Smarter Gov Tech, Stronger MerITocracy
Russia hacking hack cyber-min
cybersecurity chip AI
FBI

The Department of Justice (DoJ), citing the increased number of cybercrimes being tackled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has doubled its broad goal of FBI actions to combat cyberattacks in FY 2019, although FY 2018 statistics indicate that the FBI could end up handling a much heavier workload than that.   […]

Department of Homeland Security DHS

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it plans to not recompete the Enterprise Acquisition Gateway for Leading-Edge Solutions (EAGLE) II contract, and instead pursue a “suite of contract vehicles,” according to a Dec. 17 press release. […]

USDA Agriculture

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) updated their goals on modernizing its information technology through an action plan that is focusing on customer-focused, evidence-based, and tax-dollar efficient technology. […]

Cyber workforce people

The Trump administration’s latest update of its recent activities to fulfill its CAP (cross-agency priority) goal action plan for shifting agencies’ attention to higher-value work shows that agencies working on the plan–including officials from the Office of Management Budget and the Department of Housing and Urban Development–have a busy 2019 schedule to advance the effort. […]

General Services Administration GSA

An update to the cross-agency priority (CAP) goal of quality shared services–one of eight such goals contained in the President’s Management Agenda released in March–found the Federal effort to meet the goal making some steady, if slow, progress. […]

Since the President’s Management Agenda was issued in March, Federal agencies have been working governmentwide to “provide a modern, streamlined, and responsive customer experience [CX] across government, comparable to leading private sector organizations.” According to an update released Wednesday on Performance.gov, agencies have made strong progress on the cross-agency priority (CAP) of improving CX with Federal services; however, the path forward has not been without bumps in the road. […]

NIST

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released the final version of its new risk management framework (RMF)–NIST SP 800-37 Revision 2–addressing both security and privacy concerns in IT risk management. […]

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NASA

According to an internal memo obtained by SpaceRef, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) suffered a breach of employee personally identifiable information (PII), leaving civil service employees who worked for the agency from July 2006 to October 2018 potentially affected. […]

The Pentagon is a very large building that houses a lot of the authorities for the U.S. Military. It's big. This photo doesn't do it justice, but they're kinda rightly concerned about people flying drones around there.
White House flag at half mast
Congress Capitol Senate House

The Senate on Dec. 18 approved by unanimous consent S. 3085, the Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Security Act.  This bill, according to its text, would “establish a Federal Acquisition Security Council and … provide executive agencies with authorities relating to mitigating supply chain risks in the procurement of information technology.” […]

Washington DC capitol federal government-min

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., introduced a short-term spending bill on Wednesday, that would fund the government through February 8, 2019, and avoid a government shutdown later this week. The bill must be approved by both chambers of Congress before reaching President Trump’s desk for his signature. “The measure will provide the resources necessary […]

Cyber workforce people

In the President’s Management Agenda, issued in March, President Trump called on the Federal government to modernize the Federal workforce. In the months that followed, the Federal government has made significant progress on the cross-agency priority (CAP) of workforce improvement, but still has a ways to go, according to an update released yesterday on Performance.gov. […]

DCOI data center server room infrastructure hyperconverged cloud storage architecture
TMF technology modernization fund gears

An updated cross-agency priority (CAP) Goal Action plan was released yesterday, designed to modernize technology to increase productivity and security, reduce costs, and establish a modern IT workforce. […]

DoD Pentagon Military

A report from the Department of Defense Inspector General found various software management problems across several service components which the IG said raise cybersecurity risks and create unnecessary costs, but DoD’s Office of the CIO declined to respond to the draft report. […]

Federal spending budget

The Federal government is making some progress in supporting the cross-agency priority (CAP) goal of greater transparency among Federal IT spending, but is behind schedule on establishing government-wide standards for Technology Business Management (TBM)–a set of best practices for running IT businesses and communicating IT costs and benefits–according to an update released yesterday on Performance.gov. […]

Cybersecurity cyber
NIST
Department of Homeland Security DHS
White House

During a press briefing today, White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the Trump administration is considering other options to fund construction of a border wall along the U.S. southern border, other than through the President’s standing demand for $5 billion in funding from Congress for that purpose.  […]

Brian Schatz

On Monday, the Senate unanimously passed the Reliable Emergency Alert Distribution Improvement (READI) Act. The READI Act will “ensure more people receive relevant emergency alerts on their mobile phones, televisions, and radios, explore new ways of alerting the public through online video and audio streaming services, track and study false alerts when they occur, and improve the way states plan for emergency alerts,” according to a press release from the bill’s sponsor Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii. The bipartisan legislation was also championed by Sens. John Thune, R-S.D., and Roger Wicker, R-Miss. […]

Google HQ

A Google spokesperson declined today to confirm or deny a report from The Intercept that an internal struggle between Google’s privacy team and executives managing its Dragonfly China search engine project has led to an effective shutdown of the effort.  […]

data privacy, people, personal data, binary
FCC

The Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Karen Peltz Strauss retired yesterday from her position as deputy bureau chief of the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau. […]

In the afterglow of last week’s FITARA Scorecard 7.0 report from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee–which catalogued both substantial improvements by some Federal agencies in numerous grading categories and efforts by others to shore up a sturdier floor under otherwise fairly poor grades–several Federal IT industry executives took a few minutes with MeriTalk to share their thoughts about how agencies might be able to boost their grades on the next scorecard, scheduled for May 2019. […]

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