The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has declared this week (March 15, 2010 through March 21, 2010) the second annual “Fix a Leak Week.” The EPA is working with communities, retailers, plumbers, water utilities and manufacturers to promote this week in order to help consumers save water and in turn, save money. According to an EPA [...]
Yesterday, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Alejandro Mayorkas announced three initiatives designed to strengthen the efficiency and accuracy of the E-Verify system. These new programs include an agreement with the Department of Justice (DOJ) to streamline legal proceedings for E-Verify misuse and discrimination, a [...]
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based civil liberties group, (working in accordance with the Samuelson Law, Technology, and Public Policy Clinic at the University of California, Berkley, School of Law), filed suit on December 1s, 2009 against 6 government agencies for failure to disclose their policies on using social networking sites for investigations and [...]
While some consumer-advocate groups endorse the Obama administration’s definition of electronic health records, others say the Health and Human Services Department and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ 556-page document of what constitutes EHRs fails to understand the realities of the challenges healthcare providers face every day, according to NextGov. Many doctors have voiced [...]
On Monday, the U.S. Health and Human Services Department announced that they are going put $162 million in awards to fund more health IT projects. The funding of these awards comes from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act from the 2009 federal economic stimulus package. These projects are spread over 16 different states and now [...]
The advanced technology airport scanners continue to be shrouded in controversy. TSA revealed that the “virtual strip search” (as termed by privacy advocates) has sparked more than 600 privacy complaints by airport travelers in the last year. According to GovernmentExecutive, Ginger McCall, EPIC’s staff counsel stated, “These documents reveal that many travelers are unhappy with [...]
In an effort to reform the hiring process of government jobs, the cumbersome knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) essay statements could be replaced with a resume-based system, Director of the Office of Personnel Management John Berry announced. Speaking to delegates at the Federal Managers Association conference held yesterday, Berry said he expects to send President [...]
A lot of ambiguity exists in personal conflicts of interest regulations for contractors. The rules are not well defined and vary from agency to agency. Take a look at the chart below: Bribery and graft are obviously verboten, but there is a lot of grey area when it comes to “personal financial gain.” At a [...]
Some federal departments have found a loophole in a policy that prohibits government websites from tracking online visitor activity, according to NextGov. In 2000, the Office of Management and Budget issued a federal policy banning the use of cookies, which collect data on a visitor’s use of the site to provide more personal interaction. The [...]
The U.S. Joint Forces Command published “The Joint Operating Environment” report which “seeks to provide the Joint Force an intellectual foundation upon which we will construct the concepts to guide our future force development.” While many of the predictions may not be completely accurate, they are based on trends, challenges and current opportunities. The 74-page [...]