Homeland Security Spending Trail: How to Follow the Money Through US Government Databases

EFF: “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…”
• Federal Procurement Data System – fpds.gov
• USA Spending – usaspending.gov
• Contracting Opportunities  – SAM.gov
• The Government’s “Superstore” – gsaadvantage.gov