Justification.pdf

JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION

Based on the following justification, I hereby approve the use of restricting consideration of the proposed contractual action to a single source pursuant to FAR 6.302-1.

1. AGENCY AND CONTRACTING ACTIVITY:[FAR 6.303-2(b)(l)] Agency:

Department of Defense Office of the Secretary of Defense - Office of Military Commissions 4800 Mark Center Drive Suite 11 F09-2 Alexandria, VA 223 11 -2100

Contracting Activity:

Department of Defense Washington Headquarters Services - Acquisition Directorate 1225 S. Clark Street Arlington, VA 22202

2. NATURE/ DESCRIPTION OF ACTION (S): [FAR 6.303-2(b)(2)] Requesting approval of a sole source award to SRA International, Inc. The total estimated value for the requ irement is approximately $29,586,676.82 for a period of performance consisting of a six month base period and three (3) one year option periods expiring on I 0 May 2019. This will be awarded as a follow on effort to task order HQ0034-14-F-O 142.

3. DESCRIPTION OF SUPPLIES/ SERVICES :(FAR 6.303-2(b)(3)] The Office of Military Commissions (OMC) was established in 2001 to process military combatants via military commissions. This requirement supports OMC's enemy combatant trials at U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

_____ _._,lMG..requires Security Advisors, Intelligence Analys.ts....S~curity Specialists. Security Officers, and Tn-ves.tigatorS"toassist case- preparations fh1: military comrii issior1Sconvened under the Mil itary Commissions Act of 2009. The services performed by the contractor personnel are vital to the prosecution, defense and judicial components of the OMC's mission. All contractor personnel require a Top Secret security clearance e ligible for Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) to support all aspects of the OMC mission. These services are provided in the National Capital Region. Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay Cuba. and various overseas locations.

RobersDE Text Box

RobersDE Text Box

Section 2 of the current Performance Work Statement (PWS) provides detail concerning the scope and breadth of the services required by OMC. These services are described below.

Analysis of law enforcement and national intelligence data to develop leads for investigative activity or further investigative/data analysis.

Data research and analysis to support attorney products.

Assist prosecutors and defense counsel in MilitOIJI Commissions cases in all aspects of pre-trial investigation.

Search, review, segregate, and analyze any and all records of interrogations, interviews, statements, and other evidence either provided by or obtained from current and former detainees held by U.S. or coalition.forces.

Identify and locate in.formation contained on classified databases stored by various Government agencies relevant to defense cases.

Analysts shall search through information regarding al Qaeda and the alleged terrorist acts of al Qaeda contained in numerous investigations conducted outside of the Commissions cases.

Examples include the 911 I Commission, which involves millions of documents and over 1,200 witnesses; the investigation into the attacks on the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that occurred in August 1998. which was the largest investigation conducted abroad by the FBI; and the investigation of the attacks on the United States of September I I, 2001, which involved more than 1,000 FBI employees to support the investigation.

Analysts shall search records resulting from U.S. Government interrogations of detainees held at GTMO. This assistance should take the.form of searching, reviewing, segregating, and analyzing any and all records of interrogations, interviews, statements, and other evidence either provided by or obtained from current and.former detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, as well as locating information contained on classified databases.

Analysts shall gather information from other U.S. agencies thaUzave a/.s.Q...Jl{Jl;__liJ;jpaJ~c;.e~-~~-~= interrogation and investigation of detainees held at GTMO. Assistance is required in locating information contained in classified databases maintained by U.S. and foreign agencies involved in detainee interrogations and operations. DIA, FBI. CIA, and the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force have all been involved.

Investigators shall assist defense counsel in Militmy Commission cases in multiple areas of investigation. including the.following: OJ.factual allegations related to the case: (2) psychosocial histOIJ' of the accused; (3) Government conduct oft he investigation, interrogation, and prosecution of the accused: {4) expert witnesses/or and againsl the accused: (5) cultural issues relating to the accused: (6) any other area of investigation deemed necessaTJ' by counsel for the accused.

Investigators shall investigate factual allegations detailed in charges against the accused. most of which allegedly occurred in foreign countries. Investigation may involve.facts alleged to have occurred over the past several years and require detailed investigation of people and documents located throughout the world

Investigators shall investigate methods o.f interrogations used against the accused, as well as against other witnesses whose statements might be used against the accused. Investigations o.f other Government witnesses will be requ;,·ed.

As part of their duties, investigators shall ident(fj1 additional prosecution and defense witnesses, including, but not limited to, alibi witnesses.

Analysts and investigators shall be provided on a privileged basis (meaning attorney-client privilege is protected) to counsel litigating military commission cases.

Court In.formation Security Officers (CSOs) shall act as principal security advisors to the Chief Trial Judge; the Director, Trial Judiciary Staff; and the sitting trial judges. CSOs shall provide expertise in advising trial judges on protective orders, procedures for using class({ied evidence in trial proceedings, and all other aspects o.f security requirements presented to the trial judges for determination. CSOs shall work directly.for the Chief Clerk o.f the Trial Judiciary (' 'Chief Clerk) ".

CSOs shall ensure class(fied or protected information is not disclosed during Military Commission sessions. CSOs shall examine all filings. opinions. orders, and other materials (collectively "filing" or "filings ') filed with the Chief Clerk, and.forwarding such filings to the Department o.f Defense ("DoD ')Security Class(fication/Declassification Review Team ("Review Team') and any appropriate non-DoD federal department or agency for classification review.

Litigation Security Specialists (LSS) (also known as Court Security Officers in the Federal Court system) shall serve as Officers of the Court in support o.fthe Chie.f o.fthe Office o.fCourt Administration (OCA), OMC. The LSS shall serve in a neutral capacity, providing security support and guidance to the OCA, the Court. as well as to the parties to the case with regard to classified in.formation. LSS shall provide security support at the trial level. throughout the

--- ---· · ----· -appeals process.-and-ffnecessary.-to-the-f:fn ited-5tates·Supreme-Gourt~Fhe-L-8S-shall-ensure-the-proper handling and storage o.f class(fied information.fi·om the Commissions ' trials throughout the appellate process to.finality o.f the cases. These positions require extensive travel throughout the United States and to Naval Station Guantanamo Bay. Cuba with little or no advance notice.

On occasion. the work will require travel to other overseas locations.

OMC-South Security Specialists shall pe1for111 a broad range o.f Sensitive Compartmented b?formation (SCI) and collateral security administration work in support of the O.fficer-in Charge (OIC) and Special Security Officer at U.S. Xaval Station Guantanamo Bay (GTMO).

Cuba that includes Personnel Security. Information Security . Physical Security, Communications Securil) '. and Security Education and Awareness. Overall responsibilities include monitoring policies. procedures. standards. and methods of ident(fying and protecting class{fied il?formation. such as that related to personnel. property. facilities. and operations or other material from unauthorized disclosure, misuse. theft, espionage, sabotage or loss. Must have proper courier documentation. Controls the maintenance of audit trails for receipt, distribution and processing control of all official correspondence.

Defense Security Officers (DSO) pe1form a broad range of Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) and collateral security administration work in support of the Chief Defense Counsel of the Office of Military Commissions (OMC) or his/her designee, specifically as it relates to the cases of United States v. Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, et. al., United States v. al Nashiri. This includes information security and implementation of protective orders as directed by the MilitG1y Judge, as applicable. Overall responsibilities include implementing policies, procedures, standards, and methods of identifying and protecting class{fied information.

4. AUTHORITY AND SUPPORTING RATIONALE: [FAR 6.303-2(b)(4-S)] A. Authority

In accordance with FAR 6.302- l(a)(iii) ·'services may be deemed to be available only from the original source in the case of fo llow-on contracts for the continued provision of highly specialized services when it is likely that award to any other source would result in (A) substantial duplication of cost to the Government that it is not expected to be recovered through competition, or (B) unacceptable delays in fulfilling the agency's requirements ", WHS must award a sole source, follow-on effort to SRA International Inc.

B. Rationale Limiting sources for this acquisition is justified because the current contractor' s experience and expertise make them the only source capable of satisfying the highly specialized requirement of the Government. Specifically, the experience includes providing litigation support in a variety of disciplines, case analysis, litigation preparation, expertise on evidence and tribunal issues, investigating tribunal issues globally, and classified document management in a litigation setting.

An award to any contractor other than the incumbent would severely disrupt the Government's mission, delay upcoming trials for various enemy combatants, and cause the Government to incur needless additional costs. Therefore it is in the Government's best interest to award a sole source contract to SRA International Inc.

L · "AcquiSitiOifBacK:grouna The requirements were initially awarded to SRA in 2007 via a task order issued under the GSA MOBIS contract. Since the initial task order award there have been two fo llow-on awards (HQ0034-I l -F-0042 and HQ0034-l4-F-Ol42) to SRA . Currently, SRA is performing undertask order HQ0034-I 4-F-0142, which includes 45 FTEs and expires on l 0 May 2016.

ii. Events Precluding Competition The support personnel provided by SRA are integral to the OMC mission; the contractor personnel are not administrative support they are experts in the evidence. issues, and procedures of the tribunal. As previously mentioned, the contractor personnel provide critical support and substantive analysis that help develop trial strategies for both the prosecution and defense, and in fo rm the military tribunals concerning proper procedure, conduct. and rulings during the criminal processes. Retain ing some incumbent personnel during a transition may be possible for

RobersDE Text Box a new contractor, however the potential risk and disruption caused by departing incumbent personnel will likely interrupt the proceedings, cause significant delay, and significantly increase cost to the Government. These risks significantly outweigh any potential cost savings that may be realized by competing this requirement.

Additional risks include the following:

a. The prosecution requires the expert/experienced SRA personnel to continue viewing, cataloging, and indexing those materials so as to comply with court ordered discovery. At this juncture, and for the foreseeable future , only SRA experts can provide the Office of the Chief Prosecutor (OCP) with the expe1ts who have the institutional knowledge and unique capabilities by covering the past eight years or more of OCP case preparation.

b. Many of the expert SRA investigators and analysts have the same historical knowledge of case details and case history as the assigned case attorneys for both the prosecution and defense. SRA personnel have worked on these cases for at least 8 years (not including the time under a contract where they were performing the same work for the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Task Force (CITF)).

c. SRA is able to properly handle the extensive documents that will be assessed and processed before and during the 9/1 I and USS Cole trials. SRA employees have helped gather evidence and intelligence from all over the world. They have analyzed massive amounts of written documents, made visits OCONUS to many locations (some of which are now no longer accessible), and have been present for hundreds of interviews with potential witnesses. The analysts' knowledge is relied upon heavily by the prosecutors to provide a factual level of detail far beyond what any one individual attorney could manage. Summaries of evidence accessed by new personnel are often not as beneficial to trial and defense as the personal recollections of the incumbent interviewers themselves. This crucial historical and institutional knowledge will be lost to both prosecution and defense if the SRA team is replaced.

- ----·-·-- -·-.. -·a:-Tlfe defense counseltormgn-value<lefainees· consiOITTne personnel assigffecl"1o----·----··-- -the defense as a part of the defense team. Disrupting those teams will cause substantial delay in trying to re-assemble the requisite knowledge in order to be prepared for these capital trials in the coming months and years.

e. After long delays initiated by the military judge overseeing the 911 l case, hearings are progressing again. The loss of 45 SRA personnel vvould cause any momentum by the prosecution and defense to come to an immediate halt and cause trial delays. Losing all of the expe1t SRA personnel would halt the hearings and trials by military commissions on Guantanamo Bay for a minimum of 6-12 months.

f. There would be substantial duplication of costs to retrain new personnel; these costs would substantially exceed costs recovered through competition.

g. There would be substantial duplication of costs to the Government associated with security clearances. In the summer of 20 15 The Office of Personnel Management's databases were compromised which caused a substantial backlog from which they are still recovering. This has the potential to cause additional delays for incumbent personnel who are required to begin the security process again. Background investigations, as well as "read-offs" and "read-ons" that would need to occur if there were a lapse in service, are time consuming and labor intensive. Such a delay would have meaningful consequences for the litigation.

h. SRA has developed propriety software to process the mass volumes of evidence.

If SRA does not continue as the service provider there would be massive delays in evidence processing. Moreover, the SRA proprietary software used to store voluminous case documents has been used for many years and is non-duplicable.

It is critical that is utilized in order to maintain the OCP mission without significant disruption and delay. Even if the SRA software is sold to the government and many of the same personnel are rehired by the new vendor, this would cause an unacceptable delay for all court proceedings.

i. In the event of contractor change there would be security-related delays even if some incumbent personnel were retained. Should the current contract lapse after I 0 May 2016, the largest impediment to removing and then reinstating the current contractors would be loss of access. Incumbent personnel would lose their common access cards with an anticipated minimum delay of two weeks to get the cards reissued. It would also take an additional several weeks to get incumbent personnel's TS/SCI and special access reinstated. Ultimately, it would take at least several months to return to the ·'security" (but not the expertise) status quo if the current contract expires or lapses.

5. DESCRIPTION OF EFFORTS TO SOLICIT FROM AS MANY OFFERORS AS

POSSIBl:IE : (FARo:303'=I(b}{6)) ~====== Due to the highly spec ialized nature of the requirement, and the circumstances surrounding this acquisition, no other sources were solicited. Also, as a result of the sources sought synopsis, no other contractors were identified who were able provide the required services as they relate to OMC.

6. REPRESENTATION OF FAIR AND REASONABLE COST: :[FAR 6.303-2(b)(7)] The Contracting Officer will ensure that the final negotiated price for this effort is fair and reasonable in accordance with FAR 15.404-1 procedures in accordance with OPAP Deviation 214-000 I I dated 13 March 20 14.

7. DESCRIPTION OF MARKET RESEARCH:[FAR 6.303-2(b)(8)] WHS AD released a sources sought synopsis on 19 October 2015 which generated responses from several firms. Although some firms had contributed to missions having some simi larities to OMC, and might be able to perform some of the requirement, none had experience performing work similar to the entire requirement, or the entire requirement under circumstances similar to the OMC requirement; i.e., providing multiple personnel of various disciplines embedded to the prosecution and defense teams, under unique security requirements and working and travel requirements for GTMO.

8. ANY OTHER SUPPORTING FACTS:[FAR 6.303-2(b)(9)] None.

9. LISTING OF INTERESTED SOURCES:[FAR 6.303-2(b)(10)] The following companies expressed interest in response to the sources sought synopsis:

Concord Crossroads, LLC.

Strategic Solutions Unlimited, Inc.

Matrix Operating Solutions Xator Corp.

Salient CRGT Telum Corp.

Mission Essential Personnel Imperatis Corp.

Decision Technologies Inc.

Potomac River Group Leonie Industries, LLC Daykam Management Consultants , LLC

10. ACTIONS TAKEN TO REMOVE BARRIERS TO COMPETITION: :(FAR 6.303-

2(b)(ll)) OM C's enemy combatant trial preparation, as it relates to case analysts, investigators, --- ---- ----afld-1RfultigeAse-ana:ty:StSiffiust-ma1nta1R-OOnt-1nutty;:::::r.he-cir-eumstances tnat:precludv--competition cannot be mitigated without a lapse in the essential services provided by SRA personnel. Based on the previously cited information, there were no actions taken to remove barriers to competition.

11. TECHNICAL/ REQUIREMENTS CERTIFICATION

I certify that the facts and circumstances regarding the technical requirements which are included in this justification and which are being used to support this justification state the government's minimum needs and are complete and accurate.

Signature: Oiglttlly signed by KELLY.WENDY. KEU.Y.WENOY.A.10132431 11

ON: C•US. O•U.S. Government. OU• OoO.

A.1013243111 Wendy A. Kelly Chief Operations Department oua.PKI. ouc-Ol.SA.

c""KELLY.WENOY.A.1013243 111 Oaie: 2016.05.05 10:27:56 .04·00·

Office of Military Commissions

12. CONTRACTING OFFICER CERTIFICATION

571-372-3724

I have reviewed this justification and find it to be accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Signature

Contracting Officer o .g..t;.ly s.:lgne:a hr IWCK l({LU!.E.1060IJJ961 ON: C!O"\IS, O• U.S Govtrt\M~t.Ol.l-000, OU•hCt. Ou•WHS, cna8\JCICJC£LLIE ( .1060833961 D•tt: 2016.05.0S 1):)):)5 •(WOO"

WHS/ AD

13. COMPETITION ADVOCATE APPROVAL

I have reviewed this justification and find it to be accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Signature:

£u~ David D. Sanders Competition Advocate WHS/ AD

14. HEAD OF CONTRACTING ACTIVITY APPROVAL

703-545-0380

I have rev iewed this justification and find it to be accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Signature:

Cheri Tyner Head of Contracting Activity WHS/ AD 703-545-0444