Amazon vs. CIA

Mary Bruno

Mary Bruno Jul 7, 2025

Feb 6, 2018

Republish Article

You can republish articles in print or online. Simply copy the HTML below, which includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline, and credit to Cascade PBS. Republishing of the photos or videos embedded in an article can occur only if the photo or video is a copyright of Cascade Public Media ("CPM") and not of a third party. Photos and videos that are a copyright of CPM are not required to appear in the republished article, but if they are used, they must be embedded where they appear in the original article and must include the attribution to the CPM photographer.

You may reprint in any medium
You may edit only for tense and timeliness
If republishing in print you can edit for length if you follow our print republishing guidelines.
You may write your own headline
Include a byline and shirttail with credit and link to Cascade PBS
Include our tracking pixel
Remove if we ask

          <article>
            <header>
              <hgroup>
                <h1>Amazon vs. CIA</h1>
                <h2><p>Last January, Amazon’s upstart Web Services won a $600 million contract to provide technical infrastructure for the C.I.A. According to the Seattle Times, this decision made veteran government tech contractors like IBM very grumpy. When IBM complained, the federal government’s General Accountability Office agreed to review</p></h2>
              </hgroup>
               <p>By <a href="/author/mary-bruno-crosscut-com/">Mary Bruno</a></p> 
              <p><time datetime="2025-02-04T05:00:00-08:00">Feb 6, 2018</time></p>
            </header>
            <p>Last January, Amazon’s upstart Web Services won a $600 million contract to provide technical infrastructure for the C.I.A. <a href="http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2021686332_amazoncontractxml.html?ref=dev.cascadepbs.org">According to the Seattle Times</a>, this decision made veteran government tech contractors like IBM very grumpy. When IBM complained, the federal government’s General Accountability Office agreed to review the contract. That made Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos very grumpy, because landing the CIA job gave Amazon’s Web Services division instant credibility. Now, Amazon is re-bidding the contract — and taking the CIA to court for re-opening the process. It may not help Amazon’s case that a Web Services outage on Sunday brought down Instagram and other sites. This comes less than a week after the Amazon website itself went dark for a very expensive 40 minutes; the outage cost the company nearly $5 million in lost sales. Is the Washington Post covering all this?</p>
          </article>

Last January, Amazon’s upstart Web Services won a $600 million contract to provide technical infrastructure for the C.I.A. According to the Seattle Times, this decision made veteran government tech contractors like IBM very grumpy. When IBM complained, the federal government’s General Accountability Office agreed to review the contract. That made Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos very grumpy, because landing the CIA job gave Amazon’s Web Services division instant credibility. Now, Amazon is re-bidding the contract — and taking the CIA to court for re-opening the process. It may not help Amazon’s case that a Web Services outage on Sunday brought down Instagram and other sites. This comes less than a week after the Amazon website itself went dark for a very expensive 40 minutes; the outage cost the company nearly $5 million in lost sales. Is the Washington Post covering all this?

Our members' donations make local journalism happen.

Support once for $1

Support monthly for $7

Cascade PBS Passport
Mossback members-only newsletter
Monthly Viewer Guide

Support monthly for $25

Invitation to quarterly news and original programming video conference
Annual in-person meet-up with news & programming teams
Special event perks (reduced price or free tickets, cocktails, etc.)

Continue

By Mary Bruno

Mary was Crosscut's Editor-in-Chief and Interim Publisher. In more than 25 years as a journalist, she has worked as a writer, editor and editorial director for a variety of print and web publications,