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OMB Pedometers Budget Health
To kick off the fiscal year, the Office of Management and Budget on Thursday is prodding its employees to become fiscally fit inside and out. All OMB staffers were given the option of receiving a pedometer for recording their physical activity online and virtually racing with their colleagues. The top pacer each month earns a free lunch with OMB Director Peter Orszag -- and the most athletic OMB division receives a healthy happy hour.
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Emergency Alert System Not Wired
President Obama on Wednesday declared American Samoa a major disaster after the territory was struck by an earthquake and tsunami. But if the president wanted to spread that message nationwide, today, it wouldn't get very far.
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Transparency, Free Speech, Privacy
The civil liberties group Center for Democracy and Technology on Tuesday highlighted an interesting question facing the administration as it promotes technology as a tool for increasing transparency: Is there such a thing as too much transparency?
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TSA continues airport investments
Coinciding with the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the Transportation Security Administration has filtered millions of fiscal 2009 funds to airport surveillance and cargo screening throughout the last month. On Friday, TSA announced two awards for enhanced airport surveillance at Dallas/Fort Worth and San Francisco international airports.
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GovDelivery to Acquire GovLoop
We'll be bringing you more news on this story later on Monday, but we wanted to make sure that those of you not on <a href="http://www.govloop.com/">GovLoop</a> saw it here first: The social media site aimed at Feds will become part of <a href="http://www.govdelivery.com/">GovDelivery</a>, which specializes in "government to citizen communications solutions."
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Rep. Doesn't Catch TSA's Wave
The Transportation Security Administration's full-body scans at some airport security check points have been the subject of some heated discussions, <a href="http://www.tsa.gov/blog/2009/08/imaging-technolgy-bigger-picture.html">even on the TSA Blog</a>.
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An Unlikely Federal Contractor
Doing business with the federal government is a notoriously difficult endeavor. The myriad of regulations make the barrier to entry extremely high for the average entrepreneur unfamiliar with the BeltWay of doing things. But one two and a half year old tech company's recent entry onto the GSA Schedules program may provide a preview of the Obama Administration's strategy to bring innovation to the government.
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Crowdsourcing Contractor Misconduct
The Sunlight Foundation has a <a href="http://blog.sunlightfoundation.com/2009/09/22/crowdsourcing-a-legislative-oops/">post</a> today that combines several of our favorite topics: crowdsourcing, collaboration and contractor misconduct (try saying that five times fast):
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Hate Meetings? You'll Love This
For all of you who hate meetings - and that's probably most of you - here's a recommendation from a New York state assemblyman for fighting swine flu that you'll find a big time saver: Cancel meetings and use the phone.
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The Real Cost of Consolidation
In his blog The Risk Factor, blogger Bob Charette <a href=http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/blog/computing/it/riskfactor/wisconsins-accountability-consolidation-and-efficiency-initiative-it-projects-overrun-a-bit>wrotes</a> about Wisconsin's four-year effort to consolidate networks to save money and improve administration. The state auditor has some results:
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Obama Debuts Innovation Agenda
President Obama, long referred to as the "tech president," has had no formal innovation agenda to back up the title - until now. During a visit to New York's Hudson Valley Community College on Monday, Obama laid out a strategy for creating new jobs, businesses and industries through tapping the nation's innovative potential.
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Threat Levels and Dangerous Biscuits
I was rather entertained a few weeks ago when I <a href="http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=43528&dcn=e_hsw">read</a> that former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said politics was never a factor in determining whether the nation's color-coded terror-alert level should be raised.
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Rejected Recovery.gov FOIA Appealed
A watchdog group is contesting the government's denial of a request filed under the Freedom of Information Act to see the entire contents of the controversial, potential $18 million contract for the redesign of Recovery.gov.
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LOC Highlights Uses of Digital Library
Once again, the Library of Congress demonstrates how federal government should not only utilize information technology, but also market the initiatives to actually encourage support and adoption. Tuesday the largest library in the world, which currently touts nearly 142 million items in its collections, demonstrated to 100 guests -- many from academia -- the potential of its World Digital Library in education.
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Apps.gov is Live
Just ahead of Vivek Kundra's scheduled 1 p.m. announcement, the new cloud computing storefront, Apps.gov is live. The initial offerings include four categories of services currently offered by vendors on the GSA Schedules: Business Apps, Cloud IT Services, Productivity Apps and Social Media Apps.
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States Can Access Defense Network
Local authorities rejoice: Select regional fusion centers that collect and share regional information on terrorist threats and activities will soon have access to sensitive terrorism-related data housed in the Defense Department's classified network.
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Stimulus Data to be Delayed
The government will not release stimulus data from the private sector and states on Recovery.gov until Oct. 30, 20 days after spending reports are due, the board overseeing Recovery Act funds announced on Monday.
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Next Week: Cloud Computing Storefront
You may have seen <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9137841/White_House_CIO_to_disclose_cloud_computing_plans">reports</a> today regarding a major announcement next week from federal chief information officer Vivek Kundra on the government's cloud computing initiative. The source of most of those reports is <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/releases/2009/M09-116.html">this release</a> from NASA's Ames Research Center in California, which says only that Kundra "will outline his vision for a new federal government cloud computing initiative". As the home of <a href="http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090828_3538.php">NASA's cloud computing initiative</a> (cleverly dubbed "Nebula"), Ames seems like a natural choice to reveal the government's new cloud strategy.
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Kundra: Transparency Will Take Time
Speaking at a Washington conference on government technology, the <a href="http://www.gov2summit.com/">Gov 2.0 Summit</a>, this morning, federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra acknowledged that to achieve the transparency the Obama administration has promised there would need to be upgrades to many agencies' antiquated IT infrastructures. Delivering those upgrades on the other hand, may be a task that outlasts both Kundra and the administration.
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