Digital Government

Lawmaker proposes banning federal use of certain file-sharing software

Oversight committee chair also pledges an investigation into whether vendors can be held responsible for failing to install adequate privacy safeguards.

Digital Government

OMB directs agencies to improve contractor performance reporting

Federal agencies will be required to submit data on contractor performance to centralized database and the administration will monitor compliance.

Digital Government

Company won earmarked funds for work on military health records

Defense employee has alleged that Adara Networks received software code in advance of winning sole-source contract.

Digital Government

States' stimulus tracking sites are mediocre at best, report finds

The average score for overall Web site performance was 28.2 on a scale of 0 to 100.

Digital Government

Five Social Networking Keys

Tim Wright has an interesting post on Examiner.com about the top five social networking sites those of older generations should take a peek at in an attempt to understand and engage with Generation Y. Simply taking one hour to look at these social networks, Wright argues, "will enhance

Ideas

Former DHS CIO Cooper to FAA?

The federal information technology industry is talking about the rumored appointment of Steve Cooper as the chief information officer at the <a href="http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ato/">Air Traffic Organization</a> <strike>Federal Aviation Administration</strike>.

Digital Government

House Hot About 'Propaganda' Info Ops

The Defense Department's budget for information operations - that's everything from plain vanilla public affairs to targeted messages and canned 'news stories" to influence audiences in Iraq and Afghanistan - has jumped a hundred fold in the past four years, from $9 million in 2005 to what the House Appropriations Committee called a "staggering" $988 million budget request for fiscal 2010.

Ideas

Library Official Picked For Archivist

President Obama reportedly plans to appoint David S. Ferriero to the position of U.S. Archivist, a job that entails deploying a massive technologically-agnostic system to preserve and publish the historical record of the United States, according to the nonprofit National Coalition for History.

Digital Government

Three Challenges for Cybersecurity

The federal government's need for attracting and retaining cybersecurity expertise has been making a lot of headlines lately, especially in light of the cyberattacks that knocked a few U.S. and South Korean Web sites off line earlier this month. A <a href="http://wiredworkplace.nextgov.com/2009/07/cyber_insecurity.php">report</a> released last week by the Partnership for Public Service and Booz Allen Hamilton found that a successful government scholarship program that graduates about 120 students each year and places them in federal cybersecurity jobs is not coming close to meeting the demand for such expertise. Officials estimate that between 500 and 1,000 such graduates are needed each year.

Ideas

NIH Gets Schooled on Wikipedia

Wikipedia is the Web's most prominent source of information, but because of its crowd-sourcing model, it's not always the most credible. That's pretty much the opposite of federal Web sites, which are generally considered among the most <a href="http://www.cdc.gov">trusted</a> <a href="http://www.nih.gov">sources</a> of information on the Web, if not the best known.

Digital Government

Fred Schobert joins Topside Consulting

Schobert was director of the Office of Infrastructure Optimization in a section of the Federal Acquisition Service.

Modernization

GAO: Details needed on electronic records system

The National Archives and Records Administration's spending plan for its Electronic Records Archive system needs important details, GAO has found.

Digital Government

A Look at Generation Z

Penelope Trunk has an interesting <a href="http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2009/07/27/what-work-will-be-like-for-generation-z/">post</a> on the Brazen Careerist blog about what Generation Z (those born between the mid-1990s through the 2000s) will be like at work.

People

EHR standard released by public/private group

The primary standards body for health IT has released a specification for EHRs designed for the economic stimulus law.

Modernization

Satisfaction plateaus  for government Web sites

Users of government Web sites report no greater satisfaction with these sites than they did four months ago, according to a recent survey.

Modernization

DHS, FCC don't coordinate some networks, GAO says

The Homeland Security Department and the Federal Communications Commission need to coordinate their efforts on public safety emergency communications, according to a new report.