It appears that President Obama’s favorite company has been caught with its hands in the cookie jar. The question is – is anyone going to do something about it?
Of course, the company is Google and the relationship between the president and Google’s corporate executives is paying hefty returns on both ends. Google plied the president with nearly a million dollars in political contributions during his run for the presidency and now the company is rewarded with government contracts and policy initiatives like Net Neutrality that will pad the company’s bottom line.
In turn, the president’s men have turned a blind eye to privacy concerns, anti-trust concerns and now, perhaps, perjury concerns.
News from Washington suggests that Google has been caught lying on federal contracting application. Politico is reporting that an a critical application for another government contract, Google made the claim that it met all necessary federal security requirements by claiming it had obtained government certification under the Federal Information Security Management Act. It had not. In fact, in a legal filing, the Department of Justice wrote (N)otwithstanding Google’s representations to the public at large, its counsel, the GAO, and this Court,” wrote DOJ, which is defending Interior against Google’s suit, “it appears that Google’s Google Apps for Government does not have FISMA certification.” Whoops.
A greater issue has arisen – a question asked by Citizens Against Government Waste President Tom Schatz: “The government spends tens of billions of dollars every year on IT. Taxpayers deserve to know that when government agencies are adopting new technologies such as the cloud, the procurement process is fair and unbiased, the best technology is being procured at the least possible cost, and the vendor is both accountable and trustworthy.”
Are the procurement procedures by the government fair or are they tilted in Google’s favor? Are the millions in government contracts awarded to the company by NASA and other agencies just part of the favor factory that is Washington? Taxpayers deserve answers.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) is the first conservative willing to raise concerns about the growing influence of the corporation upon our government. For that he deserves kudos. It’s time for Congress to begin answering questions about the relationship between Google and the President and hopefully they will get some before former Google CEO becomes Secretary of Commerce.