5. Department of Homeland Security · Minor
Buy e-discovery software and contract a vendor for DHS e-discovery
Printed page 162 5. Department of Homeland Security
“OGC should invest in e-discovery software and contract with a vendor to manage the department's e-discovery.”
What has happened
- Partially done
The contract exists and it is named for this office. DHS's Office of Procurement Operations, through its Departmental Operations Acquisition Division II, awarded contract 70RDA225FR0000057 to ThunderCat Technology, LLC for "OGC eDiscovery Software as a Service (SaaS)", running 2025-09-30 to 2030-09-29, with $1,033,263.16 obligated against a base-and-all-options value of $3,845,989.45; the product and service code is business application software. That is OGC investing in e-discovery software and contracting with a vendor for it, so the first limb of the ask is delivered by a departmental headquarters award rather than a component one. It is `partial` and not `done` on the second limb: a software-as-a-service subscription buys a platform, and nothing in the award record shows a vendor engaged "to manage the department's e-discovery" as a managed service, or shows the arrangement reaching beyond OGC to the department. Contract awards are Primary and are published by the Treasury-run federal spending record, which is where a procurement of this kind surfaces; the earlier note that it "would surface on sam.gov, which is not on the evidence allowlist" was looking at the solicitation stage rather than the award stage.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
Moved from not started to partial on 2026-09-06. The question was raised on the premise that “sam.gov is where a contract award of this kind would surface; it is off the allowlist, so a human with a browser could confirm or refute it there”. Both halves were wrong. Solicitations are on sam.gov; awards are on usaspending.gov, which is on the allowlist as a federal agency site and whose API answers anonymously — the site itself is a JavaScript shell, so the API is the citation that can be fetched.
The queries, all run on USAspending’s award search over award types A–D, awarding agency Department of Homeland Security, 2025-01-20 to 2026-09-06:
- “e-discovery” — 2 awards. One is a 2022 OIG support-services contract, before the window; the other is a 2026-03-21 USCIS Veritas maintenance renewal supporting FOIA operations.
- “ediscovery” — 10 awards, of which the OGC SaaS award above is the only one placed by departmental headquarters for the Office of the General Counsel. The rest are component buys: OIG (Everlaw, 2025-08-14, $1.24M), USCIS (Carahsoft SaaS, 2025-09-15, $1.30M; BahFed Veritas renewal, 2025-03-21), FEMA (PanAmerica, 2025-09-26 and 2026-09-26).
- “electronic discovery” — 2 awards, both components.
- “litigation support” — FEMA court-reporting call orders only.
- “Relativity” — 7 awards. Two matter for how this item is read: CBP’s RelativityOne Government SaaS base period (2025-09-30, $6.25M) shows a component running its own platform in the window, and a 2023-07-01 Office of Procurement Operations award to CACI NSS, LLC “TO RENEW RELATIVITY SUPPORT ON BEHALF OF THE OFFICE OF GENERAL COUNSEL (OGC)” shows OGC already had an e-discovery platform under contract before 2025-01-20.
Marking this Already true was considered and declined. The 2023 CACI award is a support renewal on a license, which evidences that OGC used e-discovery software; it does not evidence that OGC had “contract[ed] with a vendor to manage the department’s e-discovery”, which is the ask’s second limb and the part still outstanding today. Already true is an editorial claim that a Recommendation should not be counted at all, and a contract line item is too thin a thing to rest one on. What the 2023 award does establish is that the 2025 SaaS award is a continuation of an existing capability rather than a new departure, and the note says so.
- Action
- create
- Object
- DHS e-discovery software and vendor contract
- ID
- 429