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ESRI Response to a
Federal Subpoena



In the priorities of life, most people prefer open heart surgery without anesthesia to receiving a federal subpoena. I don't know if ESRI president Jack Dangermond has experienced the former, but the company is being subpoenaed in a federal investigation of a lobbyist group's ties to Rep. Jerry Lewis. Since we are about GIS and not about federal investigations, we cannot get into all the gritty details. Instead, we provide you with an official email from Jack to his employees.

Last week, several newspaper articles were published about a possible investigation of Congressman Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands). ESRI was mentioned in some of these articles.

This memo provides background information on the context of these articles.

ESRI does significant work within the federal government. We have thousands of users active in nearly all the federal agencies. Because of this we retain Copeland Lowery Jacquez Denton White, a government affairs consultant mentioned in the articles, to provide us with advice and, from time to time, to support lobbying initiatives for GIS-related legislation.

Over the years, ESRI has advocated and promoted (with the support of our consultant) various GIS initiatives in government. We have done this because we believe GIS can make a significant difference in improving government.

One article suggested that funds were “earmarked to ESRI.” In fact, ESRI has advocated that a number of our user programs be funded by the government. However, it is important to realize that funding for these initiatives must go through normal government procurement procedures, which are usually competitive.

ESRI has been very successful in competitive awards in the federal government. Our software has led the GIS market in government for the last two decades. The reason for this is that our products and services are consistently evaluated as being the best in the market and as such provide the best value to the government. On occasion ESRI has also been awarded non-competitive contracts to support the government in situations of national emergency, such as 9/11, mapping of Afghanistan, San Bernardino National Forest fires, and the recent events surrounding Hurricane Katrina. In these situations, ESRI was seen by the government as providing unique and timely services.

Also, for these efforts, ESRI contributed significant resources (people and software) to help with no guarantee of reimbursement from government funding. In many of these cases ESRI was not paid for all of the services rendered.

ESRI has further proposed that Congress fund GIS research efforts that would lead to improvements in the way government does business. These projects have been extremely successful and valuable to the government - saving millions of dollars, improving government performance, and increasing our national security. We are proud of all these accomplishments. Congressman Lewis has been both a fan and local champion for ESRI in the federal government. Our interactions with Congressman Lewis and his staff have always been professional and, we believe, in the best interests of his constituents and the country.

For more information go to: this article