Circling the Wagons

In the last three weeks I have sent hundreds of email messages to long-time friends and contacts in the "intelligent transportation systems" ("ITS") field, alerting them to the USDOT Inspector General's new audit and urging anyone with first-hand knowledge of the details of this scam to contact the OIG's team. This message linked to the OIG's audit announcement, as well as to my latest white paper and other documents about this scam that I've put online. It also included this paragraph:

Just so you know, I do not believe that the administration of the TTID program involves any wrongdoing on the part of anyone within the FHWA Office of Operations, for whom I used to work. I know that FHWA staff have been aware of the severe shortcomings of this program for years, but have been pressured to go along with it. Recently, a number of email messages between FHWA staff and Traffic.com were provided by the FHWA to the non-profit watchdog Sunlight Foundation in response to its Freedom of Information Act request, which confirm that staff members in the FHWA Office of Operations have long been raising concerns about this program, particularly how the program's data usage restrictions might impact the state/local partners.

Over 80 of those messages went to folks in the Federal Highway Administration, both at headquarters and in the field. I added the above paragraph in an attempt to protect the reputations of those with whom I used to work, who I know have long been dragged kicking and screaming into this scam by Shuster and his associates (including the top management of the USDOT).

So I was surprised to hear that one of the FHWA managers who has succumbed to that pressure for years put his own message out to FHWA staff, in an apparent effort to discredit me and what I was saying. A classic example of "cover your ass" if there ever was one.

The dynamics of how bureaucracies "circle the wagons" when they perceive that they are being attacked is fascinating, especially in circumstances where key people there deep down must know that they're right in the middle of a big scam like this one.

Truth will out.

Jerry