Official: Rotate contracting officers between government, private sector
Joseph Jordan, the White House’s top contracting policy chief, floated the idea Tuesday of having contracting professionals rotate between government and the private sector. “There are all sorts of issues, I know,” said Jordan, who is the administrator for the Office of Federal Procurement Policy. “But I refuse to say this is off the table.”Does this second story hint at a reason this might not be such a great idea?
The Obama administration has placed tight rules clamping down on the so-called revolving door between government and special interests among political appointees, though Jordan’s remarks were aimed an audience of career workforce professionals.
“Is there a way where we can have people kind of bounce back and forth ... between industry and agencies?” Jordan said in remarks here at the National Contract Management Association conference.
Former government contracting official sentenced to prison
A former government contracting official, Robert Edwin Steele, 38, of Alexandria, was sentenced Friday to 48 months in prison for 14 counts of unauthorized access to a protected computer. In addition to his 48-month term of imprisonment, Judge Lee also ordered Steele to serve two years of supervised release, imposed a fine of $50,000, and required restitution $335,977.68.Of course, you need to read both stories in full for context, but why would you need to hack for information if you can just bounce back and forth and gather as you go?
When Steele left Company A on December 15, 2010, he gave verbal and written assurances to officials of Company A that he would not access its systems after his departure, and even urged them to shut down his existing accounts. That same day, however, Steele began logging into Company A’s e-mail systems using a secret administrative account which he learned about during his work for Company A. Steele immediately began downloading hundreds of proprietary documents using this administrative account.
Shortly after resigning, Steele joined another government contractor, Company C, that directly competed with Companies A and B for government contracts. At Company C, Steele worked as “Director of Law Enforcement” and prepared bids for government contracts on law enforcement projects. In that position, Steele undercut Company A’s bid on a government contract by approximately $100,000, while downloading Company A’s documents on the same contract. Although his attempt to win the bid failed, Steele continued to methodically sift through thousands of valuable documents stored on computers for Company A.
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