Over at NLS- Ben is attacking Gerry Connolly because of his employment at SAIC. SAIC is a company with just shy of 50,000 employees (a significant chunk of which are employed in Fairfax) that does everything from laboratory research to public healthcare management. Over at NLS, Ben states:
I agree with Gerry- let's hold these contractors criminally accountable. Can we start with the Vice Presidents at SAIC?
Gerry's job HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE IRAQ WAR! In fact every single member of my family (pictured right if you want us arrested) has at one point been employed by SAIC. My father is a former Senior Vice-President at SAIC and both my mother and I are former employees of SAIC. My father spent 30 years providing healthcare for our men and women in the Armed Services and worked for decades to expand community health centers for poor and rural Americans before coming to work at SAIC. My mother spent a significant chuck of her career at the Indian Health Service providing healthcare for poor Native Americans before coming to work at SAIC. Both were commissioned members of the Public Health Service (PHS) and spent 30+ years serving their nation in the Armed Forces (including multiple tours in Vietnam by my father). I'm a blogger who currently attends the University of Mary Washington who worked in real estate development at SAIC as a summer job. Should the three of us be held criminally responsible? Is my father a war profiteer because he worked at SAIC to more quickly treat our brave men and women who are wounded in battle?
To criticize Gerry Connolly and the more than 40,000 wonderful people who work at SAIC is absurd just because of the actions of small segments of a massive company. It would be equivalent to saying our own Lowell Feld is criminally responsible for the Iraq War because he was an employee of the US Government. It doesn't matter that Lowell worked in energy policy analysis and not in DOD... He worked for the US Government and thus should be condemned!
Absurd.
Not defending Connolly necessarily, but Ben has a tendency to take disagreements with him rather personally. In a way it's a shame, because he's actually a smart guy. But awfully thin-skinned for someone in this business.
Ben, I'd appreciate it if you could let us know the specific "mailpiece" you are quoting. I didn't see anything in your remarks that indicated a direct quote, but if you could tell us the date and the specific quote I want to read the entire piece and understand the context and the reason for your interpretation.
BTW, I am very familiar with several of the many categories of SAIC contracts and services they offer to government agencies. This is so because I worked for a Navy Command (Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, SPAWARSYSCOM) at Crystal City before their BRAC-forced move to San Diego. SAIC HQ was at that time (and I think still is) in San Diego, partly because of the many contracts they have with SPAWARSYSCOM. My former 3rd-level boss, a Navy Captain at the time (O-6, Navy equivalent to Army, Air Force and Marine Corps Col.) took an executive job with SAIC upon his retirement. I had engineering and project management responsibilities for several tasks under the SAIC contract, including assuring that all tasks under my purview for which we received invoices complied with contract terms and that there were no overpayments. Not once did I ever discover any improper charges, not did I ever hear of any such improper activites from any of my fellow SPAWAR employees.
As some RK readers know, the majority of SAIC officials are retired senior military officers or retired senior DoD civilians whose ethical standards are superb. I am personally aware of the fact that any SAIC employee found to have engaged in seriously improper behaviour, and particulary illegal activity which you seem to have said is the case with Gerry, would have been fired immediately after completion of necessary investigation.
Nearly as important to SAIC is the assurance that their employees not even create the "appearance of impropriety", which is a principle that the SAIC founders brought with them from government service, both military and civilian. It should be obvious that any such creation of the appearance of impropriety, whether or not actual improprieties are found, would seriously damage the high ethical standard reputation of SAIC and make it more difficult to gain new business.
Having offered the above background info. about my professional experience with SAIC, if there were any substance to blogger claims that Gerry had acted in any illegal or improper way, either potentially illegally or in violation of contract terms or applicable contract regulations or had created the "appearance of impropiety" I very much doubt that SAIC would have continued his employment at the risk of damaging their corporate reputation.
BTW, when all this came up on RK about a year ago I did do some investigation of the nature of his employment and found nothing that even came close to any possibility of contractual or employment conflict of interest. It is neither improper nor unusual for BOCS members to have employment outside their BOCS jobs. Most BOCS members could not afford to live in Fairfax County, or even Prince William County where I live, without another source of income. I assume that you do know that the FFX County BCOS salary is about $75K; I think the other members' salaries are a little less.
My bottom line request to you is this: Please provide specific evidence, and the source of the evidence (if any) to support your charges.
I eagerly await your response to my request for the above information. I am not at all interested in knowing anything about the cause of your personal problems with Gerry. Let's just keep those issues personal and private, as I think we all agree they should be.
Thank you in advance for any information you are willing and able to provide.
Tom Counts
That may be true, but again, what does Gerry Connolly SAIC job entail exactly? "Community relations" for SAIC means...what?
Neither Connolly nor company officials would discuss his compensation from SAIC. His statement of economic interests, filed annually with the county clerk, says only that he makes more than $10,000 a year. He also holds SAIC stock worth $50,000 to $250,000. Asked about his compensation, Connolly said: "None of your business. So long as I can't live on a supervisor's salary, I have tried to find employment with no conflict and no overlap. I'm entitled to earn a living."
Company officials said they have neither sought nor gained benefits from employing Connolly, who was hired in September 2002 as SAIC's first community relations director in the Washington area.
His boss, Arnold L. Punaro, a SAIC executive vice president, said Connolly was attractive not as a local elected official but for his knowledge of government and corporate worlds as a past staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and vice president at the Washington office of SRI International, a consulting firm.
For the past five years, he estimates, he has also spent 20 to 30 hours a week managing SAIC's sponsorship of events such as the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation walk on the Mall, an annual high school robotics competition and a "technology tent" at the county fair, which features company-sponsored fireworks.
Company officials said Connolly also offers advice on emergency preparedness and human resources issues and represents SAIC on the board of the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce.
Connolly, who bills the company on an hourly basis, said that it is a substantive, demanding job but that he is able to move between his public and private roles by working seven-day weeks.
Connolly was attractive not as a local elected official but for his knowledge of government and corporate worlds as a past staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and vice president at the Washington office of SRI International, a consulting firm.
Two weeks after Connolly was hired by SAIC he voted, as Providence District Supervisor, for the current Tysons rail alignment that included this station on SAIC's doorstep. And he did this without disclosing his financial ties to SAIC.
Any proposed land use, such as the retail mentioned by SAIC's GM, would have to be approved by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, of which Connolly is Chair.
Additionally, Connolly is on the Fairfax Chamber of Commerce's Board of Directors representing SAIC.
So while SAIC is a high tech firm employing thousands of local citizens, more importantly (in the context of Connolly) they are a major landowner in Tysons and Reston who hope to reap huge profits by rezoning their property, and Connolly controls their destiny in that regard.
As for SAIC; while do not think we should criminalize anyone for simply working at SAIC, I also believe that we have to hold individuals accountable for their decisions even when they are done on behalf of a company or organization. The US Army is not to blame for bad decisions in the war, but specific generals can be fingered for specific mistakes. I have no idea what Connelly did at SAIC, but if it was a specific wrong - let him stand for it and be tried for it (and found innocent or guilty depending on the evidence and facts). I do not think people should be allowed to hide behind the coattails of a large organization.
Additionally, when I left the USAF I had many opportunities to work for a variety of defense contractors. After spending 5 years at the Pentagon, see how these companies and people treat tax-dollars and our nation's defenses; I decided I would do everything I could to avoid working for any of the bandits. I have had incredible fortune and been able to work for entirely private companies that have nothing to do with the US Government other than paying their taxes for the entire time I have been out of the armed forces. I think I'd take a career change and do construction or retail before I'd work for any of the "beltway bandits" (which includes SAIC). Nothing against you or your family, everyone must make the decision that is right for them, but I could not live with myself working for them after seeing how they treat their customer (USAF) back 15 years ago.
Since February 2003, SAIC has been in charge of the Iraqi Reconstruction and Development Council, a Pentagon-sanctioned group made up of Iraqis that is effectively functioning as the country's temporary government. The senior members of IRDC hold positions at each of 23 Iraqi ministries, where they work closely with U.S. and British officials, including L. Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority. The Council's official task is to rebuild the structures of a government that are expected to eventually be handed over to an independent Iraqi authority. Members of the IRDC are officially employed by SAIC.Another Pentagon contract calls for SAIC to, in effect, rebuild Iraq's mass media, including television stations, radio stations and newspapers. SAIC runs the "Voice of the New Iraq," the radio station established in April 2003 at Umm Qasr that is funded by the U.S. government.
Just how the company is going about the task of rebuilding Iraq's media and the overall cost remains a mystery, however. The Pentagon has steadfastly refused to release any specific information on SAIC's media reconstruction work, which has been dubbed the Iraqi Media Network. What little information that has leaked out about the SAIC effort has come mainly from disgruntled employees and press freedom advocates, who have charged the company has bungled the job badly. One report said SAIC had ordered equipment that was incompatible with existing systems in Iraq. SAIC, which appears to have little experience in mass media, was also reported to have been caught flat-footed on programming for the reconstructed network. Its initial solution was to enlist Voice of America, the foreign language broadcasting service of the U.S. government, to patch together a short nightly news show made up entirely of dubbed stories from U.S. television network news shows. There have also been widespread complaints from press freedom organizations about the SAIC effort, including charges of military censorship and cronyism.
SAIC has been awarded seven contracts by the Defense Department to provide experts and advisers on development of representative government in Iraq; restore and upgrade the country's broadcast media; and provide a group of Iraqi expatriates to assist coalition officials working in the country. The value of the contracts, which were obtained by the Center for Public Integrity under the Freedom of Information Act, was blacked out in copies provided by the Defense Department.
What everyone agrees on is this: No Washington contractor pursues government money with more ingenuity and perseverance than SAIC. No contractor seems to exploit conflicts of interest in Washington with more zeal. And no contractor cloaks its operations in greater secrecy. SAIC almost never touts its activities in public, preferring to stay well below the radar. An SAIC executive once gave a press interview and referred to the enterprise as a "stealth company," a characterization that is accurate and that has stuck. "Nobody knows who they are," says Glenn Grossenbacher, a Texas lawyer who has battled SAIC in court on a whistle-blowing case. "Everybody knows Northrop Grumman and G.E., but if you went out on the street and asked who the top 10 [defense] contractors are, I can guarantee you that SAIC would not be one of them."Which is all the more remarkable in light of two developments. The first is a mounting collection of government audits and lawsuits brought by former employees for a variety of reasons, some of them personal and some coming under federal whistle-blower statutes. In a response to written queries, SAIC characterized itself as a "highly ethical company and responsible government contractor, committed to doing the right thing." But a review by Vanity Fair of thousands of pages of documents, including corporate e-mail messages, offers disturbing revelations about the company's inner workings, its culture, and its leadership.
The second development is that several of SAIC's biggest projects have turned out to be colossal failures, failures that have occurred very much in public.
But SAIC is by no means out of the nuclear business. It may be under a cloud at the N.R.C., but it's still a partner, with the construction giant Bechtel, in the largest nuclear project of all-the $3.1 billion effort to build a repository for America's high-level radioactive waste. The firm Bechtel SAIC is constructing the repository deep under Yucca Mountain, Nevada, where the buried waste will remain lethal for at least 10,000 years. It could provide a revenue stream for SAIC as far into the future as one can imagine.
The reason I point this out is that there's an ongoing controversy about Bechtel's "no-bid contract" for the multi-billion-dollar Metro to Dulles project, one which Gerry Connolly has strongly supported.
Defense contractor Science Applications International Corp. has agreed to pay $484,500 to settle allegations it violated the False Claims Act when designing a computer system program for the U.S. Department of Defense.[...]
The government also alleged it overpaid for SAIC's services and that SAIC's actions delayed the government's implementation of the system.
SAIC has denied the allegations, the government said.
In 1990 SAIC was indicted and pled guilty to 10 felony counts of fraud on a Superfund site, called "one of the largest (cases) of environmental fraud" in Los Angeles history...[...]
"SAIC executives have been involved at every stage ... of the war in Iraq," from pushing WMD claims to helping "investigate how American intelligence could have been so disastrously wrong," described Vanity Fair in its March 2007 issue. The Center for Public Integrity summarized SAIC's Iraq work as "to provide experts and advisers on development of representative government in Iraq; restore and upgrade the country's broadcast media; and provide a group of Iraqi expatriates to assist coalition officials working in the country."
Under "yet another no-bid contract," SAIC created the Iraqi Media Network, supposedly a "free and independent indigenous media network" that quickly became "a mouthpiece for the Pentagon." Eventually, "the network was turned over to Iraqi control. Today it is a tool of Iraq's Shiite majority and spews out virulently anti-American messages." Moreover, SAIC's work on the Iraqi Media Network was criticized by the Pentagon's Inspector General as having "widespread violations of normal contracting procedures."
Ouch. No wonder why they need a "community relations" director!
According to the WikiScanner program, which maps anonymous edits made on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, people on SAIC computers have made hundreds of anonymous Wikipedia edits. They include, on the w:American Civil Liberties Union Wikipedia article:* Adding: "[T]he ACLU's real mission is to create a Eugenicist Communist society based on principles of Anarchy against the will of the American people"; [10]
* Adding: "The ACLU is trying to destroy America," and listing five examples, including representing members of the "North American Man/Boy Love Association." [11]And on the "w:Skynet (fictional)" Wikipedia article, removing several paragraphs under the "Trivia" section having to do with actual British military satellites named "Skynet," along with other examples of real Skynets (mostly computer-related).
The seriously botched program was the work of an outside contractor, the Science Applications International Corp (SAIC). The company continuously fought with the FBI over system requirements and changes. And at the end of the day, SAIC pocketed a cool $100 million for creating software that just didn't work.So has the White House decided to kick SAIC to the curb?
Nah. The Pentagon just gave SAIC a brand-spanking new, $25.7 million contract to "help the Army integrate virtual combat training systems."
(This isn't the first time SAIC has taken U.S. taxpayers for a ride; read ThinkProgress's "Enough To Make You SAIC" for more examples of botched government contracts as well as the revolving door between SAIC and the Bush White House.)
Even though they had no broadcasting experience, SAIC received an $82 million no-bid contract to run the first post-Saddam TV network in Iraq. It was an unmitigated disaster. Requests for basic news gear were denied. An audit found SAIC was paid for work it did not complete. They had no programs and relied on a mix of announcements from the U.S. military and rehashed U.S. newscasts - like coverage of the Laci Peterson coverage.Although SAIC paid their executives in Iraq $273 an hour and security officers up to $1000 a day, they paid the Iraqis they hired as news anchors as little as $60 a month. When the Iraqis pointed out that wasn't even enough to pay for decent clothes to wear on air, SAIC agreed to pay to dress them...but only from the waist up.
In March 2004, a Pentagon audit found SAIC improperly charged the government to fly a Hummer and pickup truck to Iraq on a private jet for the personal use of an SAIC employee. In all, they recommended that the company repay the government $634,834 for unsubstantiated costs.
SAIC was also awarded the contract to train Iraqi soldiers and police officers.
Near the top of the list is disentangling the U.S. from Iraq. This is going to be painful for companies like SAIC, which will do everything possible to minimize the pain, including lobbying whatever friends they can find in Congress.
Can there be any doubt that Byrne could withstand the pressure, particularly from SAIC, better than Connolly?
I also agree with the point being made. You cannot blame everyone who works at SAIC, ExxonMobil, Wal-mart, Bechtel, Smithfield and Dominion for everything those corporations do that is "bad" or you disagree with. Most of the employees at these corporations are not in a managerial position or have the authority to make these decisions or changes. For example, it would be silly to blame an Accounts Payable Clerk at Dominion for Dominion's position on coal-fired generation.
I am a supporter of Leslie Byrne. And I understand your passion for a candidate. But I think you are being way too harsh here.
Styles, now a partner at Crowell & Moring, where she is a consultant for businesses seeking to procure government contracts, said that Fairfax has "done a great job" persuading the government that it deserves to supply the surveillance, database and telecommunications equipment to fight the war on terror.Northern Virginia IT's are, of course, indicative of government's rapidly increasing reliance on private contractors.
The number of private contract employees went from 5.2 million in 2002 to 7.6 million in 2005, according to Paul C. Light,a professor at New York University who studies the federal bureaucracy. Despite the creation of DHS and two continuing wars, the federal workforce has stayed the same at 1.9 million. Since 2002, Virginia companies alone have created 50,000 IT jobs, according to Virginia Business Magazine. Nearly all those jobs are in Fairfax, Arlington and, to a lesser extent, Loudoun and Prince William Counties.
Total spending on federal contracts went from $219 billion in 2001 to $430 billion in 2007, according to Eagle Eye Publishers, a market research firm that tracks government procurement. The D.C. metropolitan area secured $56 billion in federal contracts during fiscal year 2007, approximately $28 billion of which went to Northern Virginia companies.
And needless to say, a lot of these employees working for these companies are voting Democratic.
I am no fan of Jerry Connolly but it is unfair to try to make Connolly the boogie man because he works for SAIC.
But what is the pay of firemen, teachers, librarians, secretaries, and others who do just that or who earn less money than that? How do many of us who make $75,000 or less manage to do it - and we do?
If Gerry can't live on $75,000 a year, maybe it's time for him to consider giving significant raises to employees who work for the county. Or, maybe he actually could live on that amount if he tried.
We also fully understand why PWC especially loses some our best teachers because our GOP-dominated BOCS makes it nearly impossible for us to compete with FFX county. And it is even more absurd to me that many of the PWC police officers came from FFX because they could no longer afford to live there; and PWC will most likely lose some of them to more rural counties (e.g., Fauquier County) because it has now become too expensive to live in PWC.
One more supporting point: When firefighters and police officers have to moonlight in a 2nd job after very long hours in their regular jobs, our failure to pay fair salaries puts our and their saftey at very high risk.
Thank you for that very thought-provoking reminder. Your comment should serve to re-focus our dialog on the true issues and help us get back to electing Democrats so we can fire the flat-earth neanderthals who care only about themselves.
T.C.