A federal judge on Thursday blocked the Pentagon from moving forward with its massive cloud program while a lawsuit from Amazon Web Services, or AWS, is heard to determine whether President Donald Trump exerted undue influence in the decision to award it to Microsoft.
Judge Patricia E. Campbell-Smith granted Amazon’s motion for a preliminary injunction, stopping work on the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, cloud “until further notice of the court.” The parties have until Feb. 27 to propose redactions to Campbell-Smith’s decision.
After the JEDI contract went to Microsoft in October, Amazon sued the Defense Department. The suit argues that the Pentagon made numerous errors in awarding the contract; it also states that Amazon is technically the far superior enterprise cloud provider, especially for hosting high-value secret and top-secret data. For instance, one of the requirements for JEDI is that the provider be able to host “top secret” data at Impact Level 6. Amazon has been hosting data at that level for the government for years. In December, Microsoft was awarded temporary, 90-day accreditation to host data at Impact Level 6.
Amazon also argues that Trump has exerted undue influence over the decision with his frequent swipes at Amazon and its founder and CEO Jeff Bezos.
The nonprofit group Protect Democracy this week judge pentagon giant cloud contract
