(Washington, D.C.) – Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), America’s largest taxpayer watchdog group, today released a scathing report on the government’s attempts to regulate the high-tech industry.  In The Federal Assault on High Tech: Is the Government Wired or Just Unplugged?, CAGW uncovers the government’s bungling of high-tech issues and questions whether federal officials should be hacking their way into this vibrant industry.

“The federal government is technologically challenged,” remarked CAGW President Thomas A. Schatz.  “Agency computers are outdated and many mission-critical systems will be bitten by the Year 2000 (Y2K) bug.  Yet government officials believe they have a license to intervene in the high-tech sector.”

Perhaps the best example of this hostile attitude is the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) antitrust prosecution of Microsoft.  CAGW’s report finds that DOJ’s antitrust division has spared no expense in several attempts to restrict a company that most taxpayers regard as contributing substantially toward America’s current economic prosperity.

DOJ refuses to provide information on exactly how much has been spent on the Microsoft case, claiming the amount of work involved makes it impossible to account for costs and manpower hours.  Yet something must be known about the finances of the antitrust division, since it is requesting a 10 to 20 percent increase in staff for fiscal 2000, including 70 to 80 new lawyers.  CAGW estimates that DOJ has spent $30 to $60 million in its quixotic pursuit of Microsoft.

“Any private law firm has an ethical obligation to track its expenses and report them to their clients,” remarked Schatz.  “But DOJ apparently does not adhere to that standard.  Its client, the American people, should know what ‘their’ law firm is spending on Microsoft – and any other – litigation.  It’s time for the government to stop spending taxpayer dollars interfering in a marketplace that is providing Americans with better products at consistently lower prices.”

The Federal Assault on High Tech is the first in a series of reports by CAGW that will focus on the critical interaction between government and technology.  CAGW is a 600,000-member nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse in government.