Digital Government

N.Y. Lawmaker Calls for Greater Focus on IT, Less on Jails

A senior congressman from New York on Tuesday urged state legislators across the country to push for greater use of color blind technologies, such as computers and the Internet, to help eradicate the last vestiges of racism in the United States.

Digital Government

Government Experts Sought to Educate 'Netizens' Online

An Atlantabased company last week launched a World Wide Webbased interactive election campaign to locate government subject matter experts who are willing to write monthly columns on state and local government and answer email questions from citizens about the business of government.

Digital Government

Navy issues warning on Y2K Trojan horse

The Navy Computer Incident Response Team warned Navy and Marine Corps computer users worldwide that an email attachment masquerading as a utility to check a system's readiness for the Year 2000 date rollover could contain a virus.

Digital Government

Industry urged to challenge agencies on outsourcing

A senior federal official today encouraged industry to investigate and question how agencies determine what government jobs can be contracted out to the private sector, reinforcing the Clinton administration's commitment to a new procurement reform law.

Digital Government

Pittsburgh Wins $100,000 Award for Internet Bond Sales Practice

The Innovations in American Government program, sponsored by the Ford Foundation, the John F. Kennedy School of Government and the Council for Excellence in Government, recently awarded Pittsburgh $100,000 for a program that enhances the sale of municipal bonds over the Internet.

Digital Government

U-2 gains, Global Hawk slowed in DOD spending bill

The Senate last week passed a $268 billion Defense appropriations bill with sharply focused language and funding for key airborne surveillance, reconnaissance and intelligence systems.

Digital Government

Lawmakers warn Clinton: Boost Defense technology funding or else

Close to 100 members of Congress joined a bipartisan coalition urging President Clinton to boost funding for Defense Department science programs, warning him in a letter that the continued longterm erosion of defense science and technology will have a devastating impact on the future capability of the armed forces of the United States.''

Digital Government

Feds having trouble finding money, people for cybersecurity

Despite mounting pressure from Congress to make tangible progress on the governmentwide effort to protect critical federal information systems from hackers and other criminals, agencies continue to struggle with funding, personnel and training roadblocks, officials said today.

Digital Government

Ventura Puts His Signature on the Digital World

Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura (I) last week became the first U.S. governor to put his digital signature on a document, when he and the secretary of state cosigned a proclamation announcing Digital Signature Day.

Digital Government

No compelling reason - yet - to close NTIS

Just weeks ago, we all thought we were bidding farewell to the National Technical Information Service. NTIS was known to be in trouble financially, and the Commerce Department secretary had said he would send Congress legislation to close down the agency. Now it appears everyone may have been too h

Digital Government

Florida IT task force meets

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's newly appointed Information Service Technology Development Task Force held its first official meeting Oct. 1516 in Orlando, Fla.

Digital Government

Civilian IT pay thwarts Army

The Army has kicked off an intensive project to determine how to better recruit and retain uniformed and civilian personnel in the highly competitive information technology field, with top leadership and soldiers in the trenches conceding that the Army cannot compete with the civilian marketplace i

Digital Government

Multiplying your power

Employing additional processors may seem like an obvious solution to those seeking to boost PC productivity, but getting real benefits from multiprocessing has proved to be difficult for vendors of machines that use Intel Corp.based chips. Because of some unfortunate twists on 'new math' that occu

Digital Government

Intercepts

TRADOC Tanked? The Fort Eustis, Va.based Training and Doctrine Command, headed by Gen. John Abrams, could end up a big loser in terms of funding and personnel in the sweeping 'transformation'' of the Army announced by Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki last week. A knowledgeable Army Pentagon source sai

Digital Government

NWS forecasting hampered after supercomputer fire

The National Weather Service's central supercomputer used to generate weather forecast models caught fire and subsequently stopped operating late last month, forcing the agency to rely on backup systems and delaying delivery of data to users. NWS' National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP

Digital Government

DIA tackles flow of intelligence

On the afternoon of May 7, a CIA officer tried desperately to contact intelligence officials in Europe to alert them to the fact that the Yugoslavian military facility they had targeted was, in fact, located one block away from where NATO pilots were about to drop bombs. By the time his concerns co

Digital Government

Software lets agencies limit use of data

Infraworks Corp. this month released a new product that will enable agencies to control how their information is used, even once it leaves their networks. While it has become commonplace for federal agencies to control the use of information within their networks with encryption, passwords or other

Digital Government

NIH inaugurates e-services contract

The National Institutes of Health last week became the first agency to turn to a General Services Administration contract for digital certificates as a way to secure electronic transactions with the public, giving the GSA security contract a needed boost. The NIH issued a task order under the Acces

Digital Government

FedWire

VHA CIO joins private sectorDave Albinson left his position as chief information officer of the Veterans Health Administration Oct. 15 to take a job in the private sector. Albinson, who served as CIO for more than three years, is joining Universal Systems Inc. as a vice president to manage the com

Digital Government

State outlines response plan for world Y2K glitches

The State Department last week disclosed an elaborate plan to ensure that its embassies worldwide will continue to operate in the event of Year 2000related losses of power, communications and services in host countries. The plan lays out procedures to follow in reporting on the Year 2000 status of