Several senators said today that high-profile private-sector data breaches like those disclosed by Equifax in 2017 and Marriott in 2018 serve to boost the urgency with which Congress should act to approve legislation that would implement the country’s first national private-sector cybersecurity regulations and procedures. […]
Democratic members of Congress from the Washington D.C. area sent a letter to the heads of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) on Tuesday asking when the White House plans to implement the 1.9 percent annual pay raise for Federal civilian workers included in the spending bill passed in February that avoided a further partial government shutdown. […]
In a letter dated Feb. 27, Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., requested Dan Coats, director of National Intelligence, produce “an unclassified report on the participation of China and other adversarial nations in the international standard setting bodies (ISSBs) for fifth-generation wireless telecommunications technologies (5G).” […]
The United States Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM) is working to improve cybersecurity infrastructures to prevent breaches of industry partners, like those of USTRANSCOM contractors that began June 1, 2012 and resulted in 20 successful intrusions over a period of 12 months by Chinese hackers. […]
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved the nominations of former FCC Enforcement Bureau Chief Travis LeBlanc and Aditya Bamzai, formerly of the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel and National Security Division, to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB). […]
Senior Defense Department officials told House members on Tuesday they are taking additional steps to boost cybersecurity workforce ranks at the Pentagon through means including the Cyber Excepted Service (CES) personnel system authorized in 2016 that allows DoD to expedite and simplify recruiting and hiring for civilian cyber professionals. […]
The Senate may actively take up national data privacy legislation someday, but one key senator in the process indicated today that there is currently little institutional urgency to hurry toward that goal. […]
While much of the country was focused today on the testimony of Michael Cohen–President Trump’s former lawyer–before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, elsewhere on the Hill the House Committee on Appropriations Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee was hearing testimony on election security. […]
Privacy was the topic du jour on the Hill today. In its first hearing in the new Congress, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce heard testimony from privacy rights activists and technology industry groups on how to protect consumer privacy in the era of big data. All witnesses before the Subcommittee agreed that the Federal government needs to enact Federal data privacy legislation, though witnesses disagreed on what exactly the legislation should cover. […]
Senators during an Energy and Natural Resources Senate Committee hearing Thursday called for more urgency regarding cyberattacks on the energy grid. […]
Gen. Paul Nakasone, director of the National Security Agency and head of U.S. Cyber Command, told senators today he was optimistic about the future of U.S. cybersecurity, but also warned that Russian attempts to influence U.S. elections remain a threat. […]
With the 2020 national election cycle on the horizon, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., convened a hearing Wednesday to examine the how the United States was working to secure its elections. The hearing, broken into two panels, heard from senior Federal election officials, as well as state and local election officials. […]
With the 2020 national election cycle on the horizon, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., convened a hearing Wednesday to examine the how the United States was working to secure its elections, and despite some partisan squabbling from members over the issue, a senior Homeland Security Department (DHS) official testified that election security is on the upswing. […]
House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif, named six Republican representatives to the House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress on Monday. […]
Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and John Thune, R-S.D., introduced new legislation Monday to address the cybersecurity workforce shortage plaguing the Federal government. The legislation, called the Cyber Security Exchange Act, would establish a public-private cybersecurity worker exchange program. […]
While there is no doubt that the House Intelligence Committee will continue to concern itself with relevant cybersecurity issues, that would not be obvious from this week’s announcement of changes to the panel’s subcommittee structure. […]
Two senior House leaders with jurisdiction over major tech-sector issues drew familiar battle lines today over the issue of net neutrality – or how providers of Internet service should or should not have their service offerings and operations regulated by the Federal government. […]
MeriTalk has announced the winners of its FITARA Awards for the seventh iteration of the FITARA Scorecard released in December, recognizing seven agencies for their progress in IT modernization. […]
Top officials from communications industry trade groups told members of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee today what few, if any, in the hearing room would disagree with: the United States needs to win the global race to leadership in 5G communications services and technologies. […]
Several senators took a skeptical view today over the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA’s) Electronic Health Records Modernization effort (EHRM), raising questions on the need for better IT infrastructure, scheduling systems, and leadership structure. […]
In a letter on Friday, Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., questioned Steven Dillingham, director of the U.S. Census Bureau, over how nearly $5 billion in IT costs are being managed by the Bureau. His concerns come as IT costs grew by $1.56 billion between October 2015 and December 2017. […]
If recent events are any indication, we could be seeing big changes to agency cloud migration plans in 2019. The Federal government could be rethinking its role in owning and operating its own data centers, strongly questioning whether that is a job best left to government employees. […]
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Tuesday released the Democratic roster for the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress, which was created as part of a House Rules package adopted earlier this month when Democratic leadership took over in the House. Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has not yet named the committee’s Republican members. […]
Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, who has been an advocate for Federal IT policies on Capitol Hill, announced that he will be a member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development. […]
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. […]
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. […]
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. […]
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. […]
With the 116th session of Congress now well underway, committee and subcommittee rosters are being finalized. For those in the Fed IT world, there are a few committee assignments to pay attention to. […]
A group of D.C.-area senators expressed their concern over guidance from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that asks federal employees affected by the shutdown to continue paying dental and vision insurance premiums. […]