Private or Public? Does It Matter?

On National Pubic Radio’s Morning Edition on Thursday, co-hosts Renee Montagne and Steve Inskeep, as they periodically do, read letters from listeners. Not many missives NPR receives have a federal information technology angle, but there was one. Here’s the transcript from the segment, if you don’t want to listen to the whole take out:

As part of our series “Memo to the President,” [NPR reporter Daniel Zwerdling] reported that the Bush administration turned over a lot of government work to private contractors. Many listeners wrote in to defend the job that contractors are doing. But Lydia Lewis of St. Louis, Mo., insists that some jobs are “government inherent” â€" those are her words. She adds, “I am a former federal employee myself, whose computer agency contracted out to a Defense company, knew nothing about our Army specific computer system. This contractor is still trying to complete a contract that was supposed to be finished in 2003.”

Now, what project would that be?