Two cybersecurity experts — Alan Paller of the SANS Institute, and former Energy and Air Force CIO John Gilligan — are presenting what they call a new approach to security at a conference this morning. Gilligan said the current approach is too focused on compliance with hundreds of pages of NIST regulations. He said the next administration should focus on “letting offense inform defense”: We should leverage experts from across the hacker-defender communities to help us determine, as we did in the Air Force… where should we be focusing our investments? He was referring to an exercise the Air Force…
Monthly Archives: November, 2008
Update II: Around lunchtime, Justice released a statement saying all of Mukasey’s tests came back clear. Talamona said: He has been given a clean bill of health. We expect him to be released in the next couple of hours. We also anticipate he will be back at the department later today.  Update: The Justice Department just released the full transcript of this morning’s briefing on Mukasey’s condition. Here is what Justice spokeswoman Gina Talamona said: There is no indication that he suffered a stroke or any heart-related incident. It really appears to have been a fainting spell. You know, he works long days,…
We’ve already reported that agencies are likely to face new environmental goals under the Obama administration. They’re also going to have to learn to work together. The group of advisers developing key proposals and plans for energy and environmental policies under the new administration met this week to discuss issues that will need to be addressed right away, like climate change and rising energy costs. The head of the group, Carol Browner, who led the Environmental Protection Agency during the Clinton administration, said the focus will be on getting agencies like the EPA, Energy Department and others to better coordinate their efforts. One…
At the pace in which potential candidates for top spots in the Obama administration are being leaked to the press, it was bound to happen: someone got one wrong. CNN quoted multiple unnamed sources yesterday evening that Obama fundraiser Penny Pritzker was the top choice to become secretary of the Commerce Department. The 49-year-old billionaire heir to the Hyatt hotel fortune, Pritzker was national finance chair of Obama’s record-breaking presidential campaign, which netted $640 million. But after numerous media sources picked up the news, Pritzer issued a statement today saying she was not in the running for the position. ABC News…
Earlier today we mentioned that Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano is at the top of the list of candidates to take over the Homeland Security Department. And, as the Government Accountability Office reminds us in a new report released today, she would take over an agency full of management challenges. From the GAO: However, most initiatives related to defining and identifying the acquisition workforce and assessing workforce needs have not yet produced results and in some cases are progressing more slowly than originally projected. The department spends more than $10 billion each year on contracts — including some expensive and hard-to-manage…
And that’s just what he wanted. The California Democratic’s gamble to take the reins of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee chairmanship paid off today when the Democratic caucus voted 137-122 to replace existing Chairman John Dingell of Michigan with Waxman. Dingell has chaired the energy committee since 1981, and Waxman’s challenge of a sitting same-party chairman struck many lawmakers as daring or even arrogrant, depending on who you talked to. Waxman argued that chairmanships should not be permanent institutions. “Seniority is important, but it should not be a grant of property rights to be chairman for three decades…
Note: We’ll continue to update this thread as the president-elect reveals his plans for the Homeland Security Department. Secretary President-elect Barack Obama has reportedly offered the job to Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano. The president-elect has reportedly picked Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano to head DHS. Napolitano still has to be vetted by Obama’s transition team; a spokesperson for the Arizona governor’s office declined to comment on the selection. She would take over a five-year-old agency that is plagued by organizational problems and struggles with many of its core missions, particularly immigration. The department has spent billions on a still-unproven “virtual fence”…
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer announced yesterday he believes President-elect Barack Obama may support a four-day work week for federal employees. Such an idea has been bounced around for months, and some agencies already allow employees to telework or adjust their schedules to allow for an extra day off a week. So, readers, would you welcome a 10-hour, four-day work week? Reactions I’ve received via e-mail are mixed. Some say they’d work harder in exchange for a three-day weekend every week, while others said the alternate work schedule would ease traffic in the Washington, D.C. area. Others criticized the proposal,…
President-elect Barack Obama said Sunday on CBS’s “Sixty Minutes” he would start making Cabinet picks “soon.” Soon it is. In just the three days since that interview aired, several names have been reported as likely candidates for key administration posts: Peter Orszag, director of the Congressional Budget Office, to be director of the Office of Management and Budget. Eric Holder Jr., former number two at the Justice Department, to be Attorny General. New York Sen. Hillary Clinton to be secretary of State, although it is still unclear whether Obama has actually offered the job to her, even after conflict-of-interest issues…
We reported earlier this month on the expected wave of “midnight regulation” at the end of the Bush administration. Agencies were supposed to issue all final regulations by Nov. 1, according to OMB, except in “extraordinary circumstances.” But experts predicted dozens of new rules would miss the deadline and slip out the door before Jan. 20 (as happens during every transition). Sure enough, there are more than a dozen new rules in today’s Federal Register, including at least two proposed rules (which agencies were supposed to stop creating by July 1). A few examples: A final rule from the EPA…