Ashcroft Finds His Niche

Ex-Attorney General Helps Firms Get Homeland Security Deals.

Not long after leaving government Ashcroft finds his "niche." Founder of Ashcroft Group LLC, a "lucrative consulting company helping security and other firms find business with federal agencies. Federal spending on homeland security is expected to reach nearly $60 billion in fiscal 2007, according to the Office of Management and Budget."

Ashcroft's firm has 30 clients, many of which make products or technology aimed at homeland security, and about a third of which the firm has not disclosed, to protect client confidentiality. The firm also has equity stakes in eight client companies, a trend the company plans to continue as it gradually turns its focus toward venture capital.

Clients include : Nanodetex Corp. in New Mexico, which offers technology that can detect airborne pathogens such as anthrax or liquid explosives such as the type authorities say a group of terror suspects planned to use to blow up passenger jets between Britain and the United States. Nano was formerly MCL Technologies Corporation, a "homeland security technology company".

Exegy Inc., a Missouri firm that does high-speed data mining. Exegy was originally Data Search Systems Inc.

Innova Holdings Inc., a Florida company, makes software that can remotely command robots and drones, or unmanned vehicles, the sort that police borders or fly above the mountains and valleys of Pakistan and Afghanistan searching for al-Qaeda cells.

Dulles Research LLC, a small Northern Virginia firm that claims its technology can detect illicit networks like the group of men who went on to hijack four planes on Sept. 11, 2001. The firm says its technology detects the threat of terrorist behavior by analyzing people's actions -- not their identities, an effort to safeguard individuals' privacy. (Behavorial analysis, acting right.) Ashcroft also sits on the advisory board of Dulles Research.

ChoicePoint Inc., a data marketer that gathers public records and sells access to them. ChoicePoint, another Florida racket that has been in the news more than once.

Ashcroft, a Republican and former U.S. senator and Missouri governor, said there are "real reasons" why the government should not be in the business of warehousing information. "The private sector does a better job of maintaining and developing information," he said. So says Ashy who lost his senatorial bid in 2000 to a dead man, Mel Carnahan.

So you see folks, the government is creating jobs in the "private sector" – for their friends and friends of friends … 60 billion dollars worth. Let the dollars soar …. Like they never have before ….