POGO Podcasts: Recent Episodes
Project On Government Oversight
The Congressional Management Foundation offers the Gold Mouse Awards annually to members of Congress who make the most of the opportunity the digital world offers them. POGO spoke with members of Rep. Mike Honda's communications team about their award.
Mia Steinle talks about POGO's involvement in the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and the hurdles to increased transparency for oil, gas and hard rock minerals here in the U.S.
POGO's Scott Amey talks about the growing private intelligence industry that includes major federal contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, the former employer of Edward Snowden. Podcast with Joe Newman, Aimee Thomson, Jana Persky and Andre Francisco.
POGO's Ben Freeman just released his book The Foreign Policy Auction, so we sat down with him to find out who is paying to change U.S. foreign policy and how they are doing it.
How many secrets does the government have, and where are they keeping them? POGO's Joe Newman and Suzie Dershowitz sit down with Amy Bennett from OpenTheGovernment.org, which just released its annual Secrecy Report, to discuss how secret the federal government was last year.
The newest addition to POGO's national security team, Winslow Wheeler, discusses his work as a longtime defense analyst, covering everything from troubled weapons systems to the military-industrial-congressional complex.
On this week's podcast, Adam Miles, from the Office of Special Council, gives an overview of how the OSC works with federal whistleblowers. Miles was a speaker at the July meeting of POGO's Congressional Oversight Training Series. The series is put on by POGO to train congressional staffers on the art of congressional oversight.
In May 2010, leaders at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) proposed a rule that would require NIH-funded researchers to publicly disclose their financial arrangements with drug and medical device companies.
This proposal would bring a much needed dose of transparency to federally funded medical research. Now, one thing stands in its way: the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). POGO is concerned that OMB will weaken or block this proposal, and in July, we sent a letter urging OMB to leave the rule intact.
For this podcast, POGO Staff Scientist Ned Feder and POGO Executive Director Danielle Brian discuss why this proposal is so important. After we recorded this podcast, Nature News reported that the proposal has been dropped. Things aren't completely final just yet--but if the NIH's disclosure proposal does wind up on the cutting room floor, it would be a significant blow to transparency and taxpayer interests.
Despite containing some of the highest concentrations of radioactivity on the planet, the structures housing the majority of U.S. spent nuclear fuel--our nuclear graveyards so to speak--are designed to withstand little more than a bad thunderstorm. In this podcast, POGO staffers talk with Bob Alvarez, a Senior Scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), about why this is a problem, and whether or not a disaster like the one at Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi plant could happen in the U.S. Alvarez is the author of a new report on storage of spent nuclear fuel that was released by IPS with support from POGO.
A conversation with Professor Dru Stevenson and Nicholas Wagoner, of the South Texas College of Law, about their recent article exploring enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
POGO staffers discuss a recent POGO letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, which called for an investigation into potentially unlawful foreign funding of Members of Congress.
POGO staffers discuss POGO's latest report and accompanying database examining the issue of the revolving door and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
On April 1, a five-foot piece of the fuselage of a Southwest Airlines 737 Classic airplane ripped off in mid-flight, forcing the plane to an emergency landing in Arizona. Despite the date of the incident, this was no joke.
In late April, the nation’s crash detectives, the National Transportation Safety Board, said they found evidence of manufacturing defects. Experts told the New York Times that the board’s findings suggest the 737’s "aluminum skin had not been properly bound together, leading to premature damage from fatigue."
This week's podcast is a phone conversation between POGO staffers and a former Boeing employee and her attorney, who claim that Boeing bent the rules and allowed very similar manufacturing defects on a newer version of the 737, the 737 Next Generation. In 2005, they filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging that Boeing defrauded the military by supplying defective planes. They claim that Boeing has also put the flying public at risk.
In March 2011, AllGov reported that DARPA, the Pentagon's premier research arm, had awarded a contract to a company founded by the agency's director. Wired's Spencer Ackerman joined POGO staffers to discuss the particulars.
POGO first learned about Lieutenant Colonel Michael Holmes in an explosive article written by journalist Michael Hastings for Rolling Stone magazine. Lt. Colonel Holmes is the leader of an "information operations" team in the military. When Holmes was ordered to use his skills on Members of Congress--he checked with a JAG attorney on whether that order was legal. The JAG attorney said the order was illegal, and Holmes pushed back against the order--and that order was rescinded. Afterwards he was subjected to what he calls a retaliatory investigation, and when he took his case to the Department of Defense Inspector General, his voice seemed to fall on deaf ears. In this podcast, POGO's Nick Schwellenbach and Bryan Rahija interview Holmes about his story.
POGO's Scott Amey dishes out a post-mortem on a recent Commission on Wartime Contracting hearing--at which he testified--on contractor accountability.
POGO staffers Keith Rutter, Scott Amey, and Bryan Rahija sit down to discuss a Supreme Court case that could expand the definition of corporate "personhood." POGO and good government allies submitted an amicus brief for the case, which can be read here.
POGO staffers recently sat down to discuss something that relates to so many aspects of our work--the latest WikiLeaks disclosures.
POGO recently called for the removal of two war zone watchdogs--the Department of State's Inspector General and the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). In part 2 of 2, POGO staffers discuss a recent hearing in which Members of Congress questioned the effectiveness of the SIGAR.
POGO recently called for the removal of two war zone watchdogs--the Department of State's Inspector General (IG) and the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. In part 1 of 2, POGO staffers discuss our recent letter to the President raising questions about the independence of the State Department's IG.
POGO staffers discuss a recent report issued by the State Department Office of the Inspector General, which evaluated the performance of the private security contractor responsible for guarding the U. S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. The report confirmed many of the findings of POGO's 2009 investigation into "Lord of the Flies" environment that had taken hold of the embassy's private security guard force.
This June, the Army charged several U.S. soldiers with murdering three Afghans for sport in three separate episodes. Christopher Winfield, the father of Specialist Adam Winfield--one of the accused soldiers--recently told POGO his own story of how he tried to warn the Army about the killings.
How the U.S. can create jobs, increase security, save money, and generate as much as $23 billion for the Treasury.
POGO's Ingrid Drake and Peter Stockton sit down to explain POGO's latest report.
What do you want to know about POGO or the world of government oversight? Send your questions to info@pogo.org and we'll answer the top ten questions.
Winslow Wheeler, director of the Center for Defense Information, joins POGO for a discussion of the new Pentagon savings initiatives proposed by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.
Read more about the savings initiatives here and here.
Angela Canterbury, POGO's Director of Public Policy, walks us through some of the key pieces of legislation that POGO has been working on, and talks about what's next once legislators return from recess.
POGOnauts, including POGO Senior Investigator Peter Stockton, review a new film about the nuclear weapons complex, Countdown to Zero, and discuss the recent trend towards less and less oversight of our nation's nuclear weapons stockpile.
This week POGO is joined by OpenTheGovernment.org's Amy Bennett for a discussion of the recent audit of revisions to agency Open Government Plans.
Read more about the audits here.
POGO staffers dive into the history of the beleaguered government agency responsible for oversight of the offshore oil industry, and examine the reforms under consideration to improve the agency.
It may be one of the bulkiest terms in Washington, but POGO's got the skinny on inherently governmental functions.
In this week's podcast, POGO Executive Director Danielle Brian describes her recent testimony before the Commission on Wartime Contracting, in which she addressed whether private security contractors in combat zones are performing services that should be reserved strictly for government personnel.
Why does the National Security Agency maintain a room for Government Accountability Office investigators--and why is it empty? Special guest Steve Aftergood takes us through the latest developments in the debate over Congress's authority to conduct oversight of the intelligence community.
POGO staffers discuss several amendments that have been introduced to financial regulatory reform legislation, including the amendment to audit the Federal Reserve.
The tragic Gulf oil spill has highlighted significant failures and deficiencies at the U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS)--the agency responsible for oversight of offshore drilling. POGO has been monitoring the MMS for years, and this week we sat down to discuss some of the problems facing the agency.
POGO takes a look at the Open Government Plans of the Department of Energy, Department of Defense, and Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
POGO Investigator Neil Gordon discusses the latest update to POGO's Federal Contractor Misconduct Database.
Scott discusses the proliferation of various labels describing "controlled unclassified information."
POGO takes a look at the SEC's program to reward whistleblowers who provide information to the agency about insider trading.
POGO staffers discuss all that transpired as part of Sunshine Week, the annual initiative to raise awareness of open-government issues.
Sometimes people working in the private sector come into public service, and sometimes people leave public service to enter the private sector. What questions do these sorts of personnel shifts raise?
Mandy discusses problems that continue to plague the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA), which persist in spite of efforts towards reform.
Michael Smallberg raises questions about the effectiveness of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
Last week POGO submitted a list of a dozen nonpartisan good government fixes to each congressional office. For this podcast, instead of an orderly rundown, POGO staffers decided to mix things up and roll dice to determine which recommendation to discuss next.
Ingrid Drake discuss why the Senate should oppose the nomination of William Magwood to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission — and what we should be looking for in a nominee.
Michael Smallberg and Adam Zagorin discuss their recent investigation on how a former SEC lawyer -- who is now running for Congress -- dimed out a whistleblower.
Just in time for the State of the Union address, Mandy Smithberger and Ingrid Drake discuss POGO's latest ovesight recommendations to the President.
Bryan Rahija discusses the challenges agencies face in implementing the Open Government Directive, plus the Obama administration's new policy on presidential signing statements.
Ingrid Drake discusses the new moratorium on oversight of the contractors in charge of our nuclear weapons supply.
Mandy Smithberger discusses POGO's latest efforts to make sure that contractor work on development, production, and evaluation of Pentagon engineering programs is unbiased.