Unisys Corp. has been dropped from the selection list for Phase 2 of the Transportation Security Administration's Information Technology Infrastructure Program (ITIP) contract. The Blue Bell, Pa., company formerly was lead contractor on the project.

"Unisys Federal Systems has not been selected to continue on to Phase 2 of the [ITIP] procurement,” company spokesman Brad Bass said in a statement today. “We are disappointed by the selection committee’s decision and are now reviewing our options.”

Contractors that qualified for the next phase are Computer Sciences Corp., General Dynamics Corp., Lockheed Martin Corp. and CACI International Inc. as a subcontractor to CSC.

Announcements on Lockheed Martin’s and General Dynamics’ Web sites said the contract award is due between Aug. 29 and Sept. 12.

ITIP is a follow-on award to the $1 billion IT Managed Services contract from the Homeland Security Department to modernize TSA’s networks and infrastructure.

Unisys held the contract from its inception in 2002 until 2006 and then won a bridge contract to extend the work through 2008. But a congressional inquiry concluded that Unisys failed to properly install and manage intrusion-detection systems on the networks. The inquiry also alleged that to cover its neglect, Unisys falsely certified to DHS that the networks had been protected.

“Our performance on the current TSA program is excellent,” Bass said. “We are meeting our performance baselines in all 18 service-level agreements on the contract and are exceeding them in 13 of those areas.”

Bass added that Unisys was instrumental in creating and managing the IT infrastructure that enabled TSA to be mission-ready by November 2002. “Since then, Unisys has supported TSA in its efforts to improve protection of passengers, cargo, people and physical assets at airports and ensure public trust in TSA’s security operations.”

Unisys, of Blue Bell, Pa., ranks No. 26 on Washington Technology’s 2008 Top 100 list.