MTA ate over $200M in losses in botched surveillance work: lawyer

[realizm]

The MTA suffered more than $200 million in unexpected losses scrambling to install high-tech surveillance equipment to protect subway riders from potential terror attacks after defense contractor Lockheed Martin failed to deliver on a 2005 contract to install a sweeping transportation security system, an agency lawyer said Monday.

During opening arguments in a Manhattan federal court suit featuring breach-of-contract claims by both parties, Ira Lipton, a lawyer for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said the Lockheed deal has left the cash-strapped agency $205 million in the red. He added that the defense giant’s inability to deliver a product that properly worked forced the agency to farm the job out to private contractors.

“Given how important this project was for the people [of this region], … Lockheed’s failure to rectify its bad design is pretty shocking,” said Lipton, adding the defense company also refused to use its own resources to fix deficiencies in its software design.

Lockheed is also seeking more than $200 million in damages and claims infighting between MTA agencies made it difficult to perform the contact and that the MTA terminated the deal prematurely.

Read more: Source

[N6 Limited]

Lockheed Martin should be charged with public endangerment.

[realizm]

Pretty damn ironic how Lockheed Martin built the worlds first stealth fighter for the USAF (The F-117 Nighthawk) yet botched this simple job up for the MTA...