PETALUMA,Calif., Aug. 13, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The SmallBusiness Administration (SBA) is refusing to respond to a Freedom ofInformation Act request for the emails of Press Office Director Terry Sutherland.

On April 9, 2014 the American Small Business League (ASBL) submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the SBA forall of all of Terry Sutherland's emails for the month of March 2014.

On April 10, the ASBL received a conference call from SBAAssistant Administrator Fred Baldassaro, TerrySutherland and another unnamed SBA staffer.  Duringtheir conference call they claimed Terry Sutherlandhad "thousands of emails."  They attempted to dissuade the ASBLfrom requesting all of Sutherland's emails because of the significant volume ofemails he sent and received during the month of March.

Toexpedite and simplify their FOIA request the ASBL agreed to modify their FOIArequest to only include Sutherland's outgoing emails as opposed to the"thousands" they claimed would be applicable to the original FOIArequest.

Afterthirteen weeks the SBA finally provided the ASBL with just 73 of Terry Sutherland's emails. On July 15, 2014 the ASBL appealed the SBA's response to their FOIA request. The SBA responded on July 30 and acknowledged the 73 emailsthey provided did not actually constitute all of Sutherland's outgoing emails,but just his external emails.  The SBA has now agreed to provide all ofSutherland's internal and external outgoing emails for the month of March 2014.

TheASBL requested TerrySutherland's emails because they believed his emails would uncover a clearpattern by the SBA Press Office to block media coverage of the diversionof federal small business contracts to large businesses and a coordinatedcampaign to attack the ASBL, impugn their credibility and attack the reputationof ASBLPresident Lloyd Chapman.

Chapmanstated, "The SBA is putting up so much resistance to releasing all of Terry Sutherland's emails because they wouldprove he and his staff have engaged in a systematic campaign to block mediacoverage of the rampant fraud and abuse at the Pentagon and the SBA that hasbeen uncovered by the SBA Inspector General, the GAO and the media."

NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, Fox and RTTV haveall reported on the fraud and abuses in SBA managed programs.

AnSBA press release stated, "Terry Sutherland reported as the Director, Press Office,U.S. Small Business Administration, Washington, D.C. in April 2013…  Priorto this assignment he served from 2009-2013 as the Director, CorporateCommunications, for the Pentagon Force Protection Agency (PFPA)…"

TheASBL believes Sutherland's emails may show he is still closely associated withthe Pentagon'sefforts to try and obscure abuses in Pentagon small business subcontractingprograms such as the Comprehensive Subcontracting Plan Test Program.

To view full press release, click here:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sba-refusing-to-release-press-office-director-terry-sutherlands-emails-271052361.html

PETALUMA,Calif., Aug. 12, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The SmallBusiness Administration (SBA) is refusing to release the phone records of PressOffice Deputy Director Carol Wilkerson.

TheAmerican Small Business League requested all of Ms. Wilkerson's phone recordsfor the month of March 2014 under the Freedom of Information Act on April 11, 2014.

TheSBA responded by stating, "Therecords show no long distant calls during that time period. Only outgoing longdistant calls are recorded and maintained in a file, local calls are not."The SBA claims during the entire month of March 2014,Deputy Director Carol Wilkerson did not make even a singlelong distance phone call.

TheASBL has filed an appeal of the SBA's response to their Freedom ofInformation Act request.

TheASBL initially requested Carol Wilkerson'sphone records because they believe the SBA Press Office has engaged in apossibly illegal campaign to halt media coverage of the SBA's involvement inthe diversion of billions of dollars in federal small business contracts toFortune 500 firms, their subsidiaries and thousands of large businesses.

Beginningin 2005 the SBA Office of Inspector General referred to the diversion offederal small contracts to large businesses as, "Oneof the most important challenges facing the Small Business Administration (SBA)and the entire federal government today…"

EverySBA Inspector General since 2005 has reiterated the diversion of small businesscontracts to large businesses continues to be the number one problem at theSBA.

EvenPresident Obama acknowledged the magnitudeof the abuse at the SBA when he released the statement, "It istime to end the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporategiants".

NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC and RTTV haveall reported on the diversion of federal small business contracts to Fortune500 firms.

Datafrom the Federal Procurement Data System indicated in fiscal year 2013, 175 Fortune 500 firms and their subsidiaries receivedbillions of dollars in federal small business contracts. Every year since 2003,the SBA has claimed the diversion of federal small business contracts to largebusinesses is the result of random data entry errors, miscoding, computer glitches andanomalies.

Todate the SBA has never been able to explain why the supposed random errorsalways divert federal small business contracts to large businesses and artificiallyinflate the volume and percentage of federal contracts awarded to smallbusinesses.

TheSBA is also refusing to release all the emails of SBA Press Office Director Terry Sutherlandfor the month of March 2014.

InOctober of 2010, the ASBL appealeda case all the way to the Supreme Court in an attempt to obtain the emailsof previous SBA Press Office Director Mike Stamler.

To view full press release, click here:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sba-refusing-to-release-press-office-staffers-phone-records-270877651.html

PETALUMA,Calif., Aug. 11, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The AmericanSmall Business League (ASBL)is reporting that the Small Business Administration (SBA) is taking publiccomment on a new policy that would create a "safe harbor from fraudpenalties" for large businesses that misrepresent themselves as smallbusinesses to illegally receive federal small business contracts.

TheSBA's "safe harbor from fraud penalties" is being stronglyopposed by Chambers of Commerce around the country, Veterans business groups, Tea Party groups and the American SmallBusiness League.

Everyyear for a decade the SBA Office of Inspector General has named the diversionof federal small business contracts to large businesses as the numberone problem at the SBA. The SBA has consistently refused to adopt anypolicies to halt the rampant fraud.

TheSBA even denied the widely reported fraud calling it a "myth" in a2007 press release titled "Myth vs.Fact".

NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, MSNBC and CNBC haveall reported on the fraud and abuse at the SBA.

Asearly as 1995 the SBA Inspector General uncovered large businesses werecontinuing to misrepresent themselves as small business to illegally landfederal small business contracts, even after they had lost formal size standardprotests. The SBA Inspector General recommended the SBA produce a list offraudulent firms and circulate it among federal agencies to halt the fraud.

TheSBA declined the Inspector General's recommendation's responding that,"the risks outweighed the benefits" of producing such a list.

In2003 an investigation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found over5,000 large businesses were receiving federal small business contracts.

Aninvestigation commissioned by the SBA Office of Advocacy found large businesseswere continuing to receive federal small business contracts as a result of "vendordeception".

A2005 investigation by the SBA Inspector General found large businesses werecommitting contracting fraud by making "false certifications" and "impropercertifications".

Report 5-14 from the SBA Inspector General found the SBAwas reporting awards to large businesses as small business awards in its ownprocurements. One of the firms the SBA reported, as a small business wasBuhrmann NV, a firm located in Hollandwith over 26,000 employees around the world in 28 countries.

Aninvestigation by the General Accounting Office essentially accused the SBA ofencouraging fraud. GAO Report 10-108 stated, "By failing to hold firms accountable, SBA and contractingagencies have sent a message to the contracting community that there is nopunishment or consequences for committing fraud…"

Individualscan send comments to the SBA on the "safe harbor from fraudpenalties" policy by going to the proposed rule on the Federal Registerwebsite and clicking on "Submit a formal comment" in the upper right handcorner. The comment period will end on August 25, 2014.

To view full press release, click here:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-sba-safe-harbor-policy-could-encourage-more-contracting-fraud-270732101.html

PETALUMA, CA--(Marketwired - Aug 4,2014) - The American Small Business League (ASBL) is announcing that they willbe challenging the accuracy of the Small Business Administration's (SBA's)FY2013 Small Business Federal Procurement Scorecard. The ASBL has issued a Freedom of Information Act requestto the SBA for the specific names of the firms that the SBA has included intheir 2013 Small Business Federal Procurement Scorecard. They believe the SBA has included billions of dollars in contractsto Fortune 500 firms and other large businesses in their FY2013 Scorecard.

On Friday, August 1 at 1:00p.m. newlyappointed SBA Administrator Maria Contreras-Sweet joined by NASA AdministratorCharles Bolden and Senator Ben Cardin, D-Md., announced the results ofthe 2013 Small Business FederalProcurement Scorecard at a press conference at NASA's Goddard SpaceFlight Center. The SBA claims they hit their goal for the first time in eightyears, awarding 23.39 percent in federal contracts to small businesses totaling$83.1 billion. The ASBL believes that small businesses got only one tenth ofwhat the SBA says they did and will be moving forward with inquiries on thatsubject.

The most recent information from theFederal Procurement Data System indicates that 175 Fortune 500 firms andtheir subsidiaries received federal small business contracts in FY 2013.

The ASBL believes the SBA hassignificantly misrepresented both the volume and the percentage of federalcontracts awarded to small businesses. Research by the ASBL indicates the SBAdramatically inflates small business contracting statistics in two major ways.

First, to inflate the percentage ofawards to small businesses the SBA uses a federal acquisition budget that issignificantly less than the actual total federal acquisition budget. Federallaw requires that a minimum of 23% of the total value of all federal contractsbe awarded to small businesses. Based upon the US Government Spending website,total federal spending for FY2013 was approximately $3.8 trillion. The SBAclaims the total federal acquisition budget for FY2013 was $355 billion.

A legal opinion from one ofthe nation's leading experts on federal contracting law, Professor CharlesTiefer, supports the ASBL's contention that the SBA uses a significantly lowernumber in calculating the percentage of awards to small businesses and that thereal federal acquisition budget should be closer to $1.1 trillion.

Second, to further inflate the volumeand percent of contracts awarded to small businesses the SBA includes billions of dollars in contracts to Fortune 500 firms and thousandsof other large businesses in their small business data. Professor Tiefer'slegal opinion found no federal law allowing large businesses to be consideredsmall businesses.

Every year of the ObamaAdministration, SBA Inspector General Peg Gustafson has named the diversion offederal small business contracts to large businesses as the number one problem at the agency.To date, no legislation or policies have been adopted to end the abuse.

To the contrary, the SBA is currently taking public comment ona new policy that will create a "safe harbor" for big businesses thathave fraudulently landed small business contracts.

To view full press release, clickhere: http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/Small-Business-Administration-Contracting-Data-to-Be-Challenged-1935043.htm