Browsing: Homeland Security

The Government Accountability Office on March 9 upheld a protest challenging the Department of Homeland Security’s multimillion-dollar contract with CACI to integrate financial management systems. CACI was awarded up to $450 million worth of work on Nov. 19 to support the department’s troubled Transformation and Systems Consolidation program, which required the company to consolidate financial, acquisition and asset management systems across the department. Competitors – Global Computer Enterprises and Savantage Financial Services – protested the award with GAO about a week later. GAO upheld GCE’s protest but dismissed Savantage’s, according to a GAO decision released Wednesday. GCE argued that DHS…

Consolidating data centers on the Department of Homeland Security’s St. Elizabeths campus won’t be a problem; there are none. There will, however, be a centralized location for servers in the campus’ information technology operations center, DHS official Mark Hamilton said during an industry day Thursday. Two off-campus data centers, DHS 1 and 2, will house the data. The General Services Administration hosted the event to field questions about the $2.63 billion contract to install, test and operate a secure network throughout the future DHS headquarters.  Here are some other take-aways from the event:   – Federal employees and contractors are really going to use HSPD12 identification cards to access…

Richard Skinner, inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security, is calling it quits after a 42-year government career. In a letter to President Obama released late this afternoon, Skinner said he will retire effective March 1. “I believe the time has come for me to give my full-time attention to my family and personal endeavors,” he wrote. Skinner became the department’s inspector general in July 2005 after two years as its deputy IG. Since 1969, he has worked in IG positions across the government, including the Agriculture, Commerce and Justice Departments, according to a news release. His service at…

The Department of Homeland Security has extended the Jan. 11 deadline for accepting bids on its next-generation, $22 billion contract for information technology services. Bids are due Feb. 16 for the unrestricted source category and by Feb. 23 for the small-business category. The five-year Enterprise Acquisition Gateway for Leading Edge Solutions II (EAGLE II) contract has three categories: development and delivery of services; technical support for those services; and independent evaluation on the cost-effectiveness of those services.

ACORN may have filed for bankruptcy last month, but its name continues to surface: A newly released audit finds that the Federal Emergency Management Agency skirted the rules to award an ACORN affiliate $450,484 in fire prevention and safety funds. The idea behind the fiscal 2007 grant was to let the ACORN Institute develop best practices for community organizations to canvass high-risk neighborhoods and install smoke detectors and other safety equipment, according to the audit by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general. In its grant application, the ACORN Institute claimed to have plenty of experience in that line via…

The Transportation Security Administration is digging in its heels over the new patdown procedures for airline passengers who don’t want to go through revealing — and possibly radiation-exposing — scans. But the agency is losing the battle for public opinion — fast. And the American Federation of Government Employees — one of two major unions vying to represent TSA — is worried the backlash could come down hard on screeners. There’s already been a few physical altercations between screeners and angry passengers, including an incident where a traveler in Indianapolis punched a screener. “TSA must do a better job explaining…

The NY Daily News reports that the terrorist group Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is now calling for strikes on federal employees. In the second issue of the organization’s magazine, “Inspire,” AQAP propagandist Yahyim Ibrahim suggests wannabe terrorists open fire at crowded restaurants in Washington during lunchtime to kill feds. “Targeting such employees is paramount and the location would also give the operation additional media attention,” Ibrahim wrote. AQAP is the Yemen-based franchise of al-Qaida and is thought to have provided training and support to the alleged Christmas Day bomber. The Obama administration says American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki is…

Don’t expect much to happen in this year’s fast dwindling congressional session,  but a bi-partisan group of senators today introduced legislation to bolster the Federal Protective Service, responsible for security at some 9,000 federal buildings. The bill would push FPS to hire 500 more full-time employees over the next four years, require the agency to do more to ensure the competence of contract guards, and mandate standards for checkpoint detection technologies for explosives and other threats at federal facilities, according to a news release from Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.…

The Smoking Gun today published a statement from a Transportation Security Administration screener who allegedly beat a co-worker with a baton for mocking the size of his genitalia. According to alleged assaulter Rolando Negrin’s statement to Miami police, several co-workers teased him day after day as a “little angry man” after a full-body scanner digitally exposed him, and he snapped. He said the relentless mockery became a form of “psychological torture.” There’s so much about this case that is messed up. Using physical violence to resolve a workplace dispute is, of course, never justified. But if this is actually what…

Government Security News had an item Sunday about a curious solicitation from the Federal Protective Service — a surveillance system for government buildings that can also spy on the user: A recent solicitation issued by the Federal Protective Service unit of DHS for what it calls a “Video Surveillance Rapid Deployment Kit” contained an intriguing requirement among its roster of technical specifications: “Hidden internal camera and microphone that will allow a remote user to see and hear the operator of the system.” That sounds as if a boss back at FPS headquarters wants to be able to watch and listen…

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