Hacker News Reader

Comment by orf | Hacker News Reader

> Raytheon mobilized its congressional lobbyists. Within the Pentagon, Marine Corps Gen. James E. “Hoss” Cartwright, then vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, came to JLENS’ defense, arguing that it held promise for enhancing the nation’s air defenses.

> At Cartwright’s urging, money was found in 2011 for a trial run of the technology — officially, an “operational exercise” — in the skies above Washington, D.C.

> Cartwright retired the same year — and joined Raytheon’s board of directors five months later. As of the end of 2014, Raytheon had paid him more than $828,000 in cash and stock for serving as a director, Securities and Exchange Commission records show.

How is this level of blatant corruption/conflict of interest tolerated in the USA?

View on HN

Check out FCC <-> Comcast

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/f-c-c-commi...

> Four months after the Federal Communications Commission approved a hotly contested merger of Comcast and NBC Universal, one of the commissioners who voted for the deal said on Wednesday that she would soon join Comcast’s Washington lobbying office.

> provides “persistent wide area surveillance” for “30 days at a time.”

> massive, milk-white blimps can be grounded by bad weather

I mean... it seems like there is literally no way this could ever perform its stated mission. But then...

> vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff... arguing that it held promise for enhancing the nation’s air defenses.

This seems like basically criminal negligence at best and outright stealing money from the state at worst. It hurts my head to think about how that is allowed to happen. Also... whose idea was this?

> JLENS is short for Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System

Now I feel like they're actually messing with me.

As someone who works with government contractors, those kinds of absolutely insane nested acronyms are par for the course.

And I thought open source software was bad... ;)

When I worked for a defense contractor, we had an annual competition to see who came up with the best/worst acronym.

I know of components in systems I support that have acronyms several layers deep.

A big part of specifically why it is tolerated in many ways for the military is that politically nobody wants to even think about military spending cuts for fear of being labeled "anti-veteran" and "anti-America." So many voting US citizens are veterans (70+ years old) and almost as many come from an era when they were treated pretty ok following WW2 that they'd think quite poorly of military defunding given how much it's given to them. And somehow, today's military is drowning in debt servicing pensions and benefits for service members while all these scandals of poor treatment by the VA for cost cutting reasons show up.

The acceptance of a pro-military policy by so much of the country is a very important one to consider as a major differentiator for the US compared to most developed countries and why others tolerate the US politically and economically. Some view the US as what other countries allow to have a weight politically so they don't have to spend money on a military and instead on social programs for their citizens.

Look at the SEC people that move straight to Wall Street or the Eric Holder.

Lanny Breuer: as AAG he gave a few slaps on the wrist for LIBOR fraud and laundering terrorist money, now he's got a $4 million/year salary advising those same types of people.

> How is this level of blatant corruption/conflict of interest tolerated in the USA?

With few exceptions, the people in top administrative and elected positions are not in it for the public service. Government jobs for them are a springboard into lucrative lobbying and contracting gigs.

Yes, it's a huge loophole: instead of paying the officials directly for their help, which would clearly be illegal, the companies let it be known that if the officials help them out, they will be compensated in the future. I presume this is done in face-to-face conversations with no witnesses so there's no evidentiary trail.

Seems like a law that would really shut down the revolving door would be difficult to craft so there would really be no ways around it... and even more difficult to get passed.

You obviously don't live here. That's a drop in the ocean of corruption and scandals. That's peanuts!!

I think it's fair to say that America has become a corporation.

More a department.

yea, we call it the American Dream. maybe we'll wake up one day.

Sure, but the thing is... when cleaning house you've got to start somewhere.

I'm not sure this is unique to the US - things are, if anything, even worse with defence procurement in the UK.

Nobody cares?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com