Two years after President Obama pledged a new dawning of governmental sunshine, barely half of 90 federal agencies say they’ve made concrete changes in their handling of Freedom of Information Act requests, according to survey findings released Sunday. While 49 agencies reported changes to their FOIA processes, the remainder either said they had no information or did not respond to the Knight Open Government Survey. In a similar round-up last year, only 13 agencies reported changes, so this year’s numbers reflect a large uptick. Still, “at this rate, the president’s first term in office will be over by the time federal agencies…
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Fairfax-based General Dynamics Information Technology was awarded an $83.6 million contract to provide network support services for U.S. Special Operations Command. Under the five-year contract, the company will manage global enterprise information technology data, voice, and video communications networks for USSOCOM. Most of the work will be performed at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida.
The Senate on Saturday repealed the long-standing “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which prohibited openly gay men and women from serving in the military. The final vote was 65-31 in favor of repeal. The bill now goes to President Obama, who is expected to sign it next week. View our sister websites, including ArmyTimes.com, for more coverage.
The Defense Department released a free smart phone application for service members, veterans and their families to track emotional health issues, according to a DoD news release. The T2 MoodTracker application differs from others on the market in that it focuses on deployment-related behavioral health issues such as post-traumatic stress, brain injury and depression. Using a set of 10 descriptions or feeling anchors for each health issue, users can rate their feelings and make note of events or experiences that affect their health. This information can be tracked over days, weeks or months and used as a self-help tool or to share…
One unknown at the Pentagon has finally been answered. Teri Takai, President Barack Obama’s nominee to be the Defense Department’s chief information officer, will finally assume her new role on Nov. 7, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced Tuesday. “The new CIO position will be central to these efforts as the DoD continues to transform its IT capabilities to meet the enormous mission critical needs of the U.S. military,” according to a DoD news release There was some uncertainty about Takai filling the position after her nomination hearing, set for Aug. 3, was canceled. Under Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ cost-saving plan, it’s unclear whether the…
Good luck trying to decipher the Defense Department’s color-coded chart of policies it uses to “build, operate and secure” its networks. The two-foot-long IA policy chart outlines 193 documents (including directives, strategies, policies, memos, regulations, strategies, white papers and instructions) that many information assurance professionals “may not be aware of,” Noah Shachtman points out on his Danger Room blog. Designed by the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Cyber Identity & Information Assurance, the chart is supposed to help these workers familiarize themselves with the policies that govern how they do their job. I guess the legend may be a good place to start, but even…
A little fuzzy on the distinctions between various types of federal contracts? Don’t feel bad, because some federal contracting officers are, too, according to a Federal Register notice published today. In a jointly filed proposed rule, the Defense Department, NASA and the General Services Administration indicate that they are trying to correct the mistaken impression among contracting officers “governmentwide” that the fixed labor rates in time-and-materials/labor-hour contracts make them “fixed-price type contracts.” In fact, as the Government Accountability Office reported last year, time and materials contracts are considered high-risk because the contractor’s profit hinges on the number of hours worked.
The Washington Post today has an amusing piece on Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ penchant for corny, corny jokes about Washington. Even Gates’ loyal speechwriters try to strike the zingers — such as “Washington … a place where people say ‘I’ll double-cross that bridge when I come to it’ ” — from his prepared remarks, but Gates puts them back in. (Poor Bob gets no respect. But at least it’s better than Don Rumsfeld’s found poetry.) Give a listen to Sirius XM’s compilation of the SecDef’s greatest hits here. (My favorite part is the overdubbed guy bellowing “Yeah yeah!” At least,…
Almost two-thirds of the workforce at the Business Transformation Agency, a Pentagon shop slated for the chopping block, is made up of contract employees, according to figures obtained by Federal Times under the Freedom of Information Act. Of 1,124 workers, 725 are contractors, 375 are civilian and 24 are military personnel, the figures show. In announcing his decision to close BTA within the next year, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last month that the agency employed “approximately 360 people.” Gates was apparently referring only to government civilian employees. Federal Times filed the FOIA request after repeated attempts to obtain the…
Well over half of the employees once under the Defense Department’s ill-fated National Security Personnel System are now back on the General Schedule. According to the latest data from the Pentagon’s NSPS Transition Office, 127,962 employees had been transitioned out of the pay-for-performance program as of Aug. 15 — more than 56 percent of the roughly 226,000 employees under the system at its peak. Of those who have transitioned, 20 percent — or 25,893 — have been placed on pay retention because they received larger raises under NSPS than they would have under GS, and their salaries fall above their…