TECHNOLOGY AND THE BUSINESS OF GOVERNMENT
05/29/09 05:04 pm ET
The public affairs folks over at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence were kind enough to send me a copy of a handbook that is distributed to intelligence professionals, which, among other things, highlights some top-secret networks that until now have been, well, top secret.>>
05/28/09 04:48 pm ET
Priscilla Guthrie started work this week as the intelligence community chief information officer. Dennis Blair, director of national intelligence, emphasized that one of her key tasks will be to "advance our information sharing goals.">>
05/27/09 06:34 pm ET
Laboratories that conduct research on dangerous biological agents such as anthrax have not paid much attention to the potential of cyber threats or cyber intrusions, the Defense Science Board said in a report released this week.>>
05/26/09 05:08 pm ET
It's hard to figure out who's on first in the cybersecurity game, as the White House slogs its way through a 60-day cybersecurity review, the National Security Agency stands up a Joint Functional Component Command for Network Warfare and the Homeland Security Department jockeys to run the cyber mission outside of the Defense Department.>>
05/22/09 05:02 pm ET
Army Sgt. Caleb Barrieau plans to honor on Monday -- Memorial Day -- the 58,195 fallen troops whose names are inscribed on the Vietnam Memorial the same way he has every weekend for the past nine weeks - with a can of Brasso and a polishing rag.>>
05/22/09 11:47 am ET
I'm picking up hints that Dr. Marv Langston, appointed the Navy's first chief information officer in 1997 and John Gilligan, who served as Air Force CIO from 2000-2005, are candidates for the Defense Department CIO slot, vacant since John Grimes left the job last month.>>
05/20/09 05:13 pm ET
. . . and the Obama administration hasn't yet named a replacement for him as assistant secretary of Defense for networks and information integration - in other words, the chief information officer.>>
05/20/09 05:08 pm ET
. . . after being sworn in today as the new assistant secretary for information and technology and chief information officer at the Veterans Affairs Department headquarters on Vermont Avenue. He will need to tackle a range of problems, including the outsourcing of numerous VA IT development projects to the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command.>>
05/19/09 05:33 pm ET
Before employees who labor away in the Darth Vader building at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington get too excited, the Defense Intelligence Agency is looking to use Radio Frequency Identification chips to track its personnel -- in emergency situations ONLY, not every minute of their lives.>>
05/19/09 05:23 pm ET
The intelligence community's research outfit, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), wants to hear from companies that can do work on its Top Secret Athena program, which focuses on Computer Network Operations.>>
05/18/09 04:29 pm ET
I've spent the past two work days attempting -- to no avail -- to access documents on an upcoming procurement on the Hanscom [Mass.] Air Force Base Electronic Request for Proposals Bulletin Board, known as HERBB, which the Air Force Electronic Systems Center operates.>>
05/18/09 04:22 pm ET
A couple of years ago, the Defense Information Systems Agency cranked up a procurement for the operation and maintenance of its video conferencing hubs scattered nationwide. The sites were essentially television studios for generals and other top Defense Department officials, but today, practically everyone has a TV studio attached to their computer - a camera and a microphone.>>
05/15/09 05:21 pm ET
The Air Force has selected Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio as the preferred headquarters for its cyber command, the 24th Air Force, pending an environmental review. The decision really puzzles me.>>
05/14/09 04:28 pm ET
Sailors just love the Navy Marine Corps Intranet, according to the latest quarterly survey conducted by the Navy Department and contract-holder EDS, although overall Marine satisfaction dipped 2 percentage points in the quarter ended March 31.>>
05/13/09 05:03 pm ET
First, the good news. The Senate Veterans Affairs Committee today unanimously approved the nomination of Roger Baker as assistant secretary for information and technology and chief information officer at the Veterans Affairs Department.>>
05/12/09 05:31 pm ET
The Air Force said President Obama will nominate Maj. Gen. William T. Lord for promotion to a three-star rank and a new assignment as the service's chief information officer and chief of warfighting integration.>>
05/11/09 05:53 pm ET
Former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger will chair a meeting of the National Space Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing Advisory Committee Advisory Board at the Chevy Chase Pavilion Hotel in Washington on May 14 and 15. I have a feeling it will be a hot one.>>
05/08/09 05:01 pm ET
As dedicated What's fans know, AHLTA, the Defense Department's electronic health record system, used to be known as an acronym standing for the Armed Forces Health Longitudinal Technology Application.>>
05/08/09 04:49 pm ET
At the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing on the nomination of Roger Baker as chief information officer of the Veterans Affairs Department on May 6, committee chairman Daniel Akaka, D-HI, asked Baker to introduce any of his friends in the audience.>>
05/07/09 02:38 pm ET
The fine print and programmatic details of President Obama's proposed fiscal 2010 budget runs 1,380 pages in an appendix, with each and every page worth a perusal, OMB director Peter Orszag told a press briefing this morning.>>
05/07/09 02:35 pm ET
As expected, the Obama administration took a budget axe to the Army Future Combat Systems program. It chopped all of the project's eight manned ground vehicles from the program for a savings of $22.9 billion, according to the Terminations, Reductions and Savings section of the proposed fiscal 2010 federal budget released today.>>
05/06/09 04:30 pm ET
I like serendipity when it happens -- especially when it concerns something as odd as the current head of the National Security Agency and the German World War II encryption device known as the "Enigma Machine.">>
05/05/09 04:20 pm ET
The Veterans Affairs Department told me on Tuesday that delays veterans experienced in accessing the Veterans OnLine Application (Vonapp) Web site on May 1 resulted in part from a 10-fold increase in traffic to the site that day, the first day veterans could apply for a benefits under the post-9/11 GI bill.>>
05/04/09 05:10 pm ET
The Veterans Benefit Administration has a mess of tech problems on its hands with the near collapse of its Veterans OnLine Application and an inability to handle documents that vets have to attach to their applications.>>
05/01/09 04:31 pm ET
Lt. Gen. Eric Schoomaker, the Army surgeon general, said he wants the Military Health System to develop an electronic health record that's "open enough" to exchange data with civilian clinicians who provide care to military personnel and their families under the Defense Department's TRICARE health insurance plan.>>
