The staff over here at Federal Times are getting a sense of deja vu from agency responses to our questions about a possible government shutdown. Here is a response from the Energy Department (Emphasis added). As a matter of course, our agency plans for contingencies, but this is besides the point since, as the bipartisan congressional leadership has said on a number of occasions and as the President has made clear, no one anticipates or wants a government shutdown. The Department is working with both sides on Capitol Hill to fund the government and keep its vital services and functions…
Browsing: Uncategorized
So if you ask federal agencies what they are doing in advance of a possible shutdown, you get vaguely similar answers. One of the main qualities they share is how unsatisfying they are. From the Department of Homeland Security. “The President has been clear that he does not want to see a shutdown, and we have heard similarly from Capitol Hill. We are committed to working together to make sure that we fund government so the American people get the services they need and rely on.” From the General Services Administration. “The Administration is working to keep the government up…
Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Joe Lieberman, ID-Conn., and Tom Carper, D-Del, introduced a cybersecurity bill Thursday that would prevent the president or any federal employee from shutting down the Internet. The 2011 Cybersecurity and Internet Freedom Act would amend the 2002 Federal Information Security Act and set limits on what the government can do to protect information infrastructure. “Our bill contains additional protections to explicitly prevent the president from shutting down the Internet,” Collins said in a released statement. “While experts question whether anyone can technically ‘shut down’ the Internet in the United States, our bill has specific language making it crystal clear that…
Major hat tip to the good folks over at BoingBoing who spread the word about the Department of Homeland Security accidentally shutting down 84,000 personal and business websites in what was a an attempt to block child pornography gone awry. DHS maintains it has the authority to shut down domains and subdomains it sees as having child pornography on it. However in this instance it might have been a case of too much too fast. The people over at Torrentfreak.com have a good summation. The domain in question is mooo.com, which belongs to the DNS provider FreeDNS. It is the…
Former CIA chief information officer Al Tarasiuk is President Barack Obama’s top choice for CIO of the Intelligence Community. Tarasiuk served as the CIO of CIA from 2005 to 2010. Before that, he was director of the CIA’s Information Service Center. “Al is well known for his leadership in information sharing and intelligence integration, and his experience, distinguished career and dedication to duty will greatly benefit the entire Intelligence Community,” National Intelligence Director James Clapper said in a news release.
A while back President Obama launched the SAVE initiative, which asked federal employees to identify ways to save money and increase government efficiency. The award winning suggestion was that agencies cancel their Federal Register subscriptions and read them online. Well, now its in the budget. In 2010, there were more than 4,700 subscriptions across the entire Federal Government. Based on Government Printing Office estimates, this proposed reduction would save taxpayers up to $4 million in postage and printing costs. In order to get the $4 million in savings, each federal agency and the individual offices within the legislative branch (Think…
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…
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…
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…