To the readers of LAW-LIB@ucdavis.edu:
I need a pro-bono referral to a non profit tax lawyer and/or accountant. Let
me explain why.
Since leaving the US Congress Office of Technology Assessment 15 months ago I
have been publishing a subscription newsletter (ranging in price from $85 to
$500) on the policy and privatization issues of the NSFnet.
I am following the money involved in what the NSF Inspector General reported 6
weeks ago was a very unusual privatization of the NSFnet backbone. I believe
that I have uncovered some very serious irregularities in how money changed
hands between MERIT (the holder of the NSF cooperative agreement) and ANS the
501(c)(3) spawned by MERIT IBM and MCI to which the operation of the backbone
was subcontracted.
I have figures from the NSF detailing what it gave MERIT. I have MERIT's 1990
& 1991 form 990s. I have ANS's only Form 990 -- it is overlapped by the Merit
990s. I have ANS's Form 1023. ANS is a subcontractor to MERIT. I am trying
to follow and understand a series of arrangements that one lawyer with who I
spoke likened to looking at the web or relationships in the BCCI scandal. I
have talked to the public affairs office of the New York City and Washington
DC IRS on multiple occasions.
The whole morass is horribly complex and my ability to draw assured
conclusions is sorely stretched. This at a time when the NSF is about to
recompete the backbone and both organizations expect to be major players in
the recompete process. I am self employed and my subscriber & consulting base
is small enough as to make the option of paying for the legal analysis of the
record I have uncovered impossible. Yet the future form of the network is at
stake and the role of the players questionable. The IG report of the NSF was
harshly critical of NSF management in giving the backbone away, in effect on a
handshake. Nevertheless the IG then went on to construct a purely artificial
rationale based on carefully choosen data and ignoring other data it knew to
exist. This rationale alleged that no harm was done by the backbone give
away.
I live midway between New York City and Philadelphia. If someone in that
general area of the country with tax law and accounting expertise would
voluteer assistance in interpreting my data, I'd be exceedingly grateful. (I
could of course work with someone remotely, but it would be *VERY* helpful to
be able to sit down with such a person in person.)
Please respond by private email or telephone since I am NOT a subscriber to
your list.
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Gordon Cook, Editor Publisher: COOK Report on Internet -> NREN
431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618
cook@path.net (609) 882-2572
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