Background On Lockheed Martin

"Lockheed Martin is the world's largest weapons contractor. The company received $17 billion in contracts from the Pentagon in fiscal year 2002, plus almost $2 billion for nuclear weapons design work from the Department of Energy. In the lead up to the war in Iraq, the company boasted a 36% jump in profits, with a 15% increase in military aircraft sales alone.

Lockheed Martin's significant global presence stems from its role as the world's largest arms exporting company. Its most lucrative export item is the F-16 combat aircraft, with more than 3,000 sold overseas since the mid-1970s. The company also makes the Hellfire missile, 'bunker buster' munitions and the massive C-130 transport plane.

In late 2001, the company won what has been touted as 'the largest defense contract in history,' a $19 billion development contract for the $200 billion Joint Strike Fighter program. Plans call for producing variants of the JSF for the U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marines, as well as for the Navy and Air Force of the United Kingdom. Other countries that have been discussed as potential customers for this 'world aircraft' are Germany, Turkey, and Israel."

Ed. note. Not anti-semetic. They say so themselves here:
http://www.lockheedmartin.com/wms/findPage.do?dsp=fec&ci=13002&sc=400

The rest of the article above (minus the ed. note) can be found here http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/updates/051603.html#I

I also found some information from Lockheed Martin on what they do. The links below are different endeavours of Lockheed Martin.

http://www.lmdtech.com/
http://www.it.lockheedmartin.com/aboutus/index.cfm
http://www.ast.lmco.com/index.shtml
http://www.missilesandfirecontrol.com/

What I could not find was a Lockheed Martin corporate website about their 'work-for-welfare' operations [mentioned in Bowling for Columbine]. If you find one, please let me know. I found this though.

Corporations Prospect for Gold Among the Poor
New Report on the Privatization of Welfare

[excerpt]
Oakland, CA. Welfare reform in 1996 promised that by turning social services over to private companies, government inefficiency would be overcome and services delivered better and cheaper. Is the privatization of welfare delivering on those promises? Have private companies transformed the old system into a suite of services leading to decent-paying, long-term employment for former welfare recipients? Preliminary results are in and the news is not good, according to a new report, Prospecting Among the Poor: Welfare Privatization, released by the Applied Research Center.

Far too often, corporations such as Maximus Inc. and Lockheed Martin, who have won contracts to manage welfare-to-work incentives, training programs, and treatment for people with substance abuse problems "underbid, over promised and … didn’t deliver." Job training and support services simply aren’t there for too many of those who need them.

In order to win contracts, according to author Bill Berkowitz, "companies like Maximus and Lockheed Martin blithely spend monies from other jurisdictions to wine, dine, and pay off decision-makers." Meanwhile, as in the case of Curtis and Associates, "staff working for private companies have neither the credentials nor the training to handle their caseloads. Consequently, clients do not receive services they need, and to which they are entitled, such as childcare and transportation subsidies and medical care."

The study uncovers the proliferation of profiteering scams and corporate failures whose costs ultimately come out of the hides of welfare recipients and taxpayers.

Above is a fragment of original article. Read the rest of it here: < a href="http://www.arc.org/welfare/prospecting_nr.html">http://www.arc.org/welfare/prospecting_nr.html

If you want to read another view on privitizing welfare, go here: http://www.marstonandmarston.com/study_lm.html

Why was it all so intriguing? I recalled from memory an event from the recent past...

BMO scours runaway servers for possible data leaks

A pair of servers belonging to the Bank of Montreal that wound up in the public domain through a recycling program contained databases holding employee and possibly customer information, the bank confirmed Monday.

The Bank of Montreal was still working with the company that manages its hardware assets, Rider Computer Services Ltd., to learn exactly what is on the databases at press time. The recovery process was hindered by the fact that the servers ran on an older operating system, a BMO spokesman said, but some employee information has already turned up.

"If it's all employee information, then we have a very effective system of informing all our employees directly," said Ian Blair. "If it's customer information we'll be looking at the most practical and most efficient way to inform them as well. But at this stage -- and we're quite confident in this now -- no information was compromised and no accounts were compromised."

News of the security breach came to light after the reseller who bought the IBM Netfinity servers from Rider subsidiary Ecosys Canada posted them for auction on eBay. After turning one of the servers on, the reseller told the Toronto Star he was able to access hundreds of BMO customer records without using a password. The servers, whose hard drives should have been scrubbed before they were resold, have since been returned to the bank. Rider told the Star the computers were simply taken from the wrong skid in the warehouse.

Blair said BMO had been working with Rider and Ecosys for more than five years, and that it had processed more than one million pieces of hardware in that time without incident.

"We're a large organization, and when we look for outsourcers and sub-contractors we basically only go to the reputable, high-end ones," he said, adding that the bank had done a complete review of Ecosys's recycling procedures about six months ago. "They passed with flying colours."

Above is a fragment of original article. Read the rest of it here: http://www.itbusiness.ca/index.asp?theaction=61&sid=53443

What's not mentioned in the article was the strong ethical character of the individual who bought the hardware and then probably said somethinig like "Um. I should probably return this".

See more on data security here http://www.cochrane.org.uk/opinion/papers/silicon/2003/12-02-2003.htm

Now if you're like me and you don't care that 'the man' knows what kind of shampoo you use, consider this.

Lockheed as seen above has resources and connections with powerful organizations within the American government. These connections enable Lockheed to use their sociological research and resources to implement a work-for-welfare program in the town or state of their customers. The customers are the publicly elected offices who are representing the public. So why was the public not in on the decision? Why were we not consulted about Lockheeds bid to organize our census? Because we have elected officials to do that for us you might say. Fair enough.

Speaking of sociology though I would like to redirect your attention to the person who was sold used hardware that contained the personal banking information of who knows how many citizens. He returned it. He had nothing to gain from it. He may have felt guilty. He made the right choice.

Industry Minister Allan Rock confirmed last week that Lockheed Martin has won the contract to supply technological support for our census. As a personal opinion I would say that I would rather have more bemused individuals with second hand hardware analyzing my social and spending habits than the creator of the worlds largest weapons contractor.

From an ethical perspective I would personally rather not have a corporation with a specialized branch dedicated to force people to work for welfare in order for Lockheed rather than the citizens to make money. Do I care that Lockheed Martin will have information about me from my census? Do I who before today never wrote a letter to a political official in my life have the resources to hold Lockheed accountable for the security of that information?

In Canada we have privacy laws that are outlined in the Privacy Act. See link below.

http://www.statcan.ca/english/about/privact.htm

Purpose of the Privacy Act:

"An Act to extend the present laws of Canada that protect the privacy of individuals and that provide individuals with a right of access to personal information about themselves."

That's great. How about Lockhheed? As of today they are not bound by the law of the Privacy Act nor would they be if they get the contract to organize our census. There is also no law regarding how this information would be used by Lockheed. Nor is there a law regulating usage of private information from comanies national or international. Get any junk mail lately?

Would you care? Have a look at the questions on the 1996 census. Are you comfortable giving this corporation this information about yourself?

Ask yourself:
http://www.library.mcgill.ca/edrs/data/dli/statcan/census/census96/doc/questionnaire/question96.html

The truth is I do care. The truth is I'm not going to have the oppourtunity to hold Lockheed accountable for their usage of the data. Not because I wouldn't be able to afford to even talk to them but because they will not get the contract. We CAN use our rights (it's nothing innovative) to lobby Allan Rock, our local M.P's.,our neighbours, family and friends. Ask them if they care.

There's a website up that is also vehemently opposed to this contract. You can do your part if you wish by signing and sending an email to Allan Rock to show your support in this matter using the form. Better yet, write your own letter.

Here's a place to start vivelecanada

I'm hungry
Jon Bitton

P.S Feel free to pass this on

Note: http://www.lockheedmart... http://www.worldpolicy.... http://www.lmdtech.com/ http://www.it.lockheedm... http://www.ast.lmco.com... http://www.missilesandf... http://www.marstonandma... http://www.itbusiness.c... http://www.cochrane.org... http://www.statcan.ca/e... http://www.library.mcgi... vivelecanada