Rewind: Digging through the WT archives

The Competition Advocate for the Air Force advised industry officials to make better use of his services to resolve competition disputes, saying the high number of protests is slowing down the procurement process. "If you protest [a contract award] to the GAO, you've shot your remedy," said Anthony DeLuca, Air Force Competition Advocate General, adding, "Get out of the litigation mentality."The Defense Information Systems Agency could have used DeLuca's help with the $400 million Defense Research & Engineering Network (DREN) network services contract.Once the exclusive domain of journalists and social activists, the Freedom of Information Act is increasingly used by government contractors as a tool to legally obtain, or at least try to obtain, competitively sensitive information that could ultimately mean the difference between winning and losing the next contract.This problem continues. Pending legislation that would encourage IT companies to share information about cybersecurity problems, such as the House Cyber Security Information Act and the Senate Critical Infrastructure Information Security Act, has IT companies worried that information they share with the government could also become available to competitors through FOIA requests.