FCW Insider: Dec. 9
The latest news and analysis from FCW's reporters and editors.
Adm. Mike Gilday, chief of naval operations, put cloud and networks at center of maritime war strategy in a new "fragmentary order" to senior leaders. Lauren C. Williams explains.
Despite a big push from a dedicated group determined to bring back the Office of Technology Assessment, it's unclear whether many in Congress are prepared to expend political capital on the issue. Adam Mazmanian reports.
Officials from the criminal investigations unit at IRS touted a major shift over the past year towards multi-stakeholder partnerships to investigate cybercrime and cryptocurrencies in financial crime. Derek B. Johnson has more.
Google's cloud offering earned the highest FedRAMP authorization for cloud services. Mark Rockwell has the story.
Quick Hits
*** Amazon Web Services is looking to stop the Department of Defense from going ahead with the award to Microsoft in the $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud acquisition. The nature of the AWS lawsuit against the Defense Department is starting to be revealed in court proceedings.
"According to plaintiff, DOD failure to fairly credit its technical superiority was not merely the result of arbitrary and capricious decision making, but rather plaintiff contends that the procurement process was compromised and negatively affected by the bias expressed publicly by the President and Commander-in-Chief Donald Trump against plaintiff," Judge Patricia E. Campbell-Smith said in a Nov. 26 status conference on the lawsuit, which is proceeding in the Court of Federal Claims. An audio recording of the conference was released Dec. 5.
*** Although a government watchdog agency found the Transportation Security Administration is sluggish in insuring its airport passenger screening technologies remain effective on the job, it also saw some signs the agency is effectively picking up its pace. In a report released on Dec. 5, the Government Accountability Office told the TSA it took too long--two-seven years in some cases--to develop, acquire and deploy airport passenger screening detection technologies. Once it deployed the technology, the GAO said the agency didn't keep up with insuring it remained precise and effective. GAO also said TSA typically deployed its gear based more on logistical factors, rather than incorporating more strategic considerations such as risk assessments.