Archive: September 2007
Secrets And Fines
Remember the story last summer about the $3 million fine recommended by the Department of Energy against the University of California, the contractor that ran Los Alamos? The proposed fine followed the discovery by investigators of more than 1,000 pages of classified documents and "several computer storage devices in...
By Robert O'Harrow | September 28, 2007; 1:15 PM ET | Comments (9)
Private Armies, Public Debate Redux
One of the most intense contracting stories of our time -- because it includes bullets, guns and money -- remains Blackwater USA's role in Iraq. Today, my colleagues Steve Fainaru and Sudarsan Raghavan report on more incredible details about the recent street battles fought between the quasi-military, US-based security...
By Robert O'Harrow | September 28, 2007; 6:20 AM ET | Comments (9)
Dry Runs And Dress Rehearsals
A house oversight panel held an interesting hearing last week about the troubled $1.2 billion worth of contracts at the Department of Homeland Security to buy radiation detectors known as Advanced Spectroscopic Portals. The focus of the hearing by the House Energy and Commerce investigations subcommittee was tests conducted...
By Robert O'Harrow | September 27, 2007; 6:09 AM ET | Comments (0)
Calling Telecom: Let's Begin The Overhaul
So it has begun. AT&T won the first Networx contract, a deal worth up to a $1 billion. This according to an AP story that said the Treasury Department wants a new IP-based telecommunications network. It appeared that the Department of Homeland Security had the lead as the first...
By Robert O'Harrow | September 26, 2007; 5:16 AM ET | Comments (0)
Billions And Billions
So it turns out that $6 billion worth of contracts to provide support for American warfighters in Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq -- twice as much as previously known -- are under review by a criminal investigator for evidence of fraud, waste and abuse. Those details emerged at a House...
By Robert O'Harrow | September 21, 2007; 7:02 AM ET | Comments (10)
Blowing The Whistle
The Senate has approved an expansion of whistleblower protections that would cover any employees working on Pentagon-related projects. The move Monday was an acknowledgement of a massive growth in procurement spending by the federal government in recent years -- a doubling to more than $400 billion since 2000 --...
By Robert O'Harrow | September 20, 2007; 7:07 AM ET | Comments (8)
Sun Sets At GSA
The decision by Sun Microsystems to cancel its contract to provide software and services to federal agencies through the GSA echoes through the government's leading procurement operation as an embarrassment of sorts. Naturally, that means reckoning what if any political pressures were brought to bear on Sun to bail...
By Robert O'Harrow | September 19, 2007; 5:05 AM ET | Comments (3)
Private Armies, Public Debate
Talk about a juicy contracting lead. "In the wake of a deadly shootout in downtown Baghdad, the Iraqi government on Monday said it had revoked the license of Blackwater USA, a prominent American private security company, setting up a confrontation with the U.S. government over who has the authority...
By Robert O'Harrow | September 18, 2007; 10:19 AM ET | Comments (0)
Working At Home II
Readers of Government Inc. yesterday may have noticed the name Stephen O'Keeffe, a public relations executive who also testifies before Congress as a specialist about issues that his clients want the world to notice. O'Keeffe had organized a "town hall" meeting about telecommuting, this time as organizer of a...
By Robert O'Harrow | September 14, 2007; 7:27 AM ET | Comments (0)
Working At Home
My colleague Steve Barr has column in today's paper that federal workers -- and hopefully a lot of other people -- will find interesting. First and foremost, it's interesting because Barr reports that General Services Administrator Lurita Doan threw her support unequivocally behind teleworking. That's a different way of...
By Robert O'Harrow | September 13, 2007; 5:34 AM ET | Comments (3)
Spending Spree
The government is in the middle of a spending spree. So what's the news? Everybody knows that agencies rush to use the money they have been appropriated before the end of the fiscal year. Officials have a "use it or lose it" mindset. As INPUT, the market research firm...
By Robert O'Harrow | September 12, 2007; 5:24 AM ET | Comments (6)
Entrepreneurial Bureaucracy
The General Services Administration's announcement of an overhaul of Assisted Acquisition Services raises some far-reaching questions about the procurement reforms of a decade ago. The acquisition services operation helps officials in other agencies buy things, for a special fee. It grew out of reforms in the 1990's that allowed...
By Robert O'Harrow | September 11, 2007; 7:06 AM ET | Comments (0)
The Fabric Of Life
The Justice Department is investigating whether a North Dakota properly manufactured Kevlar cloth that served as the key component in 2 million helmets sold to the military. I first heard about the investigation this summer. Several publications ran stories this summer. Though this has been sitting on my desk...
By Robert O'Harrow | September 7, 2007; 9:35 AM ET | Comments (0)
The Nuke Detection Beat Goes On
The to-and-fro on the Department of Homeland Security's $1.2 billion worth of contracts for new radiation detectors continues apparently. In an Aug. 30 memo, DHS under secretary Paul A. Schneider said Customs and Border Protection officials want two more months of testing before the department decides whether the machines...
By Robert O'Harrow | September 6, 2007; 6:42 AM ET | Comments (0)
Let The Networx Begin
First was the long wait. Then came then announcement this spring of the largest telecom deal in history. Now comes the money. In case you missed it, the giant Networx Universal contract will kick alive this fall, when the Department of Homeland Security begins accepting proposals for its OneNet...
By Robert O'Harrow | September 5, 2007; 6:26 AM ET | Comments (0)
