Barack Obama's campaign is eager to point out that they've been hitting on the PMC issue for a while now, citing press releases
as far back as September 20, plus
this one,
and this one, and
this one too.
Most of all, they emphasize that Obama introduced the
"Transparency and Accountability in Military and Security Contracting Act of 2007" back in February before this was a hot issue. The Act contains, among other things, a
provision to clarify the legal status of contract personnel and subject them to the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act.
This article available online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2007/10/obama-and-the-pmcs/46568/