TECHNOLOGY AND THE BUSINESS OF GOVERNMENT
07/31/09 05:31 pm ET
The government is behind in posting the potential $18 million contract for the redesign of Recovery.gov because of the work involved to ensure the disabled can access it, said officials at the General Services Administration and the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board.>>
07/31/09 12:36 pm ET
Bev Godwin, who helped bridge the digital divide between federal Luddites and Obama administration tech whizzes, is leaving her post at the White House's new media office.>>
07/30/09 03:26 pm ET
Regardless of your party affiliation, it's hard to deny that President Obama has raised the profile of information technology and cybersecurity issues significantly since taking office. Along with appointing the nation's first chief information and chief technology officers, Obama has personally delivered a major speech on cybersecurity and promised to deliver unprecedented transparency via the publishing of government data online.>>
07/29/09 06:29 pm ET
After liberal and conservative House Democrats on Wednesday compromised on a health care bill, the Web site of the committee with jurisdiction apparently went down due to "an unusually high number of visitors.">>
07/28/09 07:48 pm ET
The federal information technology industry is talking about the rumored appointment of Steve Cooper as the chief information officer at the Air Traffic Organization Federal Aviation Administration.>>
07/28/09 04:42 pm ET
President Obama reportedly plans to appoint David S. Ferriero to the position of U.S. Archivist, a job that entails deploying a massive technologically-agnostic system to preserve and publish the historical record of the United States, according to the nonprofit National Coalition for History.>>
07/28/09 02:57 pm ET
Wikipedia is the Web's most prominent source of information, but because of its crowd-sourcing model, it's not always the most credible. That's pretty much the opposite of federal Web sites, which are generally considered among the most trusted sources of information on the Web, if not the best known.>>
07/27/09 03:15 pm ET
The White House may lift its policy barring federal Web sites from tracking users' online behavior. A Federal Register notice published on Monday seeks public comment on revisions to an existing ban on persistent cookies -- common software programs that commercial sites deposit on a visitor's computer to collect usage information.>>
07/24/09 04:37 pm ET
Bev Godwin, director of online resources and interagency development for the White House new media team, asked the public on Friday to weigh in on the decade-old federal policy that does not allow agencies to use persistent cookies on their Web sites.>>
07/23/09 02:48 pm ET
Today at AFFIRM's annual leadership awards luncheon, OMB deputy administrator for E-Government and information technology Mike Howell, formerly CIO at the Interior Department, was awarded with organization's top prize for executive leadership in federal information resources management. Following the award Howell made some brief remarks about leadership and then addressed a controversial topic.>>
07/22/09 06:00 pm ET
The National Archives and Records Administration is out with a draft 2009 strategic plan that lays down a marker for some ambitious changes, including expanded responsibility for e-records management -- and departmentwide telework. The strategy states:>>
07/22/09 05:27 pm ET
We recently came across this story from a CBS affiliate in Dallas-Fort Worth about 20-year-old Colton Read, who serves in the Ninth Intelligence Squadron at Beale Air Force Base, Calif. He entered the David Grant Medical Center at Travis Air Force Base near Sacramento to have his gall bladder removed and ended up with his legs amputated.>>
07/22/09 05:22 pm ET
The Homeland Security Department sent out a release this afternoon announcing the redesign of DHS.gov and the launch of an official DHS YouTube channel:>>
07/20/09 07:17 pm ET
It likely is impossible to produce a perfect transcript of the infamous Nixon tapes because audio fidelity was not taken into consideration in designing the White House tape-recording system, reports Steven Aftergood, author of an e-newsletter and blog on government secrecy published by the nonprofit Federation of American Scientists.>>
07/20/09 05:34 pm ET
The independent board overseeing stimulus spending will not correct information on Recovery.gov that indicates the government is paying more than a million dollars for two pounds of frozen ham, a spokesman for the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board said on Monday.>>
07/20/09 08:19 am ET
I don't know if Roger Baker is a "rock star" CIO, but I do think Mr. Baker is an extremely competent one who seems intent, along with his boss, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki, on creating a new standard for IT governance, risk management and project accountability in the federal government.>>
07/17/09 03:25 pm ET
When names were being thrown around for possible top technology posts in the Obama administration, many tech titans said the White House needed some tech "rock stars" who could use their star power to dislodge the federal government from its 1960s era tech and bring it into the 21st century.>>
07/17/09 03:23 pm ET
The Government Accountability Office once again shined a glaring spotlight on the failings of the Federal Information Security Act, reporting Friday that "significant weaknesses in information security policies and practices threaten the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of critical information and information systems used to support the operations, assets, and personnel of most federal agencies.">>
07/17/09 11:40 am ET
Microsoft's ubiquitous Web browser, Internet Explorer, has scored some headlines this week, though not necessarily positive. Only a week after Nextgov editor Allan Holmes posted a blog about State Department employees demanding Firefox, a popular IE alternative, Federal News Radio's Jason Miller reports about complaints from federal grant applicants frustrated by the Grants.gov portal, which doesn't support Firefox or Google's new browser, Chrome.>>
07/16/09 04:10 pm ET
Recovery.gov on Thursday retooled the maps on its Web site, as the official stimulus-monitoring portal prepares for a more thorough refresh later this summer.>>
07/16/09 02:21 pm ET
Government transparency enthusiasts have launched a public-service Web site that pulls and repackages federal data - fulfilling the aim of the White House's "democratizing data" campaign.>>
07/15/09 05:47 pm ET
Our colleagues at the blog Tech Daily Dose, wrote about a new site launched by transparency researcher Jerry Brito at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, to make it easier for the public to find and comment on federal regulations -- a direct competitor to the government's Regulations.gov.>>
07/15/09 05:03 pm ET
It may be a good idea to keep that laptop as a carry on where you can keep an eye on it -- not packed in your luggage out of sight.>>
07/14/09 04:56 pm ET
Top government executives -- even the very top, politically appointed execs -- need to understand that federal employees have some strong opinions about the technology they use in their jobs. That was evident at a town-hall event Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held for the department's employees.>>
07/14/09 04:17 pm ET
After weeks of speculation, Sen. David Vitter, R-La., has finally revealed his reasons for placing a hold on the nomination of Robert Groves to be Census Bureau Director. Vitter was one of the only votes against a procedural motion yesterday that resulted in a voice vote on Groves' nomination, which was confirmed.>>
07/13/09 06:00 pm ET
The General Services Administration will release by early next week a redacted version of the potential $18 million contract to upgrade Recovery.gov, GSA officials said on Monday. Government transparency advocates had been calling on GSA and the board overseeing stimulus spending to publish the agreement that will cost taxpayers $9.5 million through January 2010 and up to $18 million if all options are exercised.>>
07/13/09 06:00 pm ET
A press assistant with Harry Reid just confirmed to me that the Senate will vote on the nomination of Robert Groves to be Census Director at 5:30 p.m. today after Reid filed a motion for cloture on Friday.>>
07/13/09 03:43 pm ET
Looks like the White House has decided to capitalize on the popularity of the newly-launched IT Dashboard. Federal CIO Vivek Kundra today published the first entry on the site's new blog:>>
07/13/09 02:34 pm ET
Tomorrow RFK Stadium in Washington will be home to a 75-person team, 28 semi-tractor trailers, two emergency communications vehicles, four hazmat trailers, one mobile cell site and five smaller utility and support trailers.>>
07/13/09 01:48 pm ET
After a public outpouring of questions, concerns and bewilderment about the $18 million pricetag of a contract for a Recovery.gov Web site, the board overseeing the site's overhaul late Friday revealed some details.>>
07/10/09 01:54 pm ET
Congress hopes to pass a bill that would elevate the head of the intelligence community's information sharing efforts to the White House, but President Obama already indicated he'd reject the measure.>>
07/09/09 04:01 pm ET
In the June 15 issue of Government Executive, "Racing to Innovate," author Andrew Noyes addresses the challenges facing federal chief information officers. In a recent excerpt in the online version, Noyes reiterates a major point of his well-done article, that "federal CIOs are key to Obama's change agenda." That may well be the case. But in a slow-developing nomination and confirmation process, we may not see any real effect until the end of the president's first term.>>
07/09/09 08:05 am ET
President Obama goes "line by line" through the federal information technology budget on IT.USASpending.gov to ensure taxpayer dollars are used wisely.>>
07/08/09 01:32 pm ET
It's official: Google has gone legitimate. The software company's email and online calendaring, instant messaging and word processing applications officially shed their "beta" label this week.>>
07/07/09 02:59 pm ET
There are few agencies that we reporters pay closer attention to than the Government Accountability Office. As the investigative arm of the legislative branch, GAO auditors are responsible for uncovering many of the largest cases of fraud or waste in the federal government. Almost everything they publish is of interest to someone out there, which is why we are thrilled to see they are making efforts to expand their audience by joining the Government 2.0 movement.>>
07/07/09 03:59 pm ET
The administration on Tuesday announced long-desired steps that agencies will take to help repair the beleaguered food safety system, including the creation of a nationwide trace-back system to more quickly identify the food-source of an outbreak.>>
07/06/09 02:45 pm ET
Since announcing her stunning decision to resign as governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin has been missing from the public spotlight as the country debates what prompted the move. In response to rampant speculation about possible criminal charges or scandal, Palin posted a rambling message to her Facebook account on Friday attempting to explain her actions:>>
07/02/09 04:38 pm ET
It was great to see that U.S. Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra was able to get the new federal government IT dashboard up and running as promised by the end of June. Score one for a government group meeting an IT promise on schedule.>>
07/01/09 04:47 pm ET
President Obama on Wednesday fought for his health care agenda and electronic medical records during an online town hall that was streamed from Annandale, Va. But those in the room may have had the biggest impact on the conversation.>>
