Facing criticism over the awkward nature of the FedRAMP process and the use of $150,000 to create a FedRAMP Dashboard that already exists in the private sector, the GSA was told on Tuesday that it needed to clean up the program or have Congress step in. […]

Facing criticism that $150,000 was spent to create a FedRAMP dashboard virtually identical to the existing FedRAMP OnRamp dashboard, the General Services Administration said that the new dashboard performs unique functions and that it has processes in place to ensure that systems are not unnecessarily duplicated. […]

Members of Congress are working to pass the Kelsey Smith Act, which would give law enforcement access to phone location data in some emergency situations, despite claims from privacy groups that the law could be abused. […]

MeriTalk is running a series taken from a book-length work authored by a senior Federal IT official currently working in government. This is one part of an extensive, firsthand account of how IT decisions are made, the obstacles standing in the way of real change in government technology management, and what one career Federal IT employee really thinks about the way government does IT. […]

Due to the breadth and depth of cyberattacks and breaches in the Federal government, most especially the Office of Personnel Management, agencies should be implementing a policy of zero trust when it comes to who is accessing their data, according to Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah. His committee released a report titled “The OPM Data Breach: How the Government Jeopardized Our National Security for More than a Generation.” […]

Jane Holl Lute, the former deputy secretary of Homeland Security, is scheduled to provide a Tech Talk at the Symantec Government Symposium on Aug. 30 in Washington, D.C. MeriTalk caught up with Lute, who agreed to offer her thoughts on the evolving struggle between privacy and security, and a preview of her presentation. […]

In the five years since the government has encouraged agencies to transition to the cloud, spending on cloud-based technologies has increased to about 9 percent, which is a good pace, according to Tom Ruff, vice president of Public Sector America at Akamai. […]

Pentagon, DoD

In the Defense Department’s new strategy document outlining the department’s vision for its future IT environment, CIO Terry Halvorsen argues the complex enterprise network is too difficult to defend, too costly to operate and maintain, and hampers effective information sharing between the military services and the nation’s allies. The strategy outlines eight major goals. […]

Unified Communications company collab9 is seeking to give Federal agencies both flexibility and security in communication systems through its recent FedRAMP authorization, the first of a Unified Communications-as-a-Service (UCaaS) provider. […]

The Office of Personnel Management announced today that it has hired Dave DeVries, the principal deputy chief information officer at the Defense Department, to become the agency’s next permanent CIO. […]

he White House released the Data Center Optimization Initiative, which requires agencies to consolidate inefficient infrastructure, update existing facilities, boost security, save money, and transition to cloud services or inter-agency shared services. […]

MeriTalk is running a series taken from a book-length work authored by a senior Federal IT official currently working in government. This is one part of an extensive, firsthand account of how IT decisions are made, the obstacles standing in the way of real change in government technology management, and what one career Federal IT employee really thinks about the way government does IT. […]

The Democratic National Convention, which meets in Philadelphia this week to nominate the party’s presidential candidate, released its party platform that deals with technology issues including broadband, open Internet, privacy, education, and cybersecurity. […]

Federal agencies need to adopt a standardized taxonomy for their data, according to authors of the report “Accelerating the Mission: Recommendations for Optimizing Federal Technology Cost and Value in the Age of FITARA.” The report proposes a set of Technology Business Management guidelines that would help agencies communicate with each other, Congress, and the private sector more effectively. […]

MeriTalk is running a series taken from a book-length work authored by a senior Federal IT official currently working in government. This is one part of an extensive, firsthand account of how IT decisions are made, the obstacles standing in the way of real change in government technology management, and what one career Federal IT employee really thinks about the way government does IT. […]

The House and Senate Intelligence Committees each passed restrictions on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board that would restrict its funding, give it jurisdiction only over the privacy of people in the United States, and force it to report to the agencies that it’s overseeing. […]

The Cyber Security National Action Plan announced in February is aiming to recruit people with broad skill sets to work in Federal government cybersecurity. U.S. Chief Information Officer Tony Scott spoke Thursday at the Federal Forum in Washington, D.C., about recruiting people with knowledge on specific domains, economics, and human behavior. “Our approach needed strengthening,” Scott said. […]

MeriTalk is running a series taken from a book-length work authored by a senior Federal IT official currently working in government. This is one part of an extensive, firsthand account of how IT decisions are made, the obstacles standing in the way of real change in government technology management, and what one career Federal IT employee really thinks about the way government does IT. […]

The Federal Communications Commission’s new consumer privacy rules cause disagreements among experts about whether the rules are overbearing or progressive. […]

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