Smarter Gov Tech, Stronger MerITocracy
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The Senate this week voted to approve two nominees to the three-member Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) – giving the board its first quorum in five years so that it can begin to take action on a big backlog of cases. […]

What Happened This Week – Ep. 53

President Biden in his March 1 State of the Union pleaded with members of Congress to complete work on reconciling two bills that would fund the CHIPS Act to support domestic semiconductor manufacturing, provide funding to the National Science Foundation (NSF) for a new technology directorate, and direct billions of new money to improve supply chain resiliency. […]

Joe Biden
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The General Services Administration (GSA) is working with the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Office of the Federal CIO to finalize the launch date of its modernized Federal IT Dashboard, which is now being targeted for a mid-March debut. […]

The Space Development Agency (SDA) has awarded a trio of contractors a total of $1.8 billion of contracts to build a mesh network of interconnected space satellites that will form the basis of a high-volume data communications system expected to make up the “backbone” of its Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) network, SDA said in a release. […]

NIST

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is developing a Cybersecurity Practice Guide through its National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) and Communications Technology Laboratory (CTL) and are requesting comment to refine the project’s scope. […]

Women

Even while women continue to make significant gains in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, many are still encountering obstacles in their career trajectories. Several women leaders in Federal government STEM fields offered advice from their own experiences at a March 1 virtual event hosted by ATARC on how to overcome challenges they have faced. […]

The Senate on March 1 approved by unanimous consent the Strengthening American Cybersecurity Act of 2022. The bill is a sweeping legislative package introduced last month that aims to update the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA), codify the General Services Administration’s Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), and require timely cyber incident reporting by critical infrastructure providers. […]

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President Biden
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As the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is shifting its focus from protecting sets of critical assets to improving the resilience of critical functions, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said the agency should improve its priority setting, stakeholder involvement, and threat information sharing in connection with that effort. […]

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The General Services Administration (GSA) has named its 2022 cohort of Presidential Innovation Fellows (PIF), who will serve one-year stints at 14 Federal agencies to support the Biden-Harris administration’s focus on empowering the Federal workforce and delivering an effective and efficient government. […]

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is busy deciphering how to best distribute $48 billion of new broadband funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, which the head of the NTIA said is a “once in a generation opportunity” to close the digital divide. […]

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The Department of Justice (DoJ) announced that the founder of an alleged fraudulent cryptocurrency trading platform, which at one time had a peak market of $3.4 billion, has been indicted by a San Diego Federal grand jury, according to a Feb. 25 release. […]

Air Force

The U.S. Air Force (USAF) has been deploying a modernized financial system since 2005, but the service branch has yet to create a migration plan to guide transition from the legacy system to the more modern one, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a new report. […]

The United States and its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) need to be prepared to face a high-level cyber assault from the Russian government, warned Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., on Feb. 28 during a Washington Post virtual event. […]

NASA

Pointing to harms that can result from the use of online data from children and teens, Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass. – an architect of early internet privacy laws – is continuing his years-long push for an update to data privacy laws to more comprehensively protect children in today’s digital landscape, and expand provisions of the law to protect all adults if possible. […]

DoD
cyber threat

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has launched a Notice of Inquiry (NOI) to seek comments on cyber risks to the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) – the routing protocol for the Internet – in response to increasing cyber threats following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. […]

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and FBI are warning United States-based organizations of two destructive malware programs used by Russia against Ukrainian organizations in the leadup to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the threat vectors seen in those attacks. […]

A group of nonprofits focusing on cybersecurity and implementation have formed a coalition to develop, share, deploy, and increase awareness of best cybersecurity practices, tools, standards, and services across the public and private sectors. […]

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