“To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is
free, when men are different from one another and do not
live alone–to a time when truth exists and what is done
cannot be undone:
From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude,
from the age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink–
greetings!”
“If the party could thrust its hand into the past and say
of this and that event, it never happened–that, surely,
was more terrifying than mere torture and death.”
“And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed
–if all records told the same tale–then the lie passed into
history and became truth. “Who controls the past,” ran the
Party slogan, “controls the future: who controls the present
controls the past.”
“The past, he reflected, had not merely been altered, it had
actually been destroyed. For how could you establish, even
the most obvious fact when there existed no record outside
your own memory?”
George Orwell, “1984”
I would like to thank the Washington Post for providing an
excellent example and the readers of this blog for alerting
me to this Orwellian example of revisionist history straight
out of “1984.”
If you have not read “1984” by George Orwell, our present
times and conditions make it a must read for survival.
Yesterday, the Citizen Wells blog presented a second article on
the arrest of 2 individuals in the Washington DC office
that was headed by Obama’s technology czar, Vivek Kundra, as
recently as a few days ago. This article came from a Washington
Post article dated March 13, 2009. Last night Citizen Wells
was notified that the Washington Post article had been changed.
After some investigating, it was discovered that the whole
nature of the article had been changed. Consider the
following:
The citizen Wells article dated March 13, 2009 revealed several
aspects of the Washington Post article that are potentially
damaging to Barack Obama.
“Obama Official Placed on Leave”
“Vivek Kundra, who was tapped as the White House technology czar
March 5, oversaw technology projects and budgets for 86 D.C.
government agencies as head of the District’s Office of the Chief
Technology Officer.”
“Yusuf Acar, 40, who has worked in the technology office since
2004, was charged with bribery, conspiracy, money laundering and
conflict of interest.”
“FBI agents carted away boxes and envelopes from the Office of
the Chief Technology Officer throughout the day.”
“Acar also told the informant that he could use computers to
create fake D.C. birth certificates, Hibarger said.”
“The scam began unraveling in March last year”
“The informant approached the FBI and began wearing a hidden
recording device and secretly recording phone conversations
involving Acar and Bansal.”
Here is the Washington Post article that has been completely
rewritten. It is located at the same link in the Citizen Wells
article dated March 13, 2009. Notice that the header has nothing
about Obama:
“D.C. Technology Office Scandal Revives Questions of Cronyism
By David Nakamura
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 14, 2009; Page B01
Last summer, Vivek Kundra, then the D.C. government’s chief technology officer, introduced a massive overhaul of the way
his agency hired about 300 consultants.
Responding to vendors’ complaints that the contracting process was unfair and rife with cronyism, Kundra received $75
million from the D.C. Council to create the Information Technology Staff Augmentation program to foster greater
transparency and accountability. Kundra hired a company to help the city weed out unqualified résumés, established a
central online database to advertise contracts and disclose who won each one, and posted video solicitations for jobs
online. The ITSA program, he told council members during an oversight hearing in August, was a more open and more fair
way of doing business in the District.
But this week, the technology agency was rocked by a bribery scandal that brought the allegations of cronyism back into
full view and raised questions among consultants about whether anything has changed. Federal authorities have alleged
that Yusuf Acar, a manager in charge of information security, conspired with a contractor named Sushil Bansal to bilk
the city of money in a scheme that involved “ghost” workers and kickbacks. Both men have been arrested.
Questions submitted to Mayor Adrian M. Fenty’s office about the technology office’s contracting process, including
whether the hiring decisions by project managers were reviewed by higher-ranking authorities, were not answered
yesterday. Kundra, who left the technology office last month after President Obama appointed him the nation’s chief
information officer, has not been identified as a suspect in the D.C. case. He has been placed on administrative leave
pending the outcome of the federal investigation and declined to comment.
“We have to find the right balance and find the right checks and balances,” said council member Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3),
who recently took over the committee that oversees the technology office.
City Administrator Dan Tangherlini said the scheme that Acar and Bansal are accused of running predates the
implementation of ITSA in October.
Consultants who work with the technology office said yesterday that the bribery allegations emphasize their long-
standing complaints that the agency lacks sufficient oversight to ensure that contracts are awarded fairly. They
described a system in which project managers have virtually unabridged authority to issue “purchase orders” for
consultants and then decide which ones receive the contracts.
Furthermore, they said, some managers making the hiring decisions used to work for the consulting companies that are
making bids, and some of the consultants once worked as full-time city employees. Bansal worked for the city before
founding Advanced Integrated Technologies about six years ago.
“How can we even trust these people anymore?” asked Laurie Collins, owner of a small information technology consulting
firm that has worked with the city. Collins and other consultants complained that a group of fewer than 10 firms win a
disproportionate bulk of contracts, even though the city has 97 registered technology vendors.
Bansal’s firm won 14 of the 167 contracts, including two awarded by Acar, issued through ITSA so far.
Under ITSA, the city hired Optimal Solutions and Technologies to oversee the contracting process. That company set up a
Web site to post job openings and solicit résumés. The résumés of qualified candidates are then sent to D.C. project
managers without company affiliations, a tactic aimed at trying to eliminate potential company biases from the managers
making the hiring decisions.
But consultants said it is easy for vendors to sidestep that safeguard by telling the managers ahead of time which
résumés to look for.
Tim Booker, owner of the consulting firm MindFinders, said managers have developed close relationships with specific
vendors and are hesitant or unwilling to award contracts to other firms. Because of that, it is difficult for the city
to ensure that it gets the best value and services for each contract.
“Managers are not willing to break old habits,” he said. “What it requires is leadership and training and oversight.”
Under their alleged scheme, Acar approved contracts for Bansal’s company for the purchase of goods and services. But
Bansal billed the city for some services that were not provided and workers who did not exist, splitting the proceeds
with Acar, according to the affidavit. Bansal’s company has received $13 million in city contracts, including some from
other managers in the technology office and at least one other city agency.
Michael Master, owner of the consulting firm GiniCorp, opposed the implementation of the ITSA program last summer during
a D.C. Council hearing. But yesterday, he said he did not blame the system for failing to stop Acar and Bansal.
“There’s a longtime culture of bending the rules in this city,” Master said. “Whether the process is transparent or not,
which the whole ITSA thing was supposed to be, you can put in all the rules and laws, but bad people will always find a
way to get around it. This just proves that.”
Staff writer Nikita Stewart contributed to this report.”
Link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/13/AR2009031301449.html
Want to read the original article (If the Post has not
scrubbed it. If they do, let me know.)
http://mobile.washingtonpost.com/news.jsp?key=361994&rc=dc_me
“About
washingtonpost.com mobile brings you breaking local, national and world news from The Washington Post newspaper, as well
as unique content only found online.
If you have a question or comment about our mobile web site, e-mailcusthelp@washingtonpost.com”
Did someone forget to scrub the mobile version or was the
main concern the Citizen Wells reference?
A Google search of:
“washington post Obama Official Placed on Leave”
Produced the following results:
D.C. Technology Office Scandal Revives Consultants’ Questions of …Obama Official Placed on Leave After Technology Office Arrests – Washington Post · D.C. Official Arrested in Federal Bribery Sting …
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/13/AR2009031301449.html – 23 hours ago – Similar pages –
Obama Official Placed on Leave After Technology Office ArrestsMar 13, 2009 … The White House said this morning that President Obama’s chief information officer has been placed on leave out of “an abundance of caution …
mobile.washingtonpost.com/news.jsp?key=361994&rc=dc_me – 21 hours ago – Similar pages –
Obama Official Placed on Leave After Technology Office ArrestsAssistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Hibarger told a federal judge that Acar, of Northwest Washington, is a flight risk because agents seized $70000 in cash in …
mobile.washingtonpost.com/detail.jsp?key=361998&rc=me&p=2 – 21 hours ago – Similar pages –
More results from mobile.washingtonpost.com »
Obama Official Placed on Leave, Acar fake D.C. birth certificates …From a Washington Post Article dated March 13, 2009: “The White House said this morning that …. decentAmerican on Obama Official Placed on Leave… …
citizenwells.wordpress.com/…/obama-official-placed-on-leave-acar-fake-dc-birth-certificates-friday-march-13-2009-vivek-k… – 21 hours ago – Similar pages –
Notice that the original Washington Post article, the top one,
still has the original date of March 13, 2009, but instead of
Obama official it has D.C. Technology Office Scandal. The Citizen
Wells link meshes with the mobile links.
Citizen WElls 