Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced Tuesday that former National Security Council Director Christopher Painter will lead the department’s cyber security efforts. During a speech about Internet freedoms at George Washington University, Clinton said Painter will head the department’s Office of the Coordinator for Cyber Issues. State’s 2010 Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review established a coordinator for cyber issues to “lead State’s engagement on cybersecurity and other cyber issues.” Painter’s duties will include protecting “the confidentiality of communications between and among governments.” Clinton said the office will enhance current cybersecurity efforts and promote cooperation across the department and governmentwide. She added that the administration will “complete…
Monthly Archives: February, 2011
This probably comes as no shock, but President Obama is threatening to veto a Republican-backed bill that would slash a net total of $61 billion in agency discretionary spending for this fiscal year. Although the administration is committed to cutting spending, it “does not support deep cuts that will undermine our ability to out-educate, out-build and out-innovate the rest of the world,” the White House Office of Management and Budget said in a statement this afternoon. The administration also charges that the GOP legislation—which was introduced last Friday and is now being debated on the House floor–would reduce Defense Department…
Last February, the Obama administration used its fiscal 2011 budget request to roll out more than 120 “high-priority performance goals” for federal agencies to meet. Twelve months later, how are all those agencies doing? You won’t find out from the White House’s FY12 request. “Significant progress has been made on some priority goals, while weaknesses have been identified and are being addressed in others,” the document says. It then cites a couple of the cheerier examples—such as the Energy Department’s weatherizing 295,000 homes—but with no context and few details. The agency-by-agency list of goals posted on the White House web…
For those of you looking for an entertaining bit of info to help you get through yet another day, look no further. Right on page 506 of the 1,364 page presidential budget request appendix (A thumping good read) sits an interesting directive for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Provided further, That Members of the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate, including the leadership; the heads of Federal agencies and commissions, including the Secretary, Deputy Secretary, Under Secretaries, and Assistant Secretaries of the Department of Homeland Security; the United States Attorney General and Assistant Attorneys General and the…
Federal agencies are modifying their information technology portfolios to align with strategies released by the White House for government-wide adoption of cloud solutions. The Federal Cloud Computing Strategy, released Friday on cio.gov, provides a framework for migrating to the cloud, redefining contracts with cloud vendors and addressing security and governance concerns. There are also case studies highlighting the agencies’ cloud adoption process. When selecting services to move to the cloud, agencies should consider the benefits (efficiency, agility and need for improvements through innovation) and how soon the service can move to the cloud (near-term, medium-term and long-term movers), according to…
The Obama administration responded Sunday to House Republicans’ plan for slashing more than $60 billion in federal discretionary spending during the remainder of this fiscal year. Sort of. “We look forward to working with Congress,” Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew said on CNN’s “State of the Union” talk show. That was all that host Candy Crowley could get out of Lew, despite prodding him several times for a substantive answer. In the bill released Friday night, the House GOP proposed whacking hundreds of agencies and programs to the tune of $69 billion in comparison to last year’s…
Many are the ways in which the government loses money to contractors, but by failing to answer a survey? That’s essentially what happened at the Housing and Urban Development Department, which cost taxpayers more than $267,000 because some of its managers didn’t bother filling out customer satisfaction questionnaires from tech giant Hewlett-Packard. Here’s the story, according to the department’s inspector general: Under the terms of a 2005 information technology contract, HP has to ask managers in HUD’s Office of the Chief Information Officer every six months how happy they are with the company’s work. If the survey response rate falls below 50 percent, Hewlett-Packard…
Sorry, feds: It will be at least one more day before you find out what House Republicans have in store for your agency’s budget. Earlier this week, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky., had hoped to introduce legislation today spelling out more than $74 billion in possible cuts from agency spending this year, when measured against President Obama’s fiscal 2011 budget request. But earlier in the day, Rogers announced that the target has swelled to $100 billion. As a result, the bill won’t be introduced before Friday at the earliest. “I have instructed my committee to include these deeper…
Two firms have been cut from a $3 billion Department of Homeland Security contracting program because of Small Business Administration suspensions. Neither EG Solutions nor MultimaxArray FirstSource, or MAF, was renewed under one-year contract options exercised this month for the First Source information technology program, DHS spokesman Larry Orluskie said today. Representatives for the two firms did not respond to emailed requests for comment this afternoon. Orluskie noted that the contract, first awarded in 2007, is set to be re-competed next year. Both companies remain under suspensions levied by the SBA in November for alleged abuses of small business contracting…
The ethics group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has sent a letter to the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) outlining what they see as an abuse of taxpayer money – members of Congress sleeping in their offices. Congress who sleep in their offices are violating House rules. CREW also asked the OCE to determine whether these members are violating tax law by failing to report lodging as a taxable fringe benefit. Press reports indicate that at least 33 members – 26 Republicans and 7 Democrats – have turned their offices into dorm rooms. “House office buildings are…