Daily Hampshire Gazette from Northampton, Massachusetts • b3

B3 Wedne sday, ly 7, 2021 gazet tenet.comWORLD NATION By ROBERT BURNS Associated Press WASHINGTON The Pen- tagon said Tuesday it canceled a disputed cloud-computing contract with Microsoft that could eventually have been worth $10 billion. It will instead pursue a deal with both Mi- crosoft and Amazon and possi- bly other cloud service providers. the shifting technol- ogy environment, it has be- come clear that the JEDI Cloud contract, which has long been delayed, no longer meets the requirements to fill the capability the Pentagon said in a statement. The statement did not di- rectly mention that the Pen- tagon faced extended legal challenges by Amazon to the original $1 million contract awarded to Microsoft. Amazon argued that the Microsoft award was tainted by politics, particularly then-President Donald antagonism toward chief execu- tive officer, Jeff Bezos.

Bezos owns The Washington Post, a news outlet often criticized by Tr ump. The chief infor- mation officer, John Sherman, told reporters Tuesday that during the lengthy legal fight with Amazon, landscape has with new possibil- ities for large-scale cloud com- puting services. Thus it was decided, he said, to start over and seek multiple vendors. Sherman said JEDI will be replaced by a new program called Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability, and that both Ama- zon and Microsoft will be awarded parts of the busi- ness, although neither is guar- anteed. Sherman said the three other large cloud service providers Google, IBM and Oracle might qualify, too.

Microsoft said in response to the Pentagon announce- ment, understand the DoD rationale, and we sup- port them and every military member who needs the mis- sion-critical 21st century tech- nology JEDI would have pro- vided. The DoD faced a diffi- cult choice: Continue with what could be a years-long liti- gation battle or find another path Amazon Web Services, a market leader in providing cloud computing services, had long been considered a leading candidate to run the Pen- a Joint Enterprise De- fense Infrastructure project, known as JEDI. The project was meant to store and pro- cess vast amounts of classified data, allowing the U.S. military to improve communications with soldiers on the battlefield and use artificial intelligence to speed up its war planning and fighting capabilities. The JEDI contract became mired in legal challenges al- most as soon as it was awarded to Microsoft in October 2019.

The losing bidder, Amazon Web Services, went to court ar- guing that the pro- cess was flawed and unfair, in- cluding that it was improperly influenced by politics. This year the Pentagon had been hinting that it might scrap the contract, saying in May that it felt compelled to re- consider its options after a fed- eral judge in April rejected a Pentagon move to have key parts of lawsuit dis- missed. The JEDI saga has been unusual for the political di- mension linked to Trump. In April 2020, the Defense De- partment inspector office concluded that the con- tracting process was in line with legal and government purchasing standards. The in- spector general found no evi- dence of White House interfer- ence in the contract award pro- cess, but that review also said investigators could not fully re- view the matter because the White House would not allow unfettered access to wit- nesses.

Five months later, the Pen- tagon reaffirmed Microsoft as winner of the contract, but work remained stalled by A a legal challenge. In its April 2020 report, the inspector office did not draw a conclusion about whether the Redmond, Wash- ington-based Microsoft Corp. was appropriately declared the winner. Rather, it looked at whether the decision-making process was proper and legal. It also examined allegations of unethical behavior by Pen- tagon officials involved in the matter and generally deter- mined that any ethical lapses did not influence the outcome.

That review did not find evi- dence of White House pres- sure for the Pentagon to favor the Microsoft bid, but it also said it could not definitely de- termine the full extent of White House interactions with the Pe a decision makers. Officials say long-delayed JEDI contract no longer meets US defense needs Pentagon cancels cloud contract with Microsoft By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER and MICHAEL KUNZELMAN Associated Press The first waves of arrests in the deadly siege at the U.S. Capitol focused on the easy tar- gets. Dozens in the pro-Trump mob openly bragged about their actions on Jan. 6 on social media and were captured in shocking footage broadcast live by national news outlets.

But six months after the in- surrection, the Justice Depart- ment is still hunting for scores of rioters, even as the first of more than 500 people already arrested have pleaded guilty. The struggle reflects the mas- sive scale of the investigation and the grueling work still ahead for authorities in the face of an increasing effort by some Republican lawmakers to rewrite what happened that a y. Among those who still a been caught: the per- son who planted two pipe bombs outside the offices of the Republican and Demo- cratic national committees the night before the melee, as well as many people accused of at- tacks on law enforcement offi- cers or violence and threats against journalists. The FBI website seeking information about those involved in the Capitol violence includes more than 900 pictures of roughly 300 people labeled Part of the problem is that authorities made very few ar- rests on Jan. 6.

They were fo- cused instead on clearing the building of members of the massive mob that attacked po- lice, damaged historic property and combed the halls for law- makers they threatened to kill. Federal investigators are forced to go back and hunt down participants. The FBI has since received countless tips and pieces of digital media from the public. But a tip is only the first step of a painstaking process in volving things like search war- rants and interviews to con- firm identities and their presence at the insurrec- tion in order to bring a case in court. And authorities have no record of many of the attackers because this was their first run-in with the law.

of these people never showed up on the radar screen said Frank Montoya a retired FBI special agent who led the field of- fices in Seattle and Honolulu. watch the movies and a name comes up on the radar screen and they know all the aliases and the last place he ate dinner, all with a click of a button. Unfortunately, not how it is in The FBI has been helped by or arm- chair detectives who have teamed up to identify some of the most elusive suspects, us- ing crowdsourcing to pore over the vast trove of videos and photos from the assault. Forrest Rogers, a business consultant who helped form a group of sedition hunters called State said the group has reported the possible identities of about 100 suspects to the FBI based on evidence it collected. Sometimes, a distinctive ar- ticle of clothing helps the group make a match.

In one case, a woman carrying a unique iPhone case on Jan. 6 had been photographed with the same case at an earlier protest, Rogers said. seeking he said. is something unprecedented in the history of our Rogers asked, else have you had sev- eral thousands of people who commit a crime and then im- mediately disperse all over the United John Scott-Railton is a se- nior researcher at the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto who has been collabo- rating with journalists and oth- ers to identify suspects using digital clues. He said that while much is known about the who committed crimes that day, a deeper un- derstanding is needed of the actions of organized group leaders.

all need to be in a place where we can have conversa- tions about what Jan. 6th was that go beyond a bunch of indi- viduals motivated by a set of ideologies who showed up at the he said. Those being sought include many accused of violent at- tacks on officers. One video re- leased by the FBI shows an unidentified man attacking offi- cers with a baton. In another, a man is seen ripping the gas mask off an officer who screamed in pain as he was be- ing crushed into a doorway by the angry mob.

The FBI on Tuesday re- leased 11 new videos of rioters attacking law enforcement offi- cers and appealed for the pub- help in identifying the sus- pects. More than 100 people al- ready have been arrested on suspicion of assaulting law en- forcement officers at the Capi- tol. In some cases, social media platforms have turned over in- criminating posts that defen- dants tried to delete after their gleeful celebrations of the siege gave way to fears of be- ing arrested. Often, the attack- own family, friends or ac- quaintances tipped off authori- ties. In one case, the FBI used facial comparison software to find a suspect on his girl- Instagram account.

Agents then went undercover, secretly recorded the man at work and got him on tape ad- mitting to being in the crowd, which he described as more of these people you identify potentially through search warrants and social media communications going to be able to identify said Tom who focused on counterterrorism as a special agent before leaving the bu- reau in 2019. people who have been arrested will then be given the opportunity to cooperate and identify other persons The FBI has offered a re- ward of up to $100,000 for infor- mation leading to the arrest of the person responsible for planting the pipe bombs in Washington on Jan. 5. Footage shows a person in a gray hooded sweatshirt, a mask and gloves appearing to place one of the explosives under a bench outside the Democratic National Committee and the person walking in an alley near the Republican National Com- mittee before the bomb was placed there. It remains un- clear whether the bombs were related to planning for the in- sur rection.

Hunt for Capitol attackers still on AP FILE PHOTO Rioters loyal to then-President Donald Trump mass outside of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. MIAMI HERALD VIA AP Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava speaks at a press conference about the collapsed Champlain Towers South condominium building, Tuesday, in Surfside, Fla. By TERRY SPENCER Associated Press SURFSIDE, Fla.

Offi- cials overseeing the search at the site of the Florida condo- minium collapse sounded in- creasingly somber Tuesday about the prospects for finding anyone alive, saying they have detected no new signs of life in the rubble as the death toll climbed to 36. Crews in yellow helmets and blue jumpsuits searched the debris for a 13th day while wind and rain from the outer bands of Tropical Storm Elsa complicated their efforts. Video released by the Miami- Dade County Fire Rescue De- partment showed workers lugging pickaxes and power saws through piles of concrete rubble barbed with snapped steel rebar. Other searchers could be seen digging with gloved hands through pulver- ized concrete and dumping shovels of debris into large buckets. Search-and-rescue work- ers continued to look for open spaces where people might be found alive nearly two weeks after the disaster struck at the Champlain Towers South building in Surfside.

actively searching as aggressively as we Miami-Dade County Fire Chief Alan Cominsky said at a news conference. But he added: we are not seeing anything positive. The key things void spaces, living spaces not see- ing anything like While officials still call the efforts a search-and-rescue operation, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said families of those still missing are preparing for news of think everybody will be ready when time to move to the next said Levine Cava, who stressed that crews would use the same care as they go through the rubble even after their fo- cus shifts from searching for survivors to recovering the dead. you will not see a she said. will carefully search for bodies and belongings, and to catalog and respectfully deal with any remains that we No one has been rescued alive since the first hours after the collapse, which struck early on June 24, when many of the residents were asleep.

Officials announced Tues- day that teams had recovered eight additional bodies the highest one-day total since the collapse. More than 100 people remain unaccounted for. Severe weather from Elsa threatened to hinder search efforts. Lightning forced res- cuers to pause their work for two hours early Tuesday, Mi- ami-Dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah said. And stiff winds of 20 mph, with stronger gusts, hampered efforts to move heavy debris with cranes, officials said.

However, the heav- iest winds and rain were ex- pected to bypass Surfside and neighboring Miami as Elsa strengthened before making landfall somewhere between Tampa Bay and Big Bend on a path across north- ern Florida. search and rescue continued throughout the night, and these teams con- tinue through extremely ad- verse and challenging condi- Levine Cava said. the rain and through the wind, they have continued Crews have removed 124 tons of debris from the site, Cominsky said. Workers have been freed to search a broader area since the unstable remaining por- tion of the condo building was demolished Sunday amid fears that the structure could fall. Officials said the demoli- tion gave rescuers access to spaces that were previously closed off, including bedrooms where people were believed to be sleeping at the time of the i a r.

sear ch yields only remains; death toll rises to 36 Searchers seeing anything SURFSIDE, FLA. State GOP chair seeks voter ID requirement By STEVE LeBLANC Associated Press BOSTON Mas sachusetts Republicans are hoping to persuade enough voters to back a change in state law that would require residents to produce an ID to vote. The push for a proposed ballot question is being led by state Republican Party Chair Jim Lyons. The effort is in the early stages. Lyons offer spe- cific language, but said he hoped to get the measure on the 2022 ballot no easy task.

integrity of our elec- tions is under attack all over the country, and Mas- sachusetts is no Lyons said in a July 4 email to supporters. should require voters to pre- sent identification in order to prove their identity at the bal- lot In the email Lyons said he wanted to recruit at least 2,000 volunteers to help collect the tens of thousands of signa- tures needed to get the mea- sure on the ballot. He said a ballot question is needed because Democratic lawmakers who control both chambers of the state Legisla- ture act on their own. likely heard the ar- gument many times from Democrats that voter ID re- quirements are said Lyons, a supporter of former President Donald Trump. clear to me, after serving eight years as a state lawmaker, is that Beacon Hill will never so much as debate the merits of voter ID laws, and why taking this question straight to the The announcement follows a 6-3 Supreme Court ruling last week on a case that fur- ther weakened components of the federal Voting Rights Act..