$18M Contract For Transparency Website Released — But Blacked Out

zokuga writes "The US government recently approved an $18 million contract for Smartronix to build a website where taxpayers could easily track billions in federal stimulus money, as part of President Obama's promise to make government more transparent through the Internet. However, the contract, which was released only through repeated Freedom of Information Act requests, is itself heavily blacked out. ProPublica reports: 'After weeks of prodding by ProPublica and other organizations, the Government Services Agency released copies of the contract and related documents that are so heavily blacked out they are virtually worthless. In all, 25 pages of a 59-page technical proposal — the main document in the package — were redacted completely. Of the remaining pages, 14 had half or more of their content blacked out.' Sections that were heavily or entirely redacted dealt with subjects such as site navigation, user experience, and everything in the pricing table. The entire contract, in all its blacked-out glory, is here."

Comments

Well this is certainly change

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Change we can believe in ! Belief being necessary because, you know, you don't get to check.

Say what were those economic numbers again ?

Re:Well this is certainly change

[BobMcD]

I can't quite imagine anyone needing any of them for any non-war purposes.

There are those that believe that Amendment 2 exists to give the populace the means to revolt again, should it become necessary.

A revolution, being a type of war, would require weapons designed for war purposes.

Much like any defensive device, you don't own such a thing hoping to use it. You own it praying you never need it, but knowing you can react should you discover you do.

Re:Well this is certainly change

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for saying it that way.

I recently purchased a LAR-15 and a .40 Cal Springfield hand-gun. Both are semi-automatics. I purchased my weapons for a few reasons:
1) Politics. I'm never sure when Democrats intend to make another go at the 2nd Amendment. In fact, Obama's silence on the subject scared me more than if he came out banging drums about the matter.

2) Violence in US border cities with Mexico where drug cartels are kidnapping people *in the US*. Their gangs are more and more often using higher power weapons. As are the police departments in those areas. I demand a fighting chance.

3) Home-grown crime. I recently lived in Tulsa, OK. 2AM home invasions was the modus operandi in that city for ~6 months. People were getting mugged while in their beds. This happened to 3 or 4 families. Then, one night, 2 perps performed a home invasion and the home owner shot and killed both in his home. He was not charged. A few weeks later 2 more perps attempted the same thing - the homeowner shot and killed the two. He, too, was not charged. Surprisingly, home invasions stopped. Completely.

That being said, I hope I never have to use my weapons to defend myself. That being said, I will *not* be a victim to crime.

Transparent? How is this government such?

[Shivetya]

I would hate to see a secretive US Government then...

Ramming bills through Congress, no five day period, hell five days seems to apply how long a before a thousand page bill is dropped on us before its rammed through.

One party rule never works and just as before when they were in power they do all the same rotten things they claim the other side did when they had power.

Apparently they are so wrapped up in knowing whats best for us, because they are so obviously smarter and well... transparency is where they deem we need to have it.

Now we have a nearly sinister cooperation of the press and government all walking the same line. Calling them out on it is now unAmerican. We get town halls that first tell us everyone is entitled to their opinion followed by statements that those who dare have a differing one need to get out of the way.

Website, schebsite, its all just more bs for the point column where the score never matters as long as they win.

Good Enough For Government

[ATestR]

If this is the way that things work in the Government, maybe we should all try it on our 1040's next April.

Why is cost a secret

[SuperKendall]

However, the redactions in the contract are to protect trade secrets, national security concerns...etc

So what part does cost of the contract fall under for you.

If they are hiding costs here, how can you assume the website is really revealing all money being spent, when the foundation itself remains obscured.

Not one cent of government expenditure should be obscured. I can understand something like military spending sometimes being put in a black box (and that only in truly exceptional cases), but you should at least be able to see the cost of the box...

Re:tagged: !change

[ivan256]

I'm not sure how this is "insightful". Because we're spending a ridiculously huge amount of money, we can waste a ridiculously huge (but relatively small) amount of money?

Startup companies that develop web applications run for 4+ years on $18mil with 30+ developers and a sales and management team. And they turn out products orders of magnitude more complex than this tracking website. I wish I knew about the bid. I could have undercut these guys by about $14 mil, pulled a team together in about a week, gotten the job done quick and retired in style.

Re:Expected

[hoppo]

BS. There are no national security concerns around a publicly-facing website, particularly one dealing with dissemination of budget information. If there are, then they need to seriously rethink their strategies. I can envision certain sensitive information that may be blacked-out, but for a project like this, it would be a rarity. Furthermore, there is absolutely no reason to hide the remuneration details from the public.

It's not unreasonable to ask why this project costs $18 million to implement, when it is mostly a standard CMS with a few extras added on.

Re:tagged: !change

[CorporateSuit]

An online banking site. Possibly also betting sites. Mostly because they deal with money and any security breach is fatal. That's the only examples I can think of excluding megasites like google, facebook and amazon.

Those sites could be built for a few hundred thousand + server costs. $18M to make a site that lists sales receipts is a huge middle-finger to taxpayers.

Re:Surprised?

[Chris Burke]

We're a Representative Democracy. That's a kind of Democracy. As opposed to a Direct Democracy, which is what a lot of people mean when they say "We aren't a Democracy". Well, we aren't that kind of democracy. But we are a kind of Democracy. So depending on what you mean, it is perfectly valid to say we're a democracy.

"Republic" fundamentally means "A nation whose leader is not a King or other hereditary ruler" -- the CIA's totally-not-Cold-War-politics-derived definitions notwithstanding. Iraq under Saddam was a Republic. China is a Republic. So are we. Just a different kind.