Associated Press reporter Eileen Sullivan just broke the news that Robert Harding, President Obama’s second nominee to run the Transportation Security Administration, withdrew his nomination this evening. Sullivan reported that Harding said he withdrew because his previous work as a defense contractor had become “distractions” to the administration and the Homeland Security Department.
The General Services Administration will begin design work this fall on a new federal courthouse in Greenville, S.C. After more than a year of deliberations, GSA picked a vacant lot across from the Greenville County Courthouse for the new facility, city officials announced Wednesday. The 204,000-square-foot facility will be more than three times the size of the current courthouse, which was built in 1937. The new courthouse was estimated to cost $135 million in 2007, according to local news website Journalwatchdog.com. Construction won’t begin until at least 2013, but Congress has already given the facility its new name. Lawmakers voted in…
The Social Security Administration is turning to pop culture icons to educate Americans about its offerings. First they used Chubby Checker to promote a “twist” in its Medicare prescription plan costs. Now it’s using Patty Duke and the cast of her 1960s television show, “The Patty Duke Show,” to get the word out about its new online application for Medicare benefits. To view one of the ads, click here. Of course, this could risk making some beneficiaries feel really old — not only are you old enough for Social Security, but the icons of your youth are being used to…
The House passed a bill Wednesday banning the installation and use of peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing software on all federal computers, systems and networks. Peer-to-peer programs such as BitTorrent, Lime Wire and KazaA pose security risks for the federal government. Rep. Edophus Towns, D-N.Y., introduced HR 4098 after several publicized information breaches involving peer-to-peer programs last year. In one case, confidential House Ethics Committee investigation documents were posted online after a staffer loaded the documents onto her personal computer which had peer-to-peer sharing software installed. Towns praised the House’s 408-13 vote in a statement. While I understand that peer-to-peer file…
Martha Johnson, administrator for the General Services Administration, spoke with reporters this afternoon at FOSE. She’s only been in the job for about two months and is learning where the agency should go. GSA is at a “crossroads,” she said, and can either stay the same or fight to grow. She thinks it should grow and improve communications and responsiveness with the needs of both agencies and companies who contract with GSA. What’s in our hands and what I’ve got some real sense of is the whole notion of upping our performance, simply cleaning up and performing better for our…
The Senate Commerce, Science and Technology Committee voted today to send a key cybersecurity bill to the Senate floor. The bill, S 773,would require the executive branch to work with the private sector to create cybersecurity standards and mandate audits to ensure compliance with those new standards. An earlier version of the bill would have granted the president authority to shut down the Internet in the case of a major cyber attack, but this new bill doesn’t include that authority. Instead, the government and the private sector would work together to address handling a major cybersecurity attack. Sens. Jay Rockefeller,…
The Postal Service launched a new Web site today to sell its vision for 5-day mail delivery (which lawmakers may be slowly warming to). Many of you probably know the highlights already: USPS thinks 5-day will save $3 billion per year, post offices and other facilities will remain open on Saturdays, etc. One thing that’s not posted yet, which I know is of great interest to the Postal Regulatory Commission, the Government Accountability Office, and other analysts: An official estimate of how much mail volume will suffer from switching to 5-day. As I said on Monday, I’m skeptical of the…
Placing too many security restrictions on mobile devices can deter employees from teleworking and fully using laptops and Blackberries, said federal cybersecurity officials today. David Stender, assistant chief information officer for cybersecurity at the Internal Revenue Service, told FOSE convention attendees that restrictions can help protect your data but keep you from getting your money’s worth from mobile devices. IRS uses a series of protections, including HSPD-12 cards, to allow users to authenticate themselves and access the IRS’ network, but those protections come with a price, he said. They do decrease battery life, which is frustrating for officers and investigators…
Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry yesterday officially downgraded the government’s estimates of its per-day losses during last month’s snowstorms. Instead of losing $102 million per day, Berry now says the government only lost $71 million per day. But there is reason to take those calculations with a grain of salt. Berry first threw out the $102 million daily loss estimate during a December press conference on snow closure procedures. That was a rough, back-of-the-envelope calculation of the total daily payroll for all 270,000 federal employees in the Washington area, and assumed total losses in productivity. That estimate was clearly…
The House panel that oversees public buildings will convene tomorrow afternoon to examine whether the General Services Administration has enough money to properly manage and maintain federal buildings. The hearing, entitled “Capital Asset Crisis: Maintaining Federal Real Estate with the Dwindling Federal Building Fund,” follows up on a November interview I had with Bob Peck, commissioner of GSA’s Public Buildings Service. In the interview, Peck acknowledged that GSA would be unable to pay for major building repairs or upgrades within six years because of shortfalls in the fund. A summary briefing on the hearing, issued today by the House panel, cites…