from POGO, the Project On Government Oversight

There are excellent arguments that Romney and Ryan are the step'n fetchits for CEOs and corporate interests, big money, the 1%. Those claism about not cutting the military expenditures, which are already impoverishing this country, taking money away from more necessary expenditures like infrastructure, where we have tens of thousands of bridges and roads in bad repair - in the case of numerous bridges, ready to fall down like the I-35 bridge five years ago. It is enormously cheaper to repair than to replace, but we haven't done the necessary maintenance and repair. Former 5 star general and world war II leader, Dwight D. Eisenhower, a well-regarded REPUBLICAN president famously described the military industrial complex grasp for wealth and power. It extends even to the extent of paying Congress to buy things the Pentagon DOESN'T WANT OR NEED, to keep those corporate military industrial CEOs fat and happy. THIS is what Romney and Ryan are really talking about doing, NOT keeping this country safe.

Romney has surrounded himself with militant re-cycled Bush White House militant neo-cons who want to use military spending to rip us off.  If you have any doubts, read my prior posts, and the news coverage, both U.S. and foreign, on the F-35 or the F-22.

From POGO:

Weapons makers have been claiming for months that cutting the Pentagon budget will result in big losses of American jobs.

But the truth is that weapons companies make billions in profits, and pay their CEOs millions of dollars a year — none of which makes us more safe.

 

 

POGO Report on Highly Dangerous Defense Contractor Security Lapses Part I

I like POGO; they do an excellent job of being factual, of using the original / primary source documents, and they reveal a lot of what is wrong with our government, keeping it both more transparent and more honest. We need more of that, but to be of any use, we also need more people who demand the truth, and fewer who blindly follow ideology.

POGO doesn't curry the favor of anyone, they don't seek campaign contributions or PAC support to get elected to any office. They simply pursue the truth where the objective reality - the facts - show something is badly wrong.

They do that again here. I've broken their report down to 4 sections, to make it easier to navigate the length of their findings. You might also want to look at the earlier Penigma posts on the very serious problems that have beset the supposed elite F-22. Enjoy!

From POGO:

Whistleblower: Boeing Put Classified Information at Risk

Pentagon Watchdog Backs Up Retaliation Claim

By NICK SCHWELLENBACH

A report by the Department of Defense Inspector General concluded that the Defense Security Service whistleblower was retaliated against and that his concerns about Boeing were reasonable. Click here to view an annotated version of the report.

A previously nonpublic Defense Department (DoD) Inspector General (IG) report obtained by POGO raises questions about the government's effectiveness in overseeing the security of classified material in the hands of defense contractors.
The DoD IG report centers on one government agent's quest to find the truth about the storage of classified information at Boeing—the second largest defense contractor—and the retaliation that the agent said he endured as a result. The DoD IG report raises questions about how well the Boeing Company is protecting classified weapons design information in its possession.
The vast outsourcing of many of the nation’s most classified defense projects to government contractors creates unique problems because the information is out of the government’s hands. Enter the Defense Security Service, the little-known U.S. agency tasked with ensuring that contractors—for the military services and dozens of federal agencies—properly safeguard classified information in their possession.
The threat to these assets is very real. Foreign attempts to illegally gain access to sensitive or classified information more than doubled from fiscal years 2009 to 2010, according to the latest annual counterintelligence trend analysis by the Defense Security Service.
As attempted incidents of cyber mayhem are on the rise, the role of the Defense Security Service as the key overseer of the nation’s most delicate security secrets is more important than ever. However, the Service has for years come under fire from congressional investigators and the Pentagon’s Inspector General for its lackluster oversight of contractors.
In 2002, Robert Conley, an industrial security specialist with the Defense Security Service, began to investigate what he believed was an illegal “classified technology library” in Boeing’s secretive Phantom Works division that was in alleged violation of regulations on protection of classified information.
Conley alleged to the DoD IG that after he continued to raise concerns about the problems he found at Boeing, his supervisors retaliated against him and publicly humiliated him. The April 2011 report by the DoD IG Civilian Reprisal Investigations unit substantiated Conley’s allegation that Defense Security Service management reprised against him. One act of reprisal, for example, “was significant because it resulted in loss of prestige, loss of opportunity for promotion, and loss of complex and challenging work.” The report also determined that “Mr. Conley's belief, in 2002, that Boeing was illegally transferring classified technology was reasonable.”

As outlined in the IG report, Conley’s investigation of Boeing began when he was wrapping up a subcontract the firm had with General Dynamics on a Marine Corps vehicle program involving “low-observable and counter-low-observable advanced technology”; in other words, highly classified ways of avoiding enemy detection or detecting potentially stealthy enemies. The program was a special access program. Special access programs are among the most highly secretive programs in the federal government and require special security measures.

Boeing's Phantom Works division works on some of the company's most advanced and sensitive projects for the U.S. government. The X-45A, pictured here, is a concept demonstrator for the next generation of unmanned combat aircraft. Photo via Flickr user JohnE777 (link).

The Marine Corps official responsible for the program’s security, Randall Kelly, asked Conley to ensure that Boeing returned all relevant classified materials it had received in order to carry out its duties. Conley and Kelly performed an inspection and “discovered that pieces of classified material were missing,” according to the IG report obtained by POGO, and Conley opened an administrative inquiry into the matter. “As a result of this inquiry, Mr. Conley stated that he discovered the missing classified material in other SAP [special access program] compartments,” the IG report noted.
More significantly, the report states that Conley said he “discovered the existence of a classified technology library ‘that had grown in scope beyond the legal bounds’” imposed by the Air Force, which originally created the library. For roughly the next three months, Conley investigated what Boeing was doing by interviewing Boeing employees and examining documents.

POGO Report on Highly Dangerous Defense Contractor Security Lapses Part II

I have been reading a couple of the books written in the last ten years by Chris Mooney, a science author, in which he is very critical of government reports that are altered so as to minimize and mislead regarding important information. Where that information is subsequently the basis for important decision making, to mislead and misrepresent, particularly where safety or security is involved should be strongly penalized, but instead in too many instances, at least in the 'Dubya' years, that was standard operating procedure -- make the reports fit the outcome that the administration wants, and the hell with fact or truth.
That is the essence of living in a "post-truth" society, that we either become so cynical we disbelieve everything equally, or we make peace with being gullible stooges.  I rejcect both choices, and so should you.
We should ALL demand the truth, regardless of it being convenient or inconvenient, or ideologically consistent with our views or not. There is no point to teaching a controversy where there is no significant controversy, there is no point or value while replacing value with substantive risk, in allowing corporations OR government to lie to us.
From POGO:

Whistleblower: Boeing Put Classified Information at Risk

Pentagon Watchdog Backs Up Retaliation Claim

By NICK SCHWELLENBACH

“Extreme Risk”
According to the IG report, one Boeing employee told Conley in a sworn statement that there was “a covert technology library maintained by Boeing.” The employee told Pentagon criminal investigators that the Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition and Management had sanctioned the library; however, according to reprisal investigators, she also told the criminal investigators that in the past she had said the program involved “stealing technology from Government customers.” Later, criminal investigations did not substantiate allegations of theft.
Conley completed a first draft of his report on the administrative inquiry in May 2002. His conclusions were modest, but suggested that it was possible Boeing was changing the labeling on classified documents or technology, potentially, for example, by removing a “Top Secret” marking on a document that required it. “DSS could make no assessment of the potential for covert improper technology transfer practices,” his draft stated in its conclusion, but “if improper technology transfer practices have included the remarking or the mis-marking of documentation or hardware,” then he said that experts would be required for further examination.
In a later interview with IG reprisal investigators, Conley said that what Boeing had been doing placed “advanced technologies and information at extreme risk.” According to Conley, this happened due to Boeing’s “systemic failure of following the proper DOD processes for the safeguarding and handling of compartmented information.”
DSS Senior Management Waters Down Conley’s Report
Conley’s draft made its way to Defense Security Service headquarters, but was returned to him at least twice. Each time, “there was a direction to remove supporting evidence/documentation,” according to a transcript of a 2010 IG retaliation investigator interview with Conley.
“My concern was that in removing that documentation, they were removing the supporting evidence,” Conley told reprisal investigators with the IG’s office. That evidence, according to Conley, “supported my finding that there was systemic and serious problems” within Boeing’s Phantom Works.
According to the interview transcript, Conley said the upshot of these changes, was “reducing a very serious administrative inquiry that should have gone on for consideration for potential civil and/or criminal follow up, to nothing more than minor administrative findings.”
The final report, which Conley refused to sign, was reduced from his original twelve pages to three.

POGO Report on Highly Dangerous Defense Contractor Security Lapses Part III

For those of you unfamiliar with the F-22, it has a series of problems making it very dangerous for the pilots who fly it, which we have covered in other posts on this blog. If you are interested in that history, search using the F-22 tags. Those problems appear to continue unresolved as of this writing.
Part 3 from POGO's

Whistleblower: Boeing Put Classified Information at Risk

Pentagon Watchdog Backs Up Retaliation Claim

By NICK SCHWELLENBACH

“Mr. Conley's belief, in 2002, that Boeing was illegally transferring classified technology was reasonable.”

First Round of Retaliation?
Despite aggressive editing of his report by the Defense Security Service’s senior management, Conley thought the issues were serious enough to flag them to the regional official responsible for counterintelligence sometime in late 2002 or early 2003, according to an IG timeline of Conley’s case.
During this time, he told investigators he began to “experience a dramatic increase in workload,” according to the IG reprisal investigators’ report.
Conley was also unexpectedly called back from an assignment in Alaska to attend a meeting in California.
“I was stood up in front of all my peers in an all-hands meeting of Special Access Program Personnel, and stripped...of all of my Special Programs,” Conley told IG investigators, according to a transcript.
“It was incredibly humiliating,” Conley said of the episode.
Conley told the IG reprisal investigators that he believed the increase in workload and the removal of responsibilities were retaliation for his continued pursuit of the Boeing matter.
However, the IG reprisal office declined to evaluate whether the removal of responsibilities was retaliatory in nature because these events were too far in the past, the IG report stated.
Going Outside His Agency: Work with Hesitant Investigators Triggers Reprisal?
It was mere months later that Conley left the Defense Security Service to work as a counterintelligence and security specialist at the U.S. Commerce Department.
In parallel with his own administrative inquiry, Conley had informed criminal investigators in the Navy Department about Boeing’s activities in February 2002.
As Conley explained to DoD IG investigators, in 2005, Kelly and Conley decided they still had to try to do something about what they believed was continuing to transpire at Boeing. They went to other criminal investigators in the Seattle office of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, which is the criminal investigative arm of the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General.

Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA).

When that effort went nowhere, the two turned to Congress, first approaching Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, who directed the pair to Conley’s own Senator, Maria Cantwell, a Democrat of Washington state.
The involvement of Congress may have sparked action from Defense Criminal Investigative Service. Soon after Conley and Kelly’s allegations reached Congress, a special agent with the Service contacted Conley and took a sworn statement from him in early 2006.
Then, in February 2008, the Defense Security Service rehired Conley to perform essentially the same job he had half a decade prior, according to the IG reprisal investigators.
According to the investigators’ timeline, in September 2008, Conley, “lodged a complaint against DSS and the Boeing company,” claiming that he had been a victim of professional reprisal. On Sept. 18, 2008, Conley’s immediate supervisor was told to remove Conley from his oversight responsibilities of Boeing—the action that later led IG reprisal investigators to conclude that Conley was the victim of agency reprisal for whistleblowing.
Meanwhile, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service conducted an investigation into Boeing. Conley regularly pursued status updates on the investigation via Cantwell’s office, which in turn provided him with what appeared to be brief generic form letters from the IG stating the investigation was still open.
One source in the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the source was not authorized to discuss the matter, told POGO that the source's review of the case in the agency’s database showed that it did not seem very active when it was still open.
Finally, in late 2009, the agency closed the investigation.
The result? A Nov. 19, 2009, letter to Sen. Cantwell from the DoD IG says the Defense Criminal Investigative Service investigation could not substantiate allegations that Boeing was involved in the theft of government-owned classified material or that Conley was the victim of reprisal.
POGO filed Freedom of Information Act requests for the Defense Criminal Investigative Service and Naval Criminal Investigative Service reports of investigation last year, but has received only interim responses acknowledging that the agencies received our requests.
Ultimately, IG reprisal investigators came to a different conclusion than did the IG’s criminal investigators. In their 2011 report, the reprisal investigators substantiated the allegations that Conley was reprised against. They clearly established that the removal of Conley’s oversight responsibilities was directly tied to his communication with DCIS about problems he was encountering with his investigation into Boeing. At least three Defense Security Service management officials told the IG reprisal investigators as much:

Mr. Whitecotton [Conley’s supervisor] testified that he ordered Mr. Conley’s removal from Boeing based on Mr. Conley’s past work performance. However, this rationale is contradicted by testimony from Mr. Lawhorn, [name redacted] and Mr. Hellman. Therefore, we concluded that Mr. Conley was removed from Boeing because of the information he provided to DCIS.

The IG reprisal investigators determined that the decision to remove Conley from his oversight of Boeing was not done in consultation with DSS ethics regulations or with involvement of the DSS general counsel.

Boeing declined to comment on the IG reprisal investigators’ findings. “The Boeing Company does not comment on non-public government reports,” a Boeing spokeswoman for Phantom Works told POGO in an email.
DSS was similarly tight-lipped. In response to a POGO query about Conley and Kelly’s allegations against Boeing and DSS, a DSS spokesperson replied, “DSS does not publicly disclose the results of its security reviews of individual cleared facilities or the results of administrative inquiries as this discloses security vulnerabilities that may be exploited.”
“In regard to the IG report you reference, DSS has reviewed the report and the DSS Director has taken all appropriate action within his authority to address this issue,” she added, referring to the reprisal taken against Conley.
However, according to DoD IG data from April 23, 2012, shared with Congress and viewed by POGO, the DoD IG lists Conley's case as “Pending Follow-Up Action”—which seems to contradict the DSS spokesperson’s statement.

A big F for the F-22 - the CBS 60 Minutes Interview

Below is the 'overtime' online additional footage of the 60 minutes report on the F-22. In the context of the concern expressed by these pilots was the crash back in early April of a different model of plane, an F-18, which struck an apartment building. Clearly that is the kind of incident that concerns these pilots, and reportedly, their colleagues and associates. It is a significant story in view of two recent posts on this blog, in part in a response to some highly dubious sources which have claimed our special forces are openly critical of President Obama's characterization of his role relating to the death of Osama bin Laden. I think entirely separate from the issues of the F-22's safety, the concerns of these top pilots relating to what constitutes professional conduct in speaking out should be noted, and those two posts revisited if you don't really get why this is so challenging for these two pilots.
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It's not news that there's something wrong with the F-22.
Even the Air Force acknowledges that there's a problem with the pilots' oxygen system in their top fighter jet, having grounded the entire F-22 fleet back in May of 2011 over the issue.



What is news, however, is the appearance of two decorated F-22 pilots-- in uniform-- talking to Lesley Stahl on camera about their personal experiences, frustrations, and concerns with the aircraft.
Not surprisingly, getting Major Jeremy Gordon and Captain Josh Wilson to appear this week on 60 Minutes broadcast was no easy task. In this video, Lesley Stahl and veteran producer Karen Sughrue tell Overtime editor Ann Silvio about the pilots' decision to go public.
What do you think of Major Gordon and Captain Wilson? Did they do the right thing by breaking chain of command when they granted an interview to 60 Minutes? Or should they have kept their concerns about the F-22 jet inside the military loop?
And what about the Air Force? Should it ground the F-22 until this problem is solved or keep asking pilots to fly it while the search for a solution continues?

And here was the main segment that aired on the broadcast 60 Minutes of May 6 2012.



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I've written here about the dubious and arguably corrupt problems related to the F-35 which also does not work properly, and which has serious issues about cost over runs, and the so-called 'F-35 caucus' of reported Lockheed Martin stock owning members of Congress. So it should not surprise me that this aircraft is also made by Lockheed Martin.