The U.S. Government silently disabled anonymous public access to billions of dollars of military AI contracts
The entire category of 'Other Transaction' contracts heavily used for Pentagon AI was set to require a Login.gov account and an agreement to be surveilled.
Update at 9:46 a.m. on January 28, 2025: Anonymous access to the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS) was just re-enabled, as verified by the author. The General Services Administration still has not responded to a request for comment, either on the reason for the temporary shutdown or on why Other Transaction Agreements continue to be excluded from USASpending.gov.
Two representatives of the Federal Procurement Data System program of the General Services Administration of the U.S. Government have stated that anonymous public access to a broad category of procurement records has been purposefully and silently shut down. While the modern website USASpending.gov provides user-friendly summaries of traditional contracting through the voluminous Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), the website purposefully excludes tens of billions of dollars in military and artificial intelligence contracting through a work-around mechanism known as an Other Transaction Agreement (OTA).
As documented in detail by a quasi-official history of the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit in the 2024 book “Unit X,” the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) allowed the relatively rapid acquisition capabilities of OTAs to be creatively stretched to their legal capacity from their initial usage for prototypes into large-scale production contracts now known as Commercial Solutions Openings.
“Unit X” described OTAs as “Developed during the space race to enable NASA to buy parts from mom-and-pop suppliers” and as “a tool and a mind trick all in one,” allowing contracting officers to escape their usual bureaucratic constraints.
But access to the primary source of such Pentagon military contracts now requires using a Login.gov account and an explicit agreement, alongside providing your name and physical address, to have your contract browsing surveilled by the U.S. Government with “no expectation of privacy” from the site’s security team, should they decide your activity is suspicious.
Perhaps the largest and most widely reported OTA is for Microsoft’s $22.3 billion ceiling augmented reality goggles contract with the U.S. Army, known as the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS). As a result of IVAS being an OTA, it is excluded from USASpending.gov and only available on FPDS.gov, now requiring consent to be surveilled by the U.S. Government to access its details.
Without signing into FPDS.gov with a Login.gov account, attempts to access contract action details simply return opaque connection errors.
In addition to the Defense Innovation Unit, the Pentagon’s closely partnered Chief Digital and AI Office (CDAO) similarly makes heavy usage of OTAs, especially through its Tradewinds procurement program.
The author noticed this morning that CDAO OTAs were no longer functioning on FPDS.gov and called the FPDS help desk to report the bug. To the author’s surprise, the Federal Service Desk representative, named Alicia, repeatedly emphasized that the removal of contract access from FPDS.gov without a Login.gov account was an intentional change caused by a new software rollout. Upon calling the same helpline to reach a separate representative, the same explanation was again given, and the author verified that the ability to view contract action details is restored if one signs in through a Login.gov account.
The General Services Administration, which runs both FPDS.gov and USASpending.gov, does not provide a phone number for its press office but was emailed for comment regarding whether they intend to continue excluding access to the increasingly important category of Other Transaction Agreements from USASpending.gov. Other GSA representatives reached by phone refused to comment, and GSA public affairs did not immediately respond to a request for comment; this article will be updated with any future response.
As noted in a November 2023 study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office: “Until Congress includes OTAs in the list of federal awards that agencies must report to USAspending.gov, policymakers and the public will continue to lack complete spending information and transparency of OTAs.”