Sole_Source_Justification_-_FY17-0496.pdf

Sole Source Justification (SSJ) Test Program for Certain Commercial items for procurements exceeding the Simplified Acquisition

Threshold (> $150,000) pursuant to FAR Subpart 13.5, including Brand Name

Sole Source Justification for Simplified Acquisitions under the Test Program for Certain Commercial Items for acquisitions exceeding $150,000, including brand name for use when applicable.

SSJ No.: FY17-0496

Rev. 2/5/2016

SSJ No.: FY17-0496

Date: 10/05/2017 PR Number: RSAR-17-00095

Pursuant to the requirements under the authority of the test program for commercial items at 41

U.S.C. 1901 or the authority of 41 U.S.C. 1903 Special emergency authority as implemented by

Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 13.501 and consistent with the content requirements of FAR 6.303-2.

1. Agency and Contracting Activity.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Office of Procurement Operations (OPO), Science and Technology Acquisition Division (STAD) on behalf of the Science and Technology

Directorate (S&T), Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency (HSARPA) Data

Analytics Engine (DA-E), prepared this sole source justification.

2. Nature and/or description of the action being approved.

Pursuant to FAR 13.501, DHS intends to award the sole source contract with SourceHOV using

Commercial Test procedures, without seeking competition, for the Rule 14 Global Intelligence

Tool. This action is being taken as SourceHOV is the only authorized reseller of the Rule 14

Global Intelligence Tool required to support the agency and HSARPA S&T DA-E Program mission requirements.

3. Description of Supplies/Services.

The requirement is to continue testing and evaluating the Rule14 Global Intelligence Tool.

Rule14 Global Intelligence Tool provides for experimenting with flexible workflow management, extraction and machine learning through the utilization of state-of-the-art programming analytics and crowd-sourcing techniques. This software will allow DHS to continue to develop requirements within HSARPA, the Social Media Task Force, and the

Department to equip DHS with social media analytic capabilities in data analytics.

The estimated value of the base period of performance is $120,008.40. The total value of this requirement, if all options are exercised, will be $2,544,400.80.

Period Period Total Base Period 4 months $120,008.40 Optional CLINs Base Period $728,125.20 Option Period 1 4 months $120,008.40 Optional CLINs Option Period 1 $728,125.20 Option Period 2 4 months $120,008.40 http://uscode.house.gov/ http://uscode.house.gov/

Threshold (> $150,000) pursuant to FAR Subpart 13.5, including Brand Name

Sole Source Justification for Simplified Acquisitions under the Test Program for Certain Commercial Items for acquisitions exceeding $150,000, including brand name for use when applicable.

SSJ No.: FY17-0496

Optional CLINs Option Period 2 $728,125.20

Total $2,544,400.80

4. Identification of the authority.

This action is being taken under the authority of the Test Program for Commercial Items, 41

U.S.C. 1901.

5. Demonstration that the proposed contractor’s unique qualifications or the nature of the acquisition requires use of the authority cited.

The Rule14 Global Intelligence Tool is proprietary software and SourceHOV is the only reseller.

The Rule14 Global Intelligence Tool was selected after a survey of capabilities conducted by a

Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) on behalf of DHS HSARPA. Of the 275 companies originally found in the survey conducted by the FFRDC, 30 were invited to present their capabilities to stakeholders across DHS. HSARPA evaluated each piece of software against a set of performance capabilities in a laboratory setting. These capabilities were:

Information Sources, Data Management, System Capabilities, Analysis Capabilities, and

Language Capabilities. Rule 14 was found to be one of the top performing tools in this evaluation. Based on these findings, HSARPA decided to place Rule 14 into further testing.

As the technical lead for the DHS Social Media Task Force, S&T has worked with component operational representatives and oversight personnel throughout FY 2017, investing significant resources in the development of technical experiments and operational pilots using several analytics tools, including the Rule 14 Global Intelligence Tool, to establish mission metrics, technical targets, and performance baselines for a variety of DHS open source and social media analytics use cases. In order to complete a series of ongoing experiments and operational pilots which began in FY 2017, additional support is necessary. The continued use of this software will enable continuity of science and technology based experiments and pilot operations against established technology, architecture and performance baselines.

Procuring the Rule 14 Global Intelligence Tool is essential to the Government’s requirements under the DA-E program because Rule 14 is unique and highly specialized, containing unique solutions for experimenting with flexible workflow management, extraction and machine learning with open source media platforms that track and search publically available data and other authorized government information utilizing state-of-the-art programming analytics and crowd-sourcing techniques for the most up to date situational awareness. The capabilities allow the user to rapidly experiment with model development that may assist with the efficient location of both derogatory and confirmatory information which has the potential to improve screening and vetting activities conducted by DHS components. Procuring the Rule 14 Global Intelligence

Tool as described herein allows HSARPA to continue properly evaluating a rapidly emerging technology that has demonstrated significant promise for the government’s Social Media Task

Threshold (> $150,000) pursuant to FAR Subpart 13.5, including Brand Name

Sole Source Justification for Simplified Acquisitions under the Test Program for Certain Commercial Items for acquisitions exceeding $150,000, including brand name for use when applicable.

SSJ No.: FY17-0496

Force mission. These unique solutions are ideal to the developing requirements within HSARPA, the Social Media Task Force, and the Department.

S&T and the DHS Social Media Task Force invested hours of personnel time throughout FY

2017 customizing the Rule 14 Global Intelligence Tool to DHS use cases. This development is ongoing, and the action requested for FY 2018 enables continuity of operations for development, testing, and evaluation. Data from these pilots will be used to support requirements definition and acquisition strategies for the new DHS social media center to be established in FY18, subject to the availability of funding and approval from Congress. Without the unique and highly specialized functions provided by the Rule14 Global Intelligence Tool, the mission execution of the DHS HSARPA S&T DA-E Program would be drastically hindered. The Program would not be able to ultimately allow end users to rapidly search through huge volumes of social media data and detect information relevant to DHS mission use cases.

The Rule 14 Global Intelligence Tool is not being used in an operational environment, but for testing purposes as part of research and development activities to determine what types of software work best in a variety of DHS operational contexts and environments.

6. Description of efforts made to ensure that offers are solicited from as many potential sources as is practicable.

In accordance with FAR 5.102 (a)(6), this Sole Source Justification will be included with the solicitation. Redactions will be made as necessary.

7. Determination by the contracting officer that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable.

The Contract Specialist and Contracting Officer will use information gained from the

Independent Government Cost Estimate (IGCE) and the prior acquisition of the Rule 14 Global

Intelligence Tool to assist in ensuring a fair and reasonable price is obtained for this procurement. In accordance with FAR 13.106-3(a) (2), the contracting officer will include a statement of price reasonableness in the contract file determining that the anticipated prices will be fair and reasonable based on the following:

13.106(a)(2)(ii), Comparison of the proposed price with prices found reasonable on previous purchases and 13.106(a)(2)(vi), Comparison to an Independent Government estimate.

8. Description of market research.

Market research conducted for this effort indicated that there are similar software tools to the

Rule 14 Global Intelligence Tool available, including Dataminr, Ntrepid, Paterva, Predata, and

Primer. However, these tools do not provide the same capabilities as the Rule 14 Global

Threshold (> $150,000) pursuant to FAR Subpart 13.5, including Brand Name

Sole Source Justification for Simplified Acquisitions under the Test Program for Certain Commercial Items for acquisitions exceeding $150,000, including brand name for use when applicable.

SSJ No.: FY17-0496

Intelligence Tool, which HSARPA has identified as one of the highest performing tools available to them.

For instance, Dataminr provides real-time information discovery services that transforms real-time data from Twitter into actionable signals, identifying relevant information in real-time for clients in finance, news, security and crisis management, and the public sector. However, sole social media channel is Twitter, while Rule 14 can access multiple social media channels including Twitter, Facebook, and other related forms of social media.

Ntrepid provides endpoint security and information management solutions that helps users in online research and data collection eliminate online threats. While useful, Ntrepid is focused on security/prevention and not social media analytics. Ntrepid is currently being tested under a separate effort focused on anonymous web browsing.

Paterva develops Maltego, an open source intelligence and forensics application. Maltego is a program that is used to determine the relationships and real world links between people, groups of people/social networks, companies, organizations, Websites, Internet, phrases, affiliations, and documents and files, as well as infrastructure, such as domains, DNS names, Netblocks, and IP addresses. However, Paterva is foreign-owned, based out of Irene, South Africa. The DA-E is currently only looking at U.S. owned companies due to licensing and IT security requirements.

Predata develops and provides a predictive analytics platform for political, financial, and market risk intelligence worldwide. It offers a cloud-based, language-agnostic platform that enables customers to understand, visualize, and anticipate dynamic, real-time shifts in online conversations about topics of interest to them. Predata is actually not looking at content on the internet like other tools, but looks at other activity that may be used for prediction which is not what the DA-E currently seeks for their social media analytics testing.

Finally, Primer’s software focuses on the collection of data from journals and news articles, not social media as needed by the DA-E.

9. Any other facts supporting the justification.

As stated, the Rule14 Global Intelligence Tool is available from a sole re-seller, SourceHOV.

Considerable effort and resources have already been expended successfully testing and evaluating the Rule14 Global Intelligence Tool. Beginning the test and evaluation from the beginning, with a new piece of software, would result in a considerable amount of wasted time, effort, and funding as testing and customization would have to begin again. Furthermore, the

Government would potentially find themselves in the same position in FY19, seeking to either continue the testing of the software product procured in a competitive environment, or having to re-solicit yet again due to the failure of that particular product in laboratory testing, leading to a potentially endless cycle of testing in an environment lacking infinite resources. The Rule14

Threshold (> $150,000) pursuant to FAR Subpart 13.5, including Brand Name

Sole Source Justification for Simplified Acquisitions under the Test Program for Certain Commercial Items for acquisitions exceeding $150,000, including brand name for use when applicable.

SSJ No.: FY17-0496

Global Intelligence Tool was selected after a survey of capabilities conducted by a Federally

Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC).

Without the unique and highly specialized functions provided by the Rule14 Global Intelligence

Tool, the mission execution of the DHS HSARPA S&T DA-E Program would be drastically hindered. The Program would not be able to ultimately allow end users to rapidly search through huge volumes of social media data and detect information relevant to DHS mission use cases.

Furthermore, should S&T be forced to use an alternate source, DHS would have to procure new software, software licenses, and restart the customization and testing process that has already been going on with the Rule 14 Global Intelligence Tool, at a cost of $500,000.00. This would substantially increase the cost of this procurement.

10. A listing of the sources, if any that expressed, in writing, an interest in the acquisition.

A synopsis, HSHQDC-17-Q-00480, was issued on FedBizOpps on August 31, 2017. The synopsis did not request any responses. However, responsible sources were able to submit a capability statement, proposal or quotation. Digimind, a company who is not a reseller of the

Rule14 software the synopsis requested, provided a capability statement to the Government on

September 15, 2017.

No further sources expressed an interest in this acquisition.

11. A statement of the actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers to competition before any subsequent acquisition for supplies or services required.

Approval to purchase the additional social media channels through Rule 14 is for the purposes of product testing only. Once testing is completed, the program office will define its functional requirements based on those lessons learned from the product test and evaluation and will competitively solicit those requirements.

12. DHS intends to post the requirement pursuant to FAR 13.501(a)(1)(iv) and FAR 5.102(a)(6).

Threshold (> $150,000) pursuant to FAR Subpart 13.5, including Brand Name

Sole Source Justification for Simplified Acquisitions under the Test Program for Certain Commercial Items for acquisitions exceeding $150,000, including brand name for use when applicable.

SSJ No.: FY17-0496

13. Technical/Requirements Personnel Certification. I certify this requirement meets the

Government’s minimum need and that the supporting data, which forms a basis for this justification, is complete and accurate.

STEPHEN J

Digitally signed by STEPHEN J

DENNIS 31 Oct 2017

14. Contracting Officer Certification and Approval. I certify that the justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

RICHARD J

Digitally signed by RICHARD J

SIMONS 10/31/2017

15. Approval:

GARY E HICKEY

Digitally signed by GARY E

HICKEY 10/31/2017

D_a_te_: 2_0_17_.1_0_.3_1 _18_:0_9_:1_3 _-0_4'0_0_'

Gary Hickey Date

Procuring Activity Advocate for Competition

Office of Procurement Operations (OPO)

_D_E N_N IS D_at_e:_2_01_7_.1_0._31_0_9_:2_6:_43_-_04_'0_0_'

Stephen Dennis

Data Analytics Engine Director

(S&T/HSARPA)

Contracting Officer Representative (COR)

Date

_S_I_M_O N_S D_a_te_: 2_0_17_.1_0_.3_1 _11_:1_8_:3_2 _-0_4'0_0_'

Richard Simons

Contracting Officer Office of Procurement Operations (OPO)

Date