Project On Government Oversight - History

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:

    “All history is a record of the power of minorities, and of minorities of one.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “The history of medicine is the history of the unusual.”
    —Robert M. Fresco, and Jack Arnold. Prof. Gerald Deemer (Leo G. Carroll)

    “I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)