According to a report released ahead of the 20th anniversary of 9/11, tech giants made billions through contracts with the US military and other government agencies during the so-called "war on terror." Since 2004, an explosion of government contracts with Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter has been documented, according to the "Big Tech Sells War" report released Thursday by three US campaign groups. According to the report, the tech companies' contracts were "primarily with agencies central to the War on Terror."
"From 2004 to today, Big Tech companies have seen a massive increase in federal demand for their services, particularly from the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security," the report stated. Since 2001, as the defence industry has become more digitised, demand for cloud computing and GPS software has increased significantly among US military and intelligence agencies. According to the report, which was a collaboration between the Action Center on Race and the Economy and social justice organisations LittleSis and MPower Change, the Department of Defense has spent $43.8 billion on Big Tech contracts since 2004.
Four of the top five Big Tech contracting agencies were "central to foreign policy or were established as a direct result of the Global War on Terror," according to the report. "Amazon and Microsoft, in particular, have made strides in recent years, with Amazon signing nearly five times as many federal contracts and subcontracts in 2019 as it did in 2015," according to the report.
According to the report, Microsoft benefited from a six-fold increase in defence contracts signed between 2016 and 2018 as a result of the Trump administration.
In the meantime, contracts with "traditional" military and defence contractors like Raytheon and Northrop Grumman have declined in recent years. The five Big Tech companies have been contacted for comment by AFP, but have yet to respond. The data for the report came from Tech Inquiry, an online tool that allows users to look up government contracts in the United States.
The tool only includes contracts with publicly available information, so the figures in the report are "very likely an underrepresentation," according to the report.
Meanwhile, the report's authors decried a "revolving door" phenomenon between Big Tech and US security agencies, in which former senior government officials go on to hold key positions at tech firms.