The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations today released a report identifying core strategies to address and prevent cybersecurity incidents. After gathering input through hearings, briefings, reports, and roundtables, the subcommittee developed six specific priorities to create stronger protections against cyberattacks. […]
The Senate Rules & Administration Committee yesterday advanced two of President Trump’s nominations to the Election Assistance Committee. […]
The Federal government will close on Wednesday for a national day of mourning declared by President Trump following the death of former President George H.W. Bush, whose funeral will be held that day at the Washington National Cathedral. […]
The Department of Veterans Affairs admitted this month that its 10-year, $10 billion-plus project to create an interoperable electronic health record system incurred a $350 million cost overrun right out of the gate–a potential red flag in the latest effort to develop an integrated records system that also works with the Department of Defense’s system. […]
During Tuesday’s Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation subcommittee hearing, Federal Trade Commissioners were unanimous in their call for Congress to explore Federal data privacy legislation. […]
In a letter to Walter Copan, undersecretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., called on NIST to create a framework for the development and use of facial recognition technologies. […]
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., announced Tuesday her intention to restore the Elections Subcommittee of the Committee on House Administration, which was created during the 110th Congress but abolished in 2013. Pelosi, who will likely be elected House majority leader when Democrats take control of the House in January, also announced that Rep. Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio, will serve as chairwoman of the subcommittee. […]
The Department of Veterans Affairs faced congressional scrutiny on Thursday for delayed payments to veterans following the passage of the Colmery Act, also known as the Forever GI Bill, as House members called on VA IT officials to explain how the system could not handle the additional workloads and criticized the department’s response. […]
A lack of incentives for House members, and a declining count of professional committee and member staff with the necessary experience, are combining to dampen oversight activities in the House, panelists said Nov. 16 at an event organized by the Project On Government Oversight (POGO). […]
In a letter released Thursday, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., questioned the Trump administration’s commitment to election security and pressed administration officials to communicate more clearly with Congress about the issue. […]
The private sector is the prime driver for Congress to take up data privacy legislation in 2019, industry panelists said Thursday at an event organized by Bloomberg Government. […]
The House Committee on Veterans Affairs’ Subcommittee on Technology Modernization met today to review the first 180 days of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHRM) program, with members of Congress anxious to see evidence of progress in the program and VA officials offering some details that point in that direction. […]
With a new session of Congress–and a power shift in the House–looming in January, big tech companies are looking toward 2019 and possible new privacy legislation that will alter the shape of their business models. […]
Two House subcommittees will convene a hearing tomorrow, Nov. 14, at 3 p.m., to hear officials from the Departments of Defense (DoD) and Homeland Security (DHS) discuss how the two agencies cooperate on cybersecurity issues. […]
Blockchain technology, along with cryptocurrencies based on that technology, received decidedly mixed views at a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee Thursday where witnesses debated the usefulness of blockchain to institutions like banks and government agencies, and shared divergent views on whether the technology has promising potential use cases. […]
The chairmen of the House Intelligence and Oversight and Government Reform committees have asked for classified briefings from top U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies on a recent Bloomberg Businessweek report that Chinese hackers infiltrated numerous U.S. companies and government agencies through a supply-chain hardware hack involving implantation in network equipment of a chip that can route data back to China. […]
The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee heard testimony today detailing the workings of data privacy laws in Europe and California–specifically the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)–amid a growing groundswell for Congress to work on a national data privacy law for the U.S. […]
Apple told congressional leaders in a letter dated today that a story last week by Bloomberg Businessweek–reporting that chips made by a Chinese firm and used in Apple equipment were engineered to enable backdoor data transmissions to China–is “not true.” […]
Congress is getting behind the push to develop artificial intelligence technologies and policies with recent calls for research and development that may overlap efforts already underway. It also reflects the kind of “whole of country” approach that some leaders have said is necessary to keep up with the Chinese. […]
Andrew Saul, the White House’s nominee for commissioner of Social Security, noted his commitment to continue the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) IT modernization efforts during a Senate Finance Committee hearing yesterday. […]
The Social Security Administration’s (SSA) IT modernization efforts won praise from the agency’s inspector general and the Government Accountability Office at a House hearing on Sept. 27, but drew a more mixed review from members of the House Ways and Means Committee’s Social Security Subcommittee. […]
The Department of Energy’s new office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER) has already begun work to provide support to the nation’s energy grid and critical infrastructure cybersecurity, and the head of the new office appeared in front of the House Energy and Commerce Committee Thursday to discuss the role of CESER within DoE. […]
A gaggle of tech and communications sector bellwethers presented a united front today at a Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee hearing on data privacy and protection issues, saying they support a bill to address those issues but sharing strong preferences for federal legislation that would preempt state law and appoint the Federal Trade Commission as the chief watchdog. […]
Funding needed for further U.S. research and development of quantum information sciences (QIS) and the computing and other advances that QIS is expected to yield, along with the pressing need to develop a highly skilled workforce to leverage those expected advances, dominated discussion today at a hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee examining the Department of Energy’s (DoE) efforts in the QIS field. […]
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, led his committee today through a hearing aimed at finding “practical solutions” to a host of homeland security threats, but didn’t appear to land many easy or novel solutions. […]
A bipartisan group of senators wrote to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday questioning the State Department on what they called its failure to meet Federal cybersecurity standards, including a “near total absence of multifactor authentication (MFA).” […]
The chairman and ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee today voiced some interest in considering Federal government regulation of social media companies and their services, but offered no concrete steps on how to do so. […]
Today the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation approved, among other measures, a STEM-focused bill and two technology-related nominations. […]
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions in an Aug. 21 letter to update the Justice Department’s (DoJ) guidance on use of cell-site simulator technologies–sometimes referred to as Stingray devices–to take into account information from a manufacturer that use of the devices may completely disrupt communications of targeted phones including emergency 911 calls and other features. […]
With just 75 days to go until the 2018 midterm elections and amid mounting pressure for legislative action to boost election security, the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration postponed today’s scheduled business meeting on the Secure Elections Act, which would help state and local governments apply for Federal grants to modernize their election systems and receive relevant cyber threat information. […]