Joe Conason's Journal
Wait, there's more: Richard Perle also sits on the board of Autonomy Corporation, a British software firm that won a U.S. Homeland Security contract last fall.
salon.com
March 12, 2003 | Strings of Perle
If Richard Perle's business affairs ever come under official scrutiny, the first place to look might be Autonomy Corp. plc, the British software firm that won a major multimillion-dollar contract from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security last fall. Seymour Hersh refers glancingly to that deal -- and to Perle's role as an Autonomy director -- in this week's New Yorker dissection of the Defense Policy Board chairman. Although this part of Perle's portfolio implicates no characters as colorful as Adnan Khashoggi, it raises many of the same ethical concerns as Trireme Partners, the focus of the Hersh article.
Congressional Quarterly's excellent daily report on homeland security (available by subscription only) reported the Autonomy contract last October. According to CQ, Perle joined the British company's board in early 2000. "I have not spoken about Autonomy to anyone at the Department of Homeland Security or to anyone elsewhere in the government," he told CQ's Martin Kady II. "I read about the award in the newspapers although I was aware that it was the subject of discussion between the government and the company." Estimated to cost more than $3 million, the Autonomy contract had to be approved by a special committee in the Office of Management and Budget.
Or as the company boasted on its own Web site: "Autonomy is further distinguished by being one of only a handful of companies that have been awarded significant contracts while the department's budget for new IT infrastructure spending is frozen ..."
The company will create a "data-mining" infrastructure that allows various federal agencies to uncover patterns indicating terrorist activity. In that respect, it resembles the Total Information Awareness project being overseen by former Adm. John Poindexter in the Defense Department. Its software is used to "identify suspicious content" in text, voice and video.
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Such prestigious federal clients represent enormous opportunity for a relatively small ($50 million annual revenue) firm like Autonomy. The firm's fortunes in U.S. government contracting improved dramatically as soon as the Bush administration took office. It issued a press release on Feb. 20, 2001, about several deals with new federal customers including the U.S. Army, the Department of Energy, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. And last December, two months after it was awarded the Homeland Security contract, Autonomy announced that "additional U.S. government intelligence agencies have purchased its technology in deals worth over $1 million." Among its many private-sector customers are several major defense contractors, including General Dynamics and Raytheon.
Despite Perle's denials, the British press regards his intertwined roles at Autonomy and the Pentagon as an obvious benefit to the company. On Jan. 23, the Evening Standard celebrated its success:
"America's war on terrorism and the prospect of an invasion of Iraq helped push software company Autonomy into its 12th consecutive quarter of profitability.
"The company said today that it now sells to more than 30 U.S. 'intelligence-related and classified organisations.' A company source said 'that covers anything with three letters in its name,' implying contracts with the CIA, FBI, National Security [Agency] and Defence Intelligence Agency. Nasdaq and London-listed Autonomy has benefited from the close connections between nonexecutive director Richard Perle and the Pentagon. Perle, a veteran hawk from the Reagan administration, sits as a senior adviser to the Bush administration on defence policy and has sat on various arms and 'government operations' committees."
No doubt Autonomy's technology is worth every cent the taxpayers are spending on it. But were its contracts obtained by competitive bidding? And if Perle never speaks to anyone in the government about the company, and learns about its federal deals from the newspapers, exactly what does he do on its board? Its other members are electrical engineers, a former AOL vice president and a CPA/economist.
[8:07 a.m. PST, March 12, 2003]
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