FCW Insider: March 11
The latest news, analysis and other updates from FCW's reporters and editors.
The General Services Administration is closing in on a deadline to send its plans to Congress for how it's going to take its plan for an e-commerce acquisition portal to the next level. Mark Rockwell has more.
Federal employee unions are bracing for proposed cuts to retirement benefits and agency size as well as a civilian pay freeze in the president's budget – which is slated to land later this morning. Chase Gunter reports.
Dr. Jennifer Roberts, program manager for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's information innovation office, talks about a program called CHASE -- Cyber Hunting At Scale -- that looks to develop capabilities to extract defense insights from network data. Lauren C. Williams has our interview.
Top officials at the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs are closing in on a plan to name a single person to settle disputes between the two agencies when it comes to the implementation of the Cerner electronic health record. Adam Mazmanian explains.
Quick Hits
Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei is suing the United States government to overturn a provision in a recent defense bill that bars federal agencies from contracting with Huawei or from making contract awards, grants or loans to companies that use Huawei gear and services. The lawsuit alleges that Congress exceeded its constitutional authority in passing a bill that expressly bars Huawei from federal markets and indeed much of the U.S. market without an opportunity for judicial review. Huawei's suit was filed March 6 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Huawei argues in its complaint that Congress was determined to put the company out of business in the U.S. market despite existing legislation on supply chain risk that doesn't single out countries of origin or suppliers by name.
Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Christopher Giancarlo said he has no plans for new regulation in the cryptocurrency space. "It is frequently tempting to apply a paternalistic hand on markets in order to steer them in desired directions or eliminate all risk -- a truly futile exercise," Giancarlo said In a March 6 speech. Sara Friedman at GCN has more.