Charles Miller? Tell him I believe in the tooth faity too.

Suuure they base each case on merit. Yeah, right. I agree with the person who talked about tooth fairies. Believe this one and you can throw in some elves too -- along with selling the Brooklyn Bridge! Why does the Govt continue to insult Americans' intelligence with comments like those? And they wonder why a lot of us don't have any confidence in our Govt. Can't imagine why -- can you???

Regardless of how Mr. Miller, or the DOJ choose to characterize their backlog of whistleblower cases, and the delays in working through them, the Post and Government, Inc. have, nonetheless, uncovered the central issue that defines the current exercise in contracting fraud. The Bush Administration has turned the law on its head in order to allow contractors to set the specifications for the Government to buy the contractor's own goods and services.

This conflict-of-interest is the universal theme in all of the recent GAO reports, whether it is CACI telling the Army to hire more CACI contractors, TSA contractors padding the bill with their own people, Northrop engineers telling the Government exactly which off-the-shelf ships it should buy to save the Government money, while charging a fortune in overruns to modify them to Northrop specs, or Boeing writing the specifications for its own interceptors to fill silos for missile defense.

The FARs, many other government regulations, and common sense, all dictate that a contractor should not be allowed to specify that the Government must buy that contractor's own goods and services. But that is exactly what has been going on for the last eight years, and why there is an explosion in whistleblower cases.

So why have we let this happen? Because the Executive Branch, and its agencies have been on a bender, passing out all the the goodies to buddies, and insiders all in the name of contracting "efficiency".

Well, here's news: that experiment has failed. Cost overruns that make new equipment cost multiples of the original bid is clearly not an efficient way to buy goods and services, and the taxpayers have had to pay the freight to learn that lesson.

The DOJ has been an un-indicted co-conspirator in this fraud by that way it blithely dismisses the whistleblowers who do come forward to point this out. Whether it is laziness, overwork that leads to sloppy investigations, intentional duplicity, or any combination of the above, the result is always the same: the DOJ dismisses the vast majority of defense contracting (as opposed to medical) whistleblower claims on the basis of the specious argument of "Government Knowledge."

Boiled down to its simplest terms, "Government Knowledge" means that because the executive agency knew the contractor was committing fraud, it really wasn't fraud after all, and so the case should be dismissed.

Of course, this argument is silly because it is really not "Government Knowledge" in the sense that the Government broadly knew, and encouraged the fraud. It is usually, one or two Government contracting agents who are willing to make the declaration to the DOJ that they knew that the contractor was not on the up and up, but hey, these contractors are really good patriots, and we all know their hearts are in the right place, so where's the harm? And out the back door goes the evildoer.

Think this is an overstatement? Go back and look at the Air Force purchase of the Jumbotrons for the Blue Angels. Several professional Government contracting officers were screaming "fraud" at the Air Force, but the DOJ couldn't find any wrongdoing when the case was put before them. Government Knowledge. General Moseley, or some other hot shot, wanted this and so what difference does it make if the taxpayers get soaked?

And that was only $50 Million. Imagine the stakes on the $1.2 Billion contract for the Advanced Portal Monitors for the DHS. Any honest Government contracting official who timidly suggests fraud in that baby is going to find himself counting Caribou in ANWR for the rest of his career.

So it is in Federal Contracting these days. Boom, that one declaration of Government Knowledge makes the whole problem go away. The DOJ folds up its notebook, puts down its pen, and goes home, and then three years later tells the whistleblower that they don't have a case, because the Government wanted the contractor to commit the fraud.

It is the perfect crime. The Contractor only has to find one or two government contracting officials who will take the bait, cop the plea for the contractor that no crime was committed, and bingo! every one is home free.

It doesn't hurt that the Government official is also negotiating for a big time job with the contractor it is excusing, at the same time.

In case some of us have forgotten, this is the reason that Darleen Druyan went to jail.

This is all done very quietly, very discreetly, very gentlemanly, mind you. The government contracting official, while he is on his way out the door to his new job with the corner office, whispers in the ear of the DOJ: "Government Knowledge." The DOJ then waits three years, calls the whistleblower into their downtown offices, and quietly, over coffee, (black, no cream, to save the taxpayers condiment expenses), tells the whistleblower: "Government Knowledge, you really understand how it is, don't you? The Government is just doing the best it can for the people, and that means cutting corners once in a while, and not always following Robert's Rules of Order? The law allows some latitude for discretion on the part of the Government to save the people money."

No court case, no jury trial, no ability to put the evidence in front of an objective body, to ask the question whether the Government official was really acting for themselves, or the good of the people, when they allowed the contractor to cheat on the laws of the land.

A jury, presented with the evidence, would have a very different perspective on the case than the DOJ, doing, as it does, everything possible to keep an Executive branch Agency from being exposed from this kind of abuse of the public trust.

And the jury would certainly test the premise of whether this Government Knowledge of the fraud was really in the best interest of the people sitting on the jury. Hey, they might just vote differently than the DOJ.

Again, it should not be forgotten that at first, and for a long time, Darleen Druyan escaped with exactly this "Government Knowledge" defense to protect Boeing. It was only after Senator McCain insisted that a real, true, and meaningful investigation needed to be conducted, and the DOJ was forced to do it, and the evidence was put in front of a legitimate judge that the finding of "guilty" resulted. It is amazing what objectivity can do for you.

If Senator McCain took an equal interest in most of the real whistleblower cases now in front of the DOJ, I think the country would be truly surprised and shocked at what has gone on these last eight years. And there might also be a soaring conviction rate, which would discourage it from going on in the future. No one can hear of these stories and buy the line that fraud, graft and corruption are in the best interests of the country as a means to fight the war on terror, or because of (deep voice, here) National Security.

When all of the election year hoopla and the questioning of motives about the Northrop/Boeing tanker decision dies down, one lasting legacy of Senator McCain will be that he forced the system to be honest, for once, and as soon as that happened the true crime revealed itself.

But Senator McCain, or some other advocate is not on top of every one of these hundreds of cases. And so the quiet whisper, "Government Knowledge", makes the whole problem go away in a nonce.

Of course, the DOJ expects every whistleblower to act in the same gentlemanly way, and just quietly accept the whispered "Government Knowledge" verdict, even when it clearly defies logic, or even acceptable story telling.

To challenge the statement, to question its legal basis, to point out that the Contractor's hiring of the Government official that rendered the decision benefiting the contractor, might impair their judgment, or bias their statement just a bit, is to invite the DOJ's declaration of the whistleblower as a "nuisance".

Yet there is virtue in being a nuisance - only that persistence will ultimately reveal this corruption to the public. We must drag the DOJ, and the Government Agency, and the Contracting Officials out into the clear light of day to make their declaration that, yes they knew of the fraud, but it was okay, because it was approved by the Government: "Government Knowledge". It might not have the same ring to it on C-SPAN, in front of Henry Waxman, or to a GAO auditor with subpoena power, as it does to the DOJ, in the barely audible tones of Thurston Howell the Third.

So all you whistleblowers, out there - and you know who you are - if you have been quietly pulled aside, and told by the DOJ: "Government Knowledge, now why don't you just slink away, and let us go about our job of ignoring all the other cases in front of us", be persistent. Don't let the DOJ dismissal stop you. Write your Congressman, tell your story to Government, Inc, demand a hearing in a front of an objective audience, or better yet a real jury. The DOJ is denying you the Sixth Amendment right of due process. That is a judicial branch right, and despite the prevailing attitude of the Supreme Court these days, other courts are sympathetic to the well-argued case. And when it comes to refuting and rebutting the testimony of a former Government official, now on the payroll of the contractor he made rich, you will find that the argument goes a lot easier in front of a jury, rather than a DOJ lawyer trying to keep his job in the Bush Administration that will spare no lie to cover up its contracting fraud.

And you will make that former, or current, Government official say it right there in a courtroom, or a Senate hearing room, or on the pages of the Post: "Yes, I knew the contractor was breaking the law. I allowed them to do it! I wanted them to do it! No puny little thing like a Federal Regulation is goin' to stop me from handing out money to my buddies."

The definition that has been used by neocon Republicans for 50 years has, I claim, been the same one: "Freedom" to them means:
"I don't need to offer any scientific definitions; I alone get to make value claims on attitude alone; and I have no responsibility, no accountability. And when I'm caught in failure, flat-footed lies, horrendous crimes, false claims, slanders or a total absence of strategic capability that is astoundingly stupid, all I have to do is: 1. call my accuser names, 2. lie again and 3. then let the vast majority of newsmen who arepro-imperial-presidency statist newstwisters repeat and repeat my lies--and 4. then have them headline these lies under false banners." Sound familiar?
These scofflaws want mutli-millionaire immoralists to pay no taxes while we make up for their defalcation. They equate "libertarianism" with their own totalitarian crime wave-- inaugurated by them for their own purposes and excused later as "higher morality" because their wacko cultism lets them claim to be born again moralists even though they acttas if they were arguably dead from the neck up and break every law in sight.
What sickening unreason. What un-American nonsense.
Already in this non-election con-campaign, we've seen Mr. McCain drop every independent position he ever took--and so neocons are accusing Mr. Obama of being the one to change his mind. We've seen his mainstream religious beliefs attacked by an extremist handed a antional microphone by postmodernist corporate-monopoply press CEOs.
And we've also seen Mr. McCain claim to know little about economics--I believed him--and then trumpet all over the place about how great it would be to drill for oil in the Alaska Preserve and offshore, pay billions more to oil corporation incompetents, extol our health care incompetents and the drug cartels that hold us in bondage to paying 100 times what drugs cost to make, and then champion an unaltered NAFTA, business as usual, and promise to bring 1956 back to Detroit.!
Breathtaking fantasy designed to do what? Even for a mind with as bad a set of ideas as Mr. McCain's liars have written for him, this stuff is incredible. Fact: virtually every oversight agency in D.C. has been gutted, politicized and ended up in the headlines because its "bosses" are appointing neocons, born-agains, incompetents, opponents of supervsion and other unqualified pals, as well as neglecting and/or igoring their sworn duty under the Constitution.
Don't blame government for what's happening--blame the neocon Republicans who refuse to govern and can't lead anywhere except t failure. And blame their latest recruit, the militant but unmilitary poster boy for Iraqui Morassism and saying whatever you feel like claiming in order to get elected--John the former independent mind McCain.

With skeletons falling out of the Cheney/Bush regime's closet almost daily, the legacy hope that Bush has of being rehabilitated 50 years from now as Truman was, is a pipe dream going up in smoke.

The legacy of this organized crime mob should have been impeachment and imprisonment.

How many people do we voters have to throw out of Congress in order to re-establish the checks and balances that have crumbled, enabling this mob to carry on?

When did all this corruption/crime start. I believe it all started even before the contesting of the election in Florida in 2000. The awarding of GWB the office of the presidency due to collusion between the RNC and the Conservative/Republican Supreme Court Justices. The crime/corruption continued on with Abramof in the White House Clearinghouse of Crime, and then onto the Pentagon after Criminal Jack was busted. Every department of the US government has been corrupted--their budgets are up dramatically--and contractors within those departments have also increased dramatically. We have seen the implementation of a Fascist Criminal Enterprise after 911. A horrendous event was exploited by the Criminals to put money into the pockets of Republican cronies at the expense of present and future taxpayers. The National Debt under these Criminals has increased as much as 50% and We The People will be paying the cronies of the Republicans for at least twenty years. This is welfare for a political party--the Fascist Republicans. Yes, you will be struggling to pay your bills and take care of your family but the Republicans will not have that worry-They have robbed the bank and have issued a credit card with a $30,000 plus charge to every man, woman, and child in the USA. Now, they want you to commit economic suicide once again on November 4th and vote for John McCain.

In the past I have managed government contracts from Kansas to Micronesia and in all I saw government in-action when it came to stamping out fraud. The company I worked for was adept at finding ways to get around labor laws or how to use their contract to increase their profits and not give the government what the contract called out. In several cases I went directly to the contracting officers in charge and showed them how they were being short changed but they never wanted to know because it would reflect on them since they didn't uncover the problem themselves but relied on a "whistle blower" to find it or it would take up more time than it was worth to pursue the problem. Either way, I was shined on so after doing what I knew was right I gave it up and finished my contracts and moved on to the next one, trying as hard as I could to keep the company from repeating their theavory.

Why not PUBLISH ALL INFORMATION: let the public know which companies, individuals etc.
TAXPAYERS can sue and Taxpayer Groups.
I would be the first...
We have Americans for Prosperity
Taxpayers Against Government Waste
Its our money--we will be bankrupt while the thieving criminals will have their own islands.