1985: Private Company Contracted to Establish Secret Storage Facilities

Systems Evaluations Incorporated, a company recently founded by Fred Westerman, a newly retired 20-year Army intelligence veteran, is contracted by the Army Corps of Engineers to help set up secret storage facilities in five states for the ultra-secretive Continuity of Government program. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the clandestine National Program Office (see (1982 -1991)) will operate the facilities and oversee their construction. Within a year, Westerman will begin to report to government officials instances of waste, fraud, and abuse within the program (see 1986-1987). His job will be threatened in November 1987 (see November 1987) and his contract will be canceled in December of that year (see December 1987). Westerman will file a lawsuit against the government alleging FEMA burglarized Systems Evaluations’ offices in late 1987 (see Late 1987) and that the government launched a surveillance campaign against him (see November 1988). The lawsuit will be frozen when the Justice Department opens an investigation of Westerman (see November 1988) and the suit will later be sealed after an in-depth report highlighting Westerman’s case is published by a major magazine (see August 8, 1989). Westerman will lose another contract, along with his security clearances, in 1990 (see 1990), and by November 1991, he will be unemployable, several hundred thousand dollars in debt, and unable to gain any restitution from the government (see November 1991). [Emerson, 8/7/1989; San Francisco Chronicle, 8/8/1989; Associated Press, 9/11/1989; CNN Special Assignment, 11/17/1991]