Deliquent Contractors Under Scrutiny

President Obama took some basic steps last week to hammer government contractors that are delinquent in paying their taxes.

In a memo the president signed on the 20th, Obama directed the Office of Management and Budget, the Treasury Department and other federal agencies to find ways to keep companies that have not paid taxes from receiving new government contracts. He expects recommendations on how the government can do that in three months.

One way to do that is better data-sharing. The president wants a plan to make contractors' certifications on their taxes available in a government-wide database, similar to the data exchanges already being done with other information on companies. Other information like balance sheets, credit reports, and investor reviews.

“All across this country, there are people who meet their obligations each and every day,” Obama said in a speech today before signing the memo. “And yet, somehow, it’s become standard practice in Washington to give contracts to companies that don’t even pay their taxes.”

The president is also directing the IRS to conduct a review of the overall accuracy of companies’ claims about tax delinquency.

“We need to be sure that when a company says it’s paying taxes, that company is in fact paying taxes,” he said.

A regulatory change to the Federal Acquisition Regulation in 2008 requires contractors to certify whether they had delinquent taxes, had failed to pay taxes or had received notice of a tax lien against them. In addition, an agency could suspend or debar the company from government work if a contractor told the government it had had problems with taxes during the previous three years.

In his speech, Obama asked Congress to approve legislation to allow data sharing between the IRS and contracting officials at agencies.

“So the steps I’m directing today and the steps I’m calling on Congress to take are just basic common-sense steps,” Obama said. “They’re not going to eliminate all the waste or all the abuse in government contracting in one fell swoop.”

This post contains excerpts from Matthew Mweigelt's article, President orders clampdown on tax delinquent contractors, for the Federal Computer Week, January 20th, 2010.

For more insight on how the administration intends to incorporate deeper financial reviews of its contractor pool, visit The Federal Computer Week.

Haitian Earthquake Relief Fraud Alert

Disasters bring out the best in people during tragic events. Many people volunteer to assist victims and others are willing to make contributions to charities. Disasters also bring out the worst in people, particularity those who desire to benefit from the charity of others. The FBI reminds the public they should apply a critical eye and do their due diligence before giving contributions to anyone soliciting on behalf the Haitian victims. Solicitations can originate from e-mails, Internet Websites, door-to-door collections, mailings, telephone calls, and other similar methods.

Therefore, before making a donation of any kind, consumers should adhere to following guidelines:

• Do not respond to unsolicited (spam) incoming e-mails, including clicking links contained within those messages.
• Be skeptical of individuals representing themselves as surviving victims or officials asking for donations via e-mail, in person or social networking sites.
• Beware of organizations with copy-cat names that are similar to those of reputable charities, but are not exactly the same.
• Verify the legitimacy of nonprofit organizations by utilizing various Internet-based resources that may assist in confirming the group's existence and its nonprofit status rather than following a purported link to the site.
• Be cautious of e-mails that claim to show pictures of the disaster areas in attached files because the files may contain viruses. Only open attachments from known senders.
• Make contributions directly to known organizations rather than relying on others to make the donation on your behalf to ensure contributions are received and used for intended purposes.
• Do not be pressured into giving contributions. Legitimate organizations do not use these methods.
• Do not give your personal or financial information to anyone who solicits contributions: providing such information may compromise your identity and make you vulnerable to identity theft.
• Avoid cash donations if possible. Pay by a credit card or write a check to the charity.
• Do not write checks to individuals.

If you believe you have been a victim of fraud from someone or an organization who was soliciting on behalf Haitian victims, contact the National Center for Disaster Fraud at:
(866) 720-5721, fax
(225) 334-4707 or e-mail disaster@leo.gov.

Anyone who has received an e-mail soliciting donations or is aware of fraudulent charity websites claiming to be collecting for Haitian victims, please notify the IC3 via www.ic3.gov.

This alert was released from the FBI National Press Office.

Future USS Independence

The Navy officially accepted delivery of the future USS Independence (LCS 2) during a short ceremony in Mobile, Ala. Independence is the second littoral combat ship delivered to the Navy, and the first LCS of the General Dynamics variant. LCS is a new breed of U.S. Navy warship with versatile warfighting capabilities, capable of open-ocean operation, but optimized for littoral, or coastal, missions.

"Today marks a critical milestone in the life of the LCS 2," said Rear Adm. James Murdoch, the LCS program manager in the Navy's Program Executive Office (PEO) Ships. "The Navy and our industry partners have worked diligently to deliver a much-needed capability."

Prior to delivery, the Navy's Board of Inspection and Survey (INSURV) conducted Acceptance Trials aboard LCS 2 on Nov. 13-19, and found the ship's propulsion plant, sea-keeping and self-defense performance to be "commendable," and recommended that the chief of naval operations authorize delivery of the ship following the correction or waiver of cited material deficiencies.

Between now and sail away in February 2010, the contractor will correct most of the trial cards received during trials. Any remaining cards will be corrected during scheduled post-delivery maintenance availabilities including the post-shakedown availability scheduled for completion in 2011.

Delivery is the last shipbuilding milestone before commissioning, scheduled for Jan. 16 in Mobile, Ala.

For more, visit Navy News.

Farewell, EDS

Hewlett-Packard erased one of the most storied names in the government and commercial markets this year when it dropped the EDS brand in favor of HP Enterprise Services, Washington Technology reported.

EDS, known originally as Electronic Data Systems, was one of the creators of the market for outsourced IT services, particularly data centers. The name survived for 47 years, including a stint of ownership by General Motors.

But there are a lot of reasons for the change, such as creating a single company culture and presenting a single face to the market.

Dropping the name EDS also signaled that integration of the acquisition was over. It's now time for the billions spent to start paying off.

And that's not going to be easy.

From Paul Boutin's article at VentureBeat, before the World Wide Web, working for Ross Perot’s IT outsourcing firm EDS was one of the most prized and prestigious jobs in tech. EDS, which Perot founded in 1962, defined the outsourcing business and made Perot a hero to both businessmen and techies.

Perot resigned in 1986, but his brash, I-always-win style continued as part of EDS’s professional brand. Perot ran for president as an independent candidate in 1992 and won over an impossible 39 percent of voters in polls, before dropping from the race.

Last year, HP acquired EDS and its 137,000 worldwide employees for $13.9 billion. Now, some of the acquired staffers have told NBC Bay Area reporter Randy McIlwain that HP has slashed salaries from 29 to 47 percent among the people from whom McIlwain got numbers. HP has made several rounds of cuts since the purchase.

Blackberry Holiday Outages

Reaserch in Motion (RIM) just can't seem to catch a break. Just five short days after the BlackBerry Internet Service went down for several hours, North and South American users found themselves again without e-mail. This time, the outage lasted for nearly eight hours and, according to some reports, even caused problems for some European and Asian customers.

In a statement e-mailed to some users and news services, RIM said that "based on preliminary analysis, it currently appears that the issue stemmed from a flaw in two recently released versions of BlackBerry Messenger." RIM has issued a fix for the versions believed to have caused the issue -- 5.0.0.55 and 5.0.0.56 -- but the company was careful to explain it was still investigating the root cause.

RIM apologized for the inconvenience, but refused to comment further, leaving plenty of questions unanswered. For one, with outages becoming more and more frequent (Is this the third or fourth in the last two months?), does the company have an actionable plan to prevent future disruptions? Are the recent spate of outages connected in any way? And how does it plan to stave off pressure from Apple and Google when it can't even keep its mobile e-mail service (its supposed strong suit) up and running?

For more information visit RIM, PC World, Canada.com, Wall Street Journal, or PC Magazine.

USAF Confirms Sentinel In Afghanistan

Air Force officials confirmed Dec. 4 the existence of a high-altitude, unmanned aerial vehicle that incorporates stealth design characteristics which has been sighted in Afghanistan in recent years, report David Fulghum and Bill Sweetman in Aviation Week’s Ares blog.

The jet-powered UAV, which features a tailless flying wing with sensor pods built into the surface of each wing, is known as the RQ-170 Sentinel. Several photos purported to show the RQ-170 have been posted on the Web.

“The Air Force “is developing a stealthy unmanned aircraft system to provide reconnaissance and surveillance support to forward deployed Combat Forces,” Air Force officials said in a statement e-mailed to journalists and reproduced in full text in an article by Stephen Trimble at Flight Global. The RQ-170 was built by Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Development Program, the officials said.

Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works, as the Advanced Development Program is also known, designed such revolutionary reconnaissance and fighter aircraft as the U-2, SR-71, F-117 and F-22.



For more details, visit Defense Systems.

Cisco Phone In 4-Hour Replacement Arena

Cisco is still extremely keen on the small business market one year after dropping $100 million into a new unit specializing in pitching product to companies with fewer than 100 employees.

To go along with the one-year milestone, the network giant is trotting out a fresh stable of small business-oriented products and upgrades — along with some additional support programs for the army of resellers that Cisco relies upon to reach baby biz customers.

Beginning on the hardware side, Cisco is debuting what it claims to be the industry's first 802.11n dual-band clustering access point built for small businesses (and we suppose those qualifications are specific enough to be true). The clustering kit allows for easier setup and installation of wireless access points when there's multiple units involved, explains Andrew Sage, veep of Cisco's small business worldwide sales.

Earlier incarnations of Cisco's access points require individual configuration for each unit or alternatively, moving to a more expensive, controller-based technology better suited for the mid-to-enterprise, he said. The AP 541N lets users configure just one access point, then add up to 10 other units that draw upon the configuration of the existing access point to expand the network.

The AP 541N has a US list price of $500. The device is currently available in the US, Canada, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.

Next up, Cisco's SPA 525G IP phones are receiving a firmware update that allows easy tele-snooping over its LCD display, plus an instant connection to a company's VoIP network no matter where the phone is plugged in.

New to the SPA 525G is the ability to use the phone to display a live video feed from any Cisco small business security camera. Apparently this function works nicely when attaching a camera at the front door of an office so any phone on the network can get an eyeful of arriving visitors. The phone even has a feature to open a door's deadbolt remotely, said Sage. What haunted house is complete without one?

The IP phone is also being outfitted with integrated VPN technology. The new functionality allows a worker to connect to a company's private branch exchange (PBX) securely over almost any broadband network.

"You can take the phone, plunk it down on a desk, connect it to any broadband connection, and it will find its way back to your main office PBX and become an extension on that PBX system — for all intents and purposes as if you were local to it," said Sage.

Cisco is also rolling out four-hour hardware replacement service and 24-hour technical support that covers all of the company's Small Business Pro products, not just the phones.

For more of this article, visit The Register.