The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) issued a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) seeking information on developing software capable of whole-body (WB) identification at long-range and from elevated platforms. […]

President Trump on Dec. 11 signed an executive order (EO) giving Federal employees the full day off on Christmas Eve. While Christmas Eve is not officially a Federal holiday, President Trump gave Federal employees Dec. 24 off in 2019 and 2018, as well. Department heads will still ultimately have the last call as the EO […]

The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) is seeking a private sector partner to provide engineering, sustainment, technical and operational support for the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and Cloud Storage programs. […]

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is requiring all Federal civilian agencies to disconnect or turn off any SolarWinds Orion products by noon today, as a nation-state hack of the tools pose a significant cybersecurity threat and is linked to a hack at the Treasury and Commerce Departments. […]

Government and industry officials weighed in on the final day of Google Cloud’s Public Sector Summit Dec. 9 with both strategic advice and practical experience for technology deployments to deal with dislocations caused by the coronavirus pandemic, and to continue improving citizen service beyond the current public health crisis. […]

The Department of the Navy (DON) Chief Information Officer is being directed to partner with the Assistant Secretary of the Navy and Director, and the Director for Office of the Chief Management Officer to take proactive measures to identify, assess, and eliminate redundant systems and applications throughout the organization. […]

The Senate unanimously passed the weeklong continuing resolution (CR) by a voice vote on Dec. 11, clearing the way to avoid a Federal government shutdown at midnight. The Senate approved the CR passed by the House of Representatives earlier in the week. The CR will now go to President Trump’s desk for final approval. […]

The Senate passed the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2021 on Dec. 11 with a veto-proof 84-13 vote. This follows the House passing the bill earlier this week, also with a veto-proof majority. The bill now goes to President Trump’s desk, who has repeatedly Tweeted that he plans to use his veto power. […]

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a Dec. 10 report the Department of Defense (DoD) is at risk of not being able to fully achieve its electromagnetic system (EMS) strategy goals without addressing key issues. […]

The Department of Defense (DoD) is seeking a real-time open source intelligence tool for gathering software licenses and with access to a minimum of 50 million unique websites. […]

The changing cybersecurity landscape demands evolving technology and policy to help Federal agencies combat cyber threats and build resilience. MeriTalk spoke with Bryan Rosensteel, public sector cybersecurity architect at Cisco’s Duo Security, about the expansion of agency networks beyond traditional perimeters, how the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program is adapting to the changing landscape, and how dynamic authentication can help agencies stay ahead of bad actors. […]

Federal CIOs laid the groundwork for COVID-19-related telework by modernizing systems and moving to the cloud, responded to the pandemic with rapid modernization, and have the opportunity to maintain momentum for further improvements to government technology, said Maria Roat, deputy Federal CIO. […]

New legislation being prepared by House leaders will aim to track the promulgation of any “midnight” regulations by the outgoing Trump administration with an eye to amending or eliminating any eleventh-hour rules that are not based on “evidence and research.” […]

Federal government agencies are making consistent progress on going paperless and 97 percent of agencies believe they will meet the December 2022 deadline, set in Memorandum-19-21, to properly manage permanent files, according to a National Archives and Record Administration (NARA) report. […]

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has officially adopted rules for identifying, removing, and replacing telecommunications equipment that could pose a national security threat to the United States. […]

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is warning consumers about scams related to the rollout of a COVID-19 vaccine, which could see distribution authorization from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) – after applications are reviewed by the third or fourth week of December 2020. […]

During the last weeks of the 116th Congress, H.R. 1250, a non-binding resolution to pursue a national artificial intelligence (AI) strategy, has passed the House. […]

President-elect Joe Biden announced today that his administration will be nominating Denis McDonough as Secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA), as well as naming a few others to key cabinet positions. “This dedicated and distinguished group of public servants will bring the highest level of experience, compassion, and integrity to bear, solving problems and expanding possibilities […]

The Department of Defense (DoD) is thinking about how it can incorporate cloud computing into its high-performance compute capabilities and leverage the flexibility and scale of commercial cloud offerings, according to a request for information (RFI) released December 8 by the United States Army Corps of Engineers. […]

Research and consulting firm Forrester is calling for the incoming Biden administration to create a permanent Chief Customer Officer (CCO) position that would have the stated goal of improving the customer experience (CX) of those interacting with Federal agencies. […]

The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) issued a Dec. 8 report on the agency’s progress moving its telecom services contracts from legacy Networx agreements to Enterprise Information Solutions (EIS) contracts. […]

This fall, the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) operationalized its Coast Guard Care Anywhere initiative with the deployment of an enterprise virtual healthcare platform, ViiMed. The growing COVID-19 pandemic made a robust virtual health platform an urgent necessity. […]

Senior executives with Google Cloud emphasized at their first Public Sector Summit on Dec. 8 the work that the company has been doing with a variety of public sector organizations during the coronavirus pandemic, and one emerging silver lining to the health crisis: a big leap forward in IT modernization that will help government and academia during the recovery. […]

The House of Representatives late today approved a continuing budget resolution (CR) that funds Federal government operations through Dec. 18.  The CR still needs Senate approval to avoid a Federal government shutdown when existing funding authorization expires on Dec. 11. […]

On Dec. 3, President Trump signed into law a bipartisan bill that would codify the Information Technology Modernization Centers of Excellence (CoE) Program, housed under the General Services Administration (GSA).   […]

The Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) is building partnerships to spread artificial intelligence (AI) knowledge and projects throughout the Department of Defense (DoD) while acting as an advisor to interested components, said Colonel Robert Kinney, missions director at JAIC. […]

While larger Federal government agencies had the resources necessary to facilitate a shift to large-scale telework earlier this year, some smaller agencies had a more difficult time mounting similar efforts, a State Department official said at a Dec. 9 AFCEA Bethesda webinar. […]

State-sponsored hackers targeted cybersecurity firm FireEye in a recent cyberattack, company CEO Kevin Mandia disclosed in a Dec. 8 statement. The company said it is coordinating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in its investigation of the attack. […]

The United States and Australia signed a first-of-its-kind agreement in November to develop a virtual cyber training range to practice real-world defensive missions across boundaries and networks. […]

Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., along with 16 House colleagues in a Dec. 7 letter, called on Senate and House appropriators to prioritize funding for broadband infrastructure projects and reject proposed cuts included in the Senate version of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 funding bill. […]