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A D.C. government official and a business executive were arrested yesterday on bribery charges involving city technology contracts that included "ghost" workers and kickbacks, federal authorities said. Raiding offices in the hunt for documents, FBI agents carted away boxes and envelopes throughout the day from the Office of the Chief Technology Officer, the center of the alleged fraud. -snip- Authorities said the conspiracy was uncovered with the help of a D.C. government employee who recorded conversations with the executive and the city official. Until recently, the technology office was headed by Vivek Kundra, who has taken a job as President...

WASHINGTON – The Barack Obama administration has announced plans to lift a government ban on tracking visitors to government websites, and potentially, collect their personal data through the use of "cookies" – an effort some suspect may already be in place on White House sites. A ban on such tracking by the federal government on Internet users has been in place since 2000, however, the White House Office of Management and Budget now wants to lift the ban citing a "compelling need." In fact, according to the Electronic Privacy and Information Center, federal agencies have already negotiated agreements and contracts...

Is US Chief Information Officer (CIO) Vivek Kundra a Phony? This is the sort of question you might ask after trying to actually verify his supposed MS in Information Technology from the University of Maryland, College Park campus. The registrar has no record of it. After initially posting this article the degree has cropped up apparently at the nearby University Campus in 2001. This was found by Nextgov.Com. But his degree in biology has yet to appear as his record shows a degree from College Park Campus for Psychology and nothing more. I have queried the White House for clarification...

roanoke,va - WASHINGTON (AP) - Now it can be told: The mysterious petty theft that President Barack Obama’s new computer chief committed at age 21 was shoplifting four dress shirts worth $134 from J.C. Penney. A 1996 Montgomery County, Md., police report obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday under a public records law shows Vivek Kundra was observed by a security guard putting the men’s shirts into a shopping bag and leaving the store without paying. Sgt. Tom Stanton wrote that Kundra was arrested after a brief foot chase and the property was recovered

WASHINGTON - The new White House computer chief pleaded guilty 12 years ago to a petty theft charge, but it won't cost him his job, a spokesman for President Obama said. Vivek Kundra, 34, hired from Washington's city government, admitted a theft of property valued at under $300 in Maryland, a White House aide confirmed. He was fined $500, but the sentence was suspended and he only had to pay $100. "Thirteen years ago, Vivek committed a youthful indiscretion. He performed community service and we are satisfied that he fully resolved the matter," said Obama spokesman Nick Shapiro. Details of...

By Patrick Thibodeau and Jaikumar Vijayan , Computerworld , 03/13/2009 After being arrested on bribery charges Thursday, the District of Columbia's top information security official is being held without bail, partly because of uncertainty about whether he still has the ability to access the district's IT systems. That's just one of many potential security issues facing D.C. government officials after the FBI raided the district's IT offices and arrested Yusuf Acar, its acting chief security officer, and a second man in connection with an alleged bribery scheme. For instance, Acar had access to personnel data and other confidential information in...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge Tuesday ordered a former District of Columbia employee facing corruption charges to remain jailed in a case that prompted his former boss to take a brief leave of absence as President Barack Obama's computer chief. Yusuf Acar, who was the acting chief security officer in D.C.'s technology office, is accused of defrauding the city through a sophisticated bribery and fraud scheme. The allegations include billing the city for items that were never delivered and "ghost" contract employees who didn't work. Authorities say Acar approved falsified bills and split the money with vendors who submitted...

Vivek Kundra, the now-suspended White House aide responsible for directing policy and planning for federal IT spending, pleaded guilty to a petty theft charge 12 years ago. Troubles for the man in charge of federal spending and policy on information technology continue to be revealed. According to Maryland state records, Vivek Kundra, the White House chief information officer who took leave last Thursday -- one week after being named to the position, pleaded guilty to a petty theft charge 12 years ago. Kundra, who was formerly the D.C. technology officer, received supervised probation before judgment in 1997 for pleading guilty...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's new computer chief, already on leave after an FBI raid at his old job, turns out to have pleaded guilty to misdemeanor theft in 1996 when he was 21 years old, court records show. It was the latest case of damaging information emerging publicly about one of Obama's choices after he announced their appointment or nomination.

Vivek Kundra, President Obama's choice for CIO, apaprently pled out on a theft case in 1996. There is a resolution of a case in the Maryland state records where Vivek Kundra pled "probation before judgment" on a theft case. I am not sure if they allow re-posting, so here is a snippet. The entire article is a fast and worthwhile read.excerpt What is "probation before judgment"? The Maryland Lawyer Blog: Lawyers routinely tell their clients who receive a PBJ that they can legally state that they have not been convicted of a crime.... while a PBJ is not generally considered...

Vivek Kundra, who was on leave from his new appointment by President Obama as the federal government’s chief information officer, has been reinstated, the White House said today. White House officials confirmed to The New York Times that Mr. Kundra had been reinstated today; it was first reported this afternoon by Techpresident.com without confirmation.

Call it yet another example of “do as I say, not as I do” leadership that appears so intoxicating to Team Obama. Verum Serum finds this nugget in a 2007 meeting, where Vivek Kundra — now on leave as Obama’s Chief Information Officer — also discusses how difficult it is to find good help. His aide, Yusuf Acar, solved that problem by simply making them up and keeping the salaries:

Federal agents this morning are searching the Judiciary Square office of Washington, D.C.'s Chief Technology Officer. The search is part of "an ongoing investigation," said a spokeswoman for the FBI's D.C. Field Office, Lindsay Gotwin, said. She declined to comment further. The outgoing Chief Technology Officer, Vivek Kundra, was appointed last week Chief Information Officer by the Obama administration. His last day at the city government office was February 4, a spokeswoman for D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, Leslie Kershaw, said.

FBI agents have made two arrests after raiding the D.C. office of the man tapped to be President Obama's chief information officer, sources told FOX News. The agents on Thursday morning raided the office of Vivek Kundra, who was leaving his post as the D.C. chief technology officer to join the administration. The investigation is related to allegations of corruption, one source said, but is not targeting Kundra. FBI agents arrested a District of Columbia government worker, Yusuf Acar, as well as Sushil Bansal, who works for a company called Advanced Integrated Technologies Corp, sources said. Both are expected in...

WASHINGTON (AP) - An aide to President Barack Obama is on leave from his White House job after the FBI raided his old District of Columbia government office Thursday, arresting a city employee and a technology consultant on corruption charges, a White House official said. The charges were lodged against the two men at a federal court hearing as the FBI finished searching the city's technology office, which was led until recently by Obama's new computer chief, Vivek Kundra. Kundra is on leave from his White House job until further details of the case become known, according to a White...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House says it got a heads up before FBI agents raided the former offices of a new Obama administration technology official. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs says the Department of Justice told the White House on Thursday morning of its planned raid at the offices of the District of Columbia's chief technology officer. Vivek Kundra recently left that post to take a job in the White House. Gibbs declined to say if administration officials knew about the ongoing investigation of the D.C. technology office when they hired Kundra.

WASHINGTON - Two officials in the D.C.'s Office of the Chief Technology Officer have been arrested in a federal bribery sting, sources tell WTOP. D.C. Office of the Chief Technology Officer employees Sushil Bansal and 40-year-old Yusuf Acar have been arrested, sources tell WTOP. Acar was taken into custody Thursday morning by FBI agents at his home in Northwest D.C. The FBI is now serving a search warrant at the office of D.C.'s Chief Technology Officer, WTOP has learned. "We are there as part of a continuing ongoing criminal investigation," FBI Washington Field Office spokesperson Katherine Schweit tells WTOP. Schweit...

Officials in Washington D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer have been arrested in a federal bribery sting. D.C. Office of the Chief Technology Officer employees Sushil Bansal and 40-year-old Yusuf Acar have been arrested. Acar was taken into custody by FBI agents at his home in Washington, D.C. The FBI has served a search warrant at the office of D.C.’s Chief Technology Officer.

President Barack Obama has officially named former Washington, D.C. tech chief Vivek Kundra as the federal governments CIO. Kundra, who previously served as the CTO for D.C.'s city government, has received a good deal of acclaim for his work in making that government act more transparently and economically. Among other things, Kundra has slashed the city's IT costs by shifting government e-mail and work applications over to Google Apps and has pushed for more transparency by posting lists on the Web of jobs that government contractors have been hired to perform. As the federal governments CIO, Kundra will oversee a...

The White House press office announced today that Vivek Kundra, the current chief technology officer of Washington DC, will be assuming the position of Federal Chief Information Officer (CIO) at the White House. The appointment of a top CIO is another first: the position did not exist in any previous administrations. Kundra will also have final say on government technology purchases , and will have the authority to overrule his peers at subordinate agencies.