Federal Antitrust Probe Targets Tech Giants, Sources Say

Link to Original: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/02/AR2009060203412.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter
By Cecilia Kang
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
The Justice Department has launched an investigation into whether some of the nation's largest technology companies violated antitrust laws by negotiating the recruiting and hiring of one another's employees, according to two sources with knowledge of the review.
The review, which is said to be in its preliminary stages, is focused on the search engine giant Google; its competitor Yahoo; Apple, maker of the popular iPhone; and the biotech firm Genentech, among others, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.
Justice Department officials declined to comment about an investigation, as did officials from Google and Yahoo. Apple and Genentech could not be reached for comment.
The sources said the review includes other tech companies and is "industry-wide." By agreeing not to hire away top talent, the companies could be stifling competition and trying to maintain their market power unfairly, antitrust experts said.
"This could be collusive restraint on trade, which could have a serious impact on competition," said Albert Foer, president of the American Antitrust Institute.
Such an agreement would underscore the fierce competition over top engineering and business talent.
Google has long been known for its exhaustive recruiting process to find people who fit into its culture and create innovative Web technologies. In 2005, Microsoft sued Google for hiring away Kai-Fu Lee, Microsoft's vice president for Web Interactive services, to head Google's operations in China.
The review is the latest move by the administration to step up scrutiny over possible anti-competitive actions in the high-tech sector. The industry has disrupted traditional business models of advertising, media, and news, and companies like Google and Facebook have amassed strong market shares in Web search, advertising and social networking.
The Justice Department last month launched a review of the board ties between Google and Apple, which some say are competitors. The Federal Trade Commission has initiated a review of Google's settlement with book authors and publishers on digital records of their works. Obama's antitrust chief at the Justice Department, Christine Varney, has said she plans to look at the network effects of high-tech companies and how their grasp on markets has cut out competitors and hurt consumers.
Antitrust experts say that could include wireless carriers and software operators that may be blocking certain applications from running on their networks and devices.

May 30, 2009
Link to Original: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20090530_Navy_blocks_accused_Pa__firm.html

Kuchera Defense faces allegations of fraud. The contractor has ties to Murtha, who spurned questions.
By Pete Yost and Dan Nephin
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - A Pennsylvania defense contractor that got millions of dollars in congressional earmarks from Rep. John P. Murtha has been blocked from doing business with the Navy amid allegations of fraud.
Details of the suspension surfaced yesterday as another Democrat who serves on the Murtha-chaired House Appropriations subcommittee on defense, Rep. Pete Visclosky of Indiana, was subpoenaed in a Justice Department criminal investigation. That probe involves a Washington-area lobbying firm with strong links to Murtha and Visclosky.
A federal grand jury subpoenaed records relating to a firm known as PMA Group from Visclosky's congressional office, his campaign committees, and from some of his employees. In recent months, FBI agents raided PMA and the suspended Pennsylvania firm, Kuchera Defense Systems Inc.
During a brief news conference yesterday at a trade show for defense contractors in Johnstown, Murtha turned aside questions about the suspension of Kuchera, a family-run business that has supported him with $60,000 to his campaign and to his political action committee since 2002.
Over the last two years, Murtha has secured $14.7 million in congressionally directed funds known as earmarks for Kuchera to perform work for the military, a tiny slice of Murtha's earmarks overall.
Asked about Kuchera's troubles, Murtha said: "What's that got to do with me? What do you think, I'm supposed to oversee these companies? That's not my job. That's the Defense Department's job."
Asked if he had a lawyer, Murtha responded, "What kind of question is that?" and then turned around and walked out of the room.
Murtha is chairman of one of the most powerful panels in Congress, the House Appropriations subcommittee on defense, where he has been a member for more than two decades. Visclosky is the third-ranking Democrat.
In remarks to defense contractors before the news conference, Murtha defended the much-maligned practice of congressional earmarking.
He said the money he directs pays for road and sewer improvements and improving water quality in the Western Pennsylvania region. He said the annual trade show helps promote economic development there.
At the Pentagon, Lt. Clay Doss, a Navy spokesman, said the Navy suspended Kuchera Defense Systems on April 23 for "alleged fraud," including "multiple incidents" of incorrect charges, along with allegations of defective pricing and ethical violations.
In a story May 17, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette quoted a former Kuchera director of human resources as saying that the firm had moved employees to Kuchera Defense from another Kuchera entity, Kuchera Industries. That personnel move would have in effect raised the amount of overhead costs on Kuchera Defense's government contracts, allowing the company to claim a higher reimbursement for its costs.
Regarding Murtha and PMA, in the last two years alone, the congressman has directed $78 million in earmarks to clients of PMA.
A former staffer on Murtha's subcommittee, Paul Magliocchetti, left Capitol Hill to start the lobbying firm in 1989, the same year Murtha became chairman of the subcommittee. A former chief of staff to Visclosky also went to work for PMA.
From 2005 through 2007, more than one of every five dollars Murtha collected in campaign contributions came from PMA lobbyists or their clients - more than $1 million in all, according to Federal Election Commission records.
The annual defense contractors' trade show in Johnstown is in the heart of Murtha's congressional district.
This year, seven of the world's largest defense contractors, who have been among the veteran Pennsylvania Democrat's biggest campaign contributors over the years, helped bankroll it.
In a 15-month span ending March 31, employees of the seven defense contractors sponsoring the Johnstown show this week put more than $200,000 into Murtha's campaign account. The seven are Lockheed Martin Corp., Boeing Co., BAE Systems P.L.C., Northrop Grumman Corp., General Dynamics Corp., Raytheon Co., and DRS Technologies Inc.
The "Showcase for Commerce" has helped cement a partnership of major defense contractors and Johnstown-area firms, including Kuchera.
For example, in 2007 Murtha announced that Kuchera Defense Systems had been awarded a $100 million, 10-year contract by Raytheon Missile Systems to build circuit boards for the Air Force.
On Thursday, Anne Marie Squeo, a spokeswoman for Raytheon, said the company was complying with federal acquisition regulations, which allow a suspended firm to complete work on an existing project but bar it from being awarded new government work or any expansions of existing projects.
Thursday night, Dennis McGlynn, an attorney representing Kuchera, said the company was appealing the Navy suspension and "we hope to have it lifted after we have an opportunity to present our reply."

Barred Navy contractor gave Murphy $9,200
By: GARY WECKSELBLATT Bucks County Courier Times

The owners of a major defense contractor who donated money to Congressman Patrick Murphy have been blocked from doing business with the Navy amid allegations of fraud.
Kuchera Defense Systems Inc., a family-run business from western Pennsylvania, supported Murphy with $9,200 in donations to his campaign.
Details of the suspension surfaced Friday as Rep. Pete Visclosky of Indiana was subpoenaed in a Justice Department criminal investigation involving a Washington-area lobbying firm that was Murphy's second largest contributor during his reelection campaign.
The federal grand jury subpoenaed records relating to the PMA Group from Visclosky's congressional office, his campaign committees and from some of Visclosky's employees. In recent months, FBI agents have raided both PMA and Kuchera.
The common thread for Murphy, a Democrat who represents Bucks County and a part of Northeast Philadelphia, and Visclosky is Rep. John Murtha, chairman of one of the most powerful panels in Congress, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, where he has been a member for over two decades.
Visclosky is the third-ranking Democrat.
Murphy and Murtha have a close relationship. The two-term congressman has called Murtha a political "role model."
Word of Kuchera's suspension was buzzing Friday during an annual defense contractor trade show in Johnstown, Pa., the heart of Murtha's congressional district.
The government placed the company and its two owners, Ron and Bill Kuchera, on the General Services Administration's Excluded Parties List System, a step that can be a virtual death sentence for a federal contractor in terms of continuing to do business with the government.
On March 6, 2008, both men gave $2,300 each to Murphy. Lisa Kuchera and Lena C. Kuchera also gave Murphy $2,300 each on the same day, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a government watchdog group that tracks campaign donations.
Murphy did not respond to several requests for comment Friday.
Murphy, who received $28,750 from PMA's lobbyists and their spouses, previously said he donated that money to charity after the revelations of an FBI probe.
He has obtained at least $5.6 million in congressionally directed funds known as "earmarks" for PMA clients, including one that partnered with Kuchera.
Arizona Republican Rep. Jeff Flake has repeatedly called for an ethics investigation into the relationship between earmark requests and campaign contributions.
According to CQPolitics, Democrats have rejected the resolution eight times, most recently on May 12. But 29 Democrats - including 22 first elected in 2006 and 2008 - voted for the measure.
Murphy has been steadfast in his opposition to an investigation, voting against it each time. Visclosky has voted in favor of an investigation.
Over the past two years, Murtha has secured $14.7 million in earmarks for Kuchera.
Asked about Kuchera's troubles Friday, Murtha said, "What's that got to do with me? + I'm supposed to oversee these companies? That's not my job. That's the Defense Department's job."
At the Pentagon, Navy spokesman Lt. Clay Doss said the Navy suspended Kuchera Defense Systems on April 23 for "alleged fraud, including multiple incidents of cost mischarging, defective pricing and ethical violations." Doss declined to elaborate.
Dennis McGlynn, an attorney representing Kuchera, said that the company was appealing the Navy suspension and that "we hope to have it lifted after we have an opportunity to present our reply."
The Navy has awarded Kuchera Defense Systems over $30 million in contracts since 2003, according to databases compiling government contract data. The Army has awarded nearly $15 million in contracts to Kuchera since 1995, and the Air Force nearly $5 million since 2005.
Seven of the world's largest defense contractors, who have been among the veteran Pennsylvania Democrat's biggest campaign contributors over the years, are helping to bankroll this week's "Showcase for Commerce" in Johnstown.
In a 15-month span ending March 31, employees of the seven defense contractors sponsoring the Johnstown show put over $200,000 into Murtha's campaign account. The seven are Lockheed Martin Corp., the Boeing Co., BAE Systems PLC, Northrop Grumman Corp., General Dynamics Corp., Raytheon Co. and DRS Technologies Inc.
Lockheed Martin has given Murphy $21,000 during his Congressional career. All but Boeing and DRS gave him between $1,000 and $5,000 in the first quarter of 2009, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Gary Weckselblatt can be reached at 215-345-3169 or gweckselblatt@phillyburbs.com.

May 30, 2009

Defense contractor with ties to Murtha suspended
By PETE YOST and DAN NEPHIN Associated Press Writers © 2009 The Associated Press
Link to Original: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/top/all/6447637.html

May 29, 2009, 6:21PM

WASHINGTON — A Pennsylvania defense contractor who got millions of dollars in congressional earmarks from Rep. John Murtha has been blocked from doing business with the Navy amid allegations of fraud.
Details of the suspension surfaced Friday as another Democrat who serves on the Murtha-chaired House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, Rep. Pete Visclosky of Indiana, was subpoenaed in a Justice Department criminal investigation involving a Washington-area lobbying firm with strong links to both Murtha and Visclosky.
A federal grand jury subpoenaed records relating to a firm known as PMA Group from Visclosky's congressional office, his campaign committees and from some of Visclosky's employees. In recent months, FBI agents raided PMA and the suspended Pennsylvania firm, Kuchera Defense Systems Inc.
During a brief news conference Friday at a Johnstown, Pa., trade show for defense contractors, Murtha turned aside questions about the suspension of Kuchera, a family-run business that has supported him with $60,000 to his campaign and to his political action committee since 2002.
Over the past two years, Murtha has secured $14.7 million in congressionally directed funds known as "earmarks" for Kuchera to perform work for the military, a tiny slice of Murtha's earmarks overall.
Asked about Kuchera's troubles, Murtha said, "What's that got to do with me? What do you think, I'm supposed to oversee these companies? That's not my job. That's the Defense Department's job."
Murtha is chairman of one of the most powerful panels in Congress, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, where he has been a member for over two decades. Visclosky is the third-ranking Democrat.
In remarks to defense contractors before the news conference, Murtha defended the much-maligned practice of congressional earmarking, saying that the money he directs pays for road and sewer improvements and improving water quality in the western Pennsylvania region. Murtha said the annual trade show helps promote economic development there.
At the Pentagon, Navy spokesman Lt. Clay Doss said the Navy suspended Kuchera Defense Systems on April 23 for "alleged fraud," including "multiple incidents" of incorrect charges, along with allegations of defective pricing and ethical violations.
In a story May 17, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette quoted a former Kuchera director of human resources as saying that the firm had moved employees to Kuchera Defense from another Kuchera entity, Kuchera Industries, in a personnel move that would have effectively raised the amount of overhead costs on Kuchera Defense's government contracts, allowing the company to claim a higher reimbursement for its costs.
Regarding Murtha and PMA, in the last two years alone, the congressman has directed $78 million in earmarks to clients of PMA. A former staffer on Murtha's subcommittee, Paul Magliocchetti, left Capitol Hill to start the lobbying firm in 1989, the same year Murtha became chairman of the subcommittee. A former chief of staff to Visclosky also went to work for PMA.
From 2005 through 2007, more than one out of every five dollars Murtha collected in campaign contributions came from PMA lobbyists or their clients — over a million dollars in all, according to Federal Election Commission records.
The annual defense contractors' trade show in Johnstown, Pa., is in the heart of Murtha's congressional district. This year, seven of the world's largest defense contractors, who have been among the veteran Pennsylvania Democrat's biggest campaign contributors over the years, helped bankroll the "Showcase for Commerce."
In a 15-month span ending March 31, employees of the seven defense contractors sponsoring the Johnstown show this week put over $200,000 into Murtha's campaign account. The seven are Lockheed Martin Corp., the Boeing Co., BAE Systems PLC, Northrop Grumman Corp., General Dynamics Corp., Raytheon Co. and DRS Technologies Inc.
Next Wednesday, Murtha has scheduled a fundraiser in a Washington, D.C., town house next door to Democratic Party headquarters.
Murtha hasn't had a close re-election race in decades, routinely getting nearly 70 percent of the vote.
Last year, he stumbled and had to publicly apologize for saying his home base of western Pennsylvania is racist in talking about Barack Obama's prospects for winning the state, which Obama was able to do. A deluge of campaign contributions from defense contractors and congressional Democrats rescued Murtha in time for election day.
The "Showcase for Commerce" has helped cement a partnership of major defense contractors and Johnstown-area firms, including Kuchera.
For example, in 2007 Murtha announced that Kuchera Defense Systems had been awarded a $100 million, 10-year contract by Raytheon Missile Systems to build circuit boards for the U.S. Air Force.
On Thursday, Anne Marie Squeo, a spokeswoman for Raytheon, said the company is complying with federal acquisition regulations, which allow a suspended firm to complete work on an existing project but bar it from being awarded new government work or any expansions of existing projects.
On Thursday night, Dennis McGlynn, an attorney representing Kuchera, said that the company was appealing the Navy suspension and that "we hope to have it lifted after we have an opportunity to present our reply."
In the wake of the suspension, the government placed the company and its two owners, Ron and Bill Kuchera, on the General Services Administration's Excluded Parties List System, a step that can be a virtual death sentence for a federal contractor in terms of continuing to do business with the government.
The Navy has awarded Kuchera Defense Systems over $30 million in contracts since 2003, according to databases compiling government contract data. The Army has awarded nearly $15 million in contracts to Kuchera since 1995, and the Air Force nearly $5 million since 2005. The Air Force contracts are in addition to the subcontracting work that Kuchera is doing for Raytheon.
___
Dan Nephin reported from Johnstown, Pa.

Business and_Finance
Defense contractor with ties to Murtha suspendedLink to Original: http://www.examiner.com/printa-2041242~Defense_contractor_with_ties_to_Murtha_suspended.html(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., center, answers a reporter's question about Kuchera Defense Systems Inc., after attending a breakfast at the "Showcase for Commerce" trade show in Johnstown, Pa., Friday, May 29, 2009. Kuchera, a Pennsylvania defense contractor who got millions of dollars in congressional earmarks from Rep. John Murtha, has been blocked from doing business with the Navy amid allegations of fraud. By PETE YOST and DAN NEPHIN, The Associated Press2009-05-29 18:58:15.0Current rank: # 2,167 of 3,463 WASHINGTON - A Pennsylvania defense contractor who got millions of dollars in congressional earmarks from Rep. John Murtha has been blocked from doing business with the Navy amid allegations of fraud.Details of the suspension surfaced Friday as another Democrat who serves on the Murtha-chaired House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, Rep. Pete Visclosky of Indiana, was subpoenaed in a Justice Department criminal investigation involving a Washington-area lobbying firm with strong links to both Murtha and Visclosky.A federal grand jury subpoenaed records relating to a firm known as PMA Group from Visclosky's congressional office, his campaign committees and from some of Visclosky's employees. In recent months, FBI agents raided PMA and the suspended Pennsylvania firm, Kuchera Defense Systems Inc.During a brief news conference Friday at a Johnstown, Pa., trade show for defense contractors, Murtha turned aside questions about the suspension of Kuchera, a family-run business that has supported him with $60,000 to his campaign and to his political action committee since 2002.Over the past two years, Murtha has secured $14.7 million in congressionally directed funds known as "earmarks" for Kuchera to perform work for the military, a tiny slice of Murtha's earmarks overall.Asked about Kuchera's troubles, Murtha said, "What's that got to do with me? What do you think, I'm supposed to oversee these companies? That's not my job. That's the Defense Department's job."Murtha is chairman of one of the most powerful panels in Congress, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, where he has been a member for over two decades. Visclosky is the third-ranking Democrat.In remarks to defense contractors before the news conference, Murtha defended the much-maligned practice of congressional earmarking, saying that the money he directs pays for road and sewer improvements and improving water quality in the western Pennsylvania region. Murtha said the annual trade show helps promote economic development there.At the Pentagon, Navy spokesman Lt. Clay Doss said the Navy suspended Kuchera Defense Systems on April 23 for "alleged fraud," including "multiple incidents" of incorrect charges, along with allegations of defective pricing and ethical violations.In a story May 17, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette quoted a former Kuchera director of human resources as saying that the firm had moved employees to Kuchera Defense from another Kuchera entity, Kuchera Industries, in a personnel move that would have effectively raised the amount of overhead costs on Kuchera Defense's government contracts, allowing the company to claim a higher reimbursement for its costs.Regarding Murtha and PMA, in the last two years alone, the congressman has directed $78 million in earmarks to clients of PMA. A former staffer on Murtha's subcommittee, Paul Magliocchetti, left Capitol Hill to start the lobbying firm in 1989, the same year Murtha became chairman of the subcommittee. A former chief of staff to Visclosky also went to work for PMA.From 2005 through 2007, more than one out of every five dollars Murtha collected in campaign contributions came from PMA lobbyists or their clients - over a million dollars in all, according to Federal Election Commission records.The annual defense contractors' trade show in Johnstown, Pa., is in the heart of Murtha's congressional district. This year, seven of the world's largest defense contractors, who have been among the veteran Pennsylvania Democrat's biggest campaign contributors over the years, helped bankroll the "Showcase for Commerce."In a 15-month span ending March 31, employees of the seven defense contractors sponsoring the Johnstown show this week put over $200,000 into Murtha's campaign account. The seven are Lockheed Martin Corp., the Boeing Co., BAE Systems PLC, Northrop Grumman Corp., General Dynamics Corp., Raytheon Co. and DRS Technologies Inc.Next Wednesday, Murtha has scheduled a fundraiser in a Washington, D.C., town house next door to Democratic Party headquarters.Murtha hasn't had a close re-election race in decades, routinely getting nearly 70 percent of the vote.Last year, he stumbled and had to publicly apologize for saying his home base of western Pennsylvania is racist in talking about Barack Obama's prospects for winning the state, which Obama was able to do. A deluge of campaign contributions from defense contractors and congressional Democrats rescued Murtha in time for election day.The "Showcase for Commerce" has helped cement a partnership of major defense contractors and Johnstown-area firms, including Kuchera.For example, in 2007 Murtha announced that Kuchera Defense Systems had been awarded a $100 million, 10-year contract by Raytheon Missile Systems to build circuit boards for the U.S. Air Force.On Thursday, Anne Marie Squeo, a spokeswoman for Raytheon, said the company is complying with federal acquisition regulations, which allow a suspended firm to complete work on an existing project but bar it from being awarded new government work or any expansions of existing projects.On Thursday night, Dennis McGlynn, an attorney representing Kuchera, said that the company was appealing the Navy suspension and that "we hope to have it lifted after we have an opportunity to present our reply."In the wake of the suspension, the government placed the company and its two owners, Ron and Bill Kuchera, on the General Services Administration's Excluded Parties List System, a step that can be a virtual death sentence for a federal contractor in terms of continuing to do business with the government.The Navy has awarded Kuchera Defense Systems over $30 million in contracts since 2003, according to databases compiling government contract data. The Army has awarded nearly $15 million in contracts to Kuchera since 1995, and the Air Force nearly $5 million since 2005. The Air Force contracts are in addition to the subcontracting work that Kuchera is doing for Raytheon.---Dan Nephin reported from Johnstown, Pa.

Out of Control Policy Blog
Rent Seeking in the Bailouts
Link to Original: http://reason.org/blog/show/1007648.html


Anthony Randazzo
May 25, 2009, 8:58pm
We have repeatedly stated that a problem with creating federal bailout and stimulus programs is that you open doors for waste and fraud, but you also run the likelihood of throwing off competition in the marketplace by favoring one firm over another with taxpayer support. For instance, GM is getting an advantage over Ford in dealing with is financial mess, allowing it to unfairly compete using money from the very people who work for Ford to take business opportunities from Ford.
In this vein of complications is rent seeking behavior from companies trying to piggy back on Uncle Sam's "rescue" of the economy. (Rent seeking is essentially when one company or group of people tries to make money or gain a benefit from a political program, regulation, or other law without actually having to do work.) This has been a serious problem thus far with the stimulus, especially with alternative energy groups looking to gain market share on traditional energy services by using taxpayer money to gain an advantage.
Another story emerged recently, from the Washington Post, about how money from electronic health records got into the stimulus bill:
"The inclusion of as much as $36.5 billion... represented a triumph for an influential trade group whose members now stand to gain billions in taxpayer dollars. A Washington Post review found that the trade group, the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, had worked closely with technology vendors, researchers and other allies in a sophisticated, decade-long campaign to shape public opinion and win over Washington's political machinery.
"[...] As the downturn worsened last year, advocates helped persuade Obama's advisers to dust off electronic records legislation that had stalled in Congress -- legislation that (medical technology industry) advocates had a hand in writing, the Post review found.
"Their sudden success shows how the economic crisis created a remarkable opening for a political and financial windfall: the enactment of a sweeping new policy with no bureaucratic delays and virtually no public debate about an initiative aimed at transforming a sector that accounts for more than a sixth of the American economy."
In short, the companies that make products for electronic health records had failed for years to get Congress to mandate a system that would provide them business. So they used the economic crisis as leverage to get their ideas in on the stimulus wave with little debate and huge upside. And just like that Congress has demanded America give this industry money. Read the whole story here.
It's a little upsetting. But there is more to come.
This weekend's Wall Street Journal had an op-ed from Scott Carlson, CEO of Boeing. In his piece he talks about how his company has reduced carbon emissions on their planes over the past few decades:
"...airlines have demanded increased efficiency from airplane and engine manufacturers. And manufacturers have responded big time. Over the past 50 years, the efficiency of commercial jets has risen an astounding 70%."
Great! That's how markets are supposed to work. That's how market-based, pro-environment activity is supposed to happen. But then the piece takes a turn:
"That said, we believe properly structured regulations could be useful. It's not often that an industry asks for additional regulation, but Boeing, GE and other airplane and engine manufacturers are convinced that a fuel-efficiency standard for new airplanes is an effective way to drive the development of fuel-saving technologies.
Specifically, we're advocating for an efficiency standard for new airplane designs... it would help ensure that we continue to see the kind of technological and environmental breakthroughs we pioneered with the 787."
Now wait a second. Didn't he just say that they reduced emissions by 70% without a government mandate? How would an efficiency standard "ensure" technological breakthroughs? Mr. Carlson said himself that his firm responded to the demands of his clients. And airlines continue to want more fuel efficient planes--both for fuel economy and to market their airlines as green. It's not like there isn't a desire to have change. Why would the industry want the government to "drive" them towards developing new technology?
Short answer, they don't. They just don't want other firms coming along to take away their business. See, over the past 50 years it has been companies like Boeing that have developed the capacity and capability to make technological breakthroughs. They have the knowledge and sunk cost on developing that. But it would be easier for them to have limited competition. What Boeing is asking is for rules that would make it difficult for new players to enter the market. They are asking for standards that meet their capabilities developed over 50 years--something that would be hard for an upstart to achieve. In economic terms this is called barrier to entry. I'd like to give Mr. Carlson the benefit of the doubt, that he doesn't see how this will reduce competition for Boeing, and really is pushing for this standard in good faith... but I'm skeptical.
The airline manufacturing industry is doing now what the medical technology manufacturing industry was successful at earlier this year—using government and the taxpayer to promote their business, instead of working hard to create wealth in a fair world of competition. The frustrating thing is that they will probably be successful.

Glimpses of America's Man-Made Disasters Link: http://cryptome.org/0001/usa-disasters5.htmby Trowbridge H. Ford

Part Five With the forced, early retirement of US Navy Admiral Vern Clark, the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), in July 2005, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld thought that he had finally gained control of a Pentagon he could comfortably live with -- what he had set out to do from the outset by making Air Force General Richard B. Myers his Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff rather than the CNO. Clark's role in the position reminded Rumsfeld too much of what Ronald Reagan's Navy Secretary John Lehman. Jr., had been to do when he was the chief presidential military adviser. Instead Rumsfeld made sure he was the only military one, sounding like the born-again Christian Crusader from Missouri's Evangel College when doing so, justifying a Holy War when he made his frequent written recommendations to President Bush. While Rumsfeld and Myers were running America's wars in Afganistan and Iraq, though, the Air Force Secretary James Roche and National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) Director Peter Teets had carried it further afield to the "axis of evil" with disasters in Iran and North Korea, caused by its satellite lasers. Once this had been exploited as safely as possible, and they resigned, the Navy took over, causing, it seems, the devastating Indian Ocean tsunamis, leading to the ouster of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and CNO Clark when it was feared that their continuing in office would only lead to increasing controversy about what and who had caused them. The Air Force chief and his assistant secretary for weapons procurement Marvin R. Sambus resigned shortly after Bush's re-election in November 2004, and Teets followed the following March. They all acted as if the NRO hadn't been doing anything covertly constructive while the Air Force was bogged down with sex scandals at the Air Force Academy, and the illegal efforts to lease new fuel tankers from Boeing -- what was mostly just a smokescreen for what its heavy satellites had been able to do in Iran and North Korea. Republican Senators John McCain and John Warner had been continually expanding the claims about their improprieties so there would be a convenient hostile narrative if it became necessary to drop them -- what finally happened when Wolfowitz was implicated in the Boeing scandal. It was then necessary for the Navy to take over similar missions in the Indian Ocean with its new stealth mission submarine, USS Jimmy Carter, but it so overdid the earthquake that Wolfowitz and Clark had to vacate the premises -- once its crew had been debriefed about its mission to the South Pacific -- just to reduce the risk of devastating exposure. The Carter had a shoulder patch -- with the motto "Always the Best" in Latin -- which was just too much like the NRO's, claiming that it ruled the night, with all kinds of weapons streaking out of its midsection, a kind of Medusa which former seaman on the sub, Aaron Brooks, recalled when he, most uncharacterically for sailors, announced. "Good to be off that sea-going bitch." His fellow crewmates just added to the difficulties by writing, like members of the USS Toledo, of the "good old days" of the Alpha tests, especially about the role of its navigators. Into this operational vacuum, Naomi Klein's article -- "The Rise of Disaster Capitalism," which appeared in the May 2, 2005 issue of The Nation -- came as a wake-up call about what to do next. "Last summer, in the lull of the August media doze," she said in her opening sentence, "the Bush Administration's doctrine of preventive war took a major leap forward." Of course, it had, as we have seen in the build-up of the satellites and submarine to do the job, but Ms. Klein was referring to the creation of Carlos Pascual's Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (OCRS) in the State Department -- what was intended to clean up foreign disasters. "Fittingly," she continued: "a government devoted to perpetual pre-emptive deconstruction now has a standing office of perpetural pre-emptive reconstruction." Pascual, a former U. S. Ambassador to the Ukraine, even explained his office's mission in an October address before the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) -- just when the Carter was off on its mission. Working with the National Intelligence Council - the thinktank intended to predict the future way in advance - the OCRS's mission was to plan for the rebuilding of modern democratic ones when the old states went under, one way or another. Unlike the colonial regimes of the past which were engaged in taking assets, Ms. Klein explained, "There is, however, plenty of destruction -- countries smashed to rubble, whether by so-called Acts of God or by Acts of Bush (on orders from God)." Around the globe, there are all kinds of parallel governments -- composed of profiteering, consulting firms, engineering companies, mega-Non-Governmental-Organizations, agencies like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and similar UN aid agencies -- which were at the ready to strike back wherever the new disasters occurred, though the peoples supposedly to be rescued seemed only to suffer more while these fat-cats, foreign and domestic, raked off much of the funds available. "But if the reconstruction industry is stunningly inept at rebuilding," Ms. Klein concluded," that may be because rebuilding is not its primary purpose... 'It's about reshaping everything'." While Pasucal's remarks didn't gain much attention -- the media apparently not even making mention of it -- Ms. Klein's did when they finally appeared in The Nation the following spring. If countries around the Indian Ocean were facing a second tsunami because of disaster capitalism, areas already under its control -- when its inhabitants were unwilling to give up, and get out -- could get a double-dose of the process to obtain the desired results. Any area whose residents impeded the development of valuable resources, especially oil, and creation of new industries, particularly tourism, by refusing to sell out, and leave simply had to be persuaded to do so by unexpected force. The ideal area for such acts was America's Gulf Coast, especially around New Orleans, where entrenched, poor groups of residents were preventing its development to suit the interests of the oil companies, property developers, the gambling industry, and the like by refusing to leave or acquiesce in plans which did not suit them. America allegedly was not finding and refining enough offshore oil because residents opposed more refineries, others were refusing to sell their properties along the Coast and in New Orleans so that its tourist industry and the City itself could be upmarketed to suit the fancies of the affluent, and in the process, more on shore oil deposits could be discovered and exploited. Such a project had the added national security interest of showing that God or Bush following God's orders was not solely working for Washington. Despite the so-called war on terror, the United States still did not have a coordinated system of preventing disasters, and if they still happened, making sure that the damage was a little as possible. While any real disaster would cut across all the divided lines of responsibility, there were no plans in place to make sure the federal, state and local government worked in a coordinated way in dealing with them. For example, the CIA -- the essential gather of foreign intelligence -- had no way of communicating with the states about potential disasters because it questioned whether it had any authority to do so. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was only prepared to deal with man-made disasters like "... nuclear war, border-storming 'aliens', or rampaging radicals..." (Jonathan Vankin & John Whalen, The 60 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time, p. 27) The officials who were prepared to exploit this power vacuum were Director of Central Intelligence Porter Goss, his chief of staff Pat Murray, the temporary Secretary of the Air Force Peter Geren, the military side of the NRO, and the new National Security Adviser, Vulcan Stephen Hadley. The Vulcans were veterans from Vice President Dick Cheney's time at the Pentagon under Bush, Sr., and were noted for their image of toughness. Of course, Vulcan was the son of the king and queen of the gods from Roman mythology, noted for making thunderbolts, and firing them at his enemies. Hadley was the last of the original Vulcans, and was willing to be the go-between the White House and gung-ho operators in the field. Henry Kissinger had added to their power by finally joining them, claiming that America could only prevail by beating the jihadists, a process which demanded keeping the voters on board. Goss -- who was shunted into the job because of senatorial courtesy, and the fact that no one else wanted it -- was so gung-ho, going all the way back to the JFK assassination, that when Murray continued to clash with the leaders of its operations, Stephen Kappes and his deputy Michael Sulich, they resigned. While nothing is acknowledged about what the Gosslings did in their absence, Murray was known to leaking information to silence Democratic opponents. The DCI had worked with the NRO's military cowboys back in 1963, hoping to make it look as if the communists had assassinated the President to provoke an international powerplay by Moscow and Havana. For more on Goss, see this link: http://codshit.blogspot.com/2004/09/secrets-of-florida-straits.html As for Geren, he, until recently when he became Army Secetary, had had a sleasy reputation, dropping out of Congress in the late 1990s to help the development of Anadarko Oil, especially its gaining possession of potential fields in Alaska and the southern Gulf, and in helping in their exploitation. The director of the NRO from the time Clark resigned was Dr. Donald M. Kerr. But he was not the director of what was being planned but its fallguy, if necessary. Kerr had had a long career at Los Alamos as its director, and with the FBI's Laboratory in tracking down the Al-Qaeda perpetrators of attacks on the US Embassies in East Africa, and upon the USS Cole. He was been the CIA's Deputy Director for Science and Technology since August 2001. In no field of human endeavor is less known about who put together what than in engineering. While people can readily recite who made important breakthroughs in all kinds of sciences and the arts, the names of who developed important inventions, and provided for their application in ways that helped or hurt mankind are hard to find. Outside of the inventors of the light bulb, the radio, and the telephone -- inventions which revolutionized home life so much that the movie industry even exploited their potential -- the real builders of our mechanical civilization remain largely unknown. One of the most important ones, and one who still remains too unknown, is Nikola Tesla, the Serbian-born inventor who came to the United States in 1884 where he constructed the first induction motor which provided alternating current, and developed the dynamos and transformers to make electricity a readily available resource. In doing so, Tesla even outdistanced his mentor, the famous Thomas Alva Edison, though his success with him was soon dashed after he seduced his daughter. George Westinghouse bought up Tesla patents, and J. P. Morgan agreed to finance Tesla's research after the break-up with the Edisons. Then Tesla made notable advances in energy resonance, creating oscillators which caused a minor earthquake in New York in 1896, and ultimately generated 500,000 volts -- what was so strong that it could light up 200 lamps 25 miles away without any wires. He created electrical flashes, minicking nature's lightning, measuring 135 feet in length. Soon Tesla envisioned the modern communication system where waves of various sorts, emitted by various appliances like the radio -- which he is ultimately credited with having invented -- and powered by hydroelectric generators, enabled people to transmit messages to one another around the globe. Even after the funds from Morgan dried up, Tesla investigated the potential of remote-control and microwaves in particle beam weaponry. When WWI came along, Tesla, literally convinced that his proposed waves could crack open the whole world, recorded a patent for a transmitter which would "... project electrical energy in any amount to any distance and apply it for innumerable purposes, both in war and peace." (NYT, Dec. 8, 1915) When WWII followed, the aged Tesla volunteered to provide Washington with his 'teleforce', a ray gun which would melt the motors of enemy planes up to a distance of 250 miles. "This new type of force," he explained, " would operate through a beam one hundred-millionth of a square centimeter in diameter, and could be generated from a special plant what would cost no more than $2,000,000 and would take only about three months to construct." (Quoted from Vankin & Whalen, p. 434.) While the construction of the atomic bomb took precedence over Tesla's plan, it emerged as an attractive area to develop as the Cold War became increasingly bogged down in mutually-assured-destruction (MAD), given the nuclear standoff. With the stalemate in ICBMs, the superpowers looked for strategic surprises of a tactical and technical nature. While the US Navy, for example, was probbing Soviet waters in the hope of tapping communication lines which would facilitate an underwater coup, especially against its 'boomers', Moscow concentrated upon achieving breakthroughs in the WMD field, especially in chemical and biological weapons. Over Cuba and Vietnam, the American Air Force became deeply involved in seeding hurricanes and cyclones, and intensifying them to defeat the communist enemy. Then the Soviets tried to convert their communications to microwaves in order to achieve greater security in their transmissions -- what Washington counteracted by a most ambitious satellite program, starting with the Rhyolite, geosynchronous base at Pine Gap in the wilds of Australia. It had been picked because any unencrypted message it received was almost impossible to intercept because of its inaccessible location unless one was directly beneath the satellite. Microwaves travel in a straight line, and to intercept them, one must be somewhere along that line. Given this increasingly paranoid environment, it was hardly surprising that the Pentagon developed a renewed interest in mass mind-control, and in modifying the weather. Thanks to research conducted by physicist Bernard J. Eastlund, and patents held by ARCO Power Technologies, Inc., Washington was offered a mind-boggling menu of hi-tech offensive and defensive weapons -- heated plumes of charged particles which would competely disrupt the earth's communication system, guidance systems of potential enemies' weapons, and the strategic defense of third parties. Weather modification could completely incapacitate missiles by creating unexpected drag by "... altering upper atmospheric wind patterns or altering solar absorption patterns by constructing one or more plumes of particles which will act as a lens or focusing device." (Ibid., pp. 431-2) The result would be a vast amount of sunlight from the ionosphere being focused on a specific area of the earth. One patent stated that an ideal site for such a heater would be in Alaska where vast amounts of gas exist to fuel such a mechanism, and the magnetic field lines are most desireable for this intervention. Given such potential -- especially when it came to the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) -- the Reagan administration funded Project HAARP (High-frequency Active Auroral Research Progam) -- $30,000,000 to build an "ionospheric heater" 200 miles east of Anchorage, Alaska which would heat up the earth with high-frequency radio waves for apparently scientific, communication, and surveillance purposes. The 23-acre complex, completed in 1997, has 180 towers, capable of creating beams within the 2.5-to-10-megahertz range at up to more than 3 gigawatts of power (3 billion watts). Such beams were thought to be capable of shooting down ICBMs in flight. While this expectation proved groundless -- ICBMs are just going too fast for enough watts to be directed at them to secure their destruction -- the HAARP Project had to find other targets to heat up, and Eastlund was most forthcoming, too forthcoming, about what they could be. As CEO of Eastland Scientific Enterprises Corp.in San Diego, he proposed that microwaves be beamed into thunder clouds in order to prevent tornadoes from forming -- stop the formation of mesocyclones by shooting beams of 1,000,000,000 watts into them so that cold air barricades could not prevent the hot air columns from continuing to rise. Earth-obiting satellites could provide the platforms for such beams, and their energy could be provided by the sun. And Eastlund just thought up the whole system while prospecting for oil and gas in Alaska! While experiments for breaking-up tornadoes did not prove at first successful, the whole project was, it seems, redirected into heating up cyclones and hurricanes both for experimental and strategic purposes. Just as the UN showdown over the proposed removal of Iraq's Saddam Hussein was shaping up in January 2003, as Joe Vialls has suggested in "Cyclone Zoe: Natural Event or Weather Warfare?", such technology apparently was used to convert Cyclone Zoe, a Category 2 one, into a monster storm, a Category 5+, in just 12 hours whose 155 mph plus winds would have sucked down anything apparently in its way, including the giant aircraft carrier the USS Abraham Lincoln, into its deadly sinkhole if it had not already cleared the most dangerous area, around Tikopia Island in the Solomons, on its way to the Middle East. As with many Vialls' articles -- some of them being total rubbish -- this one seems essentially correct, though wrong in its basic assumption -- that New York Zionists were somehow behind the cooking up of Zoe in order to stop the war -- rendering it a totally dismissed account. Vialls premised much of his work on the assumption that some kind of Jewish conspiracy -- the Elders of Zion, perhaps? -- was working behind the major governments, manipulating affairs to protect their holdings. This was convenient disinformation, but, perhaps, this was Vialls' real purpose. Still, Project HAARP could have easily provided the necessary energy, transmitted it to a TRW satellite hovering high over Borneo which Pine Gap then directed down into the Pacific east of the Solomons, as Zoe approached. Few people are aware that Pine Gap is the Agency's most important base in the world. When Watergate was threatening to lead to its complete demise, DCI George H. W. Bush went all out to secure its continuance, an important step of which was keeping Pine Gap secretly operating. It was left to conspiracy theorists, and whistleblowers, like Dr. Helen Caldicott and Victor Marchetti, to describe this operation, a "mild Chile". In November 1975, Australia's Labour Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was dismissed from office by Governor General James Kerr, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth's Crown representative, and a leading Opposition politician, for demanding to know what was really going on at Pine Gap, and threatening not to renew its lease if he were not told. Bush told his Australian counterpart that the bilateral intelligence relationship would not be continued if Whitlam's demand was met. Since then, Australia has been America's closest ally. (It is interesting to note that James Bamford has nothing about the coup d'etat in his study of the CIA's basic sister agencies, Body of Secrets: How America's NSA and Britain's GCHQ Eavesdrop on the World.) When the December tsunamis had the desired effect of bringing the international community back on line when it came to the war in Iraq, it was hardly surprising that the Bush administration looked to the NRO again to cook up more clouds when it came to bringing the increasingly dubious American public back on line, especially with the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks rapidly approaching. The only trouble was that the planners had little to work with -- with only the puny Tropical Depression Katrina which was slowly drifting across the Atlantic from Africa by mid August. Quite possibly, it was increased in strength by Air Force using remotely controlled nanoparticles to seed and control cloud charge -- sparking thunderbolts on demand. By the time it reached Florida, it was still only a Category 1 hurricane, as Michael Moore duly recorded afterwards in an angry letter to President Bush: "Last Thursday I was in south Florida while the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over my head. It was only a Category 1 then but it was pretty nasty. Eleven people died..." As the report, "Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025" -- put together by a group of military experts in 1996 -- said: "The technology is there, waiting for us to pull it all together." To increase its nastiness, it was apparently given a shot from some kind of ray gun which rapidly made it into a Category 5 one with winds like Cyclone Zoe. The Naval Security Group has a detachment at Key West comparable to the one NSA has at Pine Gap. The hurricane was different from others in that the water was leading the wind, with waves of 60 feet being created in the storm surge, and water temperatures reaching an unprecedented 90 degress F. along the coast -- what caused unexpected havoc with America's Gulf tourist and oil industries, with a dozen or so of its rigs being ripped from their moorings, and driven miles away. AP photographer Peter Cosgrove took a picture of one of the massive structures deposited on Dauphin Island, Alabama. With production cut by 2,000,000 barrels a day -- what has never be regained since -- the pressure was on the companies, like Geren's Anadarko Oil, to bring supply back to normal. They took advantage of the disaster by jacking up the price of oil products to obtain windfall profits, and seeing to the gutting of provisions of environmental legislation, claiming that they were necessary for meeting the unexpected crisis. Still, Katrina performed more than expected, once it hit the Gulf coast, pounding the area east of New Orleans hard, but with little loss of life. While most people considered the hurricane a terrible natural disaster, Bush clearly reacted to it as a man-made one, like the 9/11attacks, which could work to his advantage as events unfolded. While he played golf, and met Republicans in Wyoming to bolster his support for the war in the upcoming congressional elections -- reminiscent of his behavior after 9/11 -- the tidal wave worked its will on the underfunded infrastructure of the area -- especially the dikes of Lake Pontchartrain, and the levees of New Orleans -- creating a mess which only Washington could clean up, and whose true extent -- especially the number killed how and when -- would only be known many months later, if at all. Bush was soon regaining the political initiative, thanks to America's cumbersome federal system, its lack of a competent administration at any level, and politics which generally resorted to little more than finger-pointing at FEMA's Michael Browne's expense -- what led to a most suspicious, uncooperative citizenry. Washington's failure to be more forthcoming with the recovery operation, and meeting the basic needs of the survivors was easily countered by attacking the states, especially Louisiana's governor, and their municipalities, particularly New Orelans. Then in any crisis, America's security people, except for the Coast Guard and fire departments, are trained in little more than maintaining order, what quickly became a 'shoot-to-kill' policy with suspected looters, as if all humans do not have a right to life. The outspoken mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, did not even institute any evacuation plan after he ordered its citizens at the last moment to leave. Then many thousands of them who had automobiles still refused to go, claiming all kinds of excuses -- no money, nowhere to go, etc., as if the people who actually left had easy agendas to accomplish. By staying, the people with cars guaranteed that they were left with little or nothing as the flooding guaranteed that their cars, houses, and other possessions were rendered virtually useless. They and the other people who were obliged to remain probably still survived as the leaking dikes and levees rarely permitted the waters to completely submerge a dwelling. With the cock-up starting to unravel, it was hardly surprising that judicial.com coughed up a story claiming that Joe Vialls -- now, it seems, conveniently deceased -- was probably Ari Ben-Menashe, the Mossad's ultimate fixer to keep the people confused. Ben-Menashe took care of Israel's troublemakers -- like Amiran Nir after he threatened Vice President Bush with telling all when the Iran-Contra scandal started to unravel -- so, if anything, it seems more likely that Ben-Menashe disposed of Vialls, though Vialls never disclosed what the Mossad and the Americans were really doing in his native Australia, especially from the North West Cape facilities just next door. A similar attempt to stop former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad from telling tales -- reminiscent of what happened to Australia's Gow Whitlam when he threatened stopping such operations -- occurred a few days later when they threatened a conference at Suhakam on human rights. Mahathir, by then, had become an angry opponent of the Anglo-American war on terror, especially since he had backed it strenuously until it had explained way Malaysia's use of the same American weather-manipulation capability at his and the Russians' expense. To silence Mahathir, Britain's High Commissioner to Malaysia Bruce Cleghorn, the country's chief of state, American Ambassador Christopher LaFleur, and several other diplomats walked out of the conference before the former Malaysian Prime Minister got the chance to open his mouth. It's quite clear that Mahathir would have explained that the Americans had supplied the cyclones which Minister of Science Datak Law Hieng Ding wanted to clean up the smog which was constantly plaguing the country because of Indonesia's land-clearing by burning. The cyclones were provided by Raytheon's E-Systems' capability of seeding tropical depressions, thanks to the approval of Pentagon chief William Cohen. When Mahathir clearly was going to set the record straight, a most threatening move under the circumstances, the American media, especially The Wall Street Journal, claimed that Russian Igor Pirigoff's Elate Intelligent Technologies, Inc. had done the dirty work. For more, see this link: http://codshit.blogspot.com/2005/09/why-malaysias-mahathir-is-so-mad.html Little wonder that when Hurricane Rita followed two weeks later in Katrina's wake, the forcasters, NRO, military operators, rescue services et al. did much better, fearing an even worse disaster. The storm was directed away from the precariously vulnerable New Orleans, the allegedly strongest hurricane ever recorded losing much of its punch before it ever hit land, and the authorities there did a proper job in preventing a large loss of life, and in directing a proper cleanup. As "Weather Modification through nanotech" asked rhetorically on October 31, 2005, "But if whipping up weather can be part of a warfighter's tool kit, couldn't those talents be ultilized to retarget or neutralize life, limb and property-destroying storm?" The whole plot escaped noticed until Executive Director Kyle "Dusty" Foggo -- the number three man at Goss's Agency, who pushed his administration agenda -- was discovered in spring 2006 to have been involved in the scheme to bribe Congressmen, especially Randy "Duke" Cunningham and Duncan Hunter, into giving contracts, particularly to Boeing, in return for kickbacks. Moreover, Foggo had not only shared the sexual charms of KGB spy Hana Koecher with State Department spy for Moscow Felix Bloch, but also with Goss himself -- what led apparently to his first retirement from the CIA when he came down with some sex infection. (For more on this, see Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Sword and the Shield, pp. 199-201, and Mark Riebling, Wedge, pp. 352-3.) The investigation of Foggo threatened not only to destroy him and Goss but also acting Secretary of the Air Force Geren during the hurricanes and his replacement MIchael Wynne. To avoid a possible devastating investigation, Goss suddenly resigned, and Foggo followed three days later. Of course, the Agency denied that there was any connection, claiming that the DCI had serious disputes with the new National Intelligence Agency, especially Director John Negroponte, about their relationship, and the sharing of personnel in better fighting the war on terror. This was completely fabricated as Negroponte and Goss shared the same tastes, apparently even including the charms of Mrs. Koecher. Even NRO Director Kerr alluded to as much when he could safely do so. In a conversation on National Public Radio upon becoming Deputy Director of National Intelligence, he spoke of the dangers which had existed when the NRO was divided into civilian and military parts in both the acquiring of technology but also its use. Institutionally, the important changes had been taking away the Air Force's authority over the NRO, and putting it under the control of the SOD and his Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence. The NRO got rid of its Deputy Director of Military Support (DDMS) -- what had led to the cowboy activities it was so noted for, going back to Gary Powers' U-2 incident -- integrating its capability into those of the Deputy Director for National Support -- what would require top-level oversight in the acquisition of new technology. As a result, the NRO would concentrate upon imagery collection -- not SIGINT ones which could easily be converted into offensive operations. "On the imagery side, for things like Hurricane Katrina for example," he explained most tellingly, "we can provide this under existing authorities." The NRO had finally begun healing itself, but what the Air Force did with what it shed remains to be seen.