How I got into this (Traffic.com) mess
Many people have asked why I continue to investigate and try to expose the whole Traffic.com scam, and how I got involved in it in the first place. Some assume that someone -- one of Traffic.com's competitors, most likely -- must be paying me for this "rabblerousing." Others assume that I must have a score to settle, either with the company or with former USDOT Secretary Mineta.
None of these assumptions are true. I have not received a penny related to my efforts to expose this scandal. In the past, before I started digging into the Traffic.com scam, I had always thought that Mr. Mineta was an honest and honorable person. In fact, he did me (and the State of Texas) a favor many years ago -- around 1993 or so -- when he wrote a letter in support of what is called "Dallas Phasing" to the FHWA's Director of the Manual for Uniform Traffic Control (MUTCD). That letter, for a while, legally authorized this unique type of traffic signal control, which was being opposed by mostly northeastern states that didn't use or understand it.
Let me explain how I got involved in digging into the Traffic.com scam in the first place. I consulted in the "intelligent transportation systems" ("ITS") field for fourteen years, the last seven as a subcontractor for the FHWA and Editorial Director of the National Transportation Operations Coalition (NTOC). In that role, I authored a twice-monthly email newsletter that went out to 9,000 or so professionals in the ITS field, and in the process interviewed hundreds of people (sample 1, sample 2) over that seven year period. I also moderated two different discussion forums, as well as monthly "Talking Operations" webcasts on a number of topics.
Many ITS professionals I associated with knew that something fishy was going on with Traffic.com in early 2001, when an industry newsletter called "Inside ITS" first broke the story about the legislative shenanigans that went on to create a program with $50 million in earmarks that were dedicated to only one specific Pennsylvania company, Traffic.com. Then House Public Works and Transporation Committee Chairman Bud Shuster (R-PA) clearly spearheaded this earmark, and the President of Traffic.com (then called Argus Networks and later Mobility Technologies), David Jannetta, was not a transportation expert at all, he was an old political crony of Shuster's and former Mayor of Altoona, PA, the largest city in Shuster's congressional district.
By the way, Shuster was and is clearly not a very honest and ethical person. (I would characterize him as a "scumbag," but I'm just too polite to do that.) He had a particularly bad year in 2000, when he was "outed" in an expose on 60 Minutes and rebuked by the House Ethics Committee, and chose to "retire" early the following year. I'm quite sure, however, that he has remained involved in many of his unethical deals (like Traffic.com) since then, just in private and "under the radar."
In July, 2005 I posted a question on the NTOC's "Talking Operations" Forum asking whether or not transportation planners were taking full advantage of the ITS data they were receiving. As the moderator of that forum, for years I posted questions like this one to spur the transportation community into thinking about emerging issues and sharing their insight with their peers.
A number of people in the field chimed in on this thread, including John Collins, Traffic.com's Vice President both then and now. John kept talking about how "our contract with the FHWA requires" as if the FHWA were leading this effort, but I knew that the FHWA had been pulled kicking and screaming into this earmarked program by Shuster, so I continued to challenge what John was saying. At one point I clearly pissed him off, and he threatened to sue me for libel. I responded by essentially saying, in part, bring it on since my understanding was that the truth was an absolute defense against libel.
John chickened out -- as bullies usually do -- but that whole episode inspired me to dig into the Traffic.com scam further. A long-time friend who works for the USDOT first told me about then USDOT Secretary Mineta's role. He said that "HQ" (meaning the FHWA Office of Operations "headquarters" that I used to work for) had been telling state and local governments who were thinking about signing up for this earmarked program "buyer beware," but were receiving enormous pressure from senior USDOT management -- all the way up to Mineta -- not to do so. That was very intriguing.
So I continued to dig, particularly to do Google searches into the history of Shuster, Mineta, and their associates, and to look into Traffic.com's registered lobbyists and which politicians' palms the company had greased over the years. About this time Traffic.com was getting ready to go public and put a draft "red herring" (prospectus) on the Internet, which hinted at possible places Shuster's and his pals' financial interests in the company could be hidden, such as overseas venture funds and penny stock warrants that would be worth millions once the company went public.
In February of last year I went to the FBI Austin, TX office and made a complaint against both Mr. Shuster's and Mr. Mineta's roles in the whole Traffic.com scam. At the time I gave over 100 pages of information supporting my allegation to the Special Agent who took notes. A few weeks later my complaint, including the Special Agent's summary, was transferred to the FBI Washington, DC Field Office Public Corruption Unit which, because of then USDOT Secretary Mineta's involvement, was exactly where it should have gone. Five months later Mr. Mineta resigned, and never really gave a reason. By the way, I predicted his resignation on this blog back on April 10, 2006, almost three months before the actual event.
The more I dug into this scam, the deeper I found it went. Along the way I contacted several DC-based non-profit government corruption watchdog organizations and shared what I knew and what I had learned with them. These organizations could see that this was a major ongoing scandal and readily offered to help, filing multiple Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, doing their own research as resources permitted, and advising me where I might look for the financial "smoking guns." They, particularly the Sunlight Foundation, are still helping in a big way to this day.
I continue to dig into this scandal and to share information I find with the authorities (both the FBI and the USDOT Inspector General's Office), Congressional staffs (including Senator Hatch's staff and key committee staffs) and the press (including "The Hill" and others, including a major "new age" Internet-only publication).
Why do I keep pushing it, when I'm not making a dime for my efforts? Many people, including my own family and friends, ask me that. My answer is simple: This is a big scandal that involves (at least) four senior people in the Bush Administration. Until I started digging into it and finding out what was really going on, the whole concept of government scandal seemed very abstract. This scandal, conversely, is very real to me. I personally know many of the players in it, and know how it works from my experience as an "insider" for many years.
I know that a senior FHWA manager whom I greatly respect was "reassigned" by Mineta in 2002 to what her subordinates thought was "Siberia" because she knew this earmarked program was a bad deal for the traveling public, and balked at signing the contract with Traffic.com. She's one of the heroes of this whole sordid mess. However, her reassignment had a definite chilling effect on anyone else in her department who might have said "hey, something's not quite right here." Nonetheless, I know that some people in her old department have tried to do the right thing and have told state/local agencies who were thinking of signing up with Traffic.com in this earmarked program "beware," which has brought on pressure and intimidation from both by their own (senior USDOT) management as well as Traffic.com's management.
I know that if I don't continue to pursue this scandal nobody will, and a whole bunch of crooks and unethical elected and appointed officials will get away with it. This scandal will also retard the usage and growth of next-generation traveler information tools in many of our most congested cities -- where they are sorely needed -- for years to come.
I know this will sound either silly or stupid to most people, but "outing" Traffic.com and the people who set up and sustain this scandal is the most important thing I have ever done. And I will not quit.
Jerry
None of these assumptions are true. I have not received a penny related to my efforts to expose this scandal. In the past, before I started digging into the Traffic.com scam, I had always thought that Mr. Mineta was an honest and honorable person. In fact, he did me (and the State of Texas) a favor many years ago -- around 1993 or so -- when he wrote a letter in support of what is called "Dallas Phasing" to the FHWA's Director of the Manual for Uniform Traffic Control (MUTCD). That letter, for a while, legally authorized this unique type of traffic signal control, which was being opposed by mostly northeastern states that didn't use or understand it.
Let me explain how I got involved in digging into the Traffic.com scam in the first place. I consulted in the "intelligent transportation systems" ("ITS") field for fourteen years, the last seven as a subcontractor for the FHWA and Editorial Director of the National Transportation Operations Coalition (NTOC). In that role, I authored a twice-monthly email newsletter that went out to 9,000 or so professionals in the ITS field, and in the process interviewed hundreds of people (sample 1, sample 2) over that seven year period. I also moderated two different discussion forums, as well as monthly "Talking Operations" webcasts on a number of topics.
Many ITS professionals I associated with knew that something fishy was going on with Traffic.com in early 2001, when an industry newsletter called "Inside ITS" first broke the story about the legislative shenanigans that went on to create a program with $50 million in earmarks that were dedicated to only one specific Pennsylvania company, Traffic.com. Then House Public Works and Transporation Committee Chairman Bud Shuster (R-PA) clearly spearheaded this earmark, and the President of Traffic.com (then called Argus Networks and later Mobility Technologies), David Jannetta, was not a transportation expert at all, he was an old political crony of Shuster's and former Mayor of Altoona, PA, the largest city in Shuster's congressional district.
By the way, Shuster was and is clearly not a very honest and ethical person. (I would characterize him as a "scumbag," but I'm just too polite to do that.) He had a particularly bad year in 2000, when he was "outed" in an expose on 60 Minutes and rebuked by the House Ethics Committee, and chose to "retire" early the following year. I'm quite sure, however, that he has remained involved in many of his unethical deals (like Traffic.com) since then, just in private and "under the radar."
In July, 2005 I posted a question on the NTOC's "Talking Operations" Forum asking whether or not transportation planners were taking full advantage of the ITS data they were receiving. As the moderator of that forum, for years I posted questions like this one to spur the transportation community into thinking about emerging issues and sharing their insight with their peers.
A number of people in the field chimed in on this thread, including John Collins, Traffic.com's Vice President both then and now. John kept talking about how "our contract with the FHWA requires" as if the FHWA were leading this effort, but I knew that the FHWA had been pulled kicking and screaming into this earmarked program by Shuster, so I continued to challenge what John was saying. At one point I clearly pissed him off, and he threatened to sue me for libel. I responded by essentially saying, in part, bring it on since my understanding was that the truth was an absolute defense against libel.
John chickened out -- as bullies usually do -- but that whole episode inspired me to dig into the Traffic.com scam further. A long-time friend who works for the USDOT first told me about then USDOT Secretary Mineta's role. He said that "HQ" (meaning the FHWA Office of Operations "headquarters" that I used to work for) had been telling state and local governments who were thinking about signing up for this earmarked program "buyer beware," but were receiving enormous pressure from senior USDOT management -- all the way up to Mineta -- not to do so. That was very intriguing.
So I continued to dig, particularly to do Google searches into the history of Shuster, Mineta, and their associates, and to look into Traffic.com's registered lobbyists and which politicians' palms the company had greased over the years. About this time Traffic.com was getting ready to go public and put a draft "red herring" (prospectus) on the Internet, which hinted at possible places Shuster's and his pals' financial interests in the company could be hidden, such as overseas venture funds and penny stock warrants that would be worth millions once the company went public.
In February of last year I went to the FBI Austin, TX office and made a complaint against both Mr. Shuster's and Mr. Mineta's roles in the whole Traffic.com scam. At the time I gave over 100 pages of information supporting my allegation to the Special Agent who took notes. A few weeks later my complaint, including the Special Agent's summary, was transferred to the FBI Washington, DC Field Office Public Corruption Unit which, because of then USDOT Secretary Mineta's involvement, was exactly where it should have gone. Five months later Mr. Mineta resigned, and never really gave a reason. By the way, I predicted his resignation on this blog back on April 10, 2006, almost three months before the actual event.
The more I dug into this scam, the deeper I found it went. Along the way I contacted several DC-based non-profit government corruption watchdog organizations and shared what I knew and what I had learned with them. These organizations could see that this was a major ongoing scandal and readily offered to help, filing multiple Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, doing their own research as resources permitted, and advising me where I might look for the financial "smoking guns." They, particularly the Sunlight Foundation, are still helping in a big way to this day.
I continue to dig into this scandal and to share information I find with the authorities (both the FBI and the USDOT Inspector General's Office), Congressional staffs (including Senator Hatch's staff and key committee staffs) and the press (including "The Hill" and others, including a major "new age" Internet-only publication).
Why do I keep pushing it, when I'm not making a dime for my efforts? Many people, including my own family and friends, ask me that. My answer is simple: This is a big scandal that involves (at least) four senior people in the Bush Administration. Until I started digging into it and finding out what was really going on, the whole concept of government scandal seemed very abstract. This scandal, conversely, is very real to me. I personally know many of the players in it, and know how it works from my experience as an "insider" for many years.
I know that a senior FHWA manager whom I greatly respect was "reassigned" by Mineta in 2002 to what her subordinates thought was "Siberia" because she knew this earmarked program was a bad deal for the traveling public, and balked at signing the contract with Traffic.com. She's one of the heroes of this whole sordid mess. However, her reassignment had a definite chilling effect on anyone else in her department who might have said "hey, something's not quite right here." Nonetheless, I know that some people in her old department have tried to do the right thing and have told state/local agencies who were thinking of signing up with Traffic.com in this earmarked program "beware," which has brought on pressure and intimidation from both by their own (senior USDOT) management as well as Traffic.com's management.
I know that if I don't continue to pursue this scandal nobody will, and a whole bunch of crooks and unethical elected and appointed officials will get away with it. This scandal will also retard the usage and growth of next-generation traveler information tools in many of our most congested cities -- where they are sorely needed -- for years to come.
I know this will sound either silly or stupid to most people, but "outing" Traffic.com and the people who set up and sustain this scandal is the most important thing I have ever done. And I will not quit.
Jerry
posted by Jerry Werner | 9:21 AM
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