White House Archives

The White House on Friday released a status report on the Obama administration's open government initiative, claiming credit for a number of advances but acknowledging that more needs to be done to make federal operations more transparent.

"Some critics have alleged that the administration has not done enough to create a more open government, and that much work remains," the document states. "They are right; notwithstanding the measurable and undeniable progress made on all the administration's major initiatives, still more work is necessary."

The bulk of the report, however, centers on documenting progress. The open government effort, it says, has proceeded on several fronts:

• On his first day in office, President Obama issued an order instructing agencies to release more information under the Freedom of Information Act. In fiscal 2010, agencies made full disclosures for nearly 56 percent of FOIA requests, a 6 percent increase over the previous year.
• By the end of 2010, agencies had developed comprehensive open government plans, as required by a 2009 administration directive.
• Agencies have made more than 389,000 data sets available via the Data.gov platform.
• The administration has boosted spending transparency through reporting efforts on Recovery.gov, USASpending.gov and IT.usaspending.gov.
• The National Archives and Records Admnistration has taken steps to implement Executive Order 13526, which requires stricter standards for classifying information. Agencies reduced personnel authorized to classify documents by 7 percent in 2010.
• The White House has made the president's and vice president's daily schedules available on its website.

The rest of 2011 and 2012, the report says, will see "continued progress" by agencies on open gov initiatives.

Homeland Security officials confirmed they have nixed a project that was supposed to tie together the department's financial systems, instead opting to consider a smaller network located remotely, in the cloud.

Friday morning, Nextgov reported that DHS yanked the Transformation and Systems Consolidation program, or TASC, after current contractors on existing systems and a Web services company protested a $450 million contract the department awarded to CACI last year.

"Based upon a review and reevaluation of the solicitation, DHS is considering alternatives to meet revised requirements," DHS spokesman Chris Ortman said Friday, referring to the department's decision to stop pursuing a centralized financial, asset and acquisition management system. "The modernization of the department's financial, acquisition and asset systems remains a key priority for DHS."

In March, federal auditors, in siding with one of the protesters, Global Computer Enterprises, a provider of online financial reporting and accounting services, ruled that DHS narrowed system requirements mid-competition without letting vendors submit new proposals. Homeland Security changed directions after the White House directed all agencies halt work on financial systems, a characteristically complex kind of IT project, and either scale back features or cancel the whole operation.

As for future plans, DHS officials said a cloud-based or shared services setup, where multiple agencies share server room in a government or contractor-operated data center, could meet the department's needs. The new model would attempt to connect fewer agencies and fewer tools, just the core financial management functions at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

This marks the second time the department, which also recently abandoned a more than $1 billion border virtual fence, has lost money on a failed effort to unify its financial systems. Some lawmakers remain concerned that any future project will falter due to poor planning, no matter whether the system resides in the cloud or in a physical DHS data center.

"Most of the material weaknesses still on the books are related to processes and not systems, and regardless of what decisions DHS makes on how it will integrate its information systems, the underlying processes must be corrected for that system to function properly," Rep. Todd Platts, R-Pa., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Government Organization, Efficiency and Financial Management, said at a Friday hearing on the department's overall financial management.

The White House is releasing the software code for a website it uses to track the performance of big computing projects, as a way to fix program glitches and share the tool with other government bodies, according to the federal chief information officer.

The so-called IT Dashboard monitors the budget, schedule and functionality of systems under development that cost the federal government about $80 billion annually. But critics and federal auditors say ratings on the site do not always accurately represent the current status of projects.

Still, federal CIO Vivek Kundra says the dashboard has helped reduce IT costs by more than $3 billion and he wants "to tap into the collective talents and ingenuity of the American people, to enhance functionality, improve the code and address existing challenges," according to a post on the White House blog. "Software developers will be able to collaborate, identify errors, develop enhancements and recommend improvements to the dashboard, and find new uses for it that we have not even imagined."

CIOs throughout the nation and the world, such as Maarten Hillenaar of the Netherlands, Kyle Schafer in West Virginia and Jason DeHaan in the City of Chicago, are interested in deploying the accountability software in their respective governments, he writes.

The code underpinning the dashboard is freely available, through a format referred to as open source.

In addition, the Obama administration is publishing instructions on how to conduct "TechStat" sessions, which are in-person meetings Kundra typically holds with agency CIOs to decide what to do with systems at risk of failing.

He writes, "The TechStat toolkit provides a comprehensive guide for organizations to establish their own TechStats to improve line-of-sight between project teams and senior executives, increase the precision of ongoing measurement of IT program health, and boost the quality and timing of interventions to keep projects on track."

Last year, the Obama administration started producing a series of "White House Whiteboard" videos to highlight administration policies and initiatives. The latest edition features none other than federal CIO Vivek Kundra, discussing the ins and outs of the Federal IT Dashboard and the administration's TechStat review sessions:

The Defense Department organization charged with cyber combat is reinforcing military networks by moving much of DoD's computing to a space many civilian agencies view as insecure - the cloud. Cloud computing is the practice of storing and accessing applications in a shared online environment, instead of on in-house servers.

U.S. Cyber Command chief Gen. Keith Alexander told lawmakers on Wednesday the following:

"The idea is to reduce vulnerabilities inherent in the current architecture and to exploit the advantages of cloud computing and thin-client networks, moving the programs and the data that users need away from the thousands of desktops we now use--up to a centralized configuration that will give us wider availability of applications and data combined with tighter control over accesses and vulnerabilities and more timely mitigation of the latter."

He was testifying before a House Armed Services subcommittee on the $159 million fiscal 2012 budget request for the command, which became fully operational in October.

The White House has been pressing agencies to outsource information technology services to the Web as a way of phasing out the federal government's more than 2,000 expensive, energy-sucking data centers. But many federal managers are fearful of losing their data in the cloud. What happens in the event of an online outage or if the communal, off-site servers storing their programs are hacked?

Alexander's explanation as to why the cloud will offer Defense good defense:

"This architecture would seem at first glance to be vulnerable to insider threats -- indeed, no system that human beings use can be made immune to abuse -- but we are convinced the controls and tools that will be built into the cloud will ensure that people cannot see any data beyond what they need for their jobs and will be swiftly identified if they make unauthorized attempts to access data."

According to Gawker, as president, his grand total was -- get ready for it -- two.

One went to U.S. troops stationed in the Adriatic, and the other to John Glenn when he went back into space at the age of 77. "I figured it was OK if Congress subpoenaed those," Clinton said at a technology conference in New York.

When Dee Dee Myers became President Clinton's press secretary in 1993, there were 50 websites worldwide. By the time Dana Perino left her job as press secretary for President Bush in 2009, there were over 20 billion websites worldwide, said Frank Sesno, director of George Washington University's School of Media and Public Affairs. Sesno moderated a panel discussion with four former press secretaries sponsored by the university Monday evening.

The panel took place as President Obama's current press secretary, Robert Gibbs, wraps up his term. His last day is Friday when Jay Carney will take over the office.

Thanks to the Internet, people all over the country now have a say in what's happening, said Perino. The Wyoming native noted that while her grandfather can't get the New York Times delivered to his ranch, he can stay informed.

Yet, all this connectivity presents a challenge for the White House. For example, when a plane crashed in Long Island, N.Y., two months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Ari Fleischer, President Bush's press secretary from 2001 to 2003 took nearly five hours to brief the press, making sure to get all the facts correct.

"I made enemies in the press [that day]," he said, noting that the continuous news cycle amplified speculation over the cause of the crash at a time when terrorism was foremost in many peoples' minds -- without any word from the White House.

Perino admitted that she resisted social media at first, but now she has nearly 30,000 followers on her Twitter page. By comparison, Gibbs on his official page has just under 147,000 followers.

The White House and Office of Management and Budget's unclassified e-mail systems went down shortly before 8 a.m. Thursday and as of 1 p.m. were still down.

White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer tweeted that Verizon is working to solve the issue.

The White House normally sends out numerous daily e-mails to the media, such as travel pool reports for the president's trip to State College, Pa., today. Pfeiffer said in his tweet that paper copies are available in the White House's press office.

The Washington Post reported that in addition to e-mail problems, some officials experienced trouble using printers as well.

There was no mention of the outages on the White House's official Twitter feed.

By mid-afternoon, service was restored and e-mails began moving again. Just after 4 p.m., Nextgov received an e-mail about the prayer breakfast Obama attended this morning.

White House officials on Wednesday circulated a memo, obtained by Nextgov, that encourages procurement officers to communicate with contractors before finalizing solicitations, in an effort to dispel misperceptions about conflicts of interest.

The idea is that companies know the costs and features of current technology better than the government so potential bidders should be consulted early in the process of drawing up system requirements for contracts.

"Although industry may have had their best technical representatives engaged with the program manager, the contracting officer should communicate to vendors as much information as possible about the government's needs as early as possible," states a copy of the guidance, signed by Federal Procurement Policy Administrator Daniel Gordon. "As a result of early communication, the contracting officer may learn some things that suggest that an approach somewhat different than planned may cause increased competition, more small business participation, lower prices, or even a better definition of the government's technical requirements."

The so-called "myth-busting" campaign is part of a 25-point plan for overhauling the way the government buys $500 billion worth of computer equipment and services annually.

Fears of contract protests or signing unauthorized deals have prevented some acquisition officers from talking to vendors, according to the memo. At the same time, industry may stay away -- out of concern that stepping over boundaries may bar them from future government business.

The document requires agencies by June 30 to develop plans for communicating with contractors. After the plans are reviewed by the White House, they must be made publicly available within a month.

Wednesday's memo takes pains to stress that nothing within the guidelines should be interpreted to "alter, or authorize violations of, applicable ethics rules, procurement integrity requirements, or other statutes or regulations that govern communication and information sharing."

After discussions with company representatives and agency staff, the White House identified the 10 most frequently-mentioned misconceptions about contractor-government fraternization:

1. "We can't meet one-on-one with a potential offeror." Fact: Government officials can generally meet one-on-one with potential offerors as long as no vendor receives preferential treatment.
2. "Since communication with contractors is like communication with registered lobbyists, and since contact with lobbyists must be disclosed, additional communication with contractors will involve a substantial additional disclosure burden, so we should avoid these meetings." Fact: Disclosure is required only in certain circumstances, such as for meetings with registered lobbyists. Many contractors do not fall into this category, and even when disclosure is required, it is normally a minimal burden that should not prevent a useful meeting from taking place.
3. "A protest is something to be avoided at all costs -- even if it means the government limits conversations with industry." Fact: Restricting communication won't prevent a protest, and limiting communication might actually increase the chance of a protest, in addition to depriving the government of potentially useful information.
4. "Conducting discussions or negotiations after receipt of proposals will add too much time to the schedule." Fact: Whether discussions should be conducted is a key decision for contracting officers to make. Avoiding discussions solely because of schedule concerns may be counter-productive, and may cause delays and other problems during contract performance.
5. "If the government meets with vendors, that may cause them to submit an unsolicited proposal and that will delay the procurement process." Fact: Submission of an unsolicited proposal should not affect the schedule. Generally, the unsolicited proposal process is separate from the process for a known agency requirement that can be acquired using competitive methods.
6. "When the government awards a task or delivery order using the Federal Supply Schedules, debriefing the offerors isn't required so it shouldn't be done." Fact: Providing feedback is important, both for offerors and the government, so agencies should generally provide feedback whenever possible.
7. "Industry days and similar events attended by multiple vendors are of low value to industry and the government because industry won't provide useful information in front of competitors, and the government doesn't release new information." Fact: Well-organized industry days, as well as pre-solicitation and pre-proposal conferences, are valuable opportunities for the government and for potential vendors -- both prime contractors and subcontractors, many of whom are small businesses.
8. "The program manager already talked to industry to develop the technical requirements, so the contracting officer doesn't need to do anything else before issuing the RFP." Fact: The technical requirements are only part of the acquisition; getting feedback on terms and conditions, pricing structure, performance metrics, evaluation criteria, and contract administration matters will improve the award and implementation process.
9. "Giving industry only a few days to respond to an RFP is OK since the government has been talking to industry about this procurement for over a year." Fact: Providing only short response times may result in the government receiving fewer proposals and the ones received may not be as well-developed -- which can lead to a flawed contract. This approach signals that the government isn't really interested in competition.
10. "Getting broad participation by many different vendors is too difficult; we're better off dealing with the established companies we know." Fact: The government loses when we limit ourselves to the companies we already work with. Instead, we need to look for opportunities to increase competition and ensure that all vendors, including small businesses, get fair consideration.

The White House official overseeing the president's transparency initiative stepped down last week to return to her teaching post at New York Law School, Obama administration officials said Monday. A replacement has not been named.

The departure of Beth Noveck, deputy chief technology officer, coincides with the second anniversary of Obama's landmark open government memo. The guidance the president released one day after taking the oath of office called for agencies to institutionalize public participation in policymaking, collaboration with outside organizations and a default setting for disclosing information.

On Monday, Office of Science and Technology Policy spokesman Rick Weiss said this of Noveck:

Beth has been a tireless advocate for opening the federal government to greater collaboration and public participation. She has helped to develop significant advancements in the administration's efforts to utilize technology to break down the barriers between the American public and their government. We are sorry to see her go, and wish her all the best in her next endeavors.

Government transparency advocates have applauded agency efforts to create plans for fulfilling Obama's open government vision but criticized agencies' follow-through. They argue White House leaders aren't doing enough to hold agencies accountable for failing to be transparent. And questions have arisen about Obama's personal commitment to the movement.

But activists seem hopeful that the administration will keep Noveck's post and appoint someone capable of filling her big shoes. Already the blogosphere is abuzz with suggestions for replacements, like these from the social network GovLoop:

-Andrew Hoppin, New York State Senate chief information officer
-Dustin Haisler, CIO for the City of Manor, Texas
-Clay Johnson, former director of the Sunlight Foundation's software development division
-Bill Eggers, director of Deloitte research, public sector
-Lena Trudeau, vice president of the National Academy of Public Administration; founder of the Collaboration Project, an independent consortium working to apply web 2.0 tools to solve the government's problems.