Wired magazine reported today that a new bill from Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins, currently in draft form, would give the government broad powers to take over responsibility for civilian networks in case of an “imminent cyber threat.” It’s commendable that legislators are thinking about private networks while making contingency plans for a massive cyber attack. Protecting government IT systems isn’t enough — the vast majority of the country’s infrastructure in this area lies in private hands. From the Wired report: “These emergency measures are supposed to remain in place for no more than 30 days. But they can be…
Browsing: Congress
Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz, and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., today filed amendments to the Iraq and Afghanistan war supplemental spending bills that seek to offset its costs by cutting spending elsewhere — and feds aren’t going to like what they’ve got in mind. McCain and Coburn want to save about $2.6 billion by freezing federal employees’ raises, bonuses and other salary increases for one year. This comes on the heels of their House counterparts’ move to put federal raises on the chopping block as part of their YouCut program. They also seek to eliminate non-essential government travel ($10 billion over 10…
The Hill reports House Republicans yesterday tried to attach language to a jobs bill that would have fired feds caught watching or distributing pornography on their work computers. But when dozens of Democrats started voting for the Republicans’ “motion to recommit” — a parliamentary procedure that gives the minority one last chance to amend legislation — and the provision passed, Democratic leaders pulled the bill. Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., who wrote the bill, was outraged at the Republican’s move: For anyone that is concerned about federal employees watching pornography, they just saw a pornographic movie. It’s called, “Motion to Recommit.”…
I came across this interesting nugget in an article about the Library of Congress’ efforts to permanently archive 120 years of film history. Ken Weissman, supervisor of the Library’s film preservation laboratory, has started a pilot program to once and for all fix a mistake caused by the agency’s lousy interpretation of copyright law more than a century ago. The Library started archiving films in 1894, and over the next two decades, accumulated some 3,000 movies such as The Great Train Robbery and A Trip to the Moon. But the Library’s interpretation of the then-current copyright law led it to conclude that these newfangled motion pictures…
Tuesday’s meeting of the House Armed Services subcommittee on oversight and investigations started to resemble an episode of “Seinfeld” after a while, as Congressmen became obsessed with parsing the difference between a “continental breakfast” and a “light snack.” David Fisher, head of DoD’s Business Transformation Agency, offered a convoluted distinction between the two from the rules that govern defense travel, to illustrate the complexity of those regulations. Committe chairman Vic Snyder, an Arkansas Democrat, came up with his own definition. “I think if you stay on your feet it’s light refreshments, if you sit down it’s a continental breakfast,” he…
The Congressional Management Foundation has released a new analysis of Congressional websites. The group gave its “Platinum Mouse” awards, for the best site in each of four categories, to: *Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska *Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y. *The House Committee on Science and Technology (makes sense) *The House Republican Conference For a full list of award winners, go here. One might think that the Democrats, who generally attract younger, more tech-savvy voters, would have better websites, but that’s not the case, according to CMF.
Federal Protective Service contract guards failed to detect guns, knives and other prohibited items brought into federal agencies more than half of the time during covert tests by the agency, the Government Accountability Office reveals in a new report. Sen. Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said the new report shows FPS continues to face widespread problems with its contractor workforce. While it has taken some steps forward in recent months, the Federal Protective Service continues to be an agency in crisis. As I blogged earlier, the House Homeland Security Committee, which requested the…
Chances are when you entered your federal office this morning, you passed by a private-sector security guard. Although the Federal Protective Service is charged with protecting employees and visitors at roughly 9,000 federal buildings nationwide, the agency largely relies on contract security guards to get the job done: 15,000 guards to be precise, compared to just 1,225 FPS officers, investigators and administrative staff. The House Homeland Security Committee is debating whether that needs to change. Specifically, the committee will hold a hearing tomorrow morning to debate whether federal guards would provide better security than contract workers. A series of eye-opening…
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich yesterday encouraged the GOP to defund federal agencies or missions in order to hamstring Obama administration policies. Gingrich, speaking to the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, said: Stage 1 of the end of Obamaism will be a new Republican Congress in January that simply refuses to fund any of the radical efforts. […] Under our Constitution, the Congress doesn’t have to pass the money. If EPA gets no budget, it can’t enforce cap and trade. If HHS gets no budget… As former Bush speechwriter and exiled conservative commentator David Frum said, “In other words: Follow…
Happy Friday! Here’s a few amusing links to take you into the weekend. The Onion breaks the “news” here that the federal government plans to save $300 billion a year by eliminating the wasteful and “100 percent redundant” Senate: Established in 1789 as a means of overseeing the passage of bills into law, the once-promising senator program has reportedly failed to contribute to the governing of the nation in any significant way since 1964. … In fact, the program has gone unchecked for so long that many in Washington are now unable to recall what purpose U.S. senators were originally…