Bezos Paper Research Item: Report Has Disappeared
December 6, 2016
I read a weird, sort of out-of-time write up from the “real” journalistic outfit the Washington Post. The story is “Pentagon Buries Evidence of $125 Billion in Bureaucratic Waste.” The days of the fun Golden Fleece Award have passed us by. The Washington Post is apparently trying to revivify an interesting series of announcements about expensive, inefficient US government processes. I know the US government is a paragon of efficiency, so I was curious about the hot news which I read on December 5, 2016. If the url doesn’t work, you may have to pay to view the Bezos paper’s content. Don’t hassle me. Contact the big guy at the digital Wal-Mart.
The “news” in the story is that a 2015 report HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE WEB SITE. The capital letters are necessary because the investigative team at the Bezos paper has discovered that a white hot report is no longer findable.
Guidepost for some real journalists. Helpful and apparently accurate.
Okay, that’s just not true.
The report “Transforming DoD’s Core Business Processes for Revolutionary Change” is available. Just click this DTIC link for the short version and this link for the 140+ page version. Dive into the document which was in preparation for more than a year. The reports appeared in January 2015. It took me exactly 20 seconds to navigate to USA.gov, enter the title of the report, and identify the document in the result list. Sure, the USA.gov search relevance thing is not too good, but the document is indeed online from a unit of the Department of Defense. (I wonder if the intrepid Bezos paper researchers have sought ZPIC and RAC contract information on the US government’s fraud related Web sites. There’s a story there.)
This report was assembled in 2014 and made available in 2015. The Bezos paper rolled out the “Pentagon Buries…” write up on December 5, 2016. That’s a bit like reporting that in 2014 Wiz Khalifa’s “We Dem Boyz“ was a reasonably popular rap song. Run the story today and you have a real timely report. That’s “real” journalism.
The DoD fiddles with its Web site frequently. Try and locate details of the 2015 DCGS meeting in Virginia. The information is online, but due to the spiffing up of US government Web sites, content seems to disappear. In some cases like the MIC, RAC, and ZPIC information, a contractor or a clever government Web master moves content from a public folder to a non-public folder. Some bureaucrats are not completely ditzy.
The DoD, however, is another kettle of fish. The agency has to deal with the tanks it does not want yet it continues to receive, the F-35 thing, and the stealth ship which is neither stealthy or ready to take a quick spin to Jeju this afternoon. These expensive projects are difficult to hide. Notice I did not mention my fave US government project, the Distributed Common Ground System available (sort of) in Air Force and Army flavors.
My point is that “investigations” implies something substantive, reasonably new, and not widely known. The “Pentagon Buries…” write up is not new. Its information is widely known even here in rural Kentucky, and I would presume by legions of Beltway Bandits who wonder what the Trumpeteers will do to their highly polished apple carts used to ferry proposals and invoices to the the Department of Defense and assorted sub entities.
In an era during which real journalists at outfits like the Guardian REALIZE THAT FREE WEB SEARCH IS NOT WHAT IT SEEMS, I conclude that the “real” journalists prefer old news to tracking down something of substance which is current. Even my comment about MIC, RAC, and ZPIC contracts is old news. I keep the juicy new stuff to myself.
Because I am not a “real” journalist, I sell information because I am a semi retired consultant. Watch for “Dark Web Notebook.” The monograph contains information not previously collected. Some of the information is “actual factual” just like the podcast by three millennials. Perhaps the Bezos paper will buy a copy? I know better than to put the study on Amazon. I watched the horror of the Schubmehl thing, which tried to hawk eight pages of my research for $3,500 on the digital Wal-Mart. What was that “wizard” thinking? Maybe he could work at the Bezos paper? Might be a good fit.
Stephen E Arnold, December 6, 2016
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