December 23, 2013 (Surveillance; Ownership)
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for MONDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2013
It’s that time of year again… Headlines staff are headed to Macy’s to help the elves with clean-up. We’ll return Monday, January 6. Hope you have a safe and happy break.
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
Government Drops Objections to Publishing Secret Opinion
White House Tries to Prevent Judge From Ruling on Surveillance Efforts
President Obama: US needs checks on NSA data gathering but can't disarm
Protecting Citizens, and Their Privacy - op-ed
Behind a New Principle for US National Security - op-ed
Officials’ defenses of NSA phone program may be unraveling - analysis
NSA's Approach to Spying Questioned - analysis
NSA Dragnet Included Allies, Aid Groups and Business Elite
Slobberknockered - analysis
Secret contract tied NSA and security industry pioneer
NSA could improve transparency without harming security - Washington Post editorial [links to web]
Intelligence panel leaders slam NSA review [links to web]
GOP requests criminal probe of James Clapper [links to web]
The gulf widens between NSA supporters and opponents - op-ed [links to web]
NSA Fallout in Europe Boosts Alternatives to Google [links to web]
AT&T is hopping on the transparency report train. When will T-Mobile and Sprint follow suit?
People Are More Freaked Out by Hacking Than Tracking, Survey Finds [links to web]
OWNERSHIP
A Sorry Moment in the History of American Media - editorial
Tribune Gets FCC Approval for Local TV Holdings Purchase [links to web]
Gannett Deal for Belo Gets Regulatory Clearance from FCC [links to web]
Hollywood wants the rest of the world to follow US copyright law [links to web]
Plan for Tribune Spinoff Raises Concerns for Future of Newspaper Operations
TELEVISION
An Economic Framework for Retransmission Consent - research [links to web]
Blackout Rule's Real Value Is In Retransmission Clout - editorial [links to web]
NFL: We'll Strongly Oppose Lifting Blackout Rules [links to web]
Dems attack football blackout [links to web]
TWC Won't Drop New England Cable Network [links to web]
BROADBAND/ TELECOM
Which Way, Mr. Wheeler? - analysis
This Georgia telephone law would’ve hurt the poor. Now a judge has blocked it. - analysis
Sen Begich Bill Encourages More Broadband Investment in Rural Communities - press release [links to web]
December A Landmark Month for Communications Policy - analysis [links to web]
How the network industry should view and understand “open” - op-ed
SPECTRUM/WIRELESS
FCC Wireless Telecommunications Bureau grants Dish permission to use 20 megahertz of AWS-4 spectrum at 2000-2020 MHz - public notice
Sen Rockefeller Concerned About Lifting In-flight Cell Phone Ban [links to web]
LTE becomes mainstream, as the focus shifts to capacity: Year in Review 2013 - analysis [links to web]
Spectrum drives consolidation, but future auctions are up in the air: Year in Review 2013 - analysis [links to web]
How the network industry should view and understand “open” - op-ed
PRIVACY
Data brokers outpace regulators as they mine new technologies
Do We Want an Erasable Internet? - analysis [links to web]
GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE
In Tech Buying, US Still Stuck in Last Century
OPEN GOVERNMENT
New York City Crime Map Adds to Interactive Data Trend [links to web]
POLICYMAKERS
NTIA’s Year in Review and 2014 Forecast - press release [links to web]
DeSalvo Appointed National Coordinator For Health IT [links to web]
Kathryn Brown Named Internet Society CEO [links to web]
Reed Hundt: ‘Be careful not to let licensing become a tool of monopoly’ [links to web]
Josh Levy of Free Press on Internet Freedom and the End of the Internet As We Know It [links to web]
COMPANY NEWS
The "Netflix For Books" Business Model, And How It'll Change The Way You Read [links to web]
STORIES FROM ABROAD
China Mobile to Begin Offering iPhone [links to web]
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
GOVERNMENT DROPS OBJECTIONS TO PUBLISHING SECRET OPINION
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: Frederic Frommer]
The Obama Administration has dropped its objection to the publication of a secret court opinion on the law that authorizes the National Security Agency's bulk collection of millions of Americans' telephone records. The Justice Department told the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in a filing that the department won't object if the court decides to publish nonclassified portions of its opinion that don't harm an ongoing law enforcement investigation. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic at Yale Law School had asked the court to release opinions on the meaning, scope and/or constitutionality of a legal provision under which the records are collected — Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act.
benton.org/node/171031 | Associated Press | The Hill
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SURVEILLANCE RULING
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Charlie Savage, David Sanger]
The Obama Administration moved late Dec 20 to prevent a federal judge in California from ruling on the constitutionality of warrantless surveillance programs authorized during the Bush administration, telling a court that recent disclosures about National Security Agency spying were not enough to undermine its claim that litigating the case would jeopardize state secrets. In a set of filings in the two long-running cases in the Northern District of California, the government acknowledged for the first time that the NSA started systematically collecting data about Americans’ e-mails and phone calls in 2001, alongside its program of wiretapping certain calls without warrants. The government had long argued that disclosure of these and other secrets would put the country at risk if they came out in court. But the government said that despite recent leaks by Edward J. Snowden, the former NSA contractor, that made public a fuller scope of the surveillance and data collection programs put in place after the Sept. 11 attacks, sensitive secrets remained at risk in any courtroom discussion of their details -- like whether the plaintiffs were targets of intelligence collection or whether particular telecommunications providers like AT&T and Verizon had helped the agency.
benton.org/node/171047 | New York Times
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OBAMA: US NEEDS CHECKS ON NSA DATA GATHERING BUT CAN'T DISARM
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Mark Felsenthal]
President Barack Obama tried to strike a middle ground on questions about broad surveillance practices conducted by the US National Security Agency, saying some checks are needed on the system but "we can't unilaterally disarm." At a White House news conference, President Obama said he would spend the next few weeks sorting through the recommendations of a presidential advisory panel on how to rein in the NSA in the wake of disclosures from former US spy contractor Edward Snowden. President Obama said it is possible that some bulk phone data collected by intelligence agencies could be kept by private companies instead of the US government as a way of restoring Americans' trust in the program. "We can't unilaterally disarm," said President Obama. But he said data collection could be "refined" to give the public more confidence that privacy is not being violated. Questions about US government spying on civilians and foreign officials burst into the open in June when Snowden, now in Russia, leaked documents documenting widespread collection of phone and email. Snowden has been charged with divulging classified information and the United States has unsuccessfully sought his return to stand trial. President Obama conceded that the revelations have led to "an important conversation that we needed to have" about balancing security needs and privacy, but he said Snowden's actions have hurt US interests. "As important and as necessary as this debate has been, it is also important to keep in mind that this has done unnecessary damage to US intelligence capabilities and US diplomacy," he said. The President said the leaked information had given some countries which have worse records on human rights, privacy protection and freedom of dissent than the United States the leeway to disparage US policies. "That's a pretty distorted view of what's going on out there," he said.
benton.org/node/171027 | Reuters | The Hill | The Hill | ars technical | The Verge
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PROTECTING CITIZENS, AND THEIR PRIVACY
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Richard Clarke, Michael Morell, Geoffrey Stone, Cass Sunstein, Peter Swire]
[Commentary] Our major conclusion is that the nation needs a package of reforms that will allow the intelligence community to continue to protect Americans, as well as our friends and allies, while at the same time affirming enduring values, involving both privacy and liberty, that have made the United States a beacon of freedom to so much of the world. We made 46 recommendations to the president. We offer here a summary of 10 of our most significant conclusions, in the hope of explaining our reasoning to the American people and encouraging a public discussion of these vital issues.
The government should end its domestic program for storing bulk telephone metadata.
Americans deserve strong safeguards against intrusions into their personal domain.
We need more transparency in the system.
When Americans engage in communications with non-Americans, Americans should be assured that their government will respect their privacy
Steps should be taken to protect the privacy, and to respect the dignity, of non-Americans
To protect our nation’s security, surveillance against non-American citizens in foreign nations, including foreign leaders, may be justified, but to ensure that such surveillance is justified and not inconsistent with other national priorities, the president should create a new process, requiring high-level policy approval of all sensitive intelligence requirements and the methods that the intelligence community may use to meet them.
Our legal system is based on the fundamental premise of the adversarial presentation of competing views.
Congress should create a strengthened and independent Civil Liberties and Privacy Protection Board with authority to review government activity relating to foreign intelligence generally, and not only for counterterrorism, whenever that activity has implications for civil liberties and privacy.
Substantial steps must be taken to safeguard Internet freedom.
Significant reforms must be adopted to reduce the risks associated with “insider threats,” which can threaten privacy and national security alike.
benton.org/node/170996 | New York Times
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BEHIND A NEW PRINCIPLE FOR US NATIONAL SECURITY
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Cass Sunstein]
[Commentary] In environmental policy, the Precautionary Principle means we should take aggressive action to avoid risks, even if we don’t know that those risks will come to fruition. But there is a serious problem with the Precautionary Principle, which is that risks are on all sides of social situations. The point is general. Whenever we engage in regulation, we are likely to impose costs. Increases in costs can create risks, including potentially catastrophic ones. In surveillance, It is tempting to adopt some version of the Precautionary Principle on the ground that it is important to counteract serious threats to the nation, including terrorist attacks, and surveillance can be helpful, even indispensable. Surveillance creates risks to public trust, personal privacy and individual liberty. If government holds a great deal of information, there is at least a risk of abuse -- if not now or soon, potentially in the future. And if government is engaged in extensive surveillance, there is a risk of a chilling effect on free discussion, on journalists and on journalists’ sources. For Congress and the president, however, the task is to manage a wide assortment of social risks, with careful attention to the likely consequences (including both costs and benefits). The operating principle involves risk management. The Risk Management Principle doesn’t exactly have a nice ring to it, but it is the right foundation for public policy -- whether the question involves environmental protection or national security.
[Cass Sunstein was President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies. He was the Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration and he is currently the Robert Walmsley University Professor and Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.]
benton.org/node/170993 | Bloomberg
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OFFICIALS’ DEFENSES OF NSA PHONE PROGRAM MAY BE UNRAVELING
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Greg Miller, Ellen Nakashima]
From the moment the government’s massive database of citizens’ call records was exposed this year, US officials have clung to two main lines of defense: The secret surveillance program was constitutional and critical to keeping the nation safe. But six months into the controversy triggered by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, the viability of those claims is no longer clear. In a three-day span, those rationales were upended by a federal judge who declared that the program was probably unconstitutional and the release of a report by a White House panel utterly unconvinced that stockpiling such data had played any meaningful role in preventing terrorist attacks. Either of those developments would have been enough to ratchet up the pressure on President Obama, who must decide whether to stand behind the sweeping collection or dismantle it and risk blame if there is a terrorist attack.
benton.org/node/170982 | Washington Post
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NSA'S APPROACH TO SPYING QUESTIONED
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Siobhan Gorman]
The National Security Agency's core operational model is called into question in one little-noticed recommendation by the review panel evaluating the spy agency, and is likely to reignite a contentious debate within US intelligence circles. The current NSA model relies largely on amassing as much data as it can obtain and trying to sort through it all later. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers says some of the panel recommendations could put US national security at risk. In its place, the presidentially appointed review panel suggested a drastic and fundamental change in the 20th of 46 recommendations in its report: "Software that would allow…intelligence agencies more easily to conduct targeted information acquisition rather than bulk-data collection." The panel proposed a feasibility study. But former NSA officials say such a transition is certainly doable. "That's exactly what we did," says former NSA official Ed Loomis. "It's not only feasible—the government threw away the software that did it." Loomis said he and his colleagues developed just such a program 15 years ago. It was designed to cheaply search an array of data sets—wherever they happened to be—without first importing all the data into an NSA-held system. The program helped spies conduct targeted searches of large amounts of data and included a number of privacy protections that performed well in pilot tests. But the program, known as ThinThread, lost an internal bureaucratic fight and wasn't deployed.
benton.org/node/170991 | Wall Street Journal
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NSA DRAGNET INCLUDED ALLIES, AID GROUPS AND BUSINESS ELITE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: James Glanz, Andrew Lehren]
Secret documents reveal more than 1,000 targets of American and British surveillance in recent years, including the office of an Israeli prime minister, heads of international aid organizations, foreign energy companies and a European Union official involved in antitrust battles with American technology businesses. While the names of some political and diplomatic leaders have previously emerged as targets, the newly disclosed intelligence documents provide a much fuller portrait of the spies’ sweeping interests in more than 60 countries. Britain’s General Communications Headquarters, working closely with the National Security Agency, monitored the communications of senior European Union officials, foreign leaders including African heads of state and sometimes their family members, directors of United Nations and other relief programs, and officials overseeing oil and finance ministries, according to the documents. In addition to Israel, some targets involve close allies like France and Germany, where tensions have already erupted over recent revelations about spying by the NSA. Details of the surveillance are described in documents from the NSA and Britain’s eavesdropping agency, known as GCHQ, dating from 2008 to 2011. The target lists appear in a set of GCHQ reports that sometimes identify which agency requested the surveillance, but more often do not. The documents were leaked by the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and shared by The New York Times, The Guardian and Der Spiegel.
benton.org/node/170989 | New York Times | The Hill | The Guardian | The Verge
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SLOBBERKNOCKERED
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Matthew Aid]
Edward J. Snowden must be pleased with what he started. A group appointed by President Barack Obama in August to review the National Security Agency’s hugely controversial spying operations has finished its work. Expectations for the panel have been extremely low since its creation. According to administration and congressional officials I spoke with over the past three weeks, senior leaders of the U.S. intelligence community, and especially the NSA, were supremely confident back in August that their support in the White House was rock-solid and that any changes the panel might propose would be, in the words of one official, “largely cosmetic.” Clearly, they were overconfident. The Review Group’s preliminary findings and recommendations are anything but cosmetic.
benton.org/node/170987 | Politico
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SECRET CONTRACT TIED NSA AND SECURITY INDUSTRY PIONEER
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Joseph Menn]
As a key part of a campaign to embed encryption software that it could crack into widely used computer products, the National Security Agency arranged a secret $10 million contract with RSA, one of the most influential firms in the computer security industry. Documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden show that the NSA created and promulgated a flawed formula for generating random numbers to create a "back door" in encryption products, the New York Times reported in September. Reuters later reported that RSA became the most important distributor of that formula by rolling it into a software tool called Bsafe that is used to enhance security in personal computers and many other products. Undisclosed until now was that RSA received $10 million in a deal that set the NSA formula as the preferred, or default, method for number generation in the BSafe software, according to two sources familiar with the contract. Although that sum might seem paltry, it represented more than a third of the revenue that the relevant division at RSA had taken in throughout 2012, securities filings show.
benton.org/node/171026 | Reuters
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AT&T IS HOPPING ON THE TRANSPARENCY REPORT TRAIN. WHEN WILL T-MOBILE AND SPRINT FOLLOW SUIT?
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Brian Fung]
A day after Verizon became the first telecom company to start issuing transparency reports, AT&T has announced that it's doing the same. This is huge news for an industry that has shown itself very willing to cooperate with the government without telling the rest of us how they're doing it. The report will look much like those provided by Silicon Valley companies. Here's what AT&T plans to offer, beginning in "early 2014":
The total number of law enforcement requests it receives from federal, state and local authorities
A breakdown of that figure by request type: subpoenas, court orders and warrants
The number of customers affected
"Details about the legal demands AT&T receives, as well as information about requests for information in emergencies."
benton.org/node/171021 | Washington Post | AT&T | The Hill | Associated Press | The Verge | GigaOm | Bloomberg
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OWNERSHIP
A SORRY MOMENT IN THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN MEDIA
[SOURCE: Free Press, AUTHOR: Joseph Torres, S. Derek Turner]
We just experienced a shameful milestone in the history of U.S. media -- and barely anyone noticed. There are now zero black-owned and operated full-power TV stations in our country. This sorry state of affairs is the culmination of a trend that started in the late 1990s when Congress and the Federal Communications Commission allowed massive consolidation in the broadcasting industry. This policy shift crowded out existing owners of color and ensured that it would be nearly impossible for new owners to access the public airwaves. Recent FCC actions (and in some cases, inaction) have only hastened this decline in opportunities for diverse broadcasters. Roberts Broadcasting, a black-owned media company, just announced a deal to sell its three remaining full-power TV stations to ION Media Networks for nearly $8 million. Once considered a phenomenal success story in an industry known for its stunning lack of diversity, Roberts Broadcasting was forced to declare bankruptcy in 2011.
benton.org/node/171019 | Free Press
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TRIBUNE NEWSPAPERS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Ravi Somaiya]
A plan by the Tribune Company to separate eight newspapers -- including The Los Angeles Times and The Chicago Tribune -- from its more profitable digital and television businesses could threaten their survival, staff members, industry analysts and Rep Henry Waxman (D-CA) said. Under the proposal, outlined in a recent securities filing, the newspaper business will pay rent to its former parent company, as well as a dividend. Such moves, its critics say, will give the newspaper company less financial resources and operational flexibility at a difficult time for the industry. Employees at Tribune newspapers criticized the plan. Tribune said its management plans to meet with Rep. Waxman to discuss his concerns. The congressman raised his concerns in a letter to Tribune Chief Executive Peter Liguori. Rep. Waxman pointed to Tribune's disclosures in a regulatory filing this month that the newspaper company created in the spinoff would take on debt to finance a special dividend to Tribune. "The requirement that the newspaper unit go into debt to pay a cash dividend to the Tribune Co. will undoubtedly enrich the Tribune Co., but it may do so at the expense of the financial health of the Los Angeles Times and the other papers in the newspaper unit, all of which are already facing financial strains," Rep. Waxman said.
benton.org/node/171043 | New York Times | WSJ
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BROADBAND/ TELECOM
WHICH WAY, MR. WHEELER?
[SOURCE: New America Foundation, AUTHOR: Sarah Morris, Benjamin Lennett]
[Commentary] Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler affirmed his commitment to the FCC’s Open Internet Rules in a House Commerce Oversight Hearing. That’s reassuring. But, those rules are being challenged in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, and an adverse decision by the court would not only invalidate the rules but could also put the FCC’s authority in jeopardy. This could make it impossible for the FCC to implement any future policies to prevent harms that arise beyond those contemplated by the current rules. The question is how Chairman Wheeler will defend the historical principles he’s identified if the court invalidates the FCC’s ability to implement the Open Internet Rules in whole or in part. The Chairman has said that “regulating the Internet is a nonstarter,” which suggests he is already considering specific ways in which the FCC might step in. Yet determining the best regulatory path forward must be underscored by an examination of the Internet ecosystem in its entirety, and ensuring that ecosystem leads to the types of effects we would expect in a competition-driven market.
benton.org/node/170977 | New America Foundation
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THIS GEORGIA TELEPHONE LAW WOULD’VE HURT THE POOR. NOW A JUDGE HAS BLOCKED IT.
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Brian Fung]
A federal judge has blocked a controversial proposal that would've disproportionately hurt low-income Georgia residents if it had gone through. In a preliminary injunction, Judge Richard Story of the Northern District of Georgia agreed with wireless carriers that forcing poor people to pay $5 a month for phone service that residents of other states get for free would cause irreparable injury. The charge was supposed to go into effect in January 2014, but the ruling will prevent it until a final decision has been made in the case. The idea, proposed by Georgia's public service commission, was approved by a 3 to 2 vote. It affects the 28-year-old federal program known as Lifeline, which grants phone service to the poor at a special subsidy. But a back-of-the-envelope analysis of Georgia's demographics revealed that the state has many more poor people than Doug Everett, the Georgia public service commissioner who's led the charge against Lifeline, seems to think. Instead of a Lifeline penetration rate of 125 percent -- as the commissioner suggests -- it may in fact be more like a penetration rate of about 30 percent. Moreover, when pressed to describe the impact of the rate hike, Commissioner Everett admitted he had "no idea" how effective the proposal would be and admitted that people would be hurt by the rule.
benton.org/node/171012 | Washington Post
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UNDERSTANDING “OPEN”
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Michael Bushong]
[Commentary] How do we define open? It’s an imprecise term that’s being used to describe five areas of interest within networking. Open, as it is currently used, does not lend itself to the precise discussions needed to address specific networking problems. When evaluating solutions against these selection criteria, it’s important to be precise about which facets of “Open” are most critical.
Standards are meant for cross-industry collaboration on a set of technologies that have a high degree of interdependence in multi-vendor environments.
In practice, the most common meaning of openness is interoperable.
Open has also become shorthand for open source.
If interoperability is the measure of how well devices can interact, interchangeability measures the degree to which multiple items are directly substitutive.
Access is perhaps the least common definition for openness, but nevertheless should be considered. In this case, “Open” refers to access to information.
In using openness as a primary selection criterion, customers will ultimately be best served by adopting a more explicit and precise set of objectives, and should consider these five areas to determine the impact and importance of each attribute.
[Bushong is VP of Marketing at Plexxi]
benton.org/node/171037 | GigaOm
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SPECTRUM/WIRELESS
FCC WIRELESS TELECOMMUNICATIONS BUREAU GRANTS DISH PERMISSION TO USE 20 MEGAHERTZ OF AWS-4 SPECTRUM AT 2000-2020 MHZ
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Public Notice]
The Federal Communications Commission’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau grants waivers of the FCC’s rules, subject to certain conditions, in response to a petition filed by DISH Network Corporation to provide DISH with flexibility to use 20 megahertz of Advanced Wireless Services-4 (AWS-4) spectrum at 2000-2020 MHz, the lower AWS-4 band, for uplink or downlink operations. The waiver is subject to DISH meeting the following two conditions:
DISH must bid in the upcoming H Block auction “either directly or indirectly through an affiliated entity or designated entity, at least a net clearing price” equal to the aggregate reserve price set for that auction of $1.564 billion.
DISH must file its uplink or downlink election, which shall apply to all AWS-4 licenses, as soon as commercially practicable but no later than 30 months after the release date of this Memorandum Opinion and Order
The Commission rejects NTCH’s various arguments requesting that we deny or delay consideration of the DISH Petition.
benton.org/node/170960 | Federal Communications Commission | Multichannel News
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PRIVACY
DATA BROKERS OUTPACE REGULATORS
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Emily Steel]
Companies that create data dossiers on consumers are tapping new technologies to unearth ever more intimate information despite intensifying regulatory scrutiny of the multibillion-dollar data broker industry. In the past 18 months, US lawmakers and federal regulators have launched a series of investigations to uncover how data brokers collect, track, trade and use information about people. Yet no new regulations have emerged to govern the fast-growing business of profiling individuals. “This is like a train that is just going and going and going and nobody is at the controls except for the people who want it to run, run, run without knowing what the implications are,” said Joseph Turow, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication. “One of the key characteristics of modern data brokers is a lack of restraint,” said Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum. “The degree to which no piece of data are sacred is evident in the reams of sensitive consumer data compiled, scored, circulated, and sold.”
benton.org/node/171039 | Financial Times
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GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE
US STILL STUCK IN LAST CENTURY
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Michael Shear, Annie Lowrey]
Four years after President Barack Obama vowed to “dramatically reform the way we do business on contracts,” the spectacular failure of the HealthCare.gov website has renewed calls for changes in how the government hires and manages private technology companies. But despite Obama’s promises in the last two months to “leap into the 21st century,” there is little evidence that the Administration is moving quickly to pursue an overhaul of the current system in the coming year. Outside experts, members of Congress, technology executives and former government officials say the botched rollout of the Affordable Care Act’s website is the nearly inevitable result of a procurement process that stifles innovation and wastes taxpayer dollars. The Air Force last year scrapped a $1 billion supply management system. Officials abandoned a new FBI system after spending $170 million on it. And a $438 million air traffic control systems update, a critical part of a $45 billion nationwide upgrade that is years behind schedule, is expected to go at least $270 million over budget. Longstanding laws intended to prevent corruption and conflict of interest often saddle agencies with vendors selected by distant committees and contracts that stretch for years, even as technology changes rapidly. The rules frequently leave the government officials in charge of a project with little choice over their suppliers, little control over the project’s execution and almost no authority to terminate a contract that is failing.
benton.org/node/171045 | New York Times
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