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Feds Want Their Firefox
Top government executives -- even the very top, politically appointed execs -- need to understand that federal employees have some strong opinions about the technology they use in their jobs. That was evident at a town-hall event Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held for the department's employees.
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Hold on Groves Explained
After weeks of speculation, Sen. David Vitter, R-La., has finally revealed his reasons for placing a hold on the nomination of Robert Groves to be Census Bureau Director. Vitter was one of the only votes against a procedural motion yesterday that resulted in a voice vote on Groves' nomination, <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hXx_Z-rGJjGfdC5MFYs7vCq4fQzwD99DRK2O6">which was confirmed</a>.
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Recovery.gov Contract Details Coming
The General Services Administration will release by early next week a redacted version of the potential $18 million contract to upgrade Recovery.gov, GSA officials said on Monday. Government transparency advocates had been calling on GSA and the board overseeing stimulus spending <a href="http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090710_7638.php">to publish the agreement</a> that will cost taxpayers $9.5 million through January 2010 and up to $18 million if all options are exercised.
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Update: Groves Confirmed By Senate
A press assistant with Harry Reid just confirmed to me that the Senate will vote on the nomination of Robert Groves to be Census Director at 5:30 p.m. today after Reid <a href="http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/reid-refuses-to-honor-republican-holds-on-census-nominee.php">filed a motion for cloture</a> on Friday.
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Federal IT Dashboard: The Blog
Looks like the White House has decided to capitalize on the popularity of the newly-launched <a href="http://it.usaspending.gov">IT Dashboard</a>. Federal CIO Vivek Kundra today published the first entry on the site's new <a href="http://it.usaspending.gov/?q=content/blog">blog</a>:
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Disaster, RFK Style
Tomorrow RFK Stadium in Washington will be home to a 75-person team, 28 semi-tractor trailers, two emergency communications vehicles, four hazmat trailers, one mobile cell site and five smaller utility and support trailers.
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Recovery.gov Details Contract
After a public outpouring of questions, concerns and bewilderment about the $18 million pricetag of a contract for a Recovery.gov Web site, the board overseeing the site's overhaul late Friday revealed some details.
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Where to put intel's info sharing?
Congress hopes to pass a bill that would elevate the head of the intelligence community's information sharing efforts to the White House, but President Obama already indicated he'd reject the measure.
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CIOs Missing Out
In the June 15 issue of <em>Government Executive</em>, <a href="http://www.govexec.com/features/0609-15/0609-15s2.htm">"Racing to Innovate,"</a> author Andrew Noyes addresses the challenges facing federal chief information officers. In a recent excerpt in the online version, Noyes reiterates a major point of his well-done article, that "federal CIOs are key to Obama's change agenda." That may well be the case. But in a slow-developing nomination and confirmation process, we may not see any real effect until the end of the president's first term.
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Pixel by Pixel Budget Cuts
President Obama goes "line by line" through the federal information technology budget on <a href="http://it.usaspending.gov/">IT.USASpending.gov</a> to ensure taxpayer dollars are used wisely.
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Google Apps Go Legit
It's official: Google has gone legitimate. The software company's email and online calendaring, instant messaging and word processing applications officially shed their "beta" label this week.
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Where's the (Infected) Beef?
The administration on Tuesday announced long-desired steps that agencies will take to help repair the <a href="http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20080611_3153.php?oref=search">beleaguered food safety system</a>, including the creation of a nationwide trace-back system to more quickly identify the food-source of an outbreak.
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GAO Tweets and Tubes
There are few agencies that we reporters pay closer attention to than the Government Accountability Office. As the investigative arm of the legislative branch, GAO auditors are responsible for uncovering many of the largest cases of fraud or waste in the federal government. Almost everything they publish is of interest to someone out there, which is why we are thrilled to see they are making efforts to expand their audience by joining the Government 2.0 movement.
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Palin: The Medium's the Message
Since announcing her stunning decision to resign as governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin has been missing from the public spotlight as the country debates what prompted the move. In response to rampant speculation about possible criminal charges or scandal, Palin posted a <a href="http://www.facebook.com/sarahpalin#/sarahpalin?v=app_2347471856&viewas=1834144632">rambling message to her Facebook account</a> on Friday attempting to explain her actions:
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Public CIOs: Optimistic or Conservative?
It was great to <a href="http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090630_2193.php">see</a> that U.S. Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra was able to get the new federal government <a href="http://it.usaspending.gov/#">IT dashboard</a> up and running as promised by the end of June. Score one for a government group meeting an IT promise on schedule.
Ideas
Cyber Town Hall Falls Back To Earth
President Obama on Wednesday fought for his health care agenda and <a href="http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090623_2200.php">electronic medical records</a> during an online town hall that was streamed from Annandale, Va. But those in the room may have had the biggest impact on the conversation.
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Why Government's Cool Again
We've heard working for government has become cool again. Here's some anecdotal evidence.
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OMB's IT Dashboard is Live
As promised, federal CIO Vivek Kundra unveiled OMB's dashboard application for monitoring federal IT projects this morning at the Personal Democracy Forum Conference in New York City.
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Web Managers Drowning in Data
Our colleagues at the Tech Daily Dose blog report that Sheila Campbell, manager for government Web best practices and co-chairwoman of the Federal Web Managers Council in the General Services Administration's Office of Citizen Services, pegs the number of federal Web sites at about 24,000, the same number that's been used for years, although some have said it's higher than 25,000.
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