NEC Admits To Ripping Off Schools Through E-Rate Program

MAurelius writes "The New York Times (regist. req'd) is reporting that NEC now admits to ripping off multiple low-income school districts by connecting them to the internet with equipment more advanced and expensive than necessary. Several orders of magnitude more expensive. All paid for by telephone rate-payers. That would be you."

Comments

Reg Free

[bendelo]

Here's a registration free link thanks to Google.

Sounds like a federal program

[Anonymous Coward]

And you expected any less with a pseudo-govermental federally mandated tax? The federal goverment has no business doing this; it should be done by the states as needed.

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[Teun]

Where do you get that State-politicians would be any better/worse than Federal politicians?

Wake up!

As a European I believe you'd better hve such a program run by independant beaurocrats than For Profit commercial interests.
And than elect thrustworthy officials to contral the beaurocrats.
But with so few going to the polls, who can complain about the politicians?

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[Alan Cox]

Anyone can get ripped off at any level. The good thing is that someone at least *noticed* this one and is now beating restitution out of the victims.

It can happen at any level in government or business (although its a government speciality since its not their money). State level, "Oracle v California" anyone ?

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[Tony-A]

Anyone can get ripped off at any level. The good thing is that someone at least *noticed* this one and is now beating restitution out of the victims. [Emphasis added]

Typo?
What worries me is that it's probably right as writ.

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, see, we have an often ignored Constitution that says that powers not explicitly granted to the federal goverment (Education isn't mentioned in the constitution) are given to the state.
But to answer your question, State politicians can be removed. Federal beaurecrats are immune to pressure. If you don't believe that, try to get one fired for negligence or failure to do their job.

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[espo812]

Where do you get that State-politicians would be any better/worse than Federal politicians?

If it's a school system it should probably be done by the local government, because locally elected officials are right next to the needs of a community. A politician 500 miles away dealing with politicians from thousands of miles away isn't in the best position to fix localy handled problems (school systems, roads, welfare, etc.)

As a European I believe you'd better hve such a program run by independant beaurocrats than For Profit commercial interests.

My expierence is that beaurocrats seek to expand their power - that means increasing budget at every opportunity. That isn't beneficial when what they do doesn't necessairly need to even exist (remember, once a program is created it is very hard to get rid of.) The write-up states the government didn't follow competetive bidding proceedures. If they had, the resulting for profit commercial interest selected should have been the most economically efficient company for the task. Granted, that isn't always the case but that's why competetive bid exists.

But with so few going to the polls, who can complain about the politicians?

I see this as an education problem. My peers don't vote and they certainly don't care about state and local elections. I don't understand why, since those officials probably affect them more than the President. I don't know how you get people to care about something important - it's a nobrainer to me.

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[That's Unpossible!]

As a European I believe you'd better hve such a program run by independant beaurocrats than For Profit commercial interests.

As an American I think we'd have a better program if the school system wasn't controlled by the government.

Do you think a for-profit private school would have wasted their budget money like this?

But Unpossible, how will poor kids go to private schools? Through scholarship programs, through charity, through hard work. Those that have good parents and want to be educated will be educated.

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[That's Unpossible!]

I know, don't feed the trolls and all, but I'm interested if you can tell me what is keeping these low-paid minions in their jobs?

Are they slaves? Or is this a free market?

I don't suppose these people have no marketable skills, do they?

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[Anonymous Coward]

Err, no. You're blaming a socialist program for a capitalist problem.

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[CondeZer0]

As Isaac Asimov put it (wording approximate):

"If I must be ruledby larcenous bullies, I much prefer that they be located far away. Local bullies know far more about me and my doings than faraway bullies sitting in offices in Washington, and can oppress me far more effectively."

Source Henry Spencer: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=Htt7u5.E6n%40 spsystems.net

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[nagora]

Or is this a free market?

Yep. The market is totally free and unregulated. If RTZ wants to pay their African workers one bag of rice a week for 50 hours in dangerous conditions (which they do) nothing's going to stop them. If India call centre workers want a decent wage there's nothing stopping the work going to China or, indeed, to slaves in any country. There's plenty of slavery in the US and the UK let alone shit-holes like China, or did you not know that? Did you think work gang members were free to come and go as they please?

TWW

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[papercut2a]

It's worth noting that before the federal gov't started "helping" the states with education, the locally-controlled and governed schools were producing people who helped put men on the moon.

It's also worth noting that, ever since the federal government established Department of Education as it's own separate cabinet department, complete with its own overreaching, incompetent bureaucracy, the state of education in the U.S. has declined. Thank you, Jimmy Carter.

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[Anonymous Coward]

As a European I believe you'd better hve such a program run by independant beaurocrats than For Profit commercial interests.

Well, that's because you don't know any better. What you're describing is Socialism, and it doesn't work.

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[Anonymous Coward]

flamebait!?!?

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!

because he says he's an american..or mentions hard work???

which is it commiedot??

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[alienw]

Quit listening to the libertarians. Those people are regular neo-cons. Hell, the Republican party is more liberal than the libertarians.

As an American I think we'd have a better program if the school system wasn't controlled by the government.

Really? Well, keep in mind that there is already an extensive network of non-public schools that you could go to if you have the money. How exactly does it solve the problem?

Do you think a for-profit private school would have wasted their budget money like this?

Yes. If the money was earmarked for buying network equipment, which it was, they might as well get all the network equipment they could possibly want. If I give you 10 million dollars for the sole purpose of upgrading your internet connection, wouldn't you try to spend it all? Possibly on stuff you will never need?

But Unpossible, how will poor kids go to private schools?

Quit deluding yourself. Private schools have no interest in letting poor people attend. So they will most likely simply disallow them. As in Brown vs. Board of Education.

And if you want to know how well for-profit public education works, read this.

Those that have good parents and want to be educated will be educated.

Do you think some poor kid in an inner-city ghetto is going to have good parents and the drive to succeed? Hell no. Maybe if you weren't so ignorant you would know why most civilized countries, including the US, have mandatory schooling.

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking of Azimov ... didn't he go to school before classroom computers? Bradbury? Robinson? Even Gibson and Stephenson? Hell, Verne and Wells went to school before electricity! In fact, virtually all of the great names in SF (not to mention most of history's greatest scientific geniuses) were schooled without computers. Kinda makes you wonder.

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[crem_d_genes]

Well, see, we have an often ignored Constitution that says that powers not explicitly granted to the federal goverment (Education isn't mentioned in the constitution) are given to the state.

Yes, that's correct.
Yet, the federal government has imposed a very large number of unfunded mandates(read: *the law of the land*) on the States through the No Child Left Behind Act (and other laws), leaving the States to pick up the slack.
In most States, the federal government picks up only a relatively small amount of funding.

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[Compuser]

A for-profit system would work but...
1. You need to assure every kid with a drive to
study of an opportunity, i.e. scholarship. Make
a law, earmarking $5000 per year per kid and watch
the number of private schools skyrocket. Some will
be bad some good, give it ten years to shake out.
2. Make sure (by law, hard enforcement, and stiff
liabilities) that the only way a school accepting
federal funding can avoid admitting a student is
if he does not qualify academically, i.e. fails an
entrance exam.
3. Create a yearly national test to measure learning
in a few critical areas (math, science, history,
language). This test should be done by teams of
educators going to random schools each year and
personally testing students, none of the paper
and pencil multiple choice tests for which you can
be coached. They don't have to cover all schools
each year, but they should cover all schools in
three-five year period.

To sum up, if you make a comprehensive effort and
devote enough resources it will work. The current
system of private schools is not bad but without
a scholarship system this does not provide kids
with enough opportunities.

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[Anonymous Coward]

You whining ass. I went to private schools growing up, even though we didn't have the money to go out to eat, or buy new clothes. Parents have toe be responsible for their children. Yes, I was a "poor" growing up, but at least my parents, though mostly unemployed, believed in education.

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Do you think a for-profit private school would have wasted their budget money like this?

No a for profit school would waste money on a high-salaried executive team.

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[justin_speers]

elect thrustworthy officials...

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! ha ha ha! Sorry, I have a serious point here, in any political sys.. ha ha ha ha ha ha!!! HA HA HA HA!!!! sorry, I'm tearing up here, let me make my poi... ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! whoooo!!! ha ha ha ha!!! seriously, get me a paper bag here!!! ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

done trolling.

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[winwar]

"My expierence is that beaurocrats seek to expand their power - that means increasing budget at every opportunity."

I think this is roughly summed up as:
The goal of every organization (bureaucracy) is to survive and grow.

But never, ever make the mistake of assuming that it only applies to the government. It is the goal of any organization, government, private, non-profit, public, etc. Business is included in that. They can waste money every bit as well as government (they may have less of it). Their budgeting process often is just as screwed up. Programs can be very difficult to get rid of (managers prestige and power is related to size of programs managed...).

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[katdillon]

I agree with the poster who questioned how the local government would be much superior to federal. Any time you ask government to solve a problem that the free market can solve itself, you will find the problem solved inefficiently and often with corruption such as this article points out. The reason is, an individual will be cautious with his own money and investments. Government, which takes its wealth by force, is like a rich son who, not having to work for his money, squanders it thoughtlessly.

The Free State Project (http://www.freestateproject.org) proposes to take education out of the hands of government, precisely because it too important to be left to that rich philandering son, the state. Already we have in place private means to fund schools in New Hampshire. The Liberty Scholarship Fund (http://www.lsfund.org/) has been set up as a first step to providing privately funded alternatives to the public schools.

It's time to trim back government to its properly constitutional bounds. It's time to take back our schools. It's time to vote with our feet.

Live free or die! New Hampshire!

Kat Dillon

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[Anonymous Coward]

49 Slave States, 1 New Hampshire

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[geekee]

"As a European I believe you'd better hve such a program run by independant beaurocrats than For Profit commercial interests.
And than elect thrustworthy officials to contral the beaurocrats."

An independent beurocrat is no better than a commercial interest. The commercial interest is interested in charging as much as it can get away with, but the independent beaurocrat has no real motivation to get the best/cheapest solution either. As long as he advises a solution that works, we minimizes his work (and avoids losing his job), and doesn't answer to the taxpayers who must pay the bill anyway.

This is an inherent flaw in socialism. There is no good feedback mechanism for state officials to be held accountable for their decisions. In the free market, bad decisions send you to bankruptcy. In govt., taxpayers have no choice but to pay the increased costs resulting from bad decisions by govt. officials.

There is no good solution as long as there are public schools. Only privately run schools who get all their revenue from students' parents has real incentive to choose the best balance of cost cutting and quality education. If they make bad decisions, parents send their kids to competing schools.

Of course, in a private system, children suffer from low income and bad choices of parents, which is the impetus for public education; to give all kids the same opportunity. In the US however, public education is paid for through property tax, so wealthier parents own more expensive houses, pay more taxes, and provide more moeny for better schools anyway. So public education in the US isn't even equal for children anyway. Not surprising since a parent cares more about the education of his own kids than the education of kids in other neighborhoods.

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[geekee]

"As an American I think we'd have a better program if the school system wasn't controlled by the government.

Really? Well, keep in mind that there is already an extensive network of non-public schools that you could go to if you have the money. How exactly does it solve the problem?"

More people could afford to send their kids to private schools of their choice if they didn't have to pay the tax burden that supports the public school system

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[geekee]

"Do you think a for-profit private school would have wasted their budget money like this?

Yes. If the money was earmarked for buying network equipment, which it was, they might as well get all the network equipment they could possibly want. If I give you 10 million dollars for the sole purpose of upgrading your internet connection, wouldn't you try to spend it all? Possibly on stuff you will never need?"

If a school wants to remain competitive, they won't waste money on equipment 10x more expensive than they need. That's how capitalism works. Inefficient companies fail. Parents don't pay the school 10 million just for networking, they pay them a fee, and the school decides what is most important to spend it on. There is no govt. money coming in under this system to waste.

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[geekee]

"Those that have good parents and want to be educated will be educated.

Do you think some poor kid in an inner-city ghetto is going to have good parents and the drive to succeed? Hell no. Maybe if you weren't so ignorant you would know why most civilized countries, including the US, have mandatory schooling."

Having public schools alone doesn't solve the problem. If parents aren't interested in their kids' education, they don't study or learn anything anyway. You can force a kid to go to school, but you can't force him to learn anything there.

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[That's Unpossible!]

Quit listening to the libertarians. Those people are regular neo-cons.

I'm not exactly sure what your point is, but I am a Libertarian.

Hell, the Republican party is more liberal than the libertarians.

Yeah, too bad they've turned fiscally liberal instead of socially liberal. I think you are confused as to what Libertarian ideas are.

Really? Well, keep in mind that there is already an extensive network of non-public schools that you could go to if you have the money. How exactly does it solve the problem?

Which problem? It doesn't solve the problem of the government wasting tax money. For that you'll need all private schools, and to keep the federal government out of the education business.

Yes. If the money was earmarked for buying network equipment, which it was, they might as well get all the network equipment they could possibly want.

No, they'd buy the equipment they needed, and save the rest of the money for when they needed other goods. If they had a surplus they'd invest it elsewhere.

If I give you 10 million dollars for the sole purpose of upgrading your internet connection, wouldn't you try to spend it all? Possibly on stuff you will never need?

You have a serious misunderstanding of how a for-profit company works. It's not a magical never-ending supply of free money that you can buy whatever you wish with!

Do you think some poor kid in an inner-city ghetto is going to have good parents and the drive to succeed? Hell no.

That's his problem, not the government's. There are plenty of poor kids that do have the drive, and would earn scholarships to go to private schools just as poor kids earn them now to attend universities.

Why should my money be taken away via taxes to try and force some kid with no desire to go to school, disrupting classes for kids trying to learn?

Maybe if you weren't so ignorant you would know why most civilized countries, including the US, have mandatory schooling.

Because they are the perfect place to indoctrinate children into the government's way of thinking?

Who's ignorant here?

Why do you think schools are rampant with liberalism and the ideas that "more government is better"?

Quit deluding yourself. Private schools have no interest in letting poor people attend. So they will most likely simply disallow them.

Disallow them? Private schools will take those willing to pay. This is where scholarships come in for those that have the desire to learn.

Unlike you, I (and the Constitution) see no need for the federal government to be in charge of teaching our children.

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[That's Unpossible!]

If RTZ wants to pay their African workers one bag of rice a week for 50 hours in dangerous conditions (which they do) nothing's going to stop them.

If it was truly a free market there, you'd have other companies competing for these workers.

If India call centre workers want a decent wage there's nothing stopping the work going to China or, indeed, to slaves in any country. There's plenty of slavery in the US and the UK let alone shit-holes like China, or did you not know that?

Slavery is a crime in the US and the UK, and in most civilized places. That is not what I am arguing about here. If an employee is free to choose another place of employment, then the company they work for should be free to offer them whatever wages they wish to offer. If the employee doesn't like it, let them go elsewhere.

If it is truly slavery, then these people need to be freed.

Are you saying RTZ and whoever Alan Cox works for is employing slave labor? If so, prove it. If not, stop libelling them.

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[mrchaotica]

First of all, I agree with you, except for this:

"Why do you think schools are rampant with liberalism and the ideas that 'more government is better'?"

One reason could be that the teachers are the ones benefiting from the system. They aren't necessarily trying to indoctrinate the kids, but they're just like the people who support welfare because they recieve welfare!

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[Fallen_Knight]

bah thats insane, your right tha punlic schools as they stand are horrid, but your idea of how a for profit system should work is also a horrible idea.

lets be honest, not all kids work hard, hell they are kids and public school is there to force them to learn some basic knowlage (and fails right now) and to allow the poor to get their kids educated like everyone else to give them a chance at a firture. so letting those who dont' want to/can't not to get in is not what we want at all. we want to Improve the quality of the system.

Its really simple actauly, you allow a new kind of school, some kinda "publicy funded private school". where it is paid by the goverment for the number of students it has. ie for each kid the private school company gets XXX dollars. And you ensure that ANY kid from ANY where can attend. no "districts"

What this allows is choice in the education market and diversity. Parents and their kids can now choose what school they want to go to.

Once you have achived this bad schools will have kids leave as parents put them in better schools. and because they are paid PER STUDENT they will lose income be unable to expand and then fail and go bankrupt.

good schools will have more sutdents and if you give a big bonus to schools that get alot of students with high standardized test marks they can get bigger and allow more students.

not only will this improve education it will also inprove all aspects of schools.

This system is much better then the current one or the one you proposed, and i will not claim it as my own as i heard it on "yes minister" a great british comedey series:)

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, the Republican party is more liberal than the libertarians.

Well, duh, I should certainly hope so.

However, libertarians are neither liberal nor conservative. It's not part of their agenda to have the government mess with social issues.

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[Anonymous Coward]

With respect, you're an idiot. A poor American family (under 20,000 per year) pays less per year in public education related taxes than the average tuition of a private school per student per year. Sure, if there were no public schools, they wouldn't pay the taxes, but they'd need to pay private school tuitions. They'd be spending more money that they don't have, not less.

The whole idea behind taxes is to provide services to everyone in society that not everyone can necessarily afford but that everyone needs. In most civilized countries, this includes education and basic medical care. The rich hate the public system because they bare most of the tax burden, and generally don't use the system in question -- no one denies that private schools are usually better than public ones, nor that private medical plans offer better coverage than public ones.

But the rich are fundamentally detached, because they are rich. Most people aren't rich, and simply cannot afford to go to school or get medical coverage if these aren't provided by the state. The idea is that a healthy and well-educated society is better for everyone, and so when living in that society you are expected to contribute some of your earnings to its betterment. Whether you realize it or not, you do not live in an economic vacuum. Even the rich require others, and it benefits them to have a healthy, educated populace. It's kind of like the 5 day week -- your workers work less, but they spend more, and are ultimately more profitable, because that money returns to you when they buy your products. Unless you outsource, I guess.

It's really not complex, actually. If you don't want to pay taxes anymore, become a citizen of Monaco. It only costs 1 million USD to apply for citizenship.

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[Anonymous Coward]

if the school system wasn't controlled by the government.

"weren't".

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[H09N0X10U5]

But never, ever make the mistake of assuming that it only applies to the government. It is the goal of any organization, government, private, non-profit, public, etc. Business is included in that. They can waste money every bit as well as government (they may have less of it).

There's a big difference though. The funding for the business is optional (the customer can go to their rival). For a government it isn't.

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[nagora]

If it was truly a free market there, you'd have other companies competing for these workers.

Only with full, or near full, employment. Which is one reason all current western governments WANT a certain level of employment (flexible workforce they call it): it keeps the employed people in line to know that they can be dumped at a whim.

Slavery is a crime in the US and the UK, and in most civilized places.

So is drug dealing but smuggling people is a bigger global business now than drug smuggling. Huge numbers of these people are used as slaves of one kind or another.

If an employee is free to choose another place of employment, then the company they work for should be free to offer them whatever wages they wish to offer.

But this is not a situation which exists in the real world. When there are literally millions of people living off the garbage they can gather in open tips the notion of employee barganing power is a joke. One has to instead rely on the decency of those in power to make sure that the fear of having to live in places like "Dogs Go Hungry" in Mexico city (where the air is brown from the dried shit blowing off the open sewage from the city) is not exploited to make the top 1% of the world's population rich on the back of the utter misery of the bottom 20%.

Are you saying RTZ and whoever Alan Cox works for is employing slave labor?

In fact I'm saying that slaves would be better off than RTZ's employees in some ways - slaves generally get bed and board. As to AC's work placement; they are engaged in seeking out places where workers will work for peanuts for rich western companies who are happy to lay off workers while keeping upper management in telephone-number salaries. That's not illegal but its not very moral either.

TWW

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[alienw]

If you are motivated, you won't have any trouble in public school, either (unless it's some crime-infested inner city school). Of course, being poor is a bit of a handicap, but it's possible to work around it.

The problem is, if half your family is in jail and your parents sell drugs for a living (which is the case with many poor families), you aren't going to be motivated to go to school and learn. Which means that without mandatory, universal public schools you will be illiterate, and a useless member of society. Which means your occupation will probably involve breaking the law. This already is a major problem in the US. Do you think your life will improve if this problem is made worse?

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[alienw]

The tuition at a private school in my town is about $12K a year. If you pay that much in education-related taxes, I don't think that kind of money would be a significant burden. Most middle-class people pay much, much less than that.

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[alienw]

Do you understand that the money schools get from these kinds of programs CAN ONLY BE USED TO PURCHASE NETWORK EQUIPMENT? That's what the word 'earmarked' means. I think you need to take a reading comprehension class.

Parents don't pay the school 10 million just for networking, they pay them a fee, and the school decides what is most important to spend it on.

That's not generally the case. For instance, the university in my town is barely making ends meet due to budget cuts, but are building a new sports stadium. Why? Because someone donated a shitload of money to build a stadium, and they can't use it for anything else. That's generally how donations work. That's also how many federal programs work.

Re:Sounds like a federal program

[o'reor]

As an American I think we'd have a better program if the school system wasn't controlled by the government.

Actually, private schools have no incentive to select pupils on the basis of academic excellence. Having the parents pay the tuition fees is enough.

With such an education system, you end up with some student who should have dropped out from school/university a long time ago, finally getting a crappy MBA somewhere at a crummy university because his dad owns part of an oil firm. And this guy may even end up winning the best elections money can buy, and drag his country into an oil-related quagmire in the Middle-East. But I digress.

So basically, I think that whether public or private, the school system needs to be efficient at culling the students in order to maintain a decent academic level, and also give a better chance for poorer students to get in. A tougher selection means more opportunities for smart students, whether rich or poor.

US-centric

[NightRain]

All paid for by telephone rate-payers. That would be you.

No, that would not be me, because I don't live in the US.

Re:US-centric

[Tim C]

Exactly what I was going to say. I know that apparently the majority of /. readers are in the US, but that still leaves a sizeable (and growing, I'd have thought) minority of us that aren't. That sort of comment doesn't exactly make me feel welcome, and adds nothing to the story.

Re:US-centric

[WanderingGhost]

No, that would not be me, because I don't live in the US.
Yes, but how can you tell it doesn't happen in your country too?

Re:US-centric

[ezzzD55J]

Yes, but how can you tell it doesn't happen in your country too?

How can the submitter tell it does?

Re:US-centric

[Anonymous Coward]

And how would this comment be Insightful?

/. is US-centric, read the FAQ.

Re:US-centric

[Tony-A]

No, that would not be me, because I don't live in the US.

Wrong. You live in the same world.
The effects are small and suble, but multifarious. You pay.

Re:US-centric

[Anonymous Coward]

I know it doesn't apply in my country because there is no such thing as a "Telephone rate" You know, the 'phone company was privatised in the 80's. How would my government collect taxes via. a public company?

Re:US-centric

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

Considering how many companies these days are part of a multinational corporation, chances are you do pay for it indirectly.
The world is a becoming a village.

Re:US-centric

[NightRain]

Centric implies centered around, related to etc. This story for example is US centric as it is about an event in America. I have no problem with that.

What I do have a problem with, is the implication that the only people who read the article are in the US. That's not "centric", that's "incorrect"

Re:US-centric

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if we ever run out of money, we'll just bomb you and rob your natural resources, so you'll eventually end up paying anyway.

Re:US-centric

[The FooMiester]

This would also not be me. I live in the US, but dumped the landline in favor of a prepaid cellphone about 3 years ago.

Re:US-centric

[BgJonson79]

No, it's playing the odds. We do it all the time.

Re:US-centric

[magefile]

The same way it does in the US. Our telephone companies are also privatized. I bet you guys have some kind of telecom tax, just like you have income taxes, import/export/customs taxes, excise taxes (taxes on stuff like alcohol and tobacco), and probably a million other government mandated fees, just like us.

Even if you didn't have an explicit telephone tax, your income taxes pay for government programs like the one shown here (occurring in your country, obviously).

Re:US-centric

[Anonymous Coward]

Its not working in Irak , and costing you billions , what make you think , sorry , where did you get the idea from that its a working plan ? BTW the US is Bankrupt , the other country just dont whant to kill there investment there by bankrupting the country. At least now they get some dividend.

Re:US-centric

[martinX]

I'd expect more stories on Slashdot to be about the US, or US events, or even things that only effect US citizens. (In fact, I know this. I read the FFAQ). Fine with that, like I'm fine with El Reg and its UK-centricity. Not much of interest happens in Oz.

But I wouldn't expect the editors to assume that only US citizens read /.

Re:US-centric

[Anonymous Coward]

Is only Bankrupt till we get a Democrat back in the Whitehouse.

Re:US-centric

[H09N0X10U5]

How would my government collect taxes via. a public company?

Income Tax/NI, Fuel duty, tobacco/alcohol duty, VAT?

Old news

[vijaya_chandra]

This article was out 'day before yesterday' when 'day after tomorrow' was released

That's so stupid.

[pedantic bore]

I can't decide whether I'm more surprised that NEC would do something this transparently stupid, or that it took so long for people to notice! It seems like school budgets are gone over with a fine-tooth comb around here; lots of people want to keep costs down because higher school budgets -> more taxes.

Maybe this snuck through because it was done in a separate program funded a different way, but it still amazes me that they thought they wouldn't get caught.

Re:That's so stupid.

[Billly Gates]

Thank our campaign laws and legal bribery.

I am sure it was bought and paid for by lobbiest from NEC who convinced the politicans to buy this for kickbacks in return.

Re:That's so stupid.

[NJVil]

Having seen school budgets and taken coursework on school budgets and having had a hand in compiling a departmental school budget, I can state with some certainty that if a small group of influential people wants to hide something, they will hide it.

Granted, there are some amounts of money that can't be hidden, but this particular scam involved getting districts to buy too much unnecessary equiment (1 network server per classroom in one case) and overcharging for it because the districts didn't follow competitive-bidding procedures.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that even though the budget process is "public," a lot of the particulars are obfuscated by those few who control the budget pen. There's always a fair amount of pork in any budget (schools included), but this particular scheme involved defrauding the federal government (as opposed to defrauding the citizens of a town), which is what is landing them in hot water.

Re:That's so stupid.

[archen]

Actually this doesn't surprise me at all. I know a guy who used to work for a major ISP in the Northeast. Their company would fight tooth and nail to get into schools because of the funding they could get. They would offer to get the school wired, and would offer to do the rather complex paperwork to get grants from the state (or maybe federal, I can't recall). They then would wire schools with rather pricey equipment. Not obscenely out of line equipment, but certainly more expensive than needed. From what I understand, everyone is so concerned about getting schools wired so kids can surf the net instead of learning, that no one is looking at the price tag.

Re:That's so stupid.

[Tablizer]

[a particular company] would offer to get the school wired, and would offer to do the rather complex paperwork to get grants from the state (or maybe federal, I can't recall). They then would wire schools with rather pricey equipment. Not obscenely out of line equipment, but certainly more expensive than needed.

Maybe there was a "gentleman's agreement" that equipment would be jacked up a bit if the supplier did such paperwork for them. Dealing with gvmt paperwork can be costly itself. It may not be the "proper" way to do it, but it can get both sides what they want in some cases. In other words, a school may have no budget to perform such paperwork, but have a computer budget. Thus, the school can shift the paperwork costs, which they have no budget for, into the computer budget, which may be more plump in comparison. It is simply Radar O'reilly-like (MASH) wheeling and dealing and clever barter to get what you need. (I don't know if the NEC case is this way though.)

Re:That's so stupid.

[ameoba]

The money isn't really part of the school's budget in the sense that it's money that could have gone towards anything else. It's more like giving the schools a rich uncle that says "If you want to get yourself a network, tell me how much it costs & I'll send you the money". This is why nobody in the schools really cares ho wmuch they're spending.

Re:That's so stupid.

[mr. methane]

A few years ago, I was working for a Cisco VAR, and there were three types of customers we wanted:

1. Big commercial user with huge consulting budget.

2. Dot-com companies with a wheelbarrow full of IPO cash.

And the best of all...

3. A school district.

To pretend that these school districts were a bunch of simpletons being pickpocketed by the city slickers is just a bunch of crap. They had it down to a science, and would do things like make sure that competing vendors ran into each other in the lobby.

The RFP was never designed so the lowest bidder would get it; instead it was designed to give the board the ability to award the contract to the "correct" bidder.

You did not bring out the usual logo T-shirts and keychains for these customers; that would be an improper gift. However, there were numerous and expensive alternatives. A contract worth several million could earn a nice donation to an elected asshat's campaign fund, or a $100k/yr internship for their unemployable offspring, etc etc etc.

After closing any deal, there were always plenty of (semi-tongue-in-cheek) offerings to the Almighty Al Gore, the patron saint of stock options.

Re:That's so stupid.

[jak163]

From what I understand, everyone is so concerned about getting schools wired so kids can surf the net instead of learning, that no one is looking at the price tag.

I'm with you there. For some reason there's money for this when there isn't enough money for classroom space, teachers, or books. It's an obvious swindle due to the bombardment of propaganda from tech companies that a library fits on a CD, computers make learning faster and more cost-efficient, software can replace traditional classroom instruction, etc. etc. This is only a small example of corruption in the larger swindle, which begs the question of how anybody learned anything until 30 years ago.

Sigh

[CGP314]

All paid for by telephone rate-payers. That would be you.

Not since I'm unemployed and live in Europe, you insensitive clod.

I'm not paying

[Fullmetal Edward]

I'm English not American you insensitive clod!

Re:I'm not paying

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not even English
What do I do??

Re:I'm not paying

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not even English
What do I do??

That would depend on which variety of non-english you are.

• If French: find someone to surrender to.
• If Quebecois: secede.
• If African: start a useless discussion in the UN general assembly condemning the US.
• If Israeli: bulldoze some housing.

Re:I'm not paying

[Anonymous Coward]

Ya no hablo ingles! Que debo hacer?

Re:I'm not paying

[benzapp]

But the real question is do you belong to the BNP?

Re:I'm not paying

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot:

• If American: wait until the last five minutes then join in and make a lot of noise; later, when all the noise has died down, claim you won the argument single-handedly and that without your intervention we'd all be speaking [language of bad-guys]

Stereotypes aren't so funny when you're at the pointy end, yes?

Re:I'm not paying

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I find that quite comical and I'm american. Proof that I'm american is the fact I don't capitalize the first letter of my own country, because I'm lazy like that.

Re:I'm not paying

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually I left American off the list because the original poster was a whinging Brit, and the guy I replied to was complaining that he wasn't even a Brit.

Had I considered Americans for the list it would have been something like..

• If American: ignore world opinion, browbeat a couple nations into supporting you and call it a coalition of the willing.

From your referring to WW2 as an "argument" I'm going to assume you are French. So I hope you won't take it ill when I predict that the EU will fall apart due to French arrogance within a generation. The French invented arrogant western imperialism and only repented of it after losing their ability to hold an empire in the later half of the 19th century.

at least...

[Anonymous Coward]

NEC, the computer giant, agreed to plead guilty to two federal felony counts.

At least they pleaded guilty. It's marvellous that big companies can overcome their pride and say that they were wrong without putting up a big fuss.

Justice has been served.

Re:at least...

[phoenix.bam!]

The question is, will someone go to jail for this? Or will the company just have to give the money back?

Re:at least...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds more like a slap on the wrist. E-Rate system costs run into billions. Getting measly 20 million back isn't going to bankrupt NEC, nor refund those irresponsibly misappropriated funds. As a California resident, I'm not going to see my portion of money refunded, or at least properly distributed as a result of this judgement.

Justice will never be served as long as there are powerful lobbies who buy politicians to channel their expensive and always-redundant products and services to public schools. There is incredible amount of pork flowing through the system as I type this message, and god knows when it will be brought into limelight, if ever.

Re:at least...

[m1chael]

If NEC was run by Samurai:

CEO: "You have brought great shame to NEC"
Bad Employee(s): "Hi!"

Bad Employee(s) impale themselve(s) on their own sword(s).

Re:at least...

[SillyNickName4me]

Actually.. those who were responsible should have to pay them back at least 3 times, and from their personal account.

That a company takes the damage when things go wrong is understandable, but when people have intentionally screwed things up, they should be held personally accountable.

It amazes me that it seems acceptable to politicians that individual citizens can be put out of their life savings by an organisation like the RIAA over possibly endangering their income, while big corporations can rip of the citizens and the responsible people just walk away.

Re:at least...

[Badanov]

Justice will never be served as long as there are powerful lobbies who buy politicians to channel their expensive and always-redundant products and services to public schools. There is incredible amount of pork flowing through the system as I type this message, and god knows when it will be brought into limelight, if ever.

I guess I missed the part of the article where NEC bought a politician. My guess would be every other reader of the story did, too, because it simply wasn't there to be read.

I did see where one person ( one as in 1, one more than zero, one less than two ) had been caught taking a bribe, and the money wasn't even from NEC, but from another company involved.

The wire fraud count appears to be NEC taking the hit for what the employee did. Of course, there are no further detailsto clarify the story, so I get to assume a lot of things (sorta like what you did in posting your reply), since the NY Times is typically trying to advance an agenda.

Re:at least...

[TykeClone]

There is incredible amount of pork flowing through the system as I type this message, and god knows when it will be brought into limelight, if ever.

This is because taxes are too high. There's so much money flowing into the government that there's no accountability.

Look at what you paid last year for Federal, State, and local taxes. Chances are that the local taxes you paid (typically property tax) support you local community and school, and are the lowest amount of the three. State taxes (income and sales taxes) are next, and then Federal taxes.

If this was flipped on its head, where the smallest amount of tax went to the Federal government and the largest share stayed in the local community, we'd likely see lower taxes because local elected officials are more accountable to their constituents than those at the state or federal level.

Re:at least...

[Dun Malg]

The question is, will someone go to jail for this? Or will the company just have to give the money back?

They plead guilty and are paying back double the amount in fines and restitution, just like any individual would. A record of a felony conviction isn't as much of a problem for a corporation as it is for a person, though. That's really the only difference.

Re:at least...

[crem_d_genes]

It has absolutely nothing to do with pride. It is sheer and simple pragmatism.

On a federal count, to not plead guilty, and then be found guilty adds to the number of points the judge uses in setting the sentencing. When you know you're guilty in a federal case, it is very foolish to plead innocent when the evidence is amassed against you.

Re:at least...

[GSloop]

If an individual pleaded guilty to a *felony* stealing/fraud/etc then they would most likely get a significant prison sentence.

Not only that, but the individual would give up their right to vote and thus their influence over gvmt. Not so the corp.

IMHO, CEO's and executive officers ought to be responsible, *personally* for the acts of their companies - both civil and criminal. Unless the Executive can show that it would have been completely unreasonable for them to have known about the malfeasence.

Cheers,
Greg

Re:at least...

[Anonymous Coward]

We had a similar scandal in Canada with HP and our Department of Defense. Why is it thet when major international corporations are involved it's only a regretable mistake? Heads should roll into jail for the organizers of these schemes but they don't.

Re:at least...

[Dun Malg]

If an individual pleaded guilty to a *felony* stealing/fraud/etc then they would most likely get a significant prison sentence.

It really depends on the felony. The general rule of thumb is that misdemeanors are crimes not punishable by imprisonment, and felonies are crimes that may result in imprisonment. Often the purpose of plea bargains is to reduce or even avoid the prison time. If it was a top executive of NEC rather than the corp itself pleading guilty, he wouldn't likely get any time in the pen. Prison is for people without money, for the most part.

Why is no one going to jail?

[MrRTFM]

NEC then sent a bill to the E-Rate administrators, a quasi-governmental agency for tens of millions of dollars more than the actual cost of the equipment.

If someone robs a bank overnight (no people harmed) and takes 10 million dollars the shit would hit the fan.

But a corporation? ....
and to pay $20.7 million in fines and restitution.

Oh, I suppose theres no harm trying is there - if they get caught, they only pay double what they could have scammed.

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[Timesprout]

You raise a good point. Executives are able to steal, lie and embezzle pretty much with impunity. They might just get a slap on the wrist if you get caught. I am still outraged over the CitiBank-Enron collusion that joe bloggs had to foot the bill for. Some of the high profile 'white collar' criminals need to spend a few years in a confined with large (in more ways than one) powerful gentlemen of ambivalent sexuality who are being fed tripple doses of viagra in their meals. It might not bring the money back but the revenge factor will be priceless.

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[blorg]

One employee of the school district (who was bribed as part of the scam, although not directly by NEC) did go to jail. I don't know why no-one from NEC is going to jail though, for their part in the fraud.

Corporations are legally persons only when it benefits them, I guess - imagine the concept of 'sending NEC to jail'.

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[tomstdenis]

What? Are you saying that corporations that rob billions of dollars out of people [and other corporations] are equally or more damaging than say someone who steals a 100$ walkman from K-Mart?

HOW DARE YOU!

At least when huge corporations ruin your life [out of job, higher taxes, in some cases no 401k] they do it with a smile and zeal.

Some low life criminal stealing a 100$ walkman [marked up from the stores price of 14$] is mean and evil and will damage society as we know it!

Tom

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[Cesare Ferrari]

I'm sorry, but we are talking about a company here.

It's pointless to anthropomorphise companies and suggest that they have in any way behaved in an underhand manner - they are just a name.

You want to really understand what has motivated the company staff to rip off your government, and it will probably come down to the greed of one or two people. The guys involved were probably on a performance related bonus scheme, so had an incentive to increase their sales. Lot's of the people working on this project were probably unaware of the markup, unaware of what the requirements were, they were just doing what they had been told to do.

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[mindstrm]

Because what they did was sleazy, not illegal.

If you offer to sell me a turd for $1000, and I buy it, have you committed fraud?

Those doing the purchasing had a duty to make sure they were getting a fair and proper deal, and were spending money wisely. They failed to do this.

That NEC took advantage of it is secondary.

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[Turtlewind]

That's not the point. The fact is, a serious crime has been committed, and those responsible have got off with a slap on the wrist. If I committed that sort of fraud, even of several orders of magnitude smaller than this, I'd be locked away.

$10 million of fraud doesn't just happen on it's own. Somebody is responsible - maybe the guy in charge of the project, maybe one of his subordinates, or maybe it was a direct order from the CEO. The job of law enforcement should be to find that somebody and punish him, not just to fine the company he works for.

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[op00to]

... Bribing school administrators to suspend the open bid process? No, that's totally legal. I forgot Bribery was legal.

You suck for not comprehending the article.

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[m1chael]

"they are just a name."

That's exactly what they want you to think.

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[rking]

Because what they did was sleazy, not illegal.

According to the article:

NEC Business Network Solutions, a subsidiary of NEC, the computer giant, agreed to plead guilty to two federal felony counts, one for wire fraud and one for antitrust violation, and to pay $20.7 million in fines and restitution.

Two felonies. What's your basis for claiming that they didn't do anything illegal?

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[t_allardyce]

Its like people who drive how they like - speeding, running lights, parking offences etc because they can easily affort the fine, to them the fine isnt so much a punishment/deterrent but the price of a license to do whatever they want. This is exactly the same with big corporations - infact more so. Accounting is done to take into consideration fines and lawsuits, they wernt kidding in Fight-Club when they said the motor company would only issue a recall of defective cars if the estimated cost of lawsuits was bigger than the cost of the recall! Its all just another figure to stick in the spreadsheet. Some might go a little further and factor in "public relations" ie how bad something would be to their image (in money value ofcourse). For example clubbing baby seals might create a bad image but the lost sales due to that would be less than the profit made (well whatever profit you can make from clubbing baby seals). Just remember this is the capitalist system - supply and demand, money = freedom. Continuing my rant off-topic now :\ the system (when done to the full fundamentalist extreme) works so well its almost beautiful like nature itself, consider:

Drug companies rely on illness, anti-virus companies rely on security flaws, weapons manufacturers rely on war and unrest, oil companies rely on an outdated method of fuel-energy conversion, electric companies rely on people _not_ turning off their lights when they leave the room. Even the president and government have real corporate ties that ensure they have an agenda for or against something for their own benifit. Now stop complaining about the unfairness of the system and get out there and exploit someone.. i hear afew schools might be needing network equipment, now i wonder if we can sell them that 100TB/s router?

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[rking]

You want to really understand what has motivated the company staff to rip off your government, and it will probably come down to the greed of one or two people. The guys involved were probably on a performance related bonus scheme, so had an incentive to increase their sales. Lot's of the people working on this project were probably unaware of the markup, unaware of what the requirements were, they were just doing what they had been told to do.

So? If a few of my co-workers and I go rob a bank and we're caught, is there a defense now of "it was just the greed of one or two people"? I just say that and they'll go fine my employer and that's the end of it?

Someone committed a multi-million dollar fraud. They do not seem to be being punished by the legal system. In fact they don't seem to even be being identified. I suspect the earlier posters were correct that the reason for this is that the crooks in question were acting in the course of their employment at a big company. I don't think that should be a valid defense. I certainly don't think your "greed of one or two people" line should be.

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[Metaldsa]

"If someone robs a bank overnight (no people harmed) and takes 10 million dollars the shit would hit the fan.

But a corporation? ....
and to pay $20.7 million in fines and restitution."

Its a close and decent point but not a perfect one. They didn't take a school's budget and steal the money by transferring it over to their bank account. They scammed them. Just as car mechanics and other people who overcharge do everyday. Its not quite stealing just highly unethical.

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

You raise another point.
This need to spend a few years in a confined with large (in more ways than one) powerful gentlemen of ambivalent sexuality who are being fed tripple (sic) doses of viagra in their meals attitude is plugged a lot on /. and seems to be popular in the US nowadays.

Examples - all 9.11 related - off the top of my head are:

• There was a general trawl of Pakistanis in NY state after 9.11, one prison warder was suspended for the serious violence they were subjected to before they were either released without charges being pressed, or deported as illegal immigrants.
• In a recent exercise, an american donned the orange overalls and was put into the Guantanamo Bay facility. Serious violence was apparently used on him, it ceased when he managed to show them the uniform he was wearing underneath. Of the 5 (?) british muslims who landed up there before being released without charge, one also came back as a torture victim and all of them reported being asked the same idiotic questions day after day by people who did not have a clue.
• A lot of the people in those Iraqi jails who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, ended up being beaten up, abused or killed.

Bottom line is: people who are locked up for often spurious reasons are considered prey. Is that what the US now stands for?

Someone at NEC needs to be prosecuted over this, and then (if found guilty) imprisoned or fined. No rape, no abuse, nothing. Is that what the US now stands for?

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of the high profile 'white collar' criminals need to spend a few years in a confined with large (in more ways than one) powerful gentlemen of ambivalent sexuality who are being fed tripple doses of viagra in their meals.

Cause rape is always FUNNY!

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[fizban]

Yes, it is. Actually, let me clarify, it's what half of the U.S. stands for...

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand.

Yeah, but if you really didn't care, you wouldn't bother to put that in your sig.

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[Dun Malg]

NEC then sent a bill to the E-Rate administrators, a quasi-governmental agency for tens of millions of dollars more than the actual cost of the equipment.

If someone robs a bank overnight (no people harmed) and takes 10 million dollars the shit would hit the fan.

You're comparing apples and oranges. Inflated billing isn't "robbery". It's fraud. If someone sent an excessive bill to a bank, it'd be fraud as well and, if they plead guilty and paid double the amount in fines and restitution, they'd get away without jail time also. NEC didn't send people to break into schools to steal money. Feel free to argue "it's the moral equivalent of robbery" or that "fraud oughtta be punished like robbery" if you like, but law isn't about people's opinions. NEC is getting what any individual person would for the same crime.

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[Albinoman]

In all such cases that you make the persons were being abused for reasons entirely beyond their control. What a lot of these CEOs do is literally intentionally hurting a lot of people.

If its money that they love so much than take that away. We need an interesting punishment. Never allow them to make more that $18,000 a year or accept handouts from anyone or have any accumulated value worth more than say $30,000. Any of his buddies found to be helping him cheat can have the same punishment (cause you know they wont help him then). Or at least something along these lines.

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[ImpTech]

> Oh, I suppose theres no harm trying is there - if they get caught, they only pay double what they could have scammed.

Well also I'm going to bet they don't get any more shots at government contracts. Depending on how many they usually do (I have no idea), that could easily be more expensive for NEC than the $20mil.

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[mpe]

Executives are able to steal, lie and embezzle pretty much with impunity.

IIRC these kind of crooks make off with more money a year than all the muggers, burglars, shoplifters, "till dippers", etc put together.

They might just get a slap on the wrist if you get caught.

Assuming they do get caught, since most law enforcement dosn't appear that interested.

I am still outraged over the CitiBank-Enron collusion that joe bloggs had to foot the bill for.

Have those responsible have any punisment what so ever?

Some of the high profile 'white collar' criminals need to spend a few years in a confined with large (in more ways than one) powerful gentlemen of ambivalent sexuality who are being fed tripple doses of viagra in their meals. It might not bring the money back but the revenge factor will be priceless.

That could become the latest in the "reality TV" craze :)

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[mpe]

Its like people who drive how they like - speeding, running lights, parking offences etc because they can easily affort the fine, to them the fine isnt so much a punishment/deterrent but the price of a license to do whatever they want.

Then the better option is removal of their licence to drive on the public roads. If they drive on a suspended licence then put them in jail. The have the daft situation currently that it can be easier for someone to lose their licence for something unconnected with driving.

Accounting is done to take into consideration fines and lawsuits, they wernt kidding in Fight-Club when they said the motor company would only issue a recall of defective cars if the estimated cost of lawsuits was bigger than the cost of the recall!

IIRC there was an actual case of this happening in the 1960's where the judge found out about this kind of thing and imposed a fine which ment it would have been cheaper for the fault to have been fixed...

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[Monkelectric]

That's because in the US we have a double standard for corporations vs. individuals.

If I wrote a trojan horse that installed itself unknowingly, stole personal information, and broke your computer in the proces I would go to jail right? if Claria does it, thats "business."

If I took near nude, hightly sexualized pictures of the 17 year old girl next door the police would nail my ass? But when esquire takes near nude pics of a 17 year old Britney Spears thats "business." I know a lawyer who defended a guy the government tried to convict as a SEX OFFENDER because he took a piss on the side of a highway (and thus exposed himself, and thus is a sex offender, logically). The guy would have had to register as a sex offender for the REST OF HIS LIFE for peeing on the side of the road?

Law enforcement in this country is out of control. They let corporations/government get away with murder, and they prosecute little crimes beyond reason.

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[mpe]

That's not the point. The fact is, a serious crime has been committed, and those responsible have got off with a slap on the wrist. If I committed that sort of fraud, even of several orders of magnitude smaller than this, I'd be locked away.

It's quite possible that if you committed the same level of fraud you'd be ok. The chances of going to jail are possibly inversely related to the amount of money involved.

$10 million of fraud doesn't just happen on it's own. Somebody is responsible - maybe the guy in charge of the project, maybe one of his subordinates, or maybe it was a direct order from the CEO. The job of law enforcement should be to find that somebody and punish him, not just to fine the company he works for.

Is regular law enforcement much interested? Or is this something only people in 7foot chicken suits are likely to chase after...

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[Anonymous Coward]

You stupid dickhead. It said right in the f***ing article that they committed two felonies. Try pulling your head out of your ass long enough to read the article before posting next time...

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[mpe]

You're comparing apples and oranges. Inflated billing isn't "robbery". It's fraud. If someone sent an excessive bill to a bank, it'd be fraud as well and, if they plead guilty and paid double the amount in fines and restitution, they'd get away without jail time also. NEC didn't send people to break into schools to steal money.

Actually stealing things from a building is "theft". Since "robbery" requires that force be threatened against a human being.

NEC is getting what any individual person would for the same crime.

Typically when an individual is found guilty of a criminal offence the relevent statute(s) will contain sentencing guidelines of the form "a fine of not more than X and/or imprisonment for not more than Y". But there is no possibility of NEC winding up in a jail cell.

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[tomstdenis]

As followup...

I'm not trying to minimalize theft. I think stealing a 100$ walkman is a crime too.

Just trying to point out the oddity that is the modern world.

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[Tablizer]

If someone robs a bank overnight (no people harmed) and takes 10 million dollars the shit would hit the fan. But a corporation? ....

It is not stealing, but "reclassification".

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

whoever bribed that guy should be put away for a similar length of time.

a large fine for others involved.

confiscation of property.

exposure to boy groups all day (now I'm starting with cruel and unusual punishments!)

In the UK you can be declared 'unfit to be a director of a company', although that does not really fit the craahm in this particular case - the article does not say at which level within NEC this behaviour was initiated.

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[BillX]

I wonder about this myself. The company that masterminded the entire thing gets the $20.7 million fine for antitrust and wire fraud, big deal, pay it out of the company coffer. But according to the same article...

That employee, Desmond McQuoid, was the custodial supervisor of the district. He pleaded guilty to mail fraud last year and was sentenced to 21 months in prison

The guy at one of the schools who just took the bribe (to skip getting competitive bids), also pleading guilty of wire fraud, gets jail time. Why the difference?

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[ameoba]

I think you miss the point. The 'large powerful gentlemen of ambivalent sexuality' are the other prisoners. It's well known that rich white-collar criminals seldom get put in the same prisons as poor people. If they not only had to face prison time but also knew that they wouldn't get put up in a 'club fed' that's probably a nicer place to live than where most criminals ever lived, it might have some sort of effect.

And what's with a German getting all self-rightous about unreasonable prison conditions? There's still people alive that can remind you of a few things...

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[ameoba]

Unfortunately, in a corporate buerocracy, it's easy enough to pin the blame on some underling of the person really responsible.

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[ameoba]

Uhh... no.

You see, NEC was convicted of a felony. The distinction between a felony & a misdemenor is that a felony implies an extended prison term & loss of various rights (voting, firearm ownership, some cases of free assembly).

At least this is how it works for people. If I had been convicted of this level of fraud, as a private person, I'd be sitting in prison. I guess the trick is to commit fraud while working for a large corporation & then embezzling the money from them by way of a 2nd corporation, so that you, personally, are never actually a private citizen acting on their own along the way.

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[vsprintf]

Well also I'm going to bet they don't get any more shots at government contracts.

What you say should be true, but you'd lose that bet. Under an executive order by the first President Bush, a company guilty of illegal activities can be banned from consideration in procurements. The problem is that the company first has to be debarred by a federal agency, and that just doesn't happen. Face it, big business runs the country, not the government.

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

• Ah am not German, I just live here.
• Yup, I know that the other prisoners are meant with the 'large powerful gentlemen of ambivalent sexuality'. It is the assumption that homosexual rape should be part of a prison sentence that I find obnoxious, especially coming from the country which imprisons the highest percentage of it's citizens of any developed country. That England/English (I forget which) woman's boyfriend had already attracted attention for abuse of prisoners in a prison at home.
• I can handle those guys doing time at a 'club fed', although they should not have the Diana Ross option - they should actually have to be there.
• As to the point behind the point, living here and knowing Germany's history makes me rather sensitive when other countries start behaving in a similar fashion. An essential part of the Nazi behaviour was the assumption that their victims were subhuman. That assumption is the same one we are seeing now.
  Even if I were German, that would have been a pathetic cheap shot. I would have to be about 71 years old now to have been involved in Hitler's bid for world domination.
  'Old Europe' remember horrors that others seem to want to repeat. I shudder to think how people like Ashcroft/Rumsfeld would be behaving if the US did not have a 200 year democratic tradition.

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[HiThere]

Sorry to feed the trolls, but what *would* you consider a reliable source?

I'm perfectly aware that every media source I know of lies more than it tells the truth, but that's true of every one of them. This makes it difficult to try to build an unbiased picture of what's going on.

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[HiThere]

I know of another actual case involving intentional the poisioning of the water supply of a southern town (a river). The company figured it would be cheaper to pay the fine. This was disclosed during the trial. They were right anyway.

As to which company... my memory says Dow-Corning, but I'm not going to assert that as the truth. (It's in a back issue of Science News if you care to check out the last couple of years.)

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[StrongAxe]

If you offer to sell me a turd for $1000, and I buy it, have you committed fraud?

Those doing the purchasing had a duty to make sure they were getting a fair and proper deal, and were spending money wisely. They failed to do this.

If I go to a doctor with a mild headache and he gives me unnecessary brain surgery instead of an aspirin, that is malpractice and fraud.

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[Anonymous Coward]

I could have looked some up for him, but could not be bothered to do it for an a/c.

Not sure that I'd agree with all news sources telling more lies than truth. Most of them have higher standards than that.

Vlad.

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[Technician]

From the article,

That employee, Desmond McQuoid, was the custodial supervisor of the district. He pleaded guilty to mail fraud last year and was sentenced to 21 months in prison, according to Mr. Havian, the lawyer for the school district. Mr. Havian said the suit against Video Network Communications was still pending.

Someone still may be in line to spend time for that one. The fines and restitutitution is just the beginning. Stay tuned..

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[arkanes]

The government looks at it that way, too. Speeding tickets are basically counted as a tax by law enforcment - thats why theres (usually informal, to prevent PR outbreaks) quotas about them. Delivery services in NYC count parking tickets as part of the cost of doing buisness - and it really is, there. The city government is perfectly happy with "taxing" these companies by ticketing vans rather than having any sort of formal licensing (and, honestly, it almost makes sense - the red tape and politics involved in a new licensing deal is far more than the cost of simply ticketing people using the existing system).

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, I suppose theres no harm trying is there - if they get caught, they only pay double what they could have scammed.

1. Attempt fraud. A lot.
   
2. KPI: Keep getcaughtocity ratio below 50%
   
3. ...
   
4. Profit!!!!!!
   

Re:Why is no one going to jail?

[Anonymous Coward]

Britney Spears was born in December 1981, she was 21 when those pictures were taken (Nov 2003).

What I don't get...

[tomstdenis]

is why is this "bad"? I thought that American business was simply a matter of stepping on other peoples backs to climb the "success" ladder and managed to acquire [how is left as exercise to the reader] the most of an intangible object [that would be money].

I guess getting caught is where NEC screwed up. You're supposed to take all the money while muttering something about a 2 day "same as nothing" exchange policy for defective equipment. All while another salesdemon tries to upsell you on an extended warranty. So you know, if something breaks they'll have look at it in 2 to 3 months and maybe even fix it if the devry graduate computer tech even knows how to open the fucking thing.

Yeah modern business!!!

Tom

That Much?

[lachlan76]

Multimillions for a school lan? The school that I was at up until 2 years ago seemed like i could have bought all the IT equipment for a couple of hundred dollars. If that.
It must have been all the computers running Win98 and the IT guy wishing he hadn't moved to Win2000 on his main computer. And servers that don't run Linux!!! NT Server 4? Since I left, apparently they ended up having to install software on every second computer, with the costs and all.
That's M$ for you. Not that this is the case this time, except for the servers. The CAL idea though, the servers would have been expensive though...

Cough...oversight...cough

Re:That Much?

[m1chael]

Measuring cables for wireless LANs takes a long time.

Pity

[Realistic_Dragon]

NEC (do|used to) make some amazing laptops.

I have a 3 year old one that I brought from NEC corporate that looks almost as good as a powerbook. It's been reliable, has a great screen, and best of all has firewire+usb+floppy+cdrom+serial+parallel connectors - hard to get on a laptop.

It even manages 3 hours per battery, which is totally amazing, especially after 3 years of use. The one bad point is the modem not working in Linux (winmodems suck). It even has a nice trackpad.

So, I'd be hard pushed not to get another, even with their ethics problems. Guess I'm a lazy consumer and part of the problem :\

Re:Pity

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

So, I'd be hard pushed not to get another, even with their ethics problems. Guess I'm a lazy consumer and part of the problem :\

Guess this is the mind set of most people. Once they've had a good product from company X, it makes sense they'll buy from company X again. Buying from unknown company Y would be a bigger risk, even if company X has the habit of raping weaker social classes. (Nike anyone?)
The whole issue is that those people who're abused by company X are just an abstract piece of information for most people. But have one of company X's costumers meet a few of their victims and that custumer isn't going to buy from X ever again. Because then the victims aren't an abstraction anymore, but real people with faces.

Just my 2 cents.

Because they're japanese

[Anonymous Coward]

NEC is a japanese company, Nippon Electronics Company

If it was some Texas company they wouldn't be fined

Re:Because they're japanese

[tomstdenis]

So um crime happened where?

If they were on American soil when they made the deal they should be tried in American courts. If they were in Japan then they should answer to the Japanese authories.

I'm sure fraud is illegal both in the states and Japan.

Ooh that was hard.

Re:Because they're japanese

[Anonymous Coward]

What part was fraud?

I mean, if I want to sell you something for 10x the price I paid.. that's not fruad. I'm not obligated to sell it to you for a set price. Anything is negotiable.

If you are too retarded to even bother checking.. and it's not like they were selling to some disabled grandmother here.

Re:Because they're japanese

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure fraud is illegal both in the states and Japan.

The same rules apply in both nations: "Don't get caught during an election cycle or you might actually be punished".

Re:Because they're japanese

[tomstdenis]

I think they claimed they "needed" the equipment.

It's as if you buy a computer at a store and they tell you that you have to add a 900$ sound card [which is just a cheap 10$ CMPCI clone] to make the computer work then pocket the difference.

How is that not fraud? You were told you needed the sound card [not true] and that the sale price was 900$ [also not true]. Similarly they were told they needed equipment that wasn't required.

I mean what is the alternative? If you can't rely on the word of the service provider than you might as well learn to be a medic, car mechanic, building architect, etc, etc, etc.

Granted I agree the average school I.T. guy is just some jackass college dropout [was my experience when in high school] who should have known better. I'd be happier if they burned some IT guys and NEC sales people simultaneously.

Tom

Re:Because they're japanese

[Anonymous Coward]

That's right, just because they pleaded guilty to a felony charge of wire fraud doesn't mean they actually did it. Maybe the police threatened to beat up the chairman of the board if he didn't sign a confession or something. Uh... maybe.

Re:Because they're japanese

[man_ls]

I think the difference would be, telling the customer that the card costs $900, and telling the customer you sell it for $900.

"You need this card, which costs $900, to fix your system."

"You need this card, which we happen to sell for $900, to fix your system."

If you use the second, and then they pay for it, you've made no representation as to how much the card *costs*, only to the selling price of it when purchased through your shop.

Re:Here's a karma whore

[phoenix.bam!]

What exactly is wrong with gaining karma from doing something that benefits the readers of slashdot? I'm thankful the grandparent found that link, and I'm thankful it was +5 so I could see it no matter what.

At the turn of the century the laws changed...

[Anonymous Coward]

At the turn of the century the laws changed.
Before then people were starting to sue businesses for crap like regularly and winning.
Then corporations did some lobbying and changed the laws. This is 100 years later
(if only i had a link handy to that slashdot post about the laws, it was something groklaw ... sorry, i'm not on my computer, and my memory sucks)

I for one...

[Digitus1337]

...have never wanted to be ripped off more in my entire life.

They pleaded guilty because that got them off...

[blorg]

...with a smaller fine and less legal bills than they otherwise would have faced. The evidence was there, and against them. "Big companies" will generally do what is in their best interest and have remarkably little "pride". Pleading guilty in this case was in their best interest.

Re:Here's a karma whore

[phoenix.bam!]

no two usernames here... plus i'm not hiding my username, bum.

Re:So what?

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

This leaves less money for Joe Junior's education. Guess who's going to pay the shortage?

tip of the ice berg

[Anonymous Coward]

wait until you see how many companies have committed out right fraud in this program. Billing for services and equipment they never shipped.

wow. Rough bunch.

[Unknown Poltroon]

"and is now beating restitution out of the victims"

Most places we beat restitution out of the perpitrators.

Reminds me of that old horror story

[toupsie]

"Hi, I'm from the Government. I'm here to help you!"

There is something else wrong here

[bdsesq]

NEC then sent a bill to the E-Rate administrators, a quasi-governmental agency for tens of millions of dollars more than the actual cost of the equipment.

If they over charged tens of millions of dollars and are only paying back 20 million this seems like NEC still made money on the deal.

What every happened to triple damages?

So far as NEC is concerned crime still pays!

Happens everywhere

[AirLace]

My school in North London had a server room full of expensive optical hardware, several firewalls and servers, bought at a cost to students of around a million pounds. I once managed to get my hands on a bandwidth usage chart, and found that a Linksys router, around 100 at the time, and three 20-port switches, each around 100 could easily cope with the usage patterns.

It's telling that the IT administrators who installed the million pound system where an equivalent solution under 500 could have worked just fine, all left that year. The school is left with a completely irrelevant infrastructure that costs thousands of pounds a year to maintain and support.

All of this happens because, when a school installs a system, it's not their money that's being spent, but that of the students (or sometimes the taxpayer). Big hardware firms love to wine and dine school purchasing directors in a bid to convince them that they really need this fancy kit. It's in all of their interests to squander the money, and nothing is happening to change that.

Re:Happens everywhere

[AirLace]

Looks like slashdot is stripping currency symbols. All values are in pound sterling (GBP).

Re:Happens everywhere

[Anonymous Coward]

Only some currency symbols. $ works. Almost any other symbol doesn't.

Why E-rate sucks

[zerofoo]

I work for a private non-profit school (as a tech-coordinator and network admin). Most of our kids are public district funded, so we are eligible for e-rate funded programs.

We have none, here's why:

E-rate, like most government programs, is waist high in beaurocratic paperwork and red-tape. No one in the system looks for competing bids for two reasons:

1. There is no financial incentive for schools to pick a low bidder - the money is free as far as they're concerned.

2. It adds an enormous amount of paperwork to an already overburdened school staff. Is it worth hiring a full-time position to take care of this for e-rate programs that you aren't guaranteed to receive?

Like any government system, it takes money from those who have it and tries to redistribute it to those that don't. It sounds nice - make the "haves" buy technology for the "havenots", but in reality only the "haves" have enough resources to pull it off.

We get our technology the "old-fashioned" way. We either pay for it out of school tuition, or we seek private grants.

-ted

Consumer Ignorance

[jtwJGuevara]

I didn't RTFA, but I agree with the parent. This could have been avoided if those purchasing the equipment from NEC had researched and consulted with others on what an apporopriate, lowest cost solution was. Instead, by the sounds of it, they just let NEC talk them into buying their latest whiz-bang product and NEC makes profit.

Sure it's immoral and unethical, but NEC are a for profit business and they sold their product and put money in their pockets and on their financial statements. EOS.

Re:Consumer Ignorance

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't RTFA, but I agree with the parent.

I didn't read the article either so like you I am only imagining what the article might possibly say, however I strongly disagree with your assessment. NEC's actions in trading human slaves to aliens in order to buy time travel equipment and steal tellecomunnications technology from the future are highly deplorable and if this isn't criminal then it damn well should be.

Seriously, if you're just making up a response to events that you know nothing about then what's the point?

Re:Consumer Ignorance

[Anonymous Coward]

I did RTFA, and if you think that it gave enough details to judge the situation, then you are wrong.

hmm

[mattyrobinson69]

i bet microsoft were behind this

oh come one, dont mod me as troll - im just doing my duty as a slashdot reader

(for humourously challenged mod's, this was a joke, be nice to my karma)

The Public Largesse

[charteux]

Any time the public largesse is expanded there will be those that abuse it. There are always people that will see this public generosity as an opportunity for a free lunch

Probably journalistic sensationalism.

[Anonymous Coward]

$10 million is "tens of millions". How many tens? One.

Re:Probably journalistic sensationalism.

[Anonymous Coward]

$10 million is "tens of millions". How many tens? One.

Perhaps, but at $10 million income per fraud, less $20 million for those they get caught at they'd have to have a worse than 50% failure rate for it to be uneconomical. If they get away with it two times out of three then they're well in the money.

Re:Probably journalistic sensationalism.

[Anonymous Coward]

$10 million is "tens of millions". How many tens? One.
Yeah but 500 million is also "tens of millions" 50 tens of them. In which case they'd have made quite a fucking lot after paying their 20 million fine. Does anybody know the exact amount they actually charged the schools?

Re:Probably journalistic sensationalism.

[Dun Malg]

Does anybody know the exact amount they actually charged the schools?

That's not the relevant question. We need to know how much they overcharged the schools. If they paid out $40M for $30M worth of equipment, that's only $10M overcharged.

Of course, whether or not they needed that $30M worth of equipment is something else...

Re:wow. Rough bunch.

[rking]

It's easier this way; the victims have a proven track record of paying up for outrageous demands.

Ingenious!

[Anonymous Coward]

Subtly bashing Microsoft in a non-related story and getting modded up (as usual) for it.

Oh, wait. That's not ingenious; that's business as usual around here.

If the school wanted a support contract (they most likely would), Linux would have been as expensive as Windows anyway.

Re:Ingenious!

[lachlan76]

I guess you've never had a 100 computer lan infected with Nimda.

Several Orders of Magnitude?

[milletre]

To say "several orders of mangitude" implies at LEAST one thousand times more expensive. here's a bunch of definitions.

So, let's say the kiddies got a computer worth $1,000. By our submitter's logic, I could buy that computer for $1, or else it cost the kidz $1,000,000.

I imagine our submitter meant to say several TIMES more expensive, but "orders of magnitude" sounded more dramatic somehow.

Tighen up the rhetoric, people. English is an easily abused language.

Re:Several Orders of Magnitude?

[milletre]

Okay, so there actually was a quote in the article: "Schools are being promised million-dollar systems when a system costing $10,000 would make more sense."

This is TWO orders of magnitude, and it is not printed as fact, but is merely a quotation, and even the quotation doesn't say that this exact thing ever happened.

Re:Several Orders of Magnitude?

[Acid-Duck]

smart ass

Erik

Re:Several Orders of Magnitude?

[Anonymous Coward]

As it turns out, the original poster was right: two orders of magnitude, from $10,000 to $1,000,000 qualifies as "several."

The content of the NYT article was quite specific if you had any doubts about exactly what the numbers were, but even those are approximations. Too bad you did not read the article before you posted.

You must not really care about the corporate rip-off of public school money in the U.S. Perhaps you don't live there, but that kind of corruption can happen where you live, too. Try to get the big picture.

reminds me of a little company called ibm

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked for a company contracted to ibm to write the content management software for a 10 million$ project to provide ohio public schools with "video on demand". as i understand it, ohio public schools aren't doing so hot. i'm sure all that money will make a big difference, since the kids won't have to wait for the teacher to stick the tape in the vcr...

the best part is, they were very concerned about having very good DRM to prevent all those teachers from warezing reading rainbow or something i guess.

anyway, i'd be this little boondoggle was paid for with erate money, and will come to the surface in the current brouhaha.

Worried for a minute there...

[770291]

Then I realized it was just poor people who were getting ripped off. Whew! I mean, if NEC doesn't do it, some payday loan place or another scam artist will anyway.

Atlanta city schools wasted 73 Million dollars

[Shivetya]

http://www.joannejacobs.com/mtarchives/014084.html
http://www.parentadvocates.org/index.cfm?fuseact io n=article&articleID=2893

What NEC did is bad, but don't forget a lot of school boards are just as responsible if not more so. They don't have accountability until after they do something wrong. The problem in Atlanta is really horrid as the per pupil expenditure for education in Atlanta is one of the highest yet produces some of the worst results (we are in the 12k per student range)

trusting the government lameness

[Anonymous Coward]

Trusting the government is a bad idea.

I wonder if our EU friends trust the military as much as the rest of the government.

They are all parts of the same government, you cannot trust one part more than any other part.

Hopefully, EU knows that the US government was founded with the belief that the citizens need to be protected from the oppressive government.

Re:trusting the government lameness

[papercut2a]

Hopefully, EU knows that the US government was founded with the belief that the citizens need to be protected from the oppressive government.

I don't think they've figured this out yet. Just look at the new regulations coming out of Brussels on a regular basis: the Cammembert cheese fiasco; a British shopowner fined--and his scales seized--for using pounds and ounces instead of metric ("Quick, we must save the people from these unscrupulous shopkeepers!")....

And those bureaucracies sure are expensive (they need the money to pay for the cost of printing the rules & regulations)! They're paying for it (literally) with high personal taxes: "In the US the theoretical Tax Freedom Day is on 11 April, while in the euro zone it is 28 June...." At least they've figured out that all wealth comes from individuals and have started reducing some corporate taxes.

Re:trusting the government lameness

[Anonymous Coward]

lessie if commiedot groupstink pushes this down to -5 flamebait..

pretty much mandatory...

small amounts of money

[Anonymous Coward]

>there are some amounts of money that can't be hidden

This is why government budgets need to be as small as possible.

Hiding, cheating, or stealing $1,000.00 out of a $100,000 budget is much harder than stealing it out of $1,000,000 budget.

Likewise, the larger budgets allow for much larger theft, mususe of funds, etc.

Smaller government is more efficient just the same as small corporations.

Money for education

[DarkOx]

This gets back to my rant on providing more money for education. There IS NO LACK OF FUNDS for Education in the United States, there is a TOTAL lack of of responsibility for those funds. I vote down (and will continue to do so) every school levey and politian that would increase school taxes. I think public schools are one of the most important institution we have in this country though. The issue is I have been to school recently as a 20 something I can tell you that most of their budget is waste. Why in heavens name do we need video on demand huge writing labs of computers fast one with P4s for word processing? Not to mention new uniforms for the band every year or half of the other eqipment they buy and never use. The huge mulitmedia room my HS built that I saw when I went back to visit cost close to a million dollars and according to my younger sister has been used all of about once in two years. Its all over kill, schools are run by a bunch of know nothing administrators that think technology is going to solve all their education problems. Instead of spending money on hightech schools should spend money on text books, teachers, and the building(a confortable enviorment is importand for learning). This is not to say they should not have a well outfited computer lab to teach things like computer science . I won't support any money for schools untill I see it being spent on what matters though, teachers and books. In MN Ventera cut the budget drasticly at first school admins tried all sorts of scare tactics like claiming they could only afford to run schools four days a week and would have to cut every after school program and riddiculous claims like that. What really happend though is Jessy pushed the budget through and schools had to start to be responsible with the money, I don't see as much flasy new toys but overall the schools have not suffered. They simply buy books and teachers and maintain the buildings. It works good. Now idealy we could not cut school budgets and pay teachers more, that might result in better teachers, and again as a recent grad I learned more from teachers then and multimedia presentation tought me. A good lecurer with a chalk and a blackboard is far more valuable then some hack with power point.

Re:Money for education

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the Gallup guys did a poll back in the late 70s to compare 'rich' school districts to 'poor' school districts. The pollsters thought they would find that the wealthy school districts turned out better pupils than the poor ones. What they actually found out was that the single biggest deciding factor in a student's growth was how much support their parents gave them at home.

Which unfortunatly is getting pretty hard to come by these days.

Re:Money for education

[dasdrewid]

Having spent my recently-ended high school career at a top private school, I can honestly say that you don't even need to pay teachers that much more. Hire more teachers, build more classrooms, and give them things like paper and Xerox machines.

My school pays teachers thousands less than what they would be getting at the public school next door. Yet, teachers still flock to my school. The head of their english department took a job as a bottom rung english teacher at my school. Why? Cause the environment more than makes up for it. My school has no more than about 20 people per class. We don't have to walk through metal detectors on the way into school. We don't have random police searches for drugs. And teachers get all the Xerox and paper they want. One of my history teachers, who used to work at the public school, told us as he handed us each out a reading packet that the amount of paper he used making us each a packet would have depleted his entire allowance for the year at the public school.

I agree that schools need to become better run, more efficient, and less susceptable to fraud. And I agree when you say that "a good lecurer [sic] with chalk and a blackboard is far more valuable then [sic] some hack with power point [sic]." I'm just unsure how the situation is ever going to get better so-long as there are administrators out their who will screw over a school of children for a new car or three, a boat, and 7 properties.

Re:Money for education

[ameoba]

Actually, if you went to a school that could afford keyboards with enter keys, I think you would've been much better off.

Re:Worried for a minute there... -- mod parent up

[lpangelrob2]

Mod parent up, and be reminded that while there are lots of middle class people getting screwed today because of management, corporations, and governments, the low income underclass find this as nothing new -- and probably completely expected.

Not advocating the "culture of poverty" argument, just saying this is a sad fact of life.

Vindicated

[lone_marauder]

I worked on an E-rate project years ago and saw this scam take place first hand. We were putting carrier class switches and high end file servers in schools connecting perhaps 20 computers.

When I mentioned something about it at the time, it was decided by /. moderators that I was trolling.

Re:Vindicated

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahh, the sweet smell.. That a Slashdot Moderator doesn't care.

Was predictable - due to design of '96 Gore tax

[XavierItzmann]

a) 1996 - Gore/Clinton tax *your* phone bill to "put internet on every school"

b) Any school can spend whatever money and get the ERATE fund to reimburse the school

The waste and subsequent abuse happened because this tax should not even have existed to begin with. If school districts had to spend their own money, based on *local* taxation , this sort of careless purchasing would not happen.

You vote for politicians who introduce taxes, you bring this upon yourself.

Re:Was predictable - due to design of '96 Gore tax

[mp3phish]

So you are going to blame the taxation for something that dishonest politicians and coporate executives did and were convicted for?

Very good argument. You should become a republican when you grow up.

Re:Was predictable - due to design of '96 Gore tax

[Stray7Xi]

But he's completely right. If the taxes were introduced at local level this wouldn't have happened. It's not the fault of taxation in general, it's the fault of a badly thought out tax that doesn't give accountability to how the funds are spent.

If you spend 10million federal dollars for your school when only 10thousand was necessary, the local community won't care enough to vote you out of office (afterall federal money is free money). If you spend 1million of local money when only 10thousand was necessary, you better start looking for a job outside of that city.

Re:Was predictable - due to design of '96 Gore tax

[DarkDigger]

I believe that the problem with most poor schools is that they are located in poor areas. Schools are supported by property taxes, so in general, "good" schools are located in areas with nice housing and middle to upper class residents. Trying to levy additional taxes on an already poor area is not the answer.

Re:Was predictable - due to design of '96 Gore tax

[mp3phish]

This article proves to me that someone actually WAS held accountable. Two fealony convictions if I read the article correctly.

You really have a point if this article said something like "NEC innocent verdict after charges of fraud"

The point I'm making is that there is fraud no matter WHAT you are doing in the government. ALL government money has the potential to be swindled. Look at haliburton. I agree we need to take measures to prevent fraud. They should have been forced to put out a bid. From some posts I have read it was difficult to get these funds so one guy said they didn't bother. It looks like one school got fucked (and probably a few others) and now its all clinton and gore's fault. (when in fact, congress had already fliped around to republican controlled by then)

I agree with the principle you are trying to get across. But in all honesty, you really can't hold the funding accountable for someone who fraudulently took money from the federal government.

BTW, I don't know what kind of high school you went to, or your kids, or whatever, but there REALLY are plenty around the country that can seriously use this money. The money won't come from local people. because there isn't enough money in the local economy to pay for such things. 7 years ago when I was in HS this money worked out quite nicely. We got Netgear switches installed in our lab rooms and white box computers installed. One server with a PII processor and 128MB ram served our mail and web and anything else that needed using. It worked out quite well and I'm sure it didn't cost an arm and a leg.

I guess I'm saying is... there are literally thousands of schools which benefited from this program who otherwise could have never gotten computers. Don't let the bad apples spoil your opinion of the entire bunch.

Re:Was predictable - due to design of '96 Gore tax

[XavierItzmann]

This tax introduced a moral hazard: it is easy, through carelesness or corruption, to over-spend this megafund money and not suffer any consequences.

There have been 2 convictions, but there are tens of thousands of schools.

The issue is, is the country better off with or without the $60 yr tax per household? I say this money would be better used by the people than by faceless ERATE.

(approx. $1.65 per line x (2 lines + 1 cell) x 12 mos. = $60 per year >>> all households, including THE POOR)

Re:Here's a karma whore

[Metaldsa]

""found" the link? You couldn't add "&PARTNER=GOOGLE" to the end of the link? Give me a break... that is pathetic."

I didn't know &PARNTER=GOOGLE could give me the link. I guess I missed the memo. So I am thankful. But since you knew that already you should have passed the comment by and not said anything. Instead you become this whiny little bitch for no reason.

Re:Here's a karma whore

[sacrilicious]

I'm thankful the grandparent found that link, and I'm thankful it was +5 so I could see it no matter what.

Totally agreed! :)

What exactly is wrong with gaining karma from doing something that benefits the readers of slashdot?

I'm not one of those who uses the term myself, but I've always supposed that those who do fall into two camps: (1) the mindless zombies who just like mouthing off, and (2) people who genuinely feel that karma on /. should solely reflect the quality of original contribution and analytical thought, rather than the frequency with which a person inserts a link or mirror. I think I basically agree, though I thoroughly disagree with the consequent practice of name calling; the real solution - if there is one - would be for the /. editors to come up with a separate way to reward that kind of contribution, like temporary privilege escalation the likes of which paid subscribers enjoy, or something like that.

Someone should go to jail

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone should go to jail to rob the kid's education funding.
If you are asking me: it's a capital punishment.

Re:Here's a karma whore

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly - and anyone who thinks karma is actually worth anything can have all of mine.

Re:Here's a karma whore

[Albinoman]

Try it once. Adding that line does not work.

E-Rate never was about wiring schools

[stankulp]

It was about paying off Al Gore's supporters in Silicon Valley. NEC was doing exactly what it was supposed to do.

Re:E-Rate never was about wiring schools

[adzoox]

Do you have any evidence that supports this... I have been suspect about your assertion for a while.

A school district that I HAD worked with - that was ALL Mac BEFORE and is now all PC because of this.

Re:E-Rate never was about wiring schools

[stankulp]

Do you have any evidence that supports this...

78%-80% of schools were already connected to the Internet when ERate was passed.

http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=11894

http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.9135/pub_det ail.asp

Spot the assumptions

[Kaseijin]

"If I must be ruled by larcenous bullies, I much prefer that they be located far away. Local bullies know far more about me and my doings than faraway bullies sitting in offices in Washington, and can oppress me far more effectively."

Even assuming that all politicians are equally larcenous and equally belligerent and hence that voting them out or moving would bring only superficial changes--none of which is true--I would prefer mine to have the least ambition and the smallest budget.

Re:Spot the assumptions

[Jonathan]

Not to mention that the quote assumes that Washington, D.C. is "far away". I happen to live there, so that assumption fails for me. In addition, it's only about three hours away by train or car (and about 45 min by plane) from NYC, which is the most populated city in the USA.

Someone mentioned that no one is going to jail...

[Vthornheart]

But that should be corrected. Someone is going to jail, but it's no one at NEC (the people who actually COMMITTED the conspiracy to defraud). Nope, it's the head of janitorial services that they supposedly bribed:

"That employee, Desmond McQuoid, was the custodial supervisor of the district. He pleaded guilty to mail fraud last year and was sentenced to 21 months in prison, according to Mr. Havian, the lawyer for the school district. Mr. Havian said the suit against Video Network Communications was still pending."

Pretty brutal, eh? NEC gets away with a fine, while the person that they duped and intentionally threw money at gets sent to prison. And that, my friends, is what's wrong with our justice system. Not that he shouldn't have gone to jail, but I'd like to see some NEC people get sent up the river for this too... after all, the other guy was just duped by money. NEC and this other company they speak of actually planned the fraud and intentionally sought to take taxpayer money by the millions.

I mean, I could see a scenario here where the fellow might not have even realized the scope of what was about to happen. They bribed him so that no other competitive bids would come in: a person who was easily duped might have just assumed that they wanted the business, not that they were planning on bending the school district over if you know what I mean.

oops, should've posted up here

[Vthornheart]

I didn't see this post before I posted, but below I talk about something in the article where the head of Janitorial services has been sentanced to 21 months in prison for accepting a bribe from NEC. Ironic that no one in NEC will ever get a prison sentance for committing the bribe, nor for plotting the conspiracy to defraud the school system or the American taxpayers. It's shameful, actually.

IBM and Others also Investigated

[JLester]

IBM is being investigated for something similar right now. Many school systems with large IBM projects had their funding frozen for the investigation. There are several other vendors as well.

More Info

Jason

While we're quoting SF authors (or characters)

[Ungrounded Lightning]

"Every new law is a new opportunity for graft."

One of Heinlein's. It seems appropriate here.

Of COURSE collecting a big pot of tax money for "wiring the schools for internet" will attract those with the political connections to tap it. And of COURSE they will set their prices and install the equipment that gives them the entirety of that pot of money. Why the surprise?

If you want it done at a decent price you don't say: "Here's X billion dollars per year. Who can wire the schools for that?". You say: "School districts: Get hooked up. We've raised your budget a bit, but meet at least Y level of service and if there's any left over you can use it for equipment, supplies, teachers, books, software, sporting goods, building repairs, or whatever else you need."

But IMHO, while the opportunity for graft is ALWAYS a factor in new laws (even if not intentionally), this one DID have an ulterior motive:

By wiring the schools to the internet, the government added weight to the "protect the children" argument for passing regulations limiting what could be posted there.

You will recall the figurehead of this push was Al Gore, during the period when the air was filled with internet-content-regulation and for-the-CHILDren trial balloons - shortly after his wife Tipper's attempt to regulate music content was slapped down. (I believe the quote that got mangled into "Al Gore claims to have invented the Internet." came from that very push.)

The internet was created BY adults FOR adults - or at least the set of people that INCLUDES adults. It was intended to be a medium for transmitting ANY information, cheaply and without restriction. It's as much an adult world as the streets of a city. It has its universities, its industries, and its billboards. But it also has its red light districts, its radical political recruiters, and its underworld.

Children who are below the maturity level to wander this world unharmed should no more be encouraged to go there unsupervised than they should be bussed to the local "adult enterprise zone" and left on their own. And attempts to turn it into a padded cell for kids are as misguided, as tyrannical, and as futile as attempts to do the same to the streets of the city.

Re:While we're quoting SF authors (or characters)

[Anonymous Coward]

As much as everyone's chuckled at it, myself included, it's worth clearing up the Gore thing, especially in light of who made it to the White House instead.

He pitched in, and was one of the proponents of making what was once the rather 'closed' (or at least, nonprofit save for the likes of BBN) ARPANet a full public resource. What we can gather from the sweep of history is that he probably believed that, as such a resource (even one used for commerce), it should be policed to the same extent as the public airwaves (note amateur radio's longstanding restrictions against 'profanity' and the use of cryptography), and, er, the media at large -- gotta protect those kids. That was, of course, his mistake; "the Internet" of today doesn't run on limited public spectrum so much as a theoretically 'unlimited' set of private wires, and while it couldn't have been built in the form we know it without the ARPANet, the First Amendment and property rights rather, erm, 'rightly' intervened, to a greater extent than they were previously able to in the limited broadcast-media bandwidth.

If you look at his other 'initiatives,' it's obvious he's a futurist of sorts, albeit one who might not realize his 'great ideas' have often already been implemented to degrees. Of course, he was proposing more of a national art project than anything else (follow the reference chain from here, if you wish),
but his 'backing' attracted funding for a technically useful climate-monitoring mission that's now complete and awaiting a slot for launch.

[No, don't look at me... I voted Libertarian.]

Since when to FOR-PROFIT compaines sell at COST?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

NEC then sent a bill to the E-Rate administrators, a quasi-governmental agency for tens of millions of dollars more than the actual cost of the equipment.

If someone robs a bank overnight (no people harmed) and takes 10 million dollars the shit would hit the fan.

Since when do for-PROFIT companies sell at COST? If they did that they'd get sued by their shareholders, and rightly so.

If that should have been "tens of million dollars more than their LIST PRICE" or "... their CONTRACTED PRICE" or "for tens of millions of dollars worth of equipment that they DIDN'T INSTALL" it's another matter. But in that case the original poster (sorry MrRTFM) shoul have SAID so.

Which brings up another question. Why did the people letting the contract not get a price in advance, and do a due dilligence check that the design was appropriately sized and competitive?

Seems to me the people who should be hauled over the coals are the administrators who let the contract. A company can't just go out and wire schools without anybody's permission, then charge for it. (Even if that's the way governments claim to work. B-) )

NEC was funneling the $$ to execs, probably..

[EvilStein]

..they were constantly laying off people at a plant near Sacramento. I think that they might have even shut it down by now.
They were always citing the economy and financial hardships.

Well, if they're really sorry, they'll give back

[autopr0n]

If they are really sorry, they'll give back the money.

Somehow I doubt that will happen.

What evidence is there to find?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

[It was all about paying off Clinton/Gore's contributors in Silicon Valley.]

Do you have any evidence that supports this... I have been suspect about your assertion for a while.

What hardcopy evidence could exist?

- Al Gore and/or Bill Clinton visit Silicon Valley about every other week (TOTALLY tying up traffic due to security - trust me, I was there) for face-to-face talks with executives.

- Executives contribute money (from their corporate coffers or laundered through their executives' salaries).

- Clinton/Gore, after reelection, impose an enormous tax on telephone service earmarked to buy the equipment that their contributors supply, designed so they can pull ANY amount of it through ANY school, and administered by thousands of low-level administrators nationwide, in THE most graft-ridden part of government operation.

Do you think they wrote anything down? Do you think there were any tapes made?

By the time someone reaches the highest offices of the land, if they're a graft-trader they've gotten VERY good at insuring that there's no evidence to find. People who leave evidence lying around tend to get weeded out at a low level.

Re:What evidence is there to find?

[evilviper]

By the time someone reaches the highest offices of the land, if they're a graft-trader they've gotten VERY good at insuring that there's no evidence to find. People who leave evidence lying around tend to get weeded out at a low level.

Not even remotely true. Nixon is an obvious example. Whitewater is another. Bush/Cheny's secret meeting with energy executives seems to be another. Halliburton might be another...

And that's only presidential. If you look into the high-ranking security/military officials you can find tons more.

Re:What evidence is there to find?

[Anonymous Coward]

Until I read evilvipers post (thank god the world hasn't lost what little is left of it's mind) I thought this board was infested with people stuck in 1998 or something. Face it you dumb ass rePUDlickins...GWB is going down for the last time and there isn't a fucking thing you can do about it. So what do you do? Come out and whine about shit that is just completely irrelevant..."Oh so what if there isn't any WMD in Iraq? 4 years ago Clinton and Gore were engaged in some sort of corruption that generated thousands of jobs!"

LOL

local incompetence and fraud

[Doc Ruby]

The ripoffs were conducted by bribing local school officials. These town politicians are guilty of a much more severe crime than suppliers like NEC: they protect the public trust; the corporations are bound by merely commercial ethics. The problem, as cited in the article, was that even though the FCC investigator caught on to the scams, they didn't have the staff to monitor the program.

This tax was not pseudo in any way. It addressed the uneven distribution of needy schools, money to pay, and final destination of the educated people. A nationwide tax, allocated locally, creating nationwide education and economic development, is the proper role for the federal government. This program suffered from lack of oversight at that local level, and wasn't compensated by oversight at the state or federal level. If some of the money collected were spent on that oversight, possibly even by the states, this program would have worked a lot better for the people, and not just the suppliers.

This is really common

[Anonymous Coward]

I know of several schools in Arizona that have been over sold on technology. A Charter school that has about 50-60 students and maybe 10 people overall working for it was sold VoIP equipment. Completely unnecessary.

Another Charter school was being over quoted by about $20K-$30K on their stuff. In the end the company that quoted that was put on probation for this and other violations involving their actions with this educational program.

Unethical fuqs.

Is this a surprise to anyone?

[/dev/trash]

Get the government involved and the cost of doing something mysteriously doubles. A simple DSL line, with a bunch of LTSP terminals should be enough.

I guess Slashdot hates international users again

[_xeno_]

Is Slashdot stripping entities and international characters yet again?

My tests in preview indicate that they're restricting users to 8-bit ASCII characters.

Slash is perfectly capable of handling international characters. Yet for some unknown reason, Slashdot keeps on restricting its posters to 8-bit ASCII. (Actually, this is a step up - in the past, they restricted to only 7-bit ASCII.)

I know that in the past Slashdot has allowed users to use the pound-sterling symbol, yet for some unknown reason they're stripping international characters yet again. I can only assume that Slashdot only wants Americans to post.

Sun systems here

[Gunfighter]

I did some consulting for a local school system near my home (Southwestern Virginia) recently. I wasn't surprised to see that they had a multi-level web caching/filtering system, but I was quite surprised to see that the software was running on Sun servers. The servers themselves were so underutilized I laughed. The local ILEC had sold them the system for premium prices minus a piddly .edu discount. A single Pentium II (with tons of cheap RAM) running Squid could have very easily handled the caching/filtering load for this small school system's entire Internet usage.

What a waste.

Re:Here's a karma whore

[Anonymous Coward]

That *used* to work, numbnuts. So you tell me what's more pathetic: a Karma whore posting useful information that we can all enjoy, or an anonymous dipshit, like yourself, who is incapable of correctly correcting a comment that was correct in the first place?

I love our justice system

[mcpkaaos]

Late last year, the former director of information technology for the Harrisburg School District in Pennsylvania pleaded guilty to charges of fraud in connection with the E-Rate program, according to a report in The Patriot-News in Harrisburg. As part of his plea agreement, the newspaper reported, the official agreed to forfeit ownership of three vehicles, a new boat and seven properties.

It's comforting to see such heavy consequences come down on incredibly wealthy people doing what incredibly wealthy people seem to do to increasingly poor people. I mean, heck, he almost got in trouble. That'll sure teach our children to be more prepared if they plan on defrauding the public for millions.

Blaming the victim for the crime is a bad idea

[Lurker McLurker]

If a company rips off public bodies, and people blame the government, companies will continue to get away with it.

It happens at our school district

[Anonymous Coward]

A local company does this in our school district. They regularly overcharge for equipment, sell us things we don't need like adding USB and sound cards into computers that have built-in USB and sound, and limit the terms of their meager 2-year warrany by charging us for labor if they have to come out and fix it. The only way they don't charge us for warranty claims is if we drive the machine to their offices and pick it up from there. They also put a dual Pentium-4 server with RAID-5 in a classroom to server as - wait for it - a print server for 15 machines! Gotta love it. There's not much you can do when the administration seems to love them and ignores your expert opinion, which would cost less and allow for the purchasing of more equipment.

Re:Someone mentioned that no one is going to jail.

[praksys]

I have no intention of defending NEC in this case, and I hope they get what they deserve in the end as well, but you are far too willing to let Desmond McQuoid off the hook. He was a government official charged with looking out for the public interest but he was caught stuffing public money into his own pockets. He fully deserves to go to prison for a very long time.

In democracies like the US it has always been the practice to deal most harshly with any government officials that are engaged in corruption. And that is the way it should be.

The entire...

[BJZQ8]

The entire E-Rate system was dreamed up by huge telecom conglomerates as a way to get government largesse...it is nothing more than that. In the early 90's it was trumpeted as a way to "empower" districts and "provide services to the poor." But it has rapidly grown into a terrifyingly wasteful government program. I know, I am the person in a school district responsible for it. We spent countless hundreds of hours to get a discount on our phone bills, and, perhaps, a discount on hardware. But it all keeps coming back to the fact that billions are being channeled into pockets already filled to overflowing...telecom companies and "consulting" firms. 90% of the money goes to districts that have the ability to lie and cheat their way through the forms...while honest districts get audited and denied on a regular basis. Take it from me...the way to win at E-Rate is to hire a high-powered company to do it all for you, then just sign the forms. Get ready for them to misrepresent everything about your school district to get it, though. The solution is to eradicate E-Rate and the "Universal Service Fee" that funds it...it's that simple.

not offtopic

[Anonymous Coward]

this was modded as off topic.
Since the wireless connection was put in through "project connect" which is funded through e-rate, this is very much on topic.
http://www-1.ibm.com/services/alliances/ci sco/cisc o_nyc_boe_board.html

Re:Someone mentioned that no one is going to jail.

[KidSock]

custodial supervisor of the district

does not mean he was a "janitorial" anything. Brokers charge "custodial" fees for managing certain types of accounts like IRAs. Do you think a janitor would be in a position to subvert the competitive bidding that made it possible for Video Network Communications to commit the fraud?

Cripes I gotta stop reading slashdot.

Re:Here's a karma whore

[NemosomeN]

Interesting that you wouldn't risk your karma to say that... *grin*

blah

[Anonymous Coward]

blah

Oh, my bad! =O

[Vthornheart]

I was going by the assumption that "Custodial" was referring to the politically correct term for janitor. =) I never realized there was another definition for it. =) I stand corrected.

Well that proves my theory...

[vuud]

It was announced on the 27th, but since then the stock has actually risen. (Not much, but its going up)

Its like laying off people raises your stock price... I guess it just shows that you'll do anything for a profit... and investors like it!

There's something wrong here.

[sysbot]

Maybe I'm not addressing all the points in the article but the point i'm addressing about is the fact that NEC is getting fined and procecution for "convincing the school to buy more equipment then it needs." What is exactly wrong with this by NEC, why is they getting charged and fined for convincing someone to buy more then they need? Can really anyone define how much they "need"? Even if they could, it's the school false that they PAYING for the extra equipments that they don't need. I seen million of ads everyday that convince me directly or indirectly for need to buy things that i don't need! Why is they being fined for doing something that's suppose to be the school district's responsibilty anyway? Shouldn't the school district suppose to get FINED for using the goverment money/grant without knowing what are they paying for? or for lack of responsibility or even intentionally or mis of judgement or millions of other falses.

Suburbs and rural schools suck

[Anonymous Coward]

I can agree with having a tax to give poor school discticts money to get internet access and computers, but I disagree with giving it to rural and suburban schools because the people who live out there are morons. They should expect to pay more for new high speed services.

What happened to caveat emptor?

[Colin Smith]

Sounds to me like the buyers should be up on negligence or corruption charges. Getting a couple of quotes from competitors isn't particularly hard. Basic due diligence.

I wouldn't blame the manufacturer for wanting to sell the biggest fastest systems they can. Purchasers have some responsibility for knowing what they need.

NEC/Packard Bell

[mgcarley]

Man, I would kick the guy who put an NEC machine in my kids school (if they did, and in the event that I had kids)...

Here in NZ, NEC has a bad name because they are one and the same (at least, here) as Packard Bell.

For those techies who've worked on Packard Bell machines, you'll know what I mean - for the rest, trust me when I say PB machines can be evil.

The same way the Compaq Presario 5000 series was evil, yet Compaq generally (was) pretty good.

I do remember, howeverm the NEC machines being quite good in Japan. Had myself a "valuestar" - was alright apart from the whole Windows ME thing.

But yeah, here in NZ - wouldn't trust em. That and now Harvey Norman has had those "Pay $2999 for this ($1999) Laptop and get this FREE ($1000) Packard Bell Computer, valued at ($700) $1399.

Values in brackets are approximate actual values of the respective machines. Its all about perceptive value. All these (morons) people were all like "WOW! 2 Computers for $3k! Lets get four!...

n stuff.