Yesterday, the U.S. Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM) launched its official Facebook and Twitter pages. In response to DOD Deputy Secretary William Lynn’s memo regarding the responsible and effective use of social media and web 2.0 applications on Friday, February 25, USTRANSCOM moved forward quickly with plans to establish a presence on social networking sites. U.S. Army [...]

What does the PCI picture look like from the government’s perspective? The GAO describes DoD contractor employees as “closely supporting inherently governmental functions” but notes that some DoD officials have a different perspective. Program managers that the GAO interviewed say contractor employees provide “technical” input into the decision-making process as opposed to direct involvement in [...]

President Obama proposed an IT budget of $3.3 billion for the VA Department for the fiscal year of 2011. Now the Senate panel has decided to add another 1% ($30 million) for fiscal 2011 for various projects. The increased funds will go into projects that are in the Veterans Health Administration, as well as the [...]

A report issued by the National Research Council has indicated multiple issues in an environmental impact statement from the U.S. Army regarding its expansion of biocontainment laboratories at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md. The report was requested by Congress. However, the report also indicates that “current safety procedures and regulations at the labs meet or [...]

The Army’s chief information officer, Jeffrey Sorenson, is spearheading an effort to consolidate the Army’s email system. They also plan to outsource its operation to make it more efficient, cost-effective and secure. The Army has invited companies who are bidding on the email contract to partner up with the Defense Information Systems Agency. DISA operates [...]

The National Institutes of Health is one of the first federal agencies to use OpenID. This service will allow researchers, as well as other visitors, to access privacy-protected sites by entering one password at a time. Users can easily switch between different secure sites without having to continually enter a login credentials. According to NextGov, [...]

Last Friday, the Department of Homeland Security announced that they plan to increase the number of airport body scanners with the $1 billion from the Recovery Act funds. This advanced imaging technology has been rather controversial because it is in a way a “virtual strip search.” The Transportation Security Administration promises blurred images and remote [...]

General Services Administration has promoted Rodney Lantier to acting deputy chief acquisition officer. He replaces David Drabkin, who retired from the agency and joined Northrop Grumman Corp. as director of acquisition policy. Lantier will serve as acting deputy while GSA searches for a permanent deputy CAO. Lantier’s career at GSA’s Public Buildings Service spans over [...]

Last week, District of Columbia Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Bryan Sivak announced the launch of the first common platform for “Open 311.”  Open 311 provides free Application Programming Interface (API) access to city 311 systems for non-emergency city services. Addressing the common complaint of citizens’ concerns buried in government bureaucracy, Open 311 allows citizens to [...]

The Department of Energy has spent only 7 percent of the $36.7 billion it received under the Recovery Act to fund renewable energy and efficiency projects, GovExec reported today. Last week, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee heard witnesses say that while 70 percent of the funds have been obligated, bureaucracy is stalling spending. [...]