The Analysis Corporation (TAC) was the Intelligence Solutions business of Global Defense Technology & Systems, Inc. (GTEC), now Sotera Defense Solutions, a defense contracting company. Based in

McLean, Virginia McLean ( ) is an Unincorporated area#United States, unincorporated community and census-designated place in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. The population of the community was 50,773 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is ...

, it is a

wholly owned subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company, or daughter company is a company completely or partially owned or controlled by another company, called the parent company or holding company, which has legal and financial control over the subsidiary company. Unl ...

of Global Strategies Group (North America) Inc., the operating company of GTEC. From its inception in 1990 to its dissolution in 2012, TAC worked on projects in the

counterterrorism Counterterrorism (alternatively spelled: counter-terrorism), also known as anti-terrorism, relates to the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, law enforcement, businesses, and Intelligence agency, intelligence ...

and national security realm by supporting national watchlisting activities as well as other counterterrorism requirements.

History

TAC was founded in 1990 by Cecilia nmi Hayes, previous owner and partner in Analytic Methods Inc. (AMI) and current owner of TAC Commercial Services (TCS) and Nations Home Group. In 2004, TAC was purchased by SFA and maintained as a wholly owned subsidiary. Ms. Hayes remained president of TAC into 2005. In November 2005, John O. Brennan was appointed president and CEO of TAC. Mr. Brennan was the former interim director of the

National Counterterrorism Center The National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) is a United States government organization responsible for national and international counterterrorism efforts. It is based in Liberty Crossing in McLean, Virginia. The NCTC advises the United States ...

and a 25-year veteran of the CIA. In January 2009, Brennan was selected by President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

to serve in his administration as Homeland Security Adviser and Deputy National Security Adviser for Counterterrorism. Due to his strong ties to TAC, he required a special ethics waiver in order to lead the investigation into the intelligence failures surrounding the Underwear Bomber terrorist attack. In March 2013, Brennan was appointed director of the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

. Following Brennan's departure in October 2008 as advisor to then-presidential candidate Barack Obama, Alexander Drew became the acting president of TAC. Drew was named president in January 2009 and remained through February 2012, when TAC was dissolved and assimilated into Sotera Defense Solutions, formerly SFA, Global Strategies Group (North America), and GTEC.

Cooperation

GTEC's Intelligence Solutions business, which is staffed by other former senior officials from the Intelligence community, operates within almost every entity in the Intelligence Community including the

US Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or simply the State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs o ...

Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior, home, or public security ministries in other countries. Its missions invol ...

(DHS),

Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

(FBI), and

Defense Intelligence Agency The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is an intelligence agency and combat support agency of the United States Department of Defense (DoD) specializing in military intelligence. A component of the Department of Defense and the United States In ...

(DIA).

Key areas

Prior to

9/11 The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

, TAC was instrumental in providing pattern recognition and data mining software applications that served as the basis for the US Government's original terrorist watchlist database called TIPOFF. In 2003, TAC assisted the Government in standing up the Terrorist Screening Center (TSC) the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC), and its successor, the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). Key practice areas included intelligence and Federal Law Enforcement support for terrorist screening,

watchlist Watchlist or watch list may refer to: * Watchlist (NGO), the Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, a non-governmental organization * Watchlist (wiki), a tool for monitoring changes on wikis * Interpol Terrorism Watch List, a list of fugitive ...

development and operations;

intelligence analysis Intelligence analysis is the application of individual and collective cognitive methods to weigh data and test hypotheses within a secret socio-cultural context. The descriptions are drawn from what may only be available in the form of delibera ...

;

systems integration System integration is defined in engineering as the process of bringing together the component sub-systems into one system (an aggregation of subsystems cooperating so that the system is able to deliver the overarching functionality) and ensuring ...

and

software development Software development is the process of designing and Implementation, implementing a software solution to Computer user satisfaction, satisfy a User (computing), user. The process is more encompassing than Computer programming, programming, wri ...

; multilingual name search; and pattern matching. It was awarded over $400m in government contracts since 2000, including some $30.6m in 2007, $19.5m in 2008, and $150m in 2009. Customers included the

Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or simply the State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs ...

, National Targeting Center (NTC), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), National Security Agency (NSA), Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), NCTC, TSC, and the FBI.

Passport info scandal

In early 2008 TAC found itself in the midst of a scandal when a State Department spokesman revealed that a TAC contractor, formerly a retired State Department employee, gained unauthorized access on March 14 to the passport records for Barack Obama and

John McCain John Sidney McCain III (August 29, 1936 – August 25, 2018) was an American statesman and United States Navy, naval officer who represented the Arizona, state of Arizona in United States Congress, Congress for over 35 years, first as ...

. The TAC employee, who has not been named, is the only individual to have accessed both Obama's and McCain's passport information without proper authorization, a State Department spokesman said. The employee's actions triggered an electronic alarm system, according to sources familiar with the probe. TAC strongly disavowed the employee's actions in a subsequent press release.

References

External links