The House of Representatives today passed the Modernizing Government Technology (MGT) Act, which endeavors to provide agency CIOs with the funding and framework to modernize aging IT systems. […]
Members of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology disagreed on Wednesday on whether the Cybersecurity Responsibility and Accountability Act of 2016 acted as a partisan dig against former Secretary of State and current Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and her use of a private email server. […]
The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation will mobilize 911 emergency services at the insistence of the Federal Communications Commission. […]
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. […]
Federal information sharing is key to combating terrorism and cyber threats, according to law enforcement representatives from several states. […]
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. […]
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.” […]
Federal spending on contractor-supplied IT products and services will decline slightly from $99.8 billion in fiscal year 2016 to $98.3 billion in FY 2021, according to a recent report from Deltek. […]
As the Internet of Things becomes increasingly prevalent, the government will play an important role in enabling and regulating how the industry will develop, according to panelists at a National Telecommunications and Information Administration workshop. They listed a number of areas in which that advice can take shape. […]
Democratic and Republican policy advisers in the House are meeting this week to craft a bipartisan compromise that would combine the key elements of two major IT modernization bills introduced earlier this year into a legislative package that sources say has the backing of Republican appropriators and stands a good chance of being signed into law before President Barack Obama leaves office. […]
Six Democratic senators have authored a letter to President Obama, urging him while he is at the G-20 Summit in China on Sunday and Monday to address cyberattacks on financial institutions. […]
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton called for a response to cyberattacks that mirrored military responses to other attacks against the United States. […]
In a letter sent to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler, Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., requested that the agency expedite its investigation of the Signaling System Number 7 flaw in light of a recent Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee hack. […]
The National Science Foundation announced a $110 million award supporting the expansion of the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE). […]
A Government Accountability Office study uncovered a huge discrepancy in Federal reporting on sexual violence because the agencies that collect the data don’t record or label incidents the same way. According to data collection efforts from four Federal agencies, between 244,190 and 1,929,000 rapes or sexual assaults occurred in 2011. […]
The Federal Railroad Administration gave $25 million in grants Tuesday to 11 companies to develop software that will help prevent train collisions. […]
Over the past 10 years, agencies have made minimal use of their special government employees who do not serve on Federal boards, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report. However, the report also states that not all of these SGEs’ assignments have been reliably documented. […]
The government and private industry should be doing more to prepare the American workforce for a technology-based future, according to panelists at an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation event. […]
Partnership with industry is essential for government technological success, according to congressional and industry leaders at a panel hosted by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation during the Republican National Convention. […]
Many members of Congress can agree that IT modernization is an important problem in need of a solution, but there is less agreement on how exactly to go about it. In the past four months, two separate bills have been introduced in the House, which aim to improve and fund future IT modernization efforts: the IT Modernization Act and the MOVE IT Act. […]
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. […]
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. […]
While most college students are off enjoying their summer break, the House of Representatives is focusing on helping them out. Last week the House passed five bills, and while they aren’t law yet, each bill could have a serious impact on universities. […]
The Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA Act) has far-reaching government benefits as well as hurdles that must be addressed to ensure its success, according to authors of the research paper “The Data Act: Vision and Value.” […]
The Federal government spends $86 billion a year on outdated Information Technology procurement. With the Move IT Act of 2016, Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, wants to make a change. […]
Due to its relatively new and complex nature, there is no straightforward method for categorizing a cyberattack as a digital act of war, according to witnesses at a House Oversight Committee hearing. […]
One of the major problems facing the cybersecurity of the nation’s critical infrastructure is a lack of personnel, according to witnesses at both the House Homeland Security Committee and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Both committees held hearings on the security of critical infrastructure in the U.S. […]
Small businesses are prime targets for today’s hackers, according to witnesses testifying at the House Small Business Committee. “According to a recent report by Verizon Enterprise, over 70 percent of attacks occurred in businesses with fewer than 100 employees,” said Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio. […]
From 2006 to 2015, 6,700 firearms were transferred to individuals with prohibiting domestic violence records that should have prevented them from obtaining weapons. The Government Accountability Office stated that better analysis of Federal Bureau of Investigation data could help lead to improved background checks on domestic violence cases. […]
Commercial data services can help the efficiency of program integrity activities for certain government agencies. The Government Accountability Office stated in a June 30 report that agencies can focus their efforts on other tasks if they allow commercial data service providers to offer Web and phone-based services to authenticate taxpayers’ identities. […]