PETALUMA, Calif., May 28, 2015/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Pentagon has filed their appellant briefwith the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals in a Freedomof information Act case filed by the American Small Business League (ASBL).

The ASBL originally won their Freedom of Information Act caseagainst the Pentagon in November of 2014. The ASBL had requested the most recentsubcontracting plan submitted by Sikorsky Aviation Corporation to thePentagon's Comprehensive Subcontracting Plan Test Program (CSPTP).

The ASBL believed the CSPTP was created to allow the Pentagon'slargest prime contractors to cheat small businesses by eliminating alltransparency and penalties for non-compliance with small businesssubcontracting goals. In September, Professor CharlesTiefer, a leading expert on federal contracting law,agreed and wrote a legal opinion calling the CSPTP a "sham" and "seriously harmful" to smallbusinesses.

Federal District Court Judge William Alsupin San Francisco ordered thePentagon to release the Sikorsky data to the ASBL after reviewing theinformation and determining nothing in thereport constituted as trade secret, proprietary or confidential financialinformation.

In his ruling, Judge Alsup described the ASBL as being an underdog in a David and Goliath battle against the"big company" and against the "big government." He alsoaccused the Pentagon of "covering it up" in reference to the information theASBL requested. In a subsequent hearing, Judge Alsup accused the Pentagon andSikorsky of trying to "suppress the evidence."

During the District Court case, Judge Alsup instructed thePentagon and Sikorsky on two separate occasions to "tab and highlight every part of the requested document"that they believed was proprietary and explain why they believed the informationshould be exempt. The Pentagon declined to comply with Judge Alsup's request.

The Pentagon and Sikorsky have now filed two separate appellant briefs. Theyare objecting to the release of the phone numbers and email addresses ofSikorsky's employees along with the names of Sikorsky's small business subcontractors. 

"I believe the reason that the Pentagon and Sikorsky arefighting so hard to withhold this information is because it could beincriminating and will expose the fact the Pentagon has knowingly allowed primecontractors to cheat American small businesses out of hundreds of billions, ifnot trillions, of dollars since the Comprehensive Subcontracting Plan TestProgram began in 1989," stated ASBL PresidentLloyd Chapman.

The ASBL has begun filming a documentaryon their campaign to end fraud in federal small business contracting programs.

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