A Government Equation with the F Factor
March 2, 2011
Our first thought about a title for this article was “Cluster F Results in $20-Million Bogus Software Purchase (Where “F” = Federal Government).”
Nah, we went with the F Factor.
Desperate to prevent another terrorist attack after 9-11, Feds spent more than $20 million on software by Dennis Montgomery who claimed it could decode terrorist messages hidden in Al Jazeera broadcasts.
According to a NYT article, “Hiding Details of Dubious Deal, US Invokes National Security”:
Montgomery is at the center of a tale that features secret White House briefings, backing from prominent Republicans, backdoor deal-making and fantastic-sounding computer technology. In Dec. 2003 Montgomery told the CIA that certain flights from Britain, Mexico and France bound for the US were hijacked. Bush ordered the flights grounded. Later, the French investigated and concluded the threats were bogus. The CIA then broke off relations with Montgomery. Amazingly (or not), other government agencies were not warned, and two of them kept working with the con man until 2009.
When the flag was up and flapping in the wind, the CIA sacked the employees responsible, right? No. They got promoted.
Montgomery? He’s awaiting trial. Not for the scam but for passing $1.8 million in bad checks in Vegas. Feds have no plans to go after him or get the money back.
In fact, they’re trying to squelch the story, saying it could jeopardize national security. To us this sounds more bogus than Montgomery’s software.
According to a source from the NYT article,
“The Justice Department is trying to cover this up. If this unravels, all the evidence, all the phony terror alerts and all the embarrassment comes up publicly, too.”
Makes sense to us. After all, the French saw through Montgomery, so why couldn’t the US? Freedom fries, anyone?
So what’s this mean for search procurements? We don’t want to think about that.
Robin Broyles, March 2, 2011
Freebie unlike most government contractors’ work
Comments
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
