Lockheed Martin: First in Federal Funding, First in Government Fraud

Part 1 of 4: Lockheed Martin, First in Federal Funding

Lockheed Martin is by many measures the U.S. government’s top contractor, raking in $16.7 billion in new contracts related to “IT products and services, systems integration, telecommunications, professional services and engineering services” in 2010 alone:

http://tinyurl.com/4vc7aez

And that is only a fraction of what they bank as the top defense contractor at the Pentagon, where on any given day they announce billions in new contracts awarded to Lockheed Martin and other members of the Military Industrial Complex:

http://www.defense.gov/Contracts/archive.aspx

Part 2 of 4: Lockheed Martin, First in Government Fraud

Lockheed Martin also ranks #1 in the Federal Contractor Misconduct Database (FCMD) of the Project On Government Oversight  (POGO) – a toothless Washington watchdog – with 57 documented cases of fraud and other illegal activities since 1995:

http://www.contractormisconduct.org/index.cfm

Lockheed Martin routinely pays fines, penalties and settlements measured in the millions.  That may create a false sense of accountability in the public’s eye, but with trillions in federal contracts at stake it’s a small price to pay:

http://tinyurl.com/3oa3osr

Part 3 of 4: For Lockheed Martin, Uncle Sam is Much More Than Just a Valued Customer

“When Lockheed Martin wanted to sell C-130 military transport planes to the government of Chad in early 2007, the U.S. embassy in N’Djamena was ready to lend a hand. Nevermind that, by the embassy’s own reckoning, the Chadian government probably could not afford the planes, was dishonest about their purpose and planned to use the aircraft to crush a pro-democracy rebellion. ‘Our conclusion is that, like it or not, our interests line up in favor of allowing the sale in some form to go forward,’ the then-ambassador wrote to the State Department.”

http://tinyurl.com/4db7pbd

Part 4 of 4: For Americans, Lockheed Martin is Much More Than Just a Defense Contractor

“Have you noticed that Lockheed Martin, the giant weapons corporation, is shadowing you?  No?  Then you haven’t been paying much attention.  Let me put it this way: If you have a life, Lockheed Martin is likely a part of it.”

“True, Lockheed Martin doesn’t actually run the U.S. government, but sometimes it seems as if it might as well.  After all, it received $36 billion in government contracts in 2008 alone, more than any company in history.  It now does work for more than two dozen government agencies from the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy to the Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency.  It’s involved in surveillance and information processing for the CIA, the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the National Security Agency (NSA), the Pentagon, the Census Bureau, and the Postal Service.”

“Oh, and Lockheed Martin has even helped train those friendly Transportation Security Administration agents who pat you down at the airport. Naturally, the company produces cluster bombs, designs nuclear weapons, and makes the F-35 Lightning (an overpriced, behind-schedule, underperforming combat aircraft that is slated to be bought by customers in more than a dozen countries) – and when it comes to weaponry, that’s just the start of a long list. In recent times, though, it’s moved beyond anything usually associated with a weapons corporation and has been virtually running its own foreign policy, doing everything from hiring interrogators for U.S. overseas prisons (including at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and Abu Ghraib in Iraq) to managing a private intelligence network in Pakistan and helping write the Afghan constitution.”

http://tinyurl.com/4wdh66z

Related Image:

http://ldrlongdistancerider.com/images/HTV-2_DARPA_Lockheed_Martin_BOONDOGGLE.jpg

Related Video:

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/297069-1