History
While working for the National Taxpayers Legal Fund, Dina Rasor led its investigation into the C-5A transport aircraft. In February 1981 Rasor started "Project on Military Procurement", as an arm of the Fund. The organization was intended as a watchdog group to perform oversight of the military. Early interests included the M1 Abrams tank. The Project first gained wide attention in the mid-1980s uncovering Pentagon waste and fraud by publishing reports, provided by whistleblowers, exposing $640 toilet seats, $7,600 coffee makers, $436 hammers and other overpriced spare parts used by the military. The group was renamed Project on Government Oversight in the late 1990s.
POGO currently has a staff of around 25 people, including investigators, journalists, and administrative and communications personnel, and is located in downtown Washington, D.C. It is funded through grants from foundations, as well as private donations. In order to maintain its independence, POGO does not accept government grants.
Read more about this topic: Project On Government Oversight
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“As I am, so shall I associate, and so shall I act; Caesar’s history will paint out Caesar.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“If you look at history you’ll find that no state has been so plagued by its rulers as when power has fallen into the hands of some dabbler in philosophy or literary addict.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)
“The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)