The Homeland Security Spending Trail: How to Follow the Money Through U.S. Government Databases

This guide was co-written by Andrew Zuker with support from the Heinrich Boell Foundation.

The U.S. government publishes volumes of detailed data on the money it spends, but searching through it and finding information can be challenging. Complex search functions and poor user interfaces on government reporting sites can hamper an investigation, as can inconsistent company profiles and complex corporate ownership structures. 

This week, EFF and the Heinrich Boell Foundation released an update to our database of vendors providing technology to components of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protections (CBP). It includes new vendor profiles, new fields, and updated data on top contractors, so that journalists and researchers have a jumping-off point for their own investigations.

Access the dataset through Google Sheets (Google's Privacy Policy applies) or download the Excel file here. 

This time we thought we would also share some of the research methods we developed while assembling this dataset.

This guide covers the key databases that store information on federal spending and contracts (often referred to as "awards"), government solicitations for products and services, and the government's "online shopping superstore," plus a few other deep-in-the-weeds datasets buried in the online bureaucracy. We have provided a step-by-step guide for searching these sites efficiently and help tips for finding information. While we have written this specifically with DHS agencies in mind, it should serve as a useful resource for procurement across the federal government. 

1. Procurement Sites: FPDS.gov and USASpending.Com 

Federal Procurement Data System - fpds.gov

The Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS) is the best place to start for finding out what companies are working with DHS. It is the official system for tracking federal discretionary spending and contains current data on contracts with non-governmental entities like corporations and private businesses. Award data is up-to-date and includes detailed information on vendors and awards which can be helpful when searching the other systems. It is a little bit old-school, but that often makes it one of the easiest and quickest sites to search, once you get the hang of it, since it offers a lot of options for narrowing search parameters to specific agencies, vendors, classification of services, etc. 

How to Use FDPS To begin searching Awards for a particular vendor, click into the “ezSearch” field in the center of the page, delete or replace the text “Google-like search to help you find federal contracts…” with a vendor name or keywords, and hit Enter to begin a new search. 

A new tab will open automatically with exact matches at the top. 

Four “Top 10” modules on the left side of the page link to top results in descending order: Department Full Name, Contracting Agency Name, Full Legal Business Name, and Treasury Account Symbol. These ranked lists help the user quickly narrow in on departments and agencies that vendors do business with. DHS may not appear in the “Top 10” results, which may indicate that the vendor hasn’t yet been awarded DHS or subagency contracts.

For example, if you searched the term “FLIR”, as in Teledyne FLIR who make infrared surveillance systems used along the U.S.-Mexico border, DHS is the 2nd result in the “Top 10: Department Full Name” box. 

To see all DHS contracts awarded to the vendor, click “Homeland Security, Department of” from the “Top 10 Department Full Name” module. When the page loads, you will see the subcomponents of DHS (e.g.,