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Man Pleads Guilty To Selling Fake Chips To US Navy
itwbennett writes "Neil Felahy of Newport Coast, California, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy and counterfeit-goods trafficking for his role in a chip-counterfeiting scam. Felahy, along with his wife and her brother, operated several microchip brokerage companies under a variety of names, including MVP Micro, Red Hat Distributors, Force-One Electronics and Pentagon Components. 'They would buy counterfeit chips from China or else take legitimate chips, sand off the brand markings and melt the plastic casings with acid to make them appear to be of higher quality or a different brand,' the US Department of Justice said in a press release. The chips were then sold to Naval Sea Systems Command, the Washington, DC group responsible for maintaining the US Navy's ships and systems, as well as to an unnamed vacuum-cleaner manufacturer in the Midwest."
whats wrong with sony, samsung, or intel. I'm sure they could produce chips for government related applications, not some shady business no ones heard of before.
Are you familiar with efforts to foster American small businesses in the United States by the government (note this is nothing specific to Obama)? If you want to get into government contracts, I suggest you start a small business owned by a woman who is a minority. You'd be amazed at how easily you can land contracts and subcontracts as the government and big contractors strive to make quotas.
My work here is dung.
Government procurement is a bureaucratic mess, and a royal pain in the ass for both buyers and sellers. Because of this (and because of rules preferring "small" and "minority-owned" businesses), it is very common for government entities to buy though a middle man that knows how their procurement systems work, rather than getting product directly from a manufacturer, especially for low-cost COTS products.
Here's how. All government procurement has special programs for buying from small business, and in fact are required to spend a certain percentage at small businesses. Congress mandates it, 'cause it makes good press with the voters.
Old destroyer man here. Nature and the elements are one enemy that sailors battle every day. Not to mention Al Queda and assorted terrorists such as the ones who attacked the USS Cole. Pointing out that Iran is already geared up for war in the Strait of Hormuz, The Persian Guf, and the Sea of Oman is probably redundant.
No, treason is probably not an appropriate charge against these idiots, but I felt it necessary to point out that the US Navy is never at "peace". There are always operations taking place in which men's lives are in peril. Some of the most dangerous things pulled of by destroyers and small craft never make the news at all. Shipboard equipment is tested to it's limits daily, and lives depend on that equipment operating properly.
Care to step aboard an aircraft carrier? During flight operations, no matter how peaceful, there is more danger in one 24 hour day than most people can imagine.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
They can't, unless certain, very specific criteria are met.
And even if they are, it's usually cheaper to have purchased the data rights to an end of line product, and turn around and find another vendor who will make them to those specs.
The US Military doesn't own large scale fabrication plants to "just make" whatever they need. And even if they did, Congress wouldn't let them use them, because it would be taking money away from US corporations.
Let me give an example: There's a base that has SEABEE units. Naval Construction Battalions (CB -> SeaBee). It is not unknown that such a navy base might need, at some point, a new pier. This is the sort of thing that, when the SeaBees are sent overseas, that they build. But they can't do this at the base, even if they label it a "training exercise", because statutorally, the money has to go to contracted construction companies.
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
It puts people at risk, and the motherfucker should be tried for sedition.
I think you mean treason. Sedition is encouraging insurrection. Treason is acts of disloyalty to one's nation. But in the US treason is narrowly defined by the constitution (to prevent abuses), so unfortunately they probably can't be prosecuted for treason.