Oh Look – Even More Amazon-Defense Department Cronyism

Amazon and the Pentagon -
Joined at Our Wallet

by Seton Motley, Contributing Author: One would have to be deaf, blind…and living in a cave in a cliff on a remote Pacific atoll – to miss the obnoxious amounts of incestuous cronyism that exists between monstrously huge tech company Amazon and the Department of Defense (DoD).

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is looking to crony its way into a $10 billion DoD cloud computing contract.

The now-thankfully-former Barack Obama Administration – appears to have gone above and beyond to ensure Amazon got the deal.

Uber-Crony Amazon – Is About to Get the Biggest Crony Deal in DC’s Awful History

Most influentially, the Obama DoD hired an AWS employee – a huge Obama fan by the name of Deap Ubhi. Who oversaw – and rigged for AWS – the DoD contract process.

Cronyism: Having Your Ex-Employees Award Government Contracts…:

“…makes it much more likely you’ll get government contracts.”

Then when caught…

Amazon’s Defense Dept Cronyism Comes Under Trump Administration Review

…the once-AWS employee quits the DoD – and goes back to AWS.

But we’ve just discovered – crony staffing turnabout was foul play.

Amazon Gave Jobs to DOD Staff Working on Cloud Bid:

“At least two Pentagon employees were offered jobs at Amazon.com Inc. while working on the Defense Department’s $10 billion cloud contract, a lawsuit filed by Oracle Corp. alleges.”

One was the aforementioned Ubhi:

“(O)ne of the employees, Deap Ubhi, received ‘significant’ job and bonus offers from AWS for shaping the JEDI procurement in a fashion favorable to the cloud giant.”

The other(s)?:

“The name of the other person who allegedly received an offer from AWS is redacted in the filing.”

That’s just how it goes with lawsuits filed about cronyism-infested $10 billion government contracts.

Ubhi – and other(s)’ – two greatest crony contributions? They transmogrified the DoD cloud computing deal from one for multiple backup providers – to but one provider. And then crafting the deal in such a way – that only Amazon could get it.

And just to remind how dumb and dangerous the DoD’s looming crony decision to hire Amazon – and only Amazon – is.

Our Nation’s Defense Is Too Important to Hire but One Cloud Storage Company:

“One would think when a government agency like the Department of Defense (DoD) looks to get into the cloud storage business – they would absolutely look to have multiple redundancies for the things they are looking to store.

“This is our nation’s defense, after all….

“We have hundreds of thousands of men and women deployed all over the planet – oh-so-many of them in harm’s way. And they are counting on getting access to the data the DoD is storing – in many instances to survive.

“So it would be a very good idea for the DoD to hire multiple companies – each with overlapping responsibilities for different portions of the DoDs backup needs….

“Unfortunately, that is not at all what the DoD is currently considering doing….

“‘(B)ehind the scenes, some Department of Defense agencies are so sure that Amazon will be awarded the contract that they are preparing for a transition to GovCloud, which is Amazon’s cloud infrastructure designed specifically for government use, according to this source.

“‘“I can’t imagine any possible way that the deal could be stopped,” (a source with knowledge of the deal) said, adding that it was only a matter of “waiting for the contract start date to be officially announced.”’”

“Go back and read that brief excerpt – and count the number of companies receiving the DoD deal.

“The correct answer is: one. The DoD is going to give a ten-year-$10 billion contract to Amazon – and only Amazon.

“Which means the entirety of the Defense Department – will have one less backup of everything they produce…than I do of this document I am writing about the Defense Department and its backup plans.

“This seems to me to be…highly insufficient. And not very intelligent at all.”

Indeed it is – highly insufficient…and really quite stupid.

Which are just the sort of awful results you expect – when a government deal is this corrupted by cronyism.
----------------
Seton Motley is the President of Less Government and he contributes to ARRA News Service. Please feel free to follow him him on Twitter   /   Facebook.

---

Tags: Seton Motley, Less Government, Amazon-Defense Department, Cronyism To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!