WhatFinger

Money well spent.

DHS awards $190 million contract to security firm that vetted Snowden and botched 40% of its workload

By Robert Laurie ——--July 3, 2014

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Everybody seems to have a different opinion of Edward Snowden. Some think he's a hero who exposed gross federal overreach. Others think he's basically a Russian spy. Still others believe he's nothing more than a self-aggrandizing jerk. Whatever you think of him, there's probably one thing we can all agree on.
The security firm that vetted him didn't do a particularly good job. The name of that firm is United States Investigations Services (USIS) and, according to Reuters, they're the "largest private provider of security checks for the government." So, seeing that they gave a green light to a man responsible for what is almost certainly the largest intelligence breach in U.S. history, they've been fired. Right? I mean, we can't still be using these people after such an epic failure ...can we? "Yes we can." According to the Wall Street Journal the United States government -The Department of Homeland Security in particular - has just awarded USIS a nearly 200 million dollar contract. How is that possible?
USIS was able to win the contract because regulations require agencies to follow strict procurement procedures unless a bidder has been suspended or barred by the government from contracts. Despite questions about its work on background checks, USIS was never blocked from federal work.
Well, hey. Maybe the fine folks who make these decisions looked at the record and determined that USIS is a top-notch organization that just made one bad mistake. After all, if you vet millions of people, somebody is bound to squeak through eventually. As long as USIS isn't regularly screwing things up, you can argue that they're worth keeping around. From a Reuters report, published Jan 23, 2014:
The U.S. Justice Department accused United States Investigations Services (USIS), the largest private provider of security checks for the government, of bilking millions of dollars through improper background verifications. USIS - which had vetted former spy agency contractor Edward Snowden - filed at least 665,000 flawed background checks between March 2008 and September 2012, which was about 40 percent of total submissions, the Justice Department said in a court filing on Wednesday. The DOJ accused USIS of receiving millions of dollars that it otherwise would not have received had the government been aware that the background investigations had not gone through the quality review process required by contract.
Ummmmm ....yeah. USIS pooched 40% of its workload AND gave Snowden its stamp of approval, but that wasn't enough to get the outfit "suspended or barred by the government." Despite all of that fraud and failure, DHS is giving them a new contract for $190 million. Is it any wonder that the American people think this administration is detached and incompetent

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Robert Laurie——

Robert Laurie’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain.com

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