POGO Podcasts

POGO's Scott Amey testified before the Commission on Wartime Contracting (CWC) on Monday, February 28, 2011. Find his testimony here: http://www.pogo.org/pogo-files/alerts/contract-oversight/co-fcmd-20110228.html Since his testimony, Scott and other investigators at POGO have written about the hearing on POGO's blog. See: http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2011/03/contractor-past-poor-formance-information.html http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2011/03/does-the-federal-government-have-performance-anxiety.html http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2011/03/im-beginning-to-get-the-picture-that-bad-performance-can-be-good-business.html

Does a corporation enjoy the benefits of "personal privacy" when it comes to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)? That's the key question that was argued today before the Supreme Court in the case of AT&T v. FCC. Back in November, POGO and allies in the good government community challenged a Court of Appeals decision and argued in an amicus brief that the "personal privacy" exemption to FOIA did not apply to corporate entities. In this podcast POGO staffers go over the arguments and implications of the case. You can read the amicus brief submitted by POGO and good government allies here: http://pogoarchives.org/m/gs/foia/fcc-v-att-pogo-amicus-brief.pdf

This week, Nick Schwellenbach, Keith Rutter, Danielle Brian and Bryan Rahija discuss the latest WikiLeaks disclosures.

POGO recently reiterated its call for the removal of Arnold Fields as the head of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. Fields recently defended his work before critics in Congress, and here POGO staffers discuss how the hearing went.

POGO staffers discuss our recent letter to the President raising questions about whether the State Department's Inspector General is independent enough to be effective. (Letter: http://www.pogo.org/pogo-files/letters/government-oversight/go-ig-20101118.html)

The State Department Office of the Inspector General (OIG) last week released a damning performance evaluation of ArmorGroup North America (AGNA), the contractor responsible for guarding the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. Among the revelations from the OIG report: * AGNA employed, and the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security failed to scrutinize, “Nepalese guards without verifiable experience, training, or background investigations in violation of its contract.” * “AGNA cannot account for 101 U.S. Government-furnished weapons that have been missing since 2007. AGNA used U.S. Government-furnished weapons for training rather than required contractor-furnished weapons.” * “AGNA regularly allows individuals who are not vetted by Embassy Kabul’s regional security office unescorted access to Camp Sullivan, a U.S. Government-owned camp containing sensitive materials.” The report confirms and expands on the findings of our investigation last year, which pulled back the curtain on a "Lord of the Flies environment" that had taken hold of the Embassy security guard force. Lewd and obscene photos of AGNA security guards helped our investigation garner considerable attention—but the key revelation, as detailed in our letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was that the State Department was failing to conduct oversight of a contractor performing an incredibly important service. This OIG report is just one more piece of evidence demonstrating that the State Department continues to struggle in its oversight of private security contractors--and raises questions about what role private security contractors should play in the U.S. efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.

POGO sat down to speak with Chris and Emma Winfield, the parents of Army Specialist Adam Winfield, one of five soldiers charged with the murders of three Afghans in January, February and May. Spec. Winfield reportedly contacted his parents after the first incident, saying that he was being harassed and that his squad leader had gotten away with murder. Chris Winfield says he tried to warn the Army after communicating with his son, but says several Army offices, including the Army Inspector General and the Army Criminal Investigation Command (CID), did not respond to their voice mails. As reported by ABC News, the Army says that it conducted an internal investigation in response to the Winfields' story, and determined that the Winfields did not call the Army Inspector General. Regarding the interaction between Winfield and CID, the Army told ABC: "The evidence shows that he called several numbers on a Sunday. He spoke to one individual for approximately 12 minutes. He did call the Army Criminal Investigations Division, but he did not leave a message and did not follow a prompt to call the 24-hour MP desk." Chris Grey, a CID spokesperson, also told POGO that the CID office at Fort Lewis “could find no record of a message left by Mr. Winfield,” although the office admits Chris Winfield has produced phone records showing a one-minute phone call with the CID office. Nonetheless, because POGO has long taken an interest in issues related to blowing the whistle and the inspector general system, we thought this story merited exploration.

Ingrid and Peter sit down to discuss the findings in POGO's latest report. In a nutshell, we have identified an opportunity to create jobs, save taxpayer dollars, improve security, and generate as much as $23 billion for the Treasury.

Ask us anything! What do you want to know about POGO or the world of government oversight?

On Monday August 9 Secretary of Defense Robert Gates proposed several initiatives to trim Pentagon bloat and make Department of Defense operations more efficient. But do these proposals mark steps towards genuine reform at the Pentagon? And what do the folks on Capitol Hill think? To find out, POGO sat down with Winslow Wheeler, director of the Center for Defense Information.

Angela Canterbury, POGO's Director of Public Policy, walks us through some of the key pieces of legislation that POGO has been working on (the CLEAR Act, the financial regulatory reform bill...), and talks about what's next (GAO oversight of the intelligence community, whistleblower protections...?) once legislators return from recess.

POGOnauts, including POGO Senior Investigator Peter Stockton, review a new film about the nuclear weapons complex, Countdown to Zero, and discuss the recent trend towards less and less oversight of our nation's nuclear weapons stockpile.

This week POGO is joined by OpenTheGovernment.org's Amy Bennett for a discussion of the recent audit of revisions to agency Open Government Plans. Agencies were required to submit these Plans as part of the Open Government Directive, the Obama Administration commitment to increase transparency in the federal government. POGO and other good government groups audited the agencies' Plans when they were first published, and committed to re-evaluating Plans that were re-submitted by June 25. You can find the results of the audit here: https://sites.google.com/site/opengovtplans/home/about-this-project/audit-results-updated

This week, POGO staffers dive into the history of the beleaguered government agency responsible for oversight of the offshore oil industry, and examine the reforms under consideration to improve the agency. Find more background information on POGO's blog: http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/oil-spill-mms/

It may be one of the bulkiest terms in Washington, but POGO's got the skinny on inherently governmental functions. In this week's podcast, POGO Executive Director Danielle Brian describes her recent testimony before the Commission on Wartime Contracting, in which she addressed whether private security contractors in combat zones are performing services that should be reserved strictly for government personnel. You may read Danielle's testimony here: http://www.pogo.org/pogo-files/testimony/contract-oversight/co-gp-20100618.html