'Incomplete' Oversight May Have Allowed Leaks, Report Says
By Dana Hedgpeth
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 2, 2008; D01
The technology going into the U.S. military's newest fighter plane may have been compromised by unauthorized access to facilities and computers that belong to BAE Systems, one the aircraft's builders, according to a report from the Pentagon's inspector general made public yesterday.
The report did not identify specific leaks, but it said "incomplete" Pentagon oversight may have increased "the risk of unintended or deliberate release of information to foreign competitors."
BAE, based in Farnborough, England, is one of two main subcontractors working on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and is building some of the plane's electronic and weapons systems and parts of its body. Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin is the lead contractor on the roughly $300 billion program, which is being developed by the United States and eight foreign partners, including Britain. Northrop Grumman of Los Angeles is the project's other main subcontractor.
In working on major aircraft, contractors have to share sensitive and classified information, and the government has safeguards in place for the use of it.
The Project on Government Oversight (POGO), a watchdog group, filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the inspector general's report, which was done to ensure that controls over classified technology and information on the F-35 were adequate and were being followed by the Defense Department. The report, which was completed in March, looked at selected data that related to the F-35 and found that the "government and its contractors appropriately controlled the export of classified [Joint Strike Fighter] technology to foreign companies."
But the report criticized the Defense Department, saying it "did not always employ sufficient controls to evaluate potential unauthorized access to classified U.S. technology" on the F-35 program. The department's Defense Security Service, which is supposed to help oversee the program, didn't monitor BAE or evaluate its security systems, according to the report.
The DSS also couldn't verify whether BAE had submitted required security audit reports for 2001 to 2003, the report said. As a result, the Defense Department's "advanced aviation and weapons technology in the [Joint Strike Fighter] program may have been compromised by unauthorized access at facilities and in computers at BAE Systems," according to the 55-page report, which had 16 pages blacked out.
In addition, the report said, BAE maintained that information in its internal audits was "privileged and not available" to the government, although there was a "special security agreement" that the contractor was to submit such reports to the Defense Department for review. The DSS did not question BAE's assertion that the reports were off-limits to the government.
"This is government information, and BAE is stiff-arming the Pentagon," said Nick Schwellenbach, national security investigator for POGO. "DSS failed in its oversight role to ensure that security improved. It is unknown if classified information was compromised, but it may have been, and if it was, weak Pentagon oversight was a contributing factor."
Greg Caires, a spokesman for BAE, said the report "explicitly found no instances of unauthorized access to classified or export control information on the [Joint Strike Fighter] program." He continued: "We strongly disagree with the IG's suggestion that nonetheless, such information may have been compromised in some unidentified way by unauthorized access at BAE Systems."
Cheryl Amerine, a Lockheed Martin spokeswoman, said, "The F-35 program, along with the Joint Strike Fighter program office, has put stringent measures in place with our partner companies and global supply chain to keep program information safe."
The F-35 program is one of the most highly audited programs on record," Amerine said, "and we know of no sensitive information that has been compromised as a result of findings in the referenced report."

From: http://top-secret-at.blogspot.com/2008/05/list-of-suicides-by-whistleblowers-or.html

Thursday, 1 May 2008
List of Suicides by whistle blowers or those that knew things
1 DC Madame....: had clients with the Pentagon and Govt

2 Lt. Col. Marshall A. Gutierrez Iraqi/Kuwait procurement officer: http://iraq.pigstye.net/article.php/GutierrezMarshallA

3 Abdulrahman,US citizen, contractor whistle-blower: http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmView...

4 Charles D. Riechers - Air Force- Ret. d: 10/07 suicide Boeing Tanker Deal: Still no autopsy report:
http://www.af.mil/bios/bio.asp?bioID=9396

5 Col. Theodore S. Westhusing
General Dave Petraeus: http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/77313 /

6 Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil {re Westhusing letter to Maj. Gen. Fil on May 28, 2005],: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_S._Westhusing

7 Darleen Druyun , http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1004/100104g1.htm

8 Brandy Britton who worked for the DC madam : http://www.examiner.com/a-714063~Accused_D_C__madam__Br...

9 Clifford Baxter, Enron executive: http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/01/25/enron.suicide/ind...

10. David Kelly, British Weapons Expert on WMDs : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kelly

11. James Hatfield, wrote book on George Bush and his crimes : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hatfield

12 Gary Webb, a prize-winning American investigative journalist, on Iran Contra http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Webb

13 Margie Schoedinger (1965?-2003) was an American woman who filed a civil suit against former Texas governor and current U.S. President George W. Bush in 2002, alleging that Bush had sexually assaulted her.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margie_Schoedinger Source
Labels: List of Suicides by whistle blowers or those that knew things
posted by Whisleblower | 14:20

http://www.pogo.org/p/government/ga-080428-whistleblower.html

April 28, 2008

Criminal Charges Against Boeing Whistleblower Set Dangerous Precedent: Jurors Disagreed on Earlier Charges Resulting in a Mistrial

For Immediate Release
Contact: Nick Schwellenbach (202) 347-1122

This weekend POGO learned that former Boeing quality assurance inspector Gerald Eastman is facing a second round of criminal charges for his whistle-blowing to the press. King County prosecutors will announce a new trial date on April 30th, 2008 according to an email from Senior Deputy Prosecutor Scott Peterson to Eastman's public defender, Ramona Brandes.

"The charges against Eastman are a message to all potential whistle-blowers at Boeing," said Nick Schwellenbach, an investigator at POGO. "The message from Boeing is clear: We'll try to send you to jail if you disclose information to the press."

Eastman was discovered accessing and downloading internal Boeing information, some of which he shared with reporters at the Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Eastman's disclosures to the press mostly concerned quality assurance and inspection problems he perceived while working at Boeing, though many of the articles he sparked related to increasing outsourcing of Boeing's production.

After conferring with Boeing, the King County prosecutor's office last month pursued criminal charges against Eastman for "computer trespass," a charge normally used against hackers, not whistle-blowers. The first trial resulted in a hung jury because some of the jurors believed Eastman's activities were whistle-blowing and should not result in criminal prosecution. The judge in that case told jurors not to consider whistle-blower laws.

Several lawyers have told POGO that the Eastman case is part of a disturbing trend of whistle-blowers increasingly facing criminal prosecution. The First Amendment right of free speech is a typical and powerful defense in these cases. Although a company can often legally terminate an employee, it considered extreme for a government prosecutor to attempt to jail a whistle-blower for his activities.

Founded in 1981, the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) is an independent nonprofit that investigates and exposes corruption in order to achieve a more accountable federal government.

Juror #11 In Trial of Boeing Whistleblower, Gerald Eastman, Speaks to Comments About Trial in Seattle PI Reader Posts.

This comment was sent to me today by Juror #11 in Mr. Eastman’s March/April Trial in Seattle -GFS

New comment on your post #85 "Boeing Whistleblower Trial Ends With Hung Jury"

Comment: By Juror # 11:

zinger says "He needs a re-trial and the prosecuting attorney ought to pay a little more attention to whom ends up as a juror. The two no votes ought to have never happened."

You are out of touch with reality zinger. As a requirement of employment ,Eastman was obligated to access the Boeing mainframe and data bases. Once an authorized user gains access to the system or database, the "computer trespass" law, created to prosecute outsiders for breaking into a computer system, does not apply to that user. Anything an authorized user does after gaining authorized access to the mainframe (where ever it is located), is NOT subject to this law. Yes, Eastman violated company policy, but there is a huge difference between breaking company policy and committing a felony. Boeing abused it's power by filing a false theft report with the Seattle PD, which resulted in the Theft squad of the Southeast division to obtain a search warrant to raid Eastman's house and confiscated any device with a memory. This was the only way Boeing could recover the files Eastman had archived. Filing a false police report is a felony if memory serves me right. So why did Boeing do it?
In reading the emails Eastman sent to Boeing senior management, in Chigago, he used the letters R.I.C.O. If Eastman was telling the truth, and making false reports to the new owners of the planes and the government bodies is a felony, than Boeing was indeed engaged in a racketeering conspiracy to cover up fraud in the inspection reports. They went ballistic and used there considerable "juice" to get the Seattle PD (filed a theft report for something which is not against the law in the State of Washington)to recover the files on Eastman home computer and then pressured the elected king co. prosecutor (reportedly sponsored in the election by Boeing) to shop around for a crime they could stick Eastman with. It seems, copying and downloading files from a computer system is only a crime for outside (unauthorized) users. What Eastman did is NOT against the law in Washington State. That's what this whole trial was about. In fact, I came to believe this was an attempt to make copying and
downloading files a crime without going to the legislature to get a law created. Had you been on this jury instead of me, it is likely that today, every employee in the state of Washington would have to be in constant worry that some arbitrary company policy could be used to send the local police to raid their home and confiscate all devices, from cell phones to mp3 players, which contain a memory. This extra legislative attempt to empower employers to terrorize their employees with the threat of criminal treatment for violating company policy is corporate terrorism IMHO.

Filing a false police report is just another example of Boeing's arrogant behavior that not only violated Eastman's State and Federal civil liberties, tried to expand an anti-hacker law to the rest of the employees in the State who have authorized access to their company computers, compromised the king County prosecutors office, while committing another possible RICO offence (filing a false police report). There is no doubt in my mind that a higher court would have reversed a "guilty" decision as the law being over broad. Justice would have been better served with a 12-0 verdict of not guilty. That was the outcome I fought for to send a message to the powerful that what they were doing was unacceptable, still, in the land of the free.

You can see all comments on this post here:
http://gflorencescott.wordpress.com/2008/04/08/boeing-whistleblower-trial-ends-with-hung-jury/#comments

Bush Plan To Contract Federal Jobs Falls Short
Scope and Savings Have Not Met Goals
By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 25, 2008; A01
Joseph Wassmann thought he had a secure position producing videos for the U.S. Military Academy, but not long ago he found his job on the line because of a Bush administration plan to inject more efficiency into the federal bureaucracy.
Wassmann, 40, was among a group of information management employees at West Point who had to prove that they could do their jobs better and more cheaply than a private contractor. If they could not, they were told, the work would be outsourced. It was all part of President Bush's government-wide plan to reduce costs by inviting contractors to bid on about 425,000 federal jobs that could be considered "commercial" in nature.
The West Point competition dragged on for more than two years. In the end, Wassmann and most of his co-workers won, but only by agreeing to downsize from 119 employees to 88. And the mood has never been worse, he said.
"Tensions are at an all-time high," he said. "We have to cut ourselves to the bone to win these bids. . . . And morale is just destroyed afterward."
The public-private face-off at West Point illustrates just what Bush envisioned when he proposed the "competitive sourcing" initiative in 2001 as part of his management agenda. It turned on a simple idea: Force federal employees to compete for their jobs against private contractors and costs will decrease, even if the work ultimately stays in-house.
But as Bush's presidency winds down, the program's critics say it has had disappointing results and shaken morale among the federal government's 1.8 million civil servants.
Private contractors have grown increasingly reluctant to participate in the competitions, which federal employees have won 83 percent of the time.
The program fell short of the president's goals in scope and in cost savings. Between 2003 and 2006, agencies completed competitions for fewer than 50,000 jobs, a fraction of what Bush envisioned.
Moreover, the Government Accountability Office found that the administration has overstated the savings from some competitions by undercounting the costs of running them. Collectively, they cost $225 million, or about $4,800 per job, according to White House figures.
"The competitive sourcing initiative did little to improve management, produced a ton of worthless paper, demoralized thousands of workers and cost a bundle, all to prove that federal employees are pretty good after all," said Paul C. Light, a professor of government at New York University's Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.
"From a legacy perspective for the president, I think this will be seen as a costly failure on his part," said Colleen M. Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), which represents 150,000 employees in 31 agencies. "They have not made any progress on what their stated goal was, and that's a good thing. It has been just an endless fight to slow them down and to derail them."
Bush officials acknowledge that they had hoped to put many more jobs up for competition -- as varied as janitorial services and computer management. Even so, they say, the competitions completed thus far have generated realized and projected savings of more than $7 billion.
"We've delivered real savings -- over $1 billion a year," said Clay Johnson III, deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget. "I thought we would have generated by now even larger savings than that. But anything that generates savings of that magnitude has to be deemed a big success."
Competitive sourcing dates to Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration, when the White House began encouraging federal agencies to turn to the private sector for certain goods and services. For decades, almost all such competitions took place in the Defense Department, the government's largest.
Bush entered office with a deep skepticism of government. He saw competitive sourcing as a way to improve agencies' performance.
Private companies loved the idea of vast new contracting opportunities. But federal unions feared the concept was simply a way to steer lucrative business to the administration's political backers.
From the outset, the program's rocky path illustrated the collective political power of federal workers. The initiative drew early criticism from politicians whose districts included many federal employees, including Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) and Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.). They argued that the White House was pursuing "arbitrary" numerical job targets.
In the end, the unions and their allies in Congress largely stymied the administration's efforts. They banned the use of numerical quotas. They inserted special provisions in annual appropriations bills that denied funding for some competitions. And they walled off certain federal jobs after declaring them "inherently governmental."
The unions, including the American Federation of Government Employees and the NTEU, also won legislative restrictions that removed health care and retirement benefits from the cost comparisons, wiping out an advantage for many private-sector bidders.
Many contractors threw up their hands and stopped participating, said Stan Soloway, president of the Professional Services Council, an Arlington-based contractor group.
A competition involving 258 administrative positions at the Labor Department, including 50 in the Mine Safety and Health Administration, illustrates why contractors lost interest, Soloway said.
In May 2007, the department awarded the work to GAP Solutions, a small, minority-owned firm in Virginia whose bid promised $62 million in savings over five years. But at the behest of unions, Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) had the jobs declared inherently governmental, prohibiting the contractor from taking over the work.
The company had already hired some employees, but when Labor officials terminated the $71 million contract, they refused to reimburse the firm for its upfront costs, Soloway said. (GAP Solutions officials declined to comment.)
"It's unfortunate that it has effectively gone from being a management tool to really more of a political issue," he said.
The unions are not happy, either. They cite another troubled competition, this one at the Internal Revenue Service. In 2005, about 1,100 agency employees initially won in their bid to keep jobs to manage paper tax returns at seven IRS service centers. After a company protest, though, the agency reversed itself and hired IAP Worldwide Services.
Shortly before IAP was to take over in late 2006, it notified the IRS that it was not prepared to do the work at all locations. By then, federal employees were already moving to other jobs. The contractor did not get fully on board until late last year. Yet in a report issued last spring, the OMB claimed about $35 million in savings, said Kelley, the NTEU president.
"This, for me, is just an example that OMB's projections of savings from federal contracting are wildly speculative and they are completely unsupported by any evidence," she said.
The OMB's Johnson said agencies are doing more to validate savings claims.
"The bottom line," he said, "is the federal government can be more focused on its cost and its performance. We should always look at what it costs us to do everything -- IT, human resources, building maintenance, everything. And if we ever stop doing that, then we are being poor stewards of the taxpayers' money."
At West Point, the workers won, but they are not celebrating. Some displaced employees found other academy jobs. Some took early retirement.
Soft landings are getting harder to come by, and more competitions are on the way, said Don Hale, president of the AFGE Local 2367, which represents 1,600 workers at the academy.
"When we first started the competitive sourcing initiative, we had some fat here," he said. "Now it's at a point where we're going to start losing people because we can't gain any efficiencies."