JOFOC-NLETS_FBO.pdf

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Justification and Approval for Other than Full and Open Competition (JOFOC)

1. Agency and Contracting Activity:

United States (U.S.) Department of Justice (DOJ) | Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) | Office of Management | Property, Acquisitions, and Safety Division (PASD) | Acquisitions Branch | 99 New York Avenue NE, 3.S-125 | Washington, DC 20226 | Sheray Millhouse (Sheray.Millhouse@ATF.gov), 202-648-9071

Requesting Office: Office of Strategic Intelligence and Information (OSII) | Intelligence and Information Systems Division (IISD) | Intelligence Systems Support Branch (ISSB) | 99 New York Avenue NE, 8.S 295 | Washington, DC 20226 |

2. Nature and/or Description of Action Being Approved:

ATF is considering issuing a sole-source, firm-fixed-price contract to a Large Business, National Law-Enforcement Telecommunications System (NLETS) – The International Justice & Public Safety Network. NLETS is located on 1918 W. Whispering Wind Dr. in Phoenix, AZ 85085.

3. Description of the Supplies and/or Services required to meet the Agency’s needs (including the period of performance, estimated value and options):

ATF needs secure access to exchange credible and critical, intelligence information with other law-enforcement, criminal-justice, and public-safety, related entities. Such information pertains to a variety of areas applicable to persons of interest, to include:

motor-vehicle and drivers’ data; state, criminal-history records; and driver-license and corrections images for the purpose of conducting criminal investigations and protecting the safety of law-enforcement agents and the public at large. The NLETS also includes access to Canada databases and that of the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) through its partnership with the latter.

The anticipated period of performance is 5/1/2021 – 4/30/2026, consisting of one- (1-) base year and four- (4-) option years (OYs) for an estimated-total cost of $429,985.37 per the breakout below.

Period of Performance Annual Cost Base Year (5/1/2021 – 4/30/2022)

OY 1 (5/1/2022 – 4/30/2023)

OY 2 (5/1/2023 – 4/30/2024)

OY 3 (5/1/2024 – 4/30/2025)

OY 4 (5/1/2025 – 4/30/2026)

4. Statutory authority permitting Other than Full and Open Competition:

This justification is pursuant to 41 U.S. Code § 3304(a)(1) and the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 6.302-1, ‘Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy the needs of the Agency’.

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5. Demonstration that the Contractor’s Unique Qualifications or the Nature of the Acquisition Requires use of Authority Cited:

Per NLETS’ letter dated July 30, 2020, which is attached, it is a ‘501(c) (3) not-for-profit corporation owned and operated by the 50 States, districts and territories known as the Principal membership and is administered by a Board of Directors elected from those state law-enforcement agencies. It employs a small staff to run the system and network on a daily basis. It is unique in that it operates an international system and network accessible by all criminal justice agencies and is the only provider of this capability in the U.S. In many ways, it operates like a local utility, such as water or electricity. The users of the network are criminal justice agencies, both state and federal and at all levels of government. Again, there are no other entities in the U.S. public, private, or government that provides this capability.’

NLETS is the only vendor capable of satisfying this requirement based on the scope, reliability and totality of records made available to serve ATF’s criminal investigation, law-enforcement agents and public-safety needs, and the efficiency of the data exchange.

6. Description of efforts made to ensure offers are solicited from as many potential sources as practicable, including whether a Notice was or will be publicized as required by FAR 5.2 and, if not, which exception under FAR 5.202 applies:

Since this requirement exceeds $25,000, the Contracting Officer (CO) will post a Notice of Intent under the Contract Opportunities section of www.Beta.SAM.gov upon approval of this JOFOC.

7. Determination by the CO that the Anticipated Cost to the Government, including options, will be Fair and Reasonable:

NLETS’ user-access fee is currently /month and will increase to /month in July 2021. Additionally, the CO found a membership fee of $5,183/month on NLETS' website;

she’s just not sure if such is for the same service as this requirement. Since its principal membership sets the rates and charges the same fee to all users per its letter dated July 30, 2020, the CO determines its price is both fair and reasonable per FAR 13.106-3(a)(2); this includes a 2%, annual-escalation through 2026.

8. Description of the Market Research (MR) conducted and the Results or a Statement of the reason MR was not conducted per FAR 10:

a) IISD conducted an Internet search for criminal history information providers in early

2020 and found no other entities capable of providing credible, intelligence information from state, federal and international law-enforcement agencies, to conduct criminal investigations and protect the safety of ATF’s law-enforcement agents and the public other than NLETS. IISD even reached out to the Department of Justice via phone to see how its organization was searching for domestic and international information on subjects and still found no other vendors that could provide this service needed to conduct ATF’s mission.

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Additionally, the CO conducted market research on 3/16/2021, 3/17/2021, 4/2/2021, and 4/7/2021 via Acquisition Gateway’s Hallway (AGH), Unicor’s site, the Interagency Contract Directory (ICD) portal, the General Services Administration’s (GSA’s) eLibrary and Advantage sites, also Google and Beta.SAM.

AGH, Unicor, ICD and GSA eLibrary generated no results. GSA Advantage displayed four

(4) contractors, all of which seem to provide some type of access to both NLETS and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC): 1) offers the with , which allows background checks and authenticates identifications; it seems the Navy and Army use these services that costs ~$50K to ~$77K. 2) offers

, which allows law enforcement to communicate with each other; this database contains criminal-history records and stolen articles (i.e. passports, firearms, etc.), vehicles and missing persons; this costs ~$23K to ~$181K. 3) offers , a crime database that costs ~$20K; and 4) offers , a platform of information for law enforcement that costs ~$16K. The

CO discovered are all strategic partners of NLETS.

Google displayed many law-enforcement databases, where only two (2) seemed to contain information internationally (InterPol and NLETS); InterPol ‘helps police in ~200 countries work together to make the world a safer place by enabling them to exchange data on crimes and criminals, while providing technical and operational support.’ The CO even found a partnership DOJ had with NLETS and InterPol ~May 2012 under its Global Justice Information Sharing Initiative.

Lastly, Beta.SAM displayed three (2) agencies that had announced, solicited for and/or awarded a contract to NLETS for the access ATF needs: 1a) the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in September 2018 for unknown amount under #192118EROLESA00053; 1b) DHS again in July 2020 for $436,192 (five {5} years) under #DHS-ICE / 70CTD020P00000014; 2) the Department of Defense (Army) in November/December 2017 for an unknown amount under #W15QKN-18-Q-0009; and

3) GSA for $38.4K in December 2019/January 2020 under 47QMCA20D000Q / 47QMCA20Q0012 (47QMCA20D001P). (Note: The GSA buy reads, “to provide the criminal justice community and members of NLETS access to U.S. federal government vehicle and licenses plate registration information.”)

b) Access to NLETS is considered a commercial item that is not customarily available in the commercial marketplace but are made to meet the Federal Government’s requirements. It does not have “minor modifications of a type not customarily available in the commercial marketplace made to meet Federal Government requirements and does not significantly alter the non-governmental function or essential physical characteristics of an item or component, or change the purpose of a process”.

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c) The practices of firms engaged in producing, distributing, and supporting the required supplies or services include entering into contracts with commercial and/or government entities for these items, offering warranties, offering traditional buyer financing, providing maintenance, packaging and marking as requested by their customer.

d) No Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or United States Department of Agriculture- (USDA-) designated items are being acquired; therefore, recovered materials need not be considered per FAR 23.4.

e) Consolidation is not necessary and does not need to be justified in separate documentation, regardless if the value will not exceed $2M.

f) Bundling is not necessary and does not need to be justified in a separate documentation.

Currently, there continues to be no other viable competitors.

9. Any other Facts Supporting the use of Other than Full and Open Competition:

a) Explanation of why technical-data packages, specifications, engineering descriptions, statements of work or purchase descriptions suitable for full and open competition have not been developed or are not available. This requirement is for access to credible, intelligence information and not available for competition per this justification.

b) When FAR 6.302-1 is cited for follow-on acquisitions as described in FAR 6.302-1(a)(2)(ii), an estimate of the cost to the Government that would be duplicated and how the estimate was derived. This is not a follow-on to an order for the continued development or production of a major system or highly-specialized equipment, including major components thereof.

c) When FAR 6.302-2 is cited, data, estimated cost, or other rationale as to the extent and nature of the harm to the Government. FAR 6.302-2 is not cited; nor is it applicable to this acquisition.

Without access to NLETS, ATF cannot properly function as a law-enforcement agency because it won’t be able to query the necessary information to perform record checks on subjects. Per NLETS’ letter dated July 30, 2020, it “is the premiere, interstate justice and public safety network in the nation for the exchange of information provided by law-enforcement, criminal-justice, and public-safety, related entities. The user population is composed of all of the U.S. and territories, all Federal agencies with a justice component, selected international agencies, and a variety of strategic partners that serve the law-enforcement community—all cooperatively-exchanging data. Operations consist of nearly 1 billion transactions a year to over 1.3 million PC, mobile and handheld devices in the U.S.

and Canada at 80,000 user agencies and 1.2 million individual users.”