*General Atomics has received a $21.2 million contract from Customs and Border Protection to provide Mobility Ground Control Stations, Ground Data Terminals, Portable Ground Data Terminals, a Software Integration Lab for testing software and other related equipment in support of the agency’s MQ-9 Predator B unmanned aircraft systems. Deliveries are expected within 22 months for hardware items.
*The Government Accountability Office (GAO) denied a protest by Northrop Grumman [NOC] taken in connection with a decision by the General Services Administration to terminate its $2.6 billion contract with the company for infrastructure services at the new Department of Homeland Security headquarters after the four losing bidders protested the award. Northrop Grumman had hoped that the GAO would support the reinstatement of its contract.
*The Transportation Security Administration is working with the Homeland Security Institute to develop an assessment tool to better understand airport perimeter security vulnerabilities, John Sammon, assistant administrator for Transportation Sector Network Management, tells a House panel. The agency is also working with the institute to develop best practices for airports to implement to improve their perimeter security, he says. An initial assessment of the best practices is complete and the evaluation tool should be ready next month, he says. The Government Accountability Office reported in Sept. 2009 that TSA didn’t understand the nature of the problem related to perimeter security at airports and found that only 13 percent of airports had even done vulnerability assessments of their perimeter security. Sammon says that all too often he hears from airport security people that “‘If you’ve seen one airport, you’ve seen one airport.'” He says there is no reason that certain standards, processes and protocols can be used across airports for perimeter security.
*The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) says the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Jan. 2010 awarded RedXDefense a $400,000 contract to related to detecting improvised explosive devices. DARPA since 2009 has been led by Regina Dugan, a co-founder and former CEO or RedXDefense. She co-founded the company with family members. According to POGO Dugan had signed a recusal memo agreeing not to deal with issues affecting RedXDefense for two years. The watchdog group doesn’t take a stand on whether the contract involves nepotism or a legitimate business deal but says “the facts so fare certainly don’t inspire confidence.”