ACLU Rips Whistleblower Law

The ACLU filed a complaint today along with ACLU of Virginia on behalf of themselves, the Government Accountability Project (GAP) and OMB Watch. Here's the skinny:

Complaints filed under the False Claims Act (FCA) are automatically filed under seal and those who file them are gagged from speaking about them, keeping the complaints secret from the public for months or even years. "Secret courts and secret proceedings have no place in this country," said Chris Hansen, senior staff attorney with the ACLU First Amendment Working Group. "There are plenty of procedures Congress or the courts could adopt to preserve the interest of privacy when it is warranted without enlisting the courts in a blanket scheme that automatically gags people who have information about possible abuse of taxpayer dollars.

Apparently our whistleblower law gets almost everything bass ackwards by protecting the contractors, the military, our government -- everybody but the taxpayer. Ronald Reagan kicked it up a notch by pushing through an amendment to screw this law up further:

Under the FCA, originally enacted by President Lincoln to combat war profiteering and other contractor fraud against the federal government, private citizens are entitled to bring complaints of fraud on behalf of the government. A 1986 amendment to the law requires that FCA complaints are automatically filed under seal and whistleblowers who file the complaints are gagged from speaking to anybody about them. The seal and gag are not lifted until the Justice Department decides whether it will pursue a complaint, which can be anywhere from 60 days to several years later. According to the Justice Department there were approximately 1,000 FCA cases under seal as of July 2007.

Whoa! Enacted by Lincoln?!? 1,000 sealed cases?!? That's seriously fucked up. Nothing personal Abe. I don't ever want to hear the words "Lincoln" or "sealed cases" in any paragraph related to the Iraq War.

The bottom line:

According to today's complaint, the FCA secrecy provisions have hidden an unknown number of allegations of military contractor fraud during the Iraq War from the public, raising concerns that the government may neglect to take action against certain contractors.

If we're to be serious about this business of war, which despite Obama's election we give every indication we are (Hello? Afghanistan?), we better damn well retool a 140+ year old anti-war profiteering law more that once every 20 years.

-AF

Note: Two foundations that provided major funding for the ACLU were cleaned out by Bernie Madoff. Help the ACLU keep fighting the good fight by donating here.

There's A Sand Shortage In Iraq.

Stephen Colbert interviews 2001 Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. He co-authored The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict published earlier this year. Mr. Stiglitz tells of military contractors screwing US out of even more money by shipping sand from Kuwait to Iraq. To which Stephen Colbert replies:

"Wow! That's like shipping bullshit to Washington!"

Oy. Stiglitz details how the money we've spent on the Iraq War and on subsequent "reconstruction" attempts would have been better spent here at home on measures that would have prevented the current US economic crisis.

-AF

The Loophole And The Damage Done

Yesterday TPM's intrepid reporter Paul Kiel reported that the Bush Administration closed a loophole they secretly created in a rule requiring our overseas contractors (read: Iraq & Afghanistan) to self-report fraud and waste. The loophole excluded all contractors billing $5 million+ (read: all of them). Never mind that due to it's self-reporting nature this rule had no teeth. It was drafted by Bush's own Justice Department!

As long as your company defrauded the American people out of a very large amount of money, the Bush Administration not only didn't care, their policies both encouraged it and then went out of their way to protect you. Very nice. Can we trust them at their word this loophole has been closed? No fucking way.

It occurs to me that this is yet another staggering example of a fundamental truth about warfare (or anything else for that matter) that Bush and his pals got backwards. As per usual it comes at great expense to our country. The difference here is that here it resulted in great profit to them and their friends. It's truly amazing what a President can get away with when he flouts The Constitution. If just for his interpretation of the unitary executive theory alone, John Woo has reserved himself a prime spot in Hell's VIP lounge.

Where was I? Oh yeah, "fundamental truths about war." Since time immemorial invading armies have pillaged those countries they invade. In Iraq, the Iraqis continue to loot their country and ours while our "reconstruction"/military contractors also plunder the US treasury.* And we don't even know the half of it yet.

The ugly truth is even if the fraud loophole is now closed the damage has been done and done and done. The US Treasury has been looted by Republicans and their favorite campaign contributors. This includes those neophytes i.e. Blackwater who established new companies specifically to cash in on "GWOT." The lion's share will be applied to Halliburton, Bechtel, Blackwater, Lockheed Martin, Dyncorp, et al's bottom line and to provide post-Bush positions for their soon to be unemployed benefactors. Be forewarned that a significant tithe of these ill-gotten gains will be plowed back into future Republican campaigns and/or decidedly un-American causes (i.e. Focus On The Family, Freedom's Watch, blah blah blah).

Yes, these looters and fraudsters will hedge their bets and contribute serious money to Democrats this election cycle. They are not fucking stupid. They may even give a little more this time around to Dems than Repubs. But I will guarantee this cash won't come close to matching their total Republican campaign contributions during any election period in the last ten years.

For example, in the '06 election cycle alone Halliburton's PAC alone gave 97% or about $160,000 to Republicans. I imagine the other 3% went to John Murtha and DIPO (Democrat In Perception Only) Joe Liebermann. This doesn't include money contributed by Halliburton execs and their families

-AF

More AEY Dish

Lindsay Beyerstein follows the paper trail of Efraim Diveroli's AEY VP, David Packouz. Packhouz has had a number of his own companies operating under the same roof including Intelliteran and Dyna Core/Dynacore/Dyncore. I immediately realized as did Ms. Beyerstein that Dyna Core sounds suspiciously like big time established military contractor DynCorp. While Dyncorp features real heavies like retired Generals Barry McCaffrey and Anthony Zinni, Packhouz' Dyna Core appears to be run by a bunch of twenty-somethings.

-AF

Grandpa Sez: Jealous Competitors Dropped A Dime On "Boy Genius" Arms Dealer

By now you've probably heard of AEY and 22 year-old international arms dealer Efraim Diveroli. After an internship at his uncle's shady Botach Tactical (I googled Botach only to find many complaints), the then 18 year-old Diveroli took over his father's business AEY. He submit the low bid and won a $300 million DOD munitions contract to be the main supplier to Afghan forces.

It's a great story of a young buck living the American dream, right? Until an Army field investigation documented an act of fraud by AEY, it was. Diveroli's "Hungarian" ammo was Chinese - a clear violation of his contract. Much of it was useless being 40-50 years-old. TPM has the Army's March 25 audit letter suspending Diveroli's contract and notifying him of their investigation here.

Strangely, there seems to have been no background check of young Efraim. As The Miami Herald reports:

While living on Miami Beach, AEY's youthful president has had several run-ins with the law, Miami-Dade court records show.

Since 2005, Diveroli has physically assaulted and harassed a former girlfriend and beaten up a valet parker at his office building. Then when searched by police, he was found to be carrying a fake Florida driver's license that indicated he was four years older.

All the cases have been dismissed or resolved.

Theses cases may have been "resolved." But his fake ID alone should have precluded Diveroli from doing business with the US Government. Pay it no mind. According to Grandpa, this is not young Efraim's fault. It's "jealously" that has his grandson jammed up. CNN has the poop via affiliate WPLG:

"The kid is dedicated and patriotic," Diveroli's grandfather, Angelo, told Local 10 senior political reporter Michael Putney via telephone. "He's all over the world getting what the military needs. The big corporations are jealous, so they want to destroy him."

Ahh yes, the old "I'm being attacked by jealous big businesses 'cuz I'm making millions selling illegal, useless ammo" defense. Let me know how it works out for young Efraim willya Grandpa? CNN affiliate WFOR had these gems from a not-so-proud Pop:

"I would prefer he became a nice Jewish doctor or lawyer rather than an arms dealer. He's never asked for my approval on the company. He doesn't always take my advice, I don't influence him. As a father of a boy genius he's hard to control."

Perhaps you should have thought of that before you allowed your son to morph your "small printing co." into an shady international arms dealership.

You just can't make this shit up folks.

-AF

+Note: What's unusual about Diveroli's ability to secure the contract to supply munitions to Afghan forces is that it appears for once that this is a case of a contractor submitting the lowest bid. I spent part of yesterday checking Open Secrets and Newsmeat for any pattern of contributions to Republican or Far Right causes. I found nothing.

++Raw Story has more (tho' crediting themselves for AEY's website shutdown goes a little too far -- It's as if Raw was the only team calling AEY).