Wednesday, April 02, 2008

GPO Outsourcing Passports, Illegal Profits, Insecure

The Washington Times of all places has found out the at Government Printing Office is Outsourced passports netting govt. profits, risking national security.

"The United States has outsourced the manufacturing of its electronic passports to overseas companies — including one in Thailand that was victimized by Chinese espionage — raising concerns that cost savings are being put ahead of national security, an investigation by The Washington Times has found. The Government Printing Office's decision to export the work has proved lucrative, allowing the agency to book more than $100 million in recent profits by charging the State Department more money for blank passports than it actually costs to make them, according to interviews with federal officials and documents obtained by The Times." The article has a lot of detail and is the first of 3 parts.

The GPO making profits is illegal. This administration can't even print paper without breaking the law and making us less secure. Is this what you get when you run the government as a business?

No comments: