Nextgov

NSA Should Start a 411 Service

Tried getting a phone number from Directory Assistance – 411 – lately? The telcos outsourced this service long ago and the companies running it cannot find phone numbers for institutions that have existed for a long time, such as the Hay-Adams Hotel in Washington or the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Honolulu – or the National Security Agency in Maryland.

This lack of basic information presents a potential money-making opportunity for the National Security Agency, which the whole world learned last week scarfs up the numbers of every phone call made every day in the United States and stuffs it into a metadata file that includes geolocation information.

NSA could tap a Booz Allen Hamilton contractor to crunch all this phone information into an easy to use database sold on a subscription basis to the phone carriers and anyone else who sees value in it, such as Facebook, the second snoopiest outfit on the planet.

Families of Iraq and Afghanistan Vets: PBS Wants You

In May 2014, the Public Broadcasting Service plans to air a three-part documentary, titled “Coming Back,” that deals with Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and their return home. PBS seeks some military families to help tell the story, according to the Fort Stewart Patch, an independent newspaper not associated with the Army.

Interested troops and their families should contact associate producer, Kem Poston at 617-284-2840, or email kposton@powderhouse.net.

VA Executives Face Big Pay Cuts if Claims Backlog Isn’t Fixed

Senior executives in the Veterans Affairs Department could face a 25 percent pay cut unless they substantially reduce the number of disability claims backlogged for four months or longer by next summer. That provision was included in the 2014 Military Construction-VA funding bill passed by the House Tuesday.

The House adopted an amendment by Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., which would limit the pay of senior VA officials to 75 percent of their salary from July 1, 2014, to Sept. 30, 2014, “unless as of July 1, 2014, the percentage of disability compensation claims that are more than 125 days old is less than or equal to 40 percent.” On Monday VA reported claims backlogged 125 days or longer totaled 569,418 -- 66.2 percent of all 860,203 pending claims.

It’s not the only provision targeting department executives’ compensation: VA Senior Executive Service Personnel won’t get any bonuses in 2014 if the House bill becomes law, as the result of another amendment by Rep. Keith Rothfus, R-Pa.

The House bill -- if it becomes law after a Conference with the Senate -- also contains language that derails Defense Department plans, announced by Secretary Chuck Hagel last month, to develop its ...

Defense Still Mulling Next Steps on Electronic Health Record

Last Wednesday I asked the Pentagon and the Defense/Veterans Affairs Interagency Program Office charged with integrated electronic health record development when they plan to start the contracting process for commercial systems announced by Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel on May 21, and who would run them.

I also asked for them to explain how Defense/VA would end up with a “seamless” and integrated EHR by the year’s end, as promised by Frank Kendall, undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, on May 22.

Today, Air Force Lt. Col. Melinda Morgan sent me a statement that shows the EHR and integration remains a work in progress:

She said Hagel has assigned AT&L “responsibility for developing and executing a plan to acquire and deploy interoperable health data records and to modernize the clinical software used throughout DoD. We will report on these plans when they are complete, to include program office roles, program names and IOC dates.”

The above, while appreciated, obviously does not provide much insight on the progress on a mega-billion project that has already been in the works for a decade.

Airborne iThing Insanity

Folks at the Chadwick Institute for Metropolitan Development at DePaul University in Chicago have determined -- gasp -- that the Federal Aviation Administration’s ban on the use of mobile gadgets during takeoff and landing means the loss of more than 100 million hours of productivity.

Their report, “Tablets in Flight,” makes it seems that if this ban continues, then the economy will come close to collapse.

Hmmm … I wonder if the data backing this study includes all the elementary school children watching cartoons on their iThing.

And, did they bother to walk down an airplane aisle and tally up the number of business folks running everyone’s favorite power apps -- Solitaire and Angry Birds.

I think we can all get by without a half hour of gadget use at the start and end of flights without causing the next Great Depression, and avoid potential interference with aircraft electronics.