Letter: Washington Post owner has conflict
Billionaire Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos talks about the history and character of the Post during a dedication ceremony for its new headquarters in Washington. Credit: AP / J. Scott Applewhite
Regarding President Donald Trump’s anti-Amazon tweets: If Amazon exploits the U.S. Postal Service and avoids paying state and local taxes, why does it get $600 million of taxpayers’ money for providing cloud computer services to the CIA and other intelligence agencies [“Amazon criticized, again,” News, April 1]?
The 10-year contract, awarded in 2013, puts all classified data from 17 intelligence agencies on a cloud operated by Amazon Web Services.
This is a radical departure for the risk-averse intelligence community, The Atlantic magazine reported in July 2014. Some serious security mistakes have occurred, which Amazon was seeking to remedy, according to a Washington Post story in November.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos faces a huge conflict of interest. He owns The Washington Post, which covers the intelligence community, while Amazon gets a multi-million-dollar payment from U.S. intelligence agencies.
In addition, the Department of Defense is considering awarding Amazon a 10-year contract for the agency’s information technology infrastructure, according to a nonprofit organization called Less Government.
Why should billionaire Bezos’s company receive one dime of taxpayers’ dough? I hope our president ends this insanity.
Dick Reif, Flushing
