bezosamazoncroppedAmazon.com has filed a federal complaint over a $600 million contract to provide cloud computing services to the Central Intelligence Agency, a contract that competing bidder IBM disputes. A spokeswoman for Amazon.com said that the CIA, which initially pushed for Amazon Web Services, made the right decision initially.

“We believe that the CIA selected [Amazon Web Services] based on AWS’s technically superior, best value solution,” a spokeswoman said in a statement to The Wall Street Journal. “We look forward to a fast resolution so the Agency can move forward with this important contract.”

Amazon is a new player in the government sector and particularly in the security/intelligence realm, one that’s been dominated by traditional companies like IBM and HP. When Amazon’s deal with the CIA was first announced, Federal Computer Week’s Frank Konkel reported that Amazon would help the CIA “build a private cloud infrastructure that helps the agency keep up with emerging technologies like big data in a cost-effective manner not possible under the CIA’s previous cloud efforts.”

Amazon filed the suit against the government under seal in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. More on filing here:

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