The government pays AT&T to place its employees in drug-fighting units around the country. Those employees sit alongside Drug Enforcement Administration agents and local detectives
If the government pays your salary and you are embedded in the DEA, you are a government employee. Saying these people work for AT&T is patently absurd.
Exactly. People get so worked up about the technical distinctions, ones that are mostly drawn by the IRS for tax purposes, that they confuse the form for the function.
It is no different than Booz Hamilton "contractors" working on site at NSA and other TLAs. If the money comes from the government and you take direction from the government, even indirectly, you are an agent of the government.
If the government pays your salary and you are embedded in the DEA, you are a government employee. Saying these people work for AT&T is patently absurd.