DPS outsourced border security to private firm via no-bid contracts (Updated evening of 3/16)

Last edited Fri Mar 16, 2012, 10:05 PM - Edit history (1)

A little-known private defense contractor from Virginia has quietly received about $20 million under a series of no-bid contracts with the State of Texas to develop its border security strategies, an effort that included shaping the state's public message on the increasingly controversial nature and extent of violence spilling into Texas from Mexico.

According to an internal Department of Public Safety memo, the role of Abrams Learning and Information Systems Inc. expanded dramatically after Gov. Rick Perry, then in the midst of a campaign for governor, ordered an acceleration of border security operations that the state wasn't equipped to handle on its own.

Over the next 4 1/2 years — ALIS, founded in 2004 by retired Army Gen. John Abrams — would become intimately involved in nearly every aspect of the Texas Department of Public Safety's border security apparatus, according to documents obtained by the American-Statesman through the Texas Public Information Act. Its assignments ranged from refining the state's Operation Border Star campaign and coordinating the role of National Guard troops along the border, to setting up the state's joint intelligence support centers and creating a multimillion-dollar high-tech system to map border crime.

Despite the firm's work on the state's most important border operations, ALIS flew so far under the radar that outside of law enforcement, few state and local leaders knew of its activities. Several officials who have worked closely on border security issues said they had no knowledge of the firm until contacted by the Statesman.

http://www.statesman.com/news/texas-politics/dps-outsourced-border-security-to-private-firm-via-2240981.html

See post#4
http://www.statesman.com/news/local/state-senator-calls-for-investigation-of-border-security-2242980.html