The Defense Department’s top acquisition chief says it’s time for DoD to change the way it does business – at least concerning business systems worth more than $1 million, according to a report on Federal News Radio. In an interim memo released earlier this month, Ashton Carter, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, [...]

The National Reconnaissance Office, the agency responsible for designing, building and operating the nation’s reconnaissance satellites celebrates its 50th birthday this year. And, in addition to its renewed sense of mission for the 21st century, the agency also has a milestone under its belt — the launch of the largest spy satellite in reconnaissance history. [...]

Office of Management and Budget Deputy Director Jeffrey Zients touted new IT budgeting strategies at the Department of Veterans Affairs at a roundtable on federal IT earlier this month. Now, Zients, who is also the federal chief performance officer, says he would like to apply the two-year funding schedule to other federal agencies, which will [...]

The latest round of WikiLeaks disclosures has been roundly criticized by U.S. officials. The leaked material, consisting of more than 250,000 diplomatic cables, some of which were classified, portrayed what The Christian Science Monitor called the “rough workings of diplomacy.” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who The Washington Post reports is working damage control [...]

President Barack Obama announced a two-year federal pay freeze yesterday, amid ongoing concern over the $1.4 trillion deficit. Obama said the proposal – which applies to all federal workers, including civilians in the Defense Department (but not military personnel) — was a tough decision to make, but the bloated  federal budget deficit demanded “broad sacrifice.” [...]

Electronic health records have been touted by supporters of the technology, including National Health IT Coordinator David Blumenthal, as tools of better medicine for doctors. But, according to a report in The Des Moines Register, at one Iowa hospital, electronic medical records are also being used by the patients, themselves. University of Iowa Hospitals and [...]

The federal government has long been accused of speaking its own language marked by its overly arcane, even inscrutable syntax. But a new group working within the Office of Management and Budget is tasked with curbing the overly complex verbiage and getting the feds to speak in “plain language.” In a memo, OMB released “preliminary [...]

Just a few days into his new/old job as the head of the Office of Management and Budget, Jacob “Jack” Lew said he was “happy to be back.” Writing on the OMB White House blog, Lew, who previously served as the director of OMB from 1998 till 2001 during President Bill Clinton’s second term, said [...]

After releasing hundreds of thousands of secret war documents from Iraq and Afghanistan, so-called whistle-blower website WikiLeaks released a trove of secret diplomatic cables Sunday, amid claims its site was under cyber attack. CNN International called the release an “information blitz” and said the documents “offered a glimpse into the worldwide communications of the State [...]

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski said he wants to modernize and revolutionize the nation’s 911 call centers by allowing people in distress to text and send pictures and videos for help. “Today’s 911 system doesn’t support the communication tools of tomorrow,” such as texting, Genachowski said. In fact, cellphones are now used more for [...]