Secretary Napolitano, the third secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, spoke at the DHS employee Town Hall meeting on December 15th, 2009.  Employees gathered to hear her speak at the actual Town Hall at USCIS Tomich Center in DC, but a number of employees joined in through videoconferencing internationally. When she first came [...]

The House approved a spending bill on December 16th, 2009 that is more than $636 billion in Department of Defense spending. The goal is to increase oversight to reduce the amount of fraud and waste. The bill has requirements to lower the amount of money spent on contractor outsourcing. There is $5 billion in the [...]

ManTech International Corporation has just received “non-conflicted” certification from the National Reconnaissance Office. NRO is the top agency for the design, operation, and acquisition of reconnaissance satellites. There are only a few companies so far that have achieved this certification. The goal of this program is to ensure the veracity of the acquisition process. Moreover, [...]

Secretary Chu, of the U.S. Department of Energy, announced last Wednesday, December 9th, that the department will be launching www.openEI.org. This website is an open source web platform that will have the department’s data and resources accessible to the public. The launch of this website is in response to the new open government directive. The [...]

Despite a rough end to his previous term, the Senate Banking Committee endorsed Ben Bernanke for another term as Federal Reserve chairman. The committee in an executive session voted overwhelmingly in favor of his re-confirmation with a vote of 16-7. His current four-year term will be ending this January. After a confirmation vote from the [...]

After the members of the Interagency Council met on December 11th, 2009 they decided to push for more hires of veterans by federal agencies. The meeting was co-chaired by Hilda Solis, the Secretary of Labor, Eric Shinseki, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, and John Berry, the director of the Office of Personnel Management. A plan [...]

Cloud computing decisions are currently being put on hold. This is due to the fact that there have been delays to switching to new services. According to NextGov, the cloud computing has been put on hold because agency officials want to wait until they are at least halfway through the Networx transition. The ability to [...]

“We lost the chance to influence an entire generation of officers,” says a US official at the embassy in Pakistan. This lamentation points to a critical need during the present counterinsurgency, namely enhanced cooperation with Pakistan. As the US ramps up its efforts in Afghanistan, with the recently announced surge of 30,000 additional combat troops, [...]

Tomorrow, December 17th, 2009 from 1:00-2:00 p.m. Kenneth Feinberg, the Special Master for Executive Compensation from the Department of Treasury will be speaking at George Mason University. It will be held in Research 1, Room 163 on the George Mason University campus. Feinberg will be talking about his decisions regarding executive compensation and his speech [...]

The new Open Government Directive requires agencies to come up with three data sets within 45 days. This means something different for each agency, especially the CIA. While many of the federal government agencies have already begun implementing different parts of the directive, the CIA is still in the process of reviewing the document. The [...]