The House voted today to approve a 2.6 percent pay increase for civilian Federal employees. The legislation sponsored by Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., cleared the House on a vote of 259-161, with all 230 House Democrats being joined by 29 Republicans voting for the measure. […]
A new report from cybersecurity firm Security Scorecard released this week found that the partial Federal government shutdown had minimal negative effects on Federal network security, and even found some positive impacts on patching and endpoint security. […]
The House on Tuesday passed H.R. 769, the Counterterrorism Advisory Board Act of 2019, which would establish a board at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to coordinate and integrate departmental intelligence, activities, and policy related to counterterrorism. […]
The House Oversight and Reform Committee announced the leadership and membership of its subcommittees on Tuesday, with Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., as chairman of the Subcommittee on Government Operations, which will handle Federal IT oversight duties. Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., will service as the subcommittee’s ranking member. […]
The Department of Defense puts a lot of effort into cybersecurity but still has some significant holes in its structure, some of them dating back a decade, according to a report issued earlier this month by the department’s Inspector General (IG). […]
The U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) has extended the deadline on a request for information for cloud migration services, with the goal of closing multiple data centers and moving a suite of applications to a commercial cloud environment. The RFI is open until February 20. […]
A day after the Federal government fully reopened and less than three weeks after it faces another potential funding crisis, a group of Senate Democrats has been pushing to get back pay to low-wage government contractors who missed paychecks during the partial lapse in appropriations. […]
Technology experts speaking at the State of the Net conference today agreed that comprehensive legislation and enforcement is necessary to better protect consumer data, and that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) should play a bigger role in that enforcement. […]
The House Homeland Security Committee announced today that Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-La., will chair the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Innovation. […]
Multiple tech-related issues including cybersecurity, social media manipulation, and intellectual property theft took center stage today at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing featuring six U.S. intelligence organization chiefs fielding senators’ questions about threats to the country from adversaries who they said are becoming more dangerous as they better understand and use technology. […]
A Federal data breach disclosure law, which would require companies to report data breaches to customers within 30 days, will be reintroduced this year, according to Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I. […]
During the State of the Net 2019 Conference, cybersecurity experts zeroed in on how the shutdown impacted not only the United States’ cybersecurity posture but also the Federal government’s cybersecurity workforce. […]
A group of Democratic senators went public with a letter to Gen. Paul Nakasone, head of U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, and Kirstjen Nielsen, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), asking them to answer questions about the partial Federal government shutdown’s effect on cybersecurity. […]
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) launched its new Science, Technology Assessment and Analytics (STAA) team on Tuesday, with a focus on enhancing GAO’s ability to audit technology. […]
Rep. Bob Latta, R-Ohio, ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s subcommittee on Communications and Technology, delivered a wide-ranging survey of tech issues in the panel’s gunsights for this year and beyond during a keynote speech at the State of the Net 2019 conference today, and generally came down on the lighter side of the regulatory spectrum. […]
The Treasury Department’s Bureau of Engraving and Printing put out a request for information yesterday seeking information on technology or materials with hidden machine-readable counterfeit deterrent capabilities for future currency. […]
The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) reported today that customer satisfaction across Federal agencies was down in 2018 to a score of 68.9, following two years of improved satisfaction, as part of the ACSI Federal Government Report for 2018. […]
In a continuing effort to move email systems to the cloud, the Air Force said in migrated 555,000 email accounts to the Microsoft Office 365 cloud in early January, marking the first phase in a $1 billion Cloud Hosted Enterprise Services (CHES) program. […]
In anticipation of winter weather affecting the evening commute, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has announced a two-hour early departure for Federal personnel in the Washington D.C. area today, with an option to take unscheduled leave to stagger departure times. […]
MeriTalk today announced the launch of its FITARA Dashboard, a publicly-viewable resource that brings the latest congressional scoring of Federal agency information technology modernization progress into clearer focus, and provides analytical tools to perform detailed comparisons of how 24 major Federal agencies have achieved progress toward their goals over the past three years. […]
The Department of Justice unsealed charges against Chinese communications equipment maker Huawei on Monday, accusing the company of wire fraud, stealing trade secrets, and undermining sanctions against Iran. […]
The post-government shutdown thaw produced its first green shoots today, as Federal employees returned to work and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., invited President Trump to deliver the State of the Union address in the House chambers on Feb. 5. […]
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) today estimated the cost of the partial Federal government shutdown–which began Dec. 22 and ended Jan. 25–at $11 billion of reduced U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), although most of that amount will be recoverable in future periods. […]
Senate Democrats are circulating among their offices text of a letter they may send to senior Federal cybersecurity leaders questioning the impact of the partial Federal government shutdown on the security of government networks, MeriTalk has learned. […]
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Information Innovation Office will host a Proposers Day on Feb. 6 to provide information on a future Broad Agency Announcement about Guaranteeing AI Robustness against Deception (GARD) program. […]
The Federal IT market grew by 9.5 percent in fiscal year 2018 to reach a total of $64.7 billion dollars, which marks an all-time high, according to an analysis by Bloomberg Government. […]
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) on Sunday posted back-to-work guidance for Federal agencies and employees that were furloughed and/or required to work without pay during the partial government shutdown that began Dec. 22 and ended late Friday with congressional and White House approval of a continuing resolution to restart shuttered operations through Feb. 15. […]
The House and Senate late today voted to fully reopen the Federal government until Feb. 15, ending a 35-day shutdown that began before Christmas. […]
Reps. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., and Steny Hoyer, D-Md., introduced the Federal Civilian Workforce Pay Raise Fairness Act of 2019. The legislation, introduced today, would bring this year’s pay increase for civilian Federal employees in line with the raise given to members of the military. Currently, under President Trump’s pay freeze, civilian employees will see no pay raise, while members of the military received a 2.6 pay increase for the 2018 calendar year. […]
President Trump today endorsed a three-week extension of appropriations for Federal agencies that have been impacted by the partial government shutdown that began on Dec. 22. Assuming that legislation to that effect is quickly approved by the House and Senate, the partial shutdown would come to an end – for now. […]