Time may be running out on the Federal government’s plan to replace and modernize billions of dollars’ worth of legacy IT systems—some of which date back more than 40 years and control critical programs, including the U.S. military’s nuclear arsenal. […]
Federal agencies 18F and the U.S. Digital Service (USDS) are desirable in theory but confusing and misdirected in practice, according to members and witnesses at the House Oversight Committee hearing on Friday. […]
The Department of Veterans Affairs has been consumed with transformation for the past 21 months, attempting to change from what Secretary Robert McDonald has privately described as a “Kremlinesque” culture to a high performing organization that puts veterans in control of their healthcare. That transformation effort, known as MyVA, is McDonald’s direct response to the […]
Privacy advocates launched a new website Monday called end702.com that urges Congress to allow a controversial section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to expire at the end of next year. Fight for the Future and a coalition of public interest groups are encouraging Congress to let Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act of […]
Nelson P. Moe, Virginia’s chief information officer, has a vision to make the commonwealth’s 63 agencies more agile with better technology and response time at the speed that meets business needs. […]
Brian Burns, the Department of Veterans Affairs’ chief information security officer, has resigned, according to an internal agency memo obtained by MeriTalk. […]
Proponents of the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA) worry that a change in presidential administration could derail the progress made to release Federal financial data to the public. […]
MeriTalk is running a series taken from a book-length work authored by a senior Federal IT official currently working in government. This is one part of an extensive, firsthand account of how IT decisions are made, the obstacles standing in the way of real change in government technology management, and what one career Federal IT employee really thinks about the way government does IT. […]
MeriTalk is running a series taken from a book-length work authored by a senior Federal IT official currently working in government. This is one part of an extensive, firsthand account of how IT decisions are made, the obstacles standing in the way of real change in government technology management, and what one career Federal IT employee really thinks about the way government does IT. […]
Politics and blame stand in the way of Federal IT modernization, according to comments made at the House Oversight Committee’s hearing on legacy IT systems. Congressmen said they were disappointed and baffled over the degree of outdated technology in Federal agencies, some in mission critical systems. […]
Big data has the potential to both increase and decrease discrimination based on the ethics of its use, according to speakers at the Ford Foundation Fairness by Design event. […]
MeriTalk is running a series taken from a book-length work authored by a senior Federal IT official currently working in government. This is one part of an extensive, firsthand account of how IT decisions are made, the obstacles standing in the way of real change in government technology management, and what one career Federal IT employee really thinks about the way government does IT. […] […]
Less than three months after a wave of negative feedback from industry forced the General Services Administration to revamp the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, a new MeriTalk survey shows for the first time that many government IT officials doubt the value of the program in its current form. […]
MeriTalk begins a series taken from a book-length work authored by a senior Federal IT official currently working in government. This is one part of an extensive, firsthand account of how IT decisions are made, the obstacles standing in the way of real change in government technology management, and what one career Federal IT employee really thinks about the way government does IT. […]
NASA’s progress meeting the requirements of FITARA has been anything but out of this world. Members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee voiced disappointment at the mediocre progress made by most agency chief information officers, but NASA, arguably the most high-tech of all Federal agencies, was the only one to receive an F. […]
Most Federal agencies received slightly better grades for their progress under the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act, according to the annual scorecard released ahead of a hearing on Capitol Hill. […]
Applicants for Federal security clearances may want to double check their Twitter feeds, as agencies could soon be moving forward with investigations into applicants’ social media accounts. The biggest obstacle to these investigations, however, is not privacy concerns, but rather data security. […]
Many Americans’ electronically stored medical data is likely unsecured and inaccurate, according to panelists at the Health Datapalooza. “There are real-world consequences to medical data sharing,” said privacy and medical attorney Neal Eggeson. […]
Content management company Box unveiled its Box for Government initiative, which brings together different product suites designed for government and enables agencies to work remotely, collaboratively, and with an assurance of security. Box for Government has already received a FedRAMP Provisional Authority to Operate (P-ATO) from the Defense Information Systems Agency. […]
If cloud computing is the future of government information technology, then Cisco may be one of the most relevant companies in Washington, D.C. Cisco’s FedRAMP authorization—granted by the Department of Health and Human Services—represents a significant development for both the company and the government. […]
The General Services Administration has announced the establishment of a third service branch, known as the Technology Transformation Service, that will be centered around GSA’s 18F digital service organization and will actively provide technology services to other government agencies. […]
FedRAMP Director Matt Goodrich said some Federal agencies may have refused to share a FedRAMP ATO granted to a CSP, but that’s only a small part of the story behind one of the major shortcomings of the FedRAMP program. One theory: It’s not that agencies are refusing to share—it’s that cloud service providers are failing to capture new business. […]
Food and Drug Administration CIO Todd Simpson is working toward a new tech-savvy agency by creating programs specifically aimed at technological innovation. “I created a separate, stand-alone innovations office that speeds new technologies into the CTO shop once they’re approved,” he said. These technologies include various Apple and Android phones, applications, and tablets. […]
Third party cloud security auditing firms are worried that new documentation requirements put in place by FedRAMP could open them to significant liability risks. […]
Cloud computing offers the most security for government data, argued Homeland Security CIO of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Mark Schwartz, at the Akamai Government Forum. […]
The key to data center consolidation success is communicating and committing to an aggressive plan, according to Department of Justice CIO Joseph Klimavicz. […]
Consumers comprehensively think that more needs to be done to protect their data, according to a study published by Purple Insights on behalf of ACT the App Association. But do they trust government or tech companies more? […]
Dave Powner, director of IT issues at the Government Accountability Office, profiled the upcoming agency scorecard on FITARA and discussed the Federal government’s continuing difficulties with data center consolidation and legacy IT modernization. […]
The General Services Administration is pushing Congress to get behind a plan to establish a third service branch, known as the Technology Transformation Service, that would be centered around GSA’s 18F digital service organization and would actively help manage the $3.1 billion IT modernization fund proposed by the White House, MeriTalk has learned. […]
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence plans to hire its first chief information officer to take charge of IT programs across the ODNI’s 20 component offices, particularly the effort to retire legacy IT systems and migrate users to the cloud. […]