The House late on Jan. 8 approved H.R. 2881, a bill requiring President Trump to develop a mobile telecommunications systems and infrastructure strategy, by a 413-3 vote. […]

With data collection for the 2020 Census beginning this month, the U.S. Census Bureau is turning to Internet content creators to help the Census go viral. […]

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a new guide detailing best practices and techniques for conducting technology readiness assessments (TRA) at Federal agencies on Jan. 7. […]

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is planning a public meeting to solicit feedback on agencywide data strategy modernization scheduled for March 27. […]

The National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) wrote to Congress on Jan. 6 to thank them for including $425 million in the fiscal year 2020 budget for election security purposes. […]

The tech-savvy edge of Congress is helping the largest Federal agencies improve their IT operations, and the latest FITARA Scorecard proves it. […]

As part of its proposed set of U.S. AI regulatory principles, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) urged Federal regulators to “limit regulatory overreach” of the technology and its applications by the private sector. […]

President Trump signed the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence (TRACED) Act into law on Dec. 31, 2019. […]

Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, and Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., alluded to recommendations, ideologies, and methods of the forthcoming Cyberspace Solarium Commission report at a Council on Foreign Relations event on Jan. 7 – but resisted making the big reveal with harder news about the report’s findings. […]

Accenture announced today that it has agreed to buy Symantec’s Cyber Security Services business from Broadcom. […]

The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is conducting market research for potential vendors and industry feedback on a governmentwide vulnerability disclosure platform (VDP). […]

With the D.C. and Northern Virginia areas expected to see the season’s first significant snowfall this afternoon, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is telling Federal agencies to prepare for the weather and send employees home early today. […]

The Department of Energy has taken the steps necessary to implement the 2015 Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, the department’s inspector general (IG) said. […]

Rising political and military tensions between the United States and Iran have led to renewed calls for securing government and private-sector critical systems in the event that the conflict leads to malicious cyber activity against U.S. assets. […]

In January, the 2020 U.S. Census officially begins, with the population count in remote parts of Alaska. By April 1, the process begins for the rest of the U.S. population. The census, conducted every 10 years, is the most important initiative of the U.S. Census Bureau, the Federal government’s largest statistical agency and the nation’s leading provider of quality data about its people and economy. The data collected by the census determines the number of seats each state has in the U.S. House of Representatives, and it is used to distribute more than $675 billion in Federal funds to local communities. This funding supports education, healthcare, infrastructure improvements, and more. […]

Nearly one million active military personnel and veterans have been the target of scams that have cost them about $405 million since 2012, according to a report from Comparitech. […]

Help us recognize the change makers and innovators in Federal IT sales and marketing at the inaugural MeriTalk Federal Firebrands awards program. We are looking for tech leaders who spark great ideas to deliver high-impact programs in their organizations. […]

The present and future state of Federal IT has monumental challenges to address – modernization, data utilization, and automation just to name a few – but none are so critical, or enduring, as cybersecurity. It’s the threat that will never fully go away – and where eternal vigilance, and innovation, are the price of liberty. […]

While the Department of Labor (DOL) has consistently complied with Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) standards, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) reported on Dec. 23 that the agency’s information security program is, overall, ineffective. […]

The Election Assistance Commission generally complies with Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) requirements, but the policies in place are not enough to protect agency information, according to a Jan. 2 report released by the EAC Office of the Inspector General (OIG). […]

The Department of Defense’s (DoD) Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) is seeking information to conduct market research on AI and other emerging technologies. […]

A privacy impact assessment of the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program’s Shared Service Platform has raised no big privacy concerns, according to a report dated Dec. 19, 2019, and reviewed by the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Acting Chief Privacy Officer. […]

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) that took effect earlier this week will not only erect a higher data privacy bar for citizens of the state, but also may put an important policy stake in the ground for Federal lawmakers who are weighing nationwide data privacy legislation. […]

Matthew Cornelius took over last month as Executive Director at the Alliance for Digital Innovation, a Washington-based trade group focused on enhancing technological innovation within the Federal government. […]

Industry leaders shared their predictions for 2020 and beyond with MeriTalk, indicating the path to progress will often track uphill, and around plenty of curves. […]

The General Services Administration (GSA) announced it will host two townhalls on electronic rulemaking (eRulemaking) early in 2020, according to a Dec. 31 announcement in the Federal Register. […]

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released volume one of its draft Cloud Interface Reference Architecture for the National Cybersecurity Protection System (NCPS) on December 12, aimed at enabling greater cloud adoption while keeping security concerns at the forefront. […]

For the first time in the history of the House Oversight and Reform Committee’s FITARA Scorecard, three agencies received “A” grades and set the bar higher for the 24 CFO Act agencies going forward into 2020. […]

While old hard drives hung in IT closets with care, and visions of modernization danced in CIOs’ heads all year long, as the new decade approaches Federal agencies can only hope that this gift-giving season brings the new tech they’ll need to stay on top of their IT transformations. […]

Throughout 2019, members of Congress introduced numerous IT-related bills to their chamber, but they are scattered across various levels of the legislation process. With the 116th Congress approximately halfway through its two-year session, here’s a status update on where some of the top IT legislation stands: […]