the NSA, records show.

The year 2006 was particularly rough: At least nine people were defrauding the nation's chief secret-keeper in three separate schemes.

"If it wasn't so sad it would be very funny," said Matthew M. Aid, author of "The Secret Sentry: The Untold History of the National Security Agency."

"This stuff goes on all the time. NSA is just so awash in money, and it has so few people who actually know how to manage programs" that the agency becomes a target for crooks, he said.

Ready for ObamaCare???