Florida employed database contractors to remove voters from the voting rolls when their names appeared to be those of ex-felons, despite warnings that the innocent were being purged along with the guilty.
In 2002, when the company started selling access to the database, its contractors attended 80 trade shows; this year the figure will be in the high 200's.
"Otherwise, you're just pulling a name out of a phone book".. To counteract that, the Millburn Building Department said it planned to keep a database of contractors' work that would be open to residents -- though no recommendations would be made.
In 1990, the city set up its Vendex database to screen contractors and suppliers in an effort to weed out those with histories of poor performance, corruption or ties to organized crime.
Things may improve this year, when the G.S.A. is to merge the two separate contractor databases into one as part of a bigger move to consolidate all of the different systems — nine of them!
Not even the T.S.A. is certain about the level of accuracy of the databases that the contractor would use, she said, adding, "T.S.A. still plans to rely on this information to assess air passengers' risk levels, which could mean detention, or worse, land some passengers in jail".
A government-wide database would screen contractors, subcontractors, businesses and individuals who obtain federal contracts to see if they have been convicted of federal fraud, operate phony businesses, owe back taxes or otherwise would be ineligible for government payments or benefits.
The Department of Labor (DoL) maintains a database of civilian contractors of all nationalities that were killed in Iraq who worked for or were contracted by U.S.-based companies or were insured through U.S. insurance carriers and notified DoL through the Defense Base Act.
Even if we ignore the fact that Lockheed Martin sits at No 1 on the Pogo Federal Contractor Misconduct database, with more than 50 alleged cases of corruption, fraud, bribery, environmental damage and discrimination, there's worse to come.
"We've taken the first step — registering on the C.C.R.," Ms. Simon said, referring to the government's Central Contractor Registration database, which requires information like the company's taxpayer identification number from the Internal Revenue Service and determines the firm's areas of expertise under a system of six-digit codes.
