 Fenger
pointingBy Becky Fenger SCREENERGATE I have a circle of friends, wound less tightly than I, who are amused by my agitation and combustibility over waste of taxpayer money. One disgusting spillage of cash that has had my blood boiling for two years surfaces in the July 1 and July 28 issues of the Washington Post. The federal government, in its infinite wisdom, decided after the 9/11 attacks that airline passenger screeners should be federal employees instead of private workers. This would make us more secure, they said. The Transportation Security Administration used private contractors to hire this force of 60,000 new civil servants to meet a deadline of Nov.19, 2002. Now it appears that some of the subcontractors for this $741 million contract, awarded to Englandbased NCS Pearson Inc. (now called Pearson Government Solutions), billed them for $303 million in unsubstantiated spending. Swell. When Congressmen like Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) call this kind of waste inexcusable you have to be in awe of the scope, since that’s like seasoned cat burglars being irritated by grifters. The TSA has flatly refused to publicly release the findings of the Defense Contract Audit Agency report. Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), chairman of the House aviation subcommittee, wants the GAO to look into the size of the rat hole. One of the subcontractors, Eclipse Events Inc., landed a no-bid contract that morphed from $1.1 million to $24 million dollars. Don’t look them up now. Eclipse took the money and eclipsed out of sight. The company was cunningly formed by Sunnye L. Sims just to meet the specs of the contract. Nita Sullivan, Eclipse VP, raked in a similar amount in “consulting fees” when she formed WJS Consulting Inc. Sims no longer rents an apartment north of San Diego. She received $5.4 million for 9 month’s work and now owns a $2 million mansion on a hilltop. There is upkeep, of course, so Sims gave herself a $270,000 pension. God bless the USA. Described by friends as devout Christians who would never take advantage of the government for personal gain, Sims and Sullivan are now doing church work with drug abusers and troubled youth. I have more knowledge of ScreenerGate, including some juicy insider details, but there’s too much to tell all at once. There will have to be sequels to this column, although there are some things one would rather not know. Quoteworthy: “Put a federal agency in charge of the Sahara Desert and it would run out of sand.” – Political speechwriter and author Peggy Noonan. “The day Dick Cheney is going to run for president, I’ll kill myself. All we need is one more liar.” – White House press veteran Helen Thomas to the editor of The Hill.
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