The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) Blog

Your Thoughts on WikiLeaks' Disclosure of State Department Cables?

We've been hearing from a lot of people about the latest WikiLeaks disclosures, with strong feelings coming down on all sides of this complicated issue. Since the disclosures raise questions related to so much of POGO's work, we wanted to invite our readers' thoughts. I'm participating in a panel discussion on the WikiLeaks disclosures at Harvard's Nieman Foundation for Journalism next week, and want to make to take a thoughtful approach—so if you're reading this, I'd love to hear what you think.

To start things off, here are some of the questions we've been asked...

Are the WikiLeaks disclosures about blowing the whistle in the public interest?

While most agree that there should be far more transparency in government, and that, generally speaking, more information in the hands of the public can lead to a better informed citizenry, where should the lines be drawn?  

Did WikiLeaks cross one of those lines?

What should the role of motivation be in assessing this information? 

Should motivation matter at all? 

And what matters in the internet era?

News outlets and other organizations, such as POGO, grapple with questions like these all the time. The information can be valuable from a public policy perspective, even if the party can be aggrieved or have some sort of other self-interest in its disclosure. In the past, news outlets were a filter: they could turn down requests from sources to publish or add context. Now, massive amounts of information can be released to the world via sites like WikiLeaks, and done in an anonymous way.

Of course, there are plenty of other important questions surrounding this issue, and we plan to continue this conversation in the coming days. 

Please feel free to leave a comment or ask more questions here, or e-mail us at [email protected].

-- Danielle Brian

Morning Smoke: Pharmaceutical Company Ghostwrote Textbook Signed by NIH-Funded Researchers

Drug Maker Wrote Book Under 2 Doctors’ Names, Documents Say by Duff Wilson [The New York Times]

Administration orders review of classified information safeguards by Robert Brodsky [Government Executive]

The Race to Fix the Classification System by Steven Aftergood [Secrecy News]

SEC Eyed for Negligence in Enforcement Cases [Reuters]

Biden, Issa to discuss stimulus oversight by Ed O'Keefe [Federal Eye]

Holder Says Justice Department Probing Wall Street by Sara Forden and Jeff Bliss [Bloomberg]

Wiretaps Said to Widen Insider Trading Inquiry by Edward Wyatt [DealBook]

Setback in case against accused NSA leaker by Ellen Nakashima [The Washington Post]

Lawmakers take fight for F-35 engine to White House by Tony Capaccio [Bloomberg]

DOJ Inspector General Plans to Resign by David Ingram [The BLT: The Blog of the Legal Times]

 

Two New Podcasts: War Zone Watchdogs, Part I and II

We've just published two new podcasts on war zone watchdogs.

In the first of the two episodes, POGO staffers discuss our recent letter to President Obama raising questions about the effectiveness and independence of the State Department's de facto Inspector General, Ambassador Harold Geisel.

In the second of the two episodes, POGO staffers discuss a recent hearing in which the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), Arnold Fields, defended his record before critics in Congress. POGO, along with a bipartisan group of senators, has called for Fields' removal.

• Download part I of our discussion of war zone watchdogs
• Download part II of our discussion of war zone watchdogs
• Subscribe to POGO podcasts for free on iTunes
• POGO podcast RSS feed

-- Bryan Rahija

Image by Flickr user jschneid, used under Creative Commons License. 

Morning Smoke: Hill Gears Up for Oversight Onslaught

Battles Loom as Hill Gets Set for Oversight Investigations by Eliza Newlin Carney [National Journal]

SEC switches to undercover tactics by Brooke Masters [Financial Times]

FDA Official Retires Amid Inquiry by Alicia Mundy [The Wall Street Journal]

Ethics Group Says DOJ is Withholding Public Records by David Ingram [The Blog of the Legal Times]

GAO: Uranium Processing Facility faces cost, schedule and technical challenges by Katherine McIntire Peters [Government Executive]

VA advisor draws GOP fire over consulting fees by Andrew Zajac [Los Angeles Times]

Obama administration gives billions in stimulus money without environmental safeguards by Kristen Lombardi and John Solomon [The Washington Post and Center for Public Integrity]

Industry's Payments to NIH's Medical Researchers May Be Hidden No Longer

To borrow a phrase taken from Dr. Samuel Johnson, privacy may be the last refuge of a scoundrel. Some federally funded medical researchers have managed for years to keep their financial arrangements with drug companies hidden from the public and often hidden from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the source of their funding. In a few notorious cases, investigative reporters or Members of Congress and their staff have blasted through the wall of privacy, set up by medical schools and other institutions —with the approval of the NIH—to hide the finances of their faculty (see, for example, here and here), discovering private interests that could have conflicted with research in the public interest paid for by taxpayers.  

Now all that may be coming to an end. The leaders of the NIH may be ready to insist that medical researchers around the country, if funded by the NIH, disclose publicly what has been hidden up to now: their financial arrangements with private companies—arrangements that may sometimes compromise the reliability of their research.

POGO continues to press NIH leaders to require these public disclosures. Last week, POGO urged NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins to ensure that a final rule requiring the disclosures includes a requirement that the disclosures be publicly available in a single, searchable database.

Department of Justice Announces Fraud Recovery Numbers for FY 2010

The Department of Justice just made its annual announcement of fraud recoveries under the False Claims Act for the previous fiscal year. The Department of Justice claims it secured $3 billion in civil settlements and judgments in cases involving fraud against the government. (As Taxpayers Against Fraud (TAF) likes to point out, Justice’s annual total is an underestimate because it does not include criminal fines or state portions of Medicaid settlements.) According to Justice, the total amount it has recovered since 1986 now stands at more than $27 billion.

More than 80 percent of last year’s recoveries—$2.5 billion—involved fraud in government health care programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. In fact, according to TAF, all of the top ten False Claims Act settlements in FY 2010 involved health care fraud; eight involved fraud committed by pharmaceutical companies, including Novartis, one of the contractors in POGO’s Federal Contractor Misconduct Database. 

Other notable False Claims Act settlements from FY 2010 involving contractors in our database:

Morning Smoke: "Top Kill" Doomed from Start Due to Bad Spill Estimates

Spill Fix Doomed to Fail by Siobahn Hughes [The Wall Street Journal]

House Dems press Interior to finish probe over fears of second Gulf spill by Darren Goode [The Hill]

Hedge Funds Raided in Probe by Susan Pulliam, Michael Rothfeld and Jenny Strasburg [The Wall Street Journal]

Report: Nuclear weapon drivers sometimes got drunk by Frederic Frommer [Associated Press]

Whistleblower Group Slams SEC Proposal for New Bounty Program by Aruna Viswanatha [Main Justice]

The Wall Street snitch pitch by David Hilzenrath [The Washington Post]

Multitudes of lobbyists weigh in on Dodd-Frank Act by Amanda Becker [The Washington Post]

DOJ: Record-Breaking Year for False Claims Act Recoveries by Mike Scarcella [The Blog of Legal Times]

All That Pharma Fraud Fills The US Treasury by Ed Silverman [Pharmalot]

Massachusetts Debuts Website On Doc Payments by Ed Silverman [Pharmalot]

Let's Get Small: SBA Puts GTSI Co-Conspirators in Contracting Time Out

Last week, the Small Business Administration (SBA) suspended EG Solutions and MultimaxArray FirstSource, temporarily barring the two companies from bidding on new federal contracts.

The two companies are alleged to have been part of contracting schemes carried out by information technology firm GTSI Corporation. As you might recall from last month, GTSI was briefly suspended from federal contracting by the SBA based on allegations that it defrauded the small business contracting program by forming sham subcontracting arrangements with legitimate small companies.

The suspension letters received by MultimaxArray FirstSource and EG Solutions are posted here and here.

EG Solutions is a subsidiary of Eyak Corp., an Alaska native corporation (ANC) eligible for preferential treatment for small and/or disadvantaged contractors. MultimaxArray FirstSource is a small business joint venture between Harris Corp. and Array Information Technology. GTSI, which is not eligible to compete for small business contracts, is alleged to have done just that through secret arrangements with both companies on the Department of Homeland Security’s $3 billion FirstSource contract to supply DHS with information technology products and services.

GTSI’s suspension was lifted after less than three weeks when the company made a deal with the government that included firing two top executives and agreeing to implement various ethics reforms. Days later, GTSI struck gold as one of 46 companies that won a piece of a $30 billion FBI information technology contract.

In the midst of this increased vigilance on the part of SBA, some Members of Congress are trying to rein in the controversial ANC program. Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Representative Bennie Thompson (D-MS) have introduced bills that would restrict the preferential treatment afforded to ANCs, which are able to receive sole-source contracts of unlimited value (all other small and/or disadvantaged businesses are limited to sole-source awards worth up to $3.5 million, or $5.5 million in the case of manufacturing contracts). POGO has long detailed the abuses in this program, namely ANCs being used as “pass-throughs” to benefit large, non-ANC companies.

-- Neil Gordon

See also:

• Contracting Timeout for GTSI Corporation
• GTSI Is Back In Business: SBA Lifts Suspension of Major Contractor
• IG Report Blasts Contracting Privileges for Alaska Native Corporations
• Latest SBA Audit Finds Abuses in Alaska Native Corporation Contracts
• GTSI's profile in POGO's Federal Contractor Misconduct Database

More Secrecy Surrounding TSA Case?

Recently we wrote an article about how the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) has invoked “sensitive security information” in an effort to seal former Federal Air Marshal Manuel V. Alcaraz’s employment case before the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). As it turns out, the federal government may not be the only entity that has invoked secrecy.

Alcaraz filed a formal complaint with the city of Brea Police Department in California. The Brea PD’s investigation of a parking lot dispute started a chain reaction that led to his dismissal by TSA. In the dispute, Alcaraz allegedly “pushed on” a woman’s arm, according to a third-party eyewitness. A local prosecutor cited a lack of evidence and declined to prosecute Alcaraz for assault.

In his complaint, Alcaraz alleged that the Brea PD detective assigned to the case purposely omitted statements and the “photographic lineup” reaction from the sole third-party eyewitness in the materials submitted to the TSA in its investigation of Alcaraz.

Morning Smoke: Christie, Sprey, Spinney et al Outline Plan to Cut Defense Budget

How to Cut the Defense Budget by Thomas Christie, Pierre Sprey, Franklin Spinney, et al [Counterpunch]

Why is Pentagon Whistleblower Franz Gayl Being Retaliated Against for Saving Our Troops? by Shanna Devine [The Whistleblogger]

Marines Wreck Super Geek's Career by Noah Shachtman [Danger Room]

Consumer Risks Feared as Health Law Spurs Mergers by Robert Pear [The New York Times]

GAO nominee vows to shorten high-risk list by Sean Reilly [Federal Times]

Pentagon officials to meet to address F-35 program's problems by Bob Cox [Fort Worth Star-Telegram]

Afghan watchdog fails to garner congressional support by Robert Brodsky [Government Executive]

U.S. in Vast Insider Trading Probe by Susan Pulliam, Michael Rothfeld, Jenny Strasburg and Gregory Zuckerman [The Wall Street Journal]

Cost of UPF now estimated at $4.2-$6.5 billion; Obama administration bolsters funding requests by Frank Munger [Atomic City Underground]

BP Fights Court Bid to Lift Oil-Spill Damages Limit by Moira Herbst [ABC News]

Doctor in FDA AdCom threatened by hedge fund investor? [CurrentMedicine.TV]

Marine Corps Whistleblower Franz Gayl Stripped of His Security Clearance

The Washington Post broke the news this afternoon. Franz Gayl, a Marine Corps science advisor, had his security clearance stripped a few weeks ago. “Gayl's alleged offense - described in official documents - was inserting a USB device into a computer containing classified information twice in 2008 and then failing to turn over the device to a supervisor. They first raised this concern in March, and no security leaks have been alleged,” according to the Post.

Gayl blew the whistle in 2007, alleging that the Marine Corps and Pentagon bureaucracy had ignored an urgent request from Marines in Iraq in 2005. The Marines had requested Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, or MRAPs, which are better protected from the blast created by improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. In 2007, as news articles exposed the delay and Congress began asking questions, Defense Secretary Robert Gates made MRAPs the Defense Department’s highest acquisition priority, and thousands of vehicles were bought and fielded rapidly. However, due to the sluggish response to the request, potentially hundreds of lives of soldiers and Marines were lost due to IEDs.

As the Post article notes:

“The reality is that decisionmakers in the Pentagon's requirements system were not enthusiastic about any additional armor, much less heavy, expensive MRAPs,” even though the vehicles would immediately save lives, three defense experts wrote in a study of the episode for the National Defense University in October 2009.

Gayl deserves a medal for his whistleblowing, not retaliation. But until the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act is passed—which POGO and a host other groups are urging lawmakers to make happen this lame duck session—patriotic whistleblowers in situations like Gayl’s will not have recourse.

Photo: courtesy Frank Gayl

-- Nick Schwellenbach

Update: POGO and over two dozen other groups have just sent a letter to Secretary Gates, urging him to help end the retaliation against Gayl.

The Government Accountability Project, which is legally representing Gayl, has created an online petition to help drum up public support for Gayl.   Check it out and put your name down to help Franz.

Morning Smoke: Afghanistan Reconstruction Watchdog Endures Criticism

Afghanistan watchdog fails to sway his critics by Richard Lardner [Associated Press]

Intelligence Bodies Faulted on Disclosure by Scott Shane [The New York Times]

Watchdog calls for removal of State Department's interim IG by Robert Brodsky [Government Executive]

SEC Investigating Citigroup Mortgage Deal by Jake Bernstein and Jesse Eisinger [ProPublica]

McCaskill introduces bill to curb preferences for Alaska native corporations by Robert Brodsky [Government Executive]

 Pentagon’s Annual Financial Report Still Unreliable, Inconsistent by Julie Vorman [Center for Public Integrity]

Alaskan Court Accuses BP of Criminal Negligence by Cassandra Sweet and Guy Chazan [The Wall Street Journal]

New FOIA policy; old FOIA practice? by Sean Reilly [FedLine]