(PresidentialWire.com)- Republicans are calling for tech giant Amazon to testify under oath about rumored connections to the Pentagon, as the company battles to win a massive $10 billion contract recently opened up by the nation’s defense chiefs.
Republicans Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado and Utah Senator Mike Lee told The New York Times that Amazon should be required to testify about any links the company already has to the Pentagon that could influence the decision made about the contract. It comes after the Pentagon reneged on an agreement with Microsoft, who had already secured the deal, citing changes to their requirements.
Both Microsoft and Amazon are being asked to submit proposals to the Pentagon on how they can aid with their Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure deal. The project will move the Pentagon to a cloud-based system, but will require extreme cybersecurity measures that protect some of the most sensitive and classified information in America from being illegally obtained by foreign adversaries.
The Defense Department has also invited some other companies to submit their own bids, and the report from The New York Times revealed emails between the Department and other major tech companies about the “evolving relationship” between the government and Big Tech firms.
It comes as the Pentagon is shifting its overall focus from hardware like tanks and military equipment to software, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity. After all, it’s becoming increasingly evident that future wars will be fought online and not on the battlefields.
The emails appear to show Pentagon officials praising Big Tech, and even granting high-level access to the companies that they praised.
An aide to former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis allegedly said that he became uncomfortable during a trip to California in 2017 when the trip became a demonstration of web services offered by Amazon, which was meant to be a general discussion of cloud tech…and not a sales pitch.
But with the White House growing closer and closer to Big Tech by the way, what are the chances that Biden and the Democrats would want Amazon to testify under oath about any deals already made behind closed doors?
