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What About Spending.gov Subs?
While the fiscal 2010 budget plan for federal IT investments cites efforts to build Recovery.gov, a federal site for tracking stimulus spending, it is silent on the extent to which subcontractor funding and performance will be disclosed. Lawmakers and interest groups are seeking more specifics on such transactions.
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Chopra Confirmation Hearing Scheduled
A Senate panel plans to examine on May 19 the nomination of Aneesh Chopra as the first-ever federal Chief Technology Officer, a White House Office of Science and Technology Policy official said on Tuesday.
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Swine Flu Social Media Stats
Bev Godwin, director of online resources at the White House, discussed last week how the Obama administration is using social networking to open government and provide information on a number of issues at a <em>Government Executive</em> Leadership Breakfast Series panel. She presented data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Web site that shows how the public accessed information on the swine flu as of May 3.
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Tar Heels Visit White House
Permit me a shout out to my alma mater (and Nextgov senior reporter Jill Aitoro's as well), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The NCAA men's national basketball champs visited the White House on Monday to meet President Obama, who <a href="http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2009/03/obama_likes_unc_as_hoops_champ.php?oref=search">picked</a> the Tar Heels in his bracket to win the championship.
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Stimulating Federal IT Jobs
USAjobs.gov recently posted federal jobs created by Presient Bush's stimulus package -- the 2009 American Recovery Reinvestment Act (ARRA). A search using "ARRA" as a keyword brought up 192 jobs. Not too mnay of those jobs are federal information tech posts, however. A search consisting of "ARRA and information technology" produced just six hits, with two jobs in the Agriculture Department, two in the Housing and Urban Development Department, and one each in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and General Services Administration:
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When Boosting IT Is A Bad Thing
Getting rid of tax evaders is a good thing. But spending more money on technology to catch them after-the-fact is not, say some federal contracting advocates.
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Time for Jeers?
Lurita Doan, the head of the General Services Administration for two years in the Bush administration and now a commentator on Federal News Radio, has a weekly feature on the station's Federal Drive program during which she offers up her "cheers and jeers" for the federal community.
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Cyber Breaches: Worse Than You Think
It may seem as if a new breach of some computer system or network is reported every couple of months; but actually, one security expert says it's worse than that.
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The Downside of E-Health Records
With all the excitement surrounding <a href="http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090115_8220.php?oref=search">electronic health records</a> in the new administration, including the $19 billion in the stimulus bill set aside to further their adoption, it's easy to forget the potential risks of moving our health information online.
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GSA Sends USA.gov to the Cloud
In February I <a href="http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090225_6859.php?oref=search">reported</a> that the General Services Administration planned to shift the federal government's official Web portal, <a href="http://www.usa.gov">USA.gov</a> to private servers, a strategy known as cloud computing. The move was expected to cut costs in half and serve as a model to other agencies considering making the leap to software as a service.
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Obama Tweets to Chill Flu Fears
President Obama joined Facebook, MySpace and Twitter -- all burgeoning online communities -- on Friday in what some are calling an effort to calm hysteria surrounding the swine flu outbreak.
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Addressing USASpending Problems
Before he was elected to the White House, Sen. Barack Obama was a proponent of putting more information about government contracts, grants and loans online, teaming up with Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., to introduce the <a href="http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1207/121407n1.htm">2006 Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act</a>, which requires full disclosure on a Web site maintained by OMB of all organizations receiving more than $25,000 in federal funds.
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GovLoop Hits 10,000
<a href="http://www.govloop.com/">GovLoop</a>, the social networking site for federal employees, announced it signed up its 10,000th member in less than a year of operation.
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Cyber Review Results Coming Soon
Results and recommendations of the Obama administration's 60-day cyber review will be revealed in the next few days, perhaps as early as Tuesday, said Melissa Hathaway, senior director for cyberspace for the National Security and Homeland Security councils.
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For Google, Public Not Always Public
Google this week piloted a new <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/adding-search-power-to-public-data.html">feature</a> that, according to the company, "makes it easy to find and compare public data," but, in reality, Google itself can't find a lot of the public data out there.
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Another Take on Census Training
We've been seeing reports about the Census Bureau's address canvassing exercises popping up all over the Internet, but this <a href="http://ryansridiculousrealworld.blogspot.com/2009/04/few-thoughts-on-census-bureau-training.html">blog post</a> from Ryan Pope, who trained to check addresses for the Census Bureau's upcoming 2010 decennial count (and the writer behind Ryan's Ridiculous Real World blog), probably takes the cake.
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GSA Signs Facebook Agreement
The General Services Administration announced yesterday that it has signed a terms of service agreement with the social networking web site <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nextgov/36630325798?v=info&ref=mf">Facebook</a>.
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'Government Not Always the Solution'
Macon Phillips, the White House director of new media, has a proposition for open government advocates who want a federal Web site that will let them suggest recommendations for a forthcoming open government directive:
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Obama Wants Your Efficiency Ideas
In his weekly address on Saturday, President Obama <a href="http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=42568&dcn=todaysnews">asked federal employees</a> for ideas on how to make government more efficient. The White House hasn't determined how it will collect the suggestions, so for the meantime Government Executive created a <a href="http://moderator.appspot.com/#16/e=5ad32">Google Moderator</a> where you can submit your ideas and vote on others. Several ideas have been posted and votes cast.
Ideas