IBM battles Amazon over $600M CIA cloud deal by Frank Konkel, reports that IBM has protested a contract award for cloud computing by the CIA to Amazon.
The “new age” of government transparency looks a lot like the old age in that:
- How Amazon obtained the award is not public.
- The nature of the cloud to be built by Amazon is not public.
- Whether Amazon has started construction on the proposed cloud is not public.
- The basis for the protest by IBM is not public.
“Not public” means opportunities for incompetence in contract drafting and/or fraud by contractors.
How are members of the public or less well-heeled potential bidders suppose to participate in this discussion?
Or should I say “meaningfully participate” in the discussion over the cloud computing award to Amazon?
And what if others know the terms of the contract? CIA CTO Gus Hunt is reported as saying:
It is very nearly within our grasp to be able to compute on all human generated information,
If the proposed system is supposed to “compute on all human generated information,” so what?
How does knowing that aid any alleged enemies of the United States?
Other than the comfort that the U.S. makes bad technology decisions?
Keeping the content of such a system secret might disadvantage enemies of the U.S.
Keeping the contract for such a system secret disadvantages the public and other contractors.
Yes?