TECHNOLOGY AND THE BUSINESS OF GOVERNMENT
07/31/09 05:22 pm ET
That's what Daniel Bertoni, director of education, workforce, and income security at the Government Accountability Office, told the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee this week on the need to improve how the department processes a growing mountain of disability claims.>>
07/30/09 06:31 pm ET
The Defense Department has started to analyze the vulnerabilities of social networking sites and Web 2.0 technologies such as Facebook and Twitter, Pentagon spokesman Air Force Lt. Col. Eric Butterbaugh said in a statement.>>
07/30/09 05:21 pm ET
As I reported on Wednesday, Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss, has earmarked just more than $5 million for Adara Networks to work on information technology projects at the Military Health System and has another $10 million pending earmark for Adara in the fiscal 2010 Defense appropriations bill.>>
07/29/09 05:08 pm ET
Over the past decade federal agencies have been able to buy commercial satellite communication services through either General Services Administration contracts or those managed by the Defense Information Systems Agency.>>
07/28/09 04:50 pm ET
The Defense Department's budget for information operations - that's everything from plain vanilla public affairs to targeted messages and canned 'news stories" to influence audiences in Iraq and Afghanistan - has jumped a hundred fold in the past four years, from $9 million in 2005 to what the House Appropriations Committee called a "staggering" $988 million budget request for fiscal 2010.>>
07/27/09 04:21 pm ET
That's how much funding the House Appropriations Committee estimated the Military Health System will need in the next two years to develop a Services Oriented Architecture to create interoperability between the electronic health record systems operated by the Defense Department and the one maintained by the Veterans Affairs Department.>>
07/24/09 09:15 am ET
I spent a couple of days last week at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico metaphorically kicking the tires on the new high-tech gadgets and gizmos the Army plans to field to seven infantry brigades starting in 2011. I came away from the trip -- as I always do when I'm out in the field -- more impressed by the soldiers I met than the gear.>>
07/23/09 04:42 pm ET
The House Appropriations Committee approved a budget for the high-powered Wideband Global Satcom System in fiscal 2010 of $626.7 million in its version of next year's appropriations bill, an increase of $425 million from the president's requested budget.>>
07/22/09 04:50 pm ET
President Barack Obama has a much busier schedule than I, but he still managed to send me a personal invitation to watch his press conference at 8 p.m. tonight on the need to pass comprehensive health care reform legislation.>>
07/21/09 05:59 pm ET
That's the approach Veterans Affairs Department Chief Information Officer Roger Baker told me he plans go take in fixing the problem information technology projects halted by VA Secretary Eric Shinseki on Friday.>>
07/20/09 04:41 pm ET
I spent a couple of days last week hanging out with the Army Evaluation Task Force at White Sands Missile Range, N.M. They're testing all kinds of exotic systems and networks key to the Army's future modernization projects, and I wondered if troops in the future will be into battle at the click of a mouse.>>
07/17/09 12:21 pm ET
The Veterans Affairs Department on Friday said it halted development of 45 information technology projects that were behind schedule or over budget, with Secretary Eric Shinseki personally making the announcement.>>
07/16/09 09:28 am ET
The answer to that question may be just 13, the number of computer centers operated by the Defense Information Systems Agency and none run by the Army, Navy or Air Force.>>
07/15/09 10:47 am ET
The Defense and Veterans Affairs departments will achieve full interoperability of electronic health records by Sept. 30, Rear Admiral Gregory Timberlake, acting director of the Defense and VA interagency program office, told a House VA Committee hearing on Tuesday.>>
07/14/09 05:39 pm ET
This month I cautioned veterans to carefully weigh benefits available under the new post 9/11 GI bill and the older Montgomery GI bill, even though the package of benefits under the new bill, in most cases, provides a better financial deal than the old one.>>
07/13/09 12:15 pm ET
The Senate Armed Services Committee directed the Defense Department to terminate a new command and control system modeled on commercial Web sites such as Travelocity due to unwillingness of the services to agree on a centrally managed system.>>
07/10/09 05:04 pm ET
That appears to be the thinking of the folks on the House Appropriations Committee, who think the Veterans Affairs Department could model its disability and pension claims process on electronic tax filing systems.>>
07/09/09 04:20 pm ET
Elmo, the fire engine red Sesame Street Muppet, will make a special guest appearance with Army Brig. Gen. Loree Sutton, director of the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury, at a press conference in Philadelphia next week. She will unveil how Elmo and his pals can help kids deal with the stress of military deployments.>>
07/08/09 03:14 pm ET
An internal paper published in May by an intelligence analyst at U.S. Forces Korea said North Korean hackers penetrated U.S. military networks and Web sites with greater frequency than any other country in the world, including China.>>
07/08/09 02:04 pm ET
Repeated attempts to reach the Web site of U.S Forces Korea on Wednesday afternoon failed -- an indication that the alleged cyberattack launched by North Korea over the July 4 weekend against South Korean and U.S. government Web sites continues.>>
07/07/09 03:59 pm ET
Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, launched his Facebook page on July 2 and has already managed to attract 309 fans.>>
07/06/09 04:28 pm ET
Depending on what newspaper you read on July 3, the Obama administration is either ready to roll out the third version of Einstein, a system designed to protect the computer networks of nonDefense Department agencies or delayed it because of privacy concerns related to the role of the National Security Agency.>>
07/02/09 04:20 pm ET
In many cases, the new GI bill, called the 2008 Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act, offers a better deal than its predecessor, the Montgomery GI bill. But not always.>>
07/02/09 03:59 pm ET
Three companies -- FGM Inc., Booz-Allen Hamilton and SAIC -- won contracts on Wednesday to provide systems engineering support to the Defense Information Systems Agency for development of the Defense Department's new command and control system Net-Enabled Command Capability.>>
07/01/09 05:31 pm ET
The Government Accountability Office usually does a good job in exposing flaws in Defense Department information technology systems, but in its report on the Defense Travel System released on Tuesday, the GAO decided to pick some really weird nits.>>
