Public Information, Private Profit?

[Guest guest]

Privatization works and does what it was designed to

do. Less oversight and less scrutiny. Subverts public

monies and resources to private pockets.F.

 

 

http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2004/05/05_401.html

 

Public Information, Private Profit?

 

Long publicly available, a database detailing federal

contracts has been outsourced ... to a federal

contractor.

 

By Michael Scherer

 

May 26, 2004

 

(Note: this story is slowly starting to get some

notice. On August 3, two months after Michael

Scherer's piece appeared, the Washington Post ran this

article on the privatization of the Federal

Procurement Data System.)

 

For 25 years, the clearest window into the murky world

of federal contracting has been an obscure public

database available to anyone for a nominal fee. No

longer. Under a new deal approved by the White House,

the government's voluminous compilation of contracting

information has been turned over to a contractor.

 

Established by an act of Congress in 1979, the Federal

Procurement Data System was a rare island of public

information, the only complete record of federal

contracts. Using the database, journalists, auditors

and federal investigators could review the million or

so agreements with corporations Uncle Sam signed each

year. They could find the companies reaping the

largest awards, track the rise in no-bid deals, and

measure the recent drive to replace federal employees

with corporate employees. But under a new contract,

the General Services Administration has now turned

over responsibility for collecting and distributing

information on government contracts to a beltway

company called Global Computer Enterprises, Inc.

 

In signing the $24 million deal, the Bush

Administration has privatized not only the collection

and distribution of the data, but the database itself.

For the first time since the system was established,

the information will not be available directly to the

public or subject to the Freedom of Information Act,

according to federal officials. " It's a contractor

owned and operated system, " explains Nancy Gunsauls, a

project manager at GCE. " We have the data. "

 

With the compiled database under private control,

journalists, corporate consultants, and even federal

agencies will be barred from independently searching

copies of it. Instead, GCE has pledged only to produce

a set of public reports required by the government,

and to provide limited access to the entire database

for a yet-to-be-determined fee.

 

" It seems that something quite inappropriate has been

done here, " says Angela Styles, who served until last

year as President Bush's chief procurement official,

noting that Congress requires the government to

compile and share this information. " They have ceded

their responsibility. "

 

Experts in federal contract law worry that the new

system could cripple public scrutiny of federal

contracts. " This is the ultimate metaphor for the

administration's view of contracting out, " says Paul

Light, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution,

who has used the procurement database for his own

work. " It insulates the process from inspection, which

I think is exactly what this administration prefers.

They don't want people digging. They don't want people

looking. " Similarly, Charles Tiefer, a professor at

Baltimore Law School who wrote a textbook on contract

law, described the change as a political move. " They

are covering up, " he said. " They are making it more

difficult to know that we have less competition. "

 

A federal official close to the contracting process

admits that all users -- even those seeking limited

access -- will probably pay more. Just how much more

is unclear, as the pricing structure has yet to be

established. Under the agreement, GCE can sell

unlimited access to clients on an individual basis for

" market value. " But Paul Murphy, president of the

private consulting firm, Eagle Eye Publishers Inc.,

says a GCE representative told him he would have to

pay $35,000 for data he once got for about $1,500.

 

" This is very troubling, " says Murphy, who has worked

with Mother Jones in the past. His for-profit company

was one of the losing bidders for the contract awarded

by the GSA, and he now feels that he is being squeezed

out of business. Under the terms of the contract, GCE

must split its revenue from selling access to the

database with the federal government. " When does a

partnership become a kickback? " Murphy asks.

 

Federal officials and GCE executives deny the charges.

David Lucas, director of business development at GCE,

argues that the private database will feature many

improvements over the old federal data, including

continuous updates and new features that will cut down

on errors and increase the scope and detail of the

information. And Lucas insists that GCE doesn't expect

to make much money off the project. " We are bringing a

level of usability to federal spending that heretofore

has not existed, " Lucas says. " We should be seen as

the champions of visibility in this data, and somehow

we are being labeled the villain. " David Drabkin, the

top procurement official at the General Services

Administration, defends the contract with CGE in

similar terms. And he insists that his agency has " an

interest in the public seeing what we do. "

 

In fact, the new system appears designed to virtually

eliminate unfettered public access. Under the Freedom

of Information Act, all records created by federal

agencies are available to the public for modest

reproduction fee, with a few specific exceptions. By

allowing GCE to directly collect contract data from

each agency, the Bush Administration has effectively

bypassed the Act, because the compiled records are

never directly controlled by any government agency.

Drabkin, who has already rejected such requests for

the data, says the public can still get access to the

raw information by approaching each individual agency.

 

" It's an insult to the public to tell citizens they

must pay to find out the identities of private

companies receiving billions of taxpayer dollars, "

says Dan Guttman, an expert in federal contracting who

teaches at Johns Hopkins University. " That's like

saying that the public will have to pay to find out

the names and phone numbers of its federal officials. "

Guttman points out that this is not the first time

contractors have been used to restrict public access

to information. There is no way, for example, to know

who is doing most of the reconstruction work in Iraq,

because it is being handled by subcontractors, who

never work directly for the taxpayers. Rather, they

report to companies like Halliburton and Bechtel,

which have been awarded giant umbrella contracts, and

are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

 

Without direct access to the raw data, groups like

Investigative Reporters and Editors, a popular source

of government databases for reporters, may no longer

be able to offer the information to its members. " I'm

a little bit concerned about the next go-round, and

whether we are going to be gouged in terms of cost, "

says Jeff Porter, the database editor at IRE. Aron

Pilhofer, who manages databases at the Center for

Public Integrity, said he was withholding judgment on

the new system until he found out the price for

non-profits and journalists. " If they plan to charge

$35,000 for what we used to pay $500 for, they are in

for a lawsuit, " he said.

 

When contacted by a Mother Jones reporter seeking a

copy of the data, a GCE representative suggested a

one-on-one meeting at the company's offices in Reston,

Virginia. " We like to meet with folks and find out how

they are using the data to provide a real-time access

to the database, " Gunsauls explained. She declined to

discuss costs over the phone. The first available date

she had for an in-person meeting, she said, was two

weeks away.