The military’s Special Operations Forces are the first boots on the ground in a combat zone and usually, the last ones out. So said Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen at the National Defense Industrial Association’s Special Operations and Low-intensity Conflict Symposium. And, even as he had high words of praise [...]

The Defense Department realizes defense company mergers are a reality in an era of tight budgets, the Pentagon’s procurement chief said in a Wall Street address yesterday. In fact, DoD is even open to such mergers and acquisitions. But, in return, the Pentagon expects companies to operate more transparently and be forthcoming about such transactions, [...]

The commander of the United States Joint Forces Command yesterday provided specifics about cuts to the Norfolk, Va.-based command, including deep slashes to the contractor workforce based there. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, who took over JFCOM in October, said the command would cut 2,300 positions from its 4,700-member personnel. Most of the positions cut — [...]

The 2009 Open Government Directive promised the feds would free the data. And, more than 2,000 datasets on everything from crime statistics to healthcare stats have been posted on Data.gov since the initiative was launched. Open government advocates cheered. But, in the meantime, some have questioned the amount of actual useful information posted to the [...]

A year into his tenure as the director of the Defense Contract Audit Agency, Patrick Fitzgerald has already changed DCAA business as usual, Federal News Radio reported. With Fitzgerald at the helm, the agency has weathered the identity crisis it has undergone recently. As little as a year ago, the agency was criticized for being [...]

Using social media is  not just the province of smartphone-wielding tweens and narcissistic twenty-somethings anymore. In an interview with Nextgov, the top government official tasked with emergency relief said Twitter and other social media sites will be a major part of federal disaster preparedness. Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate said the agency, which [...]

It’s that time of the year again. Lawmakers and government officials, who are gathering round the budget-drafting table came prepared with the tool du jour — scissors. Late last week, the House Appropriations Committee released a $1.055 trillion draft of a spending blueprint, representing a 9 percent cut in nondefense discretionary spending, according to Federal [...]

National coordinator for health IT Dr. David Blumenthal announced last week he would leave his post in the spring. Now, the gloves are coming off  – so to speak — in terms of his dealings with health IT skeptics. In a question-and-answer session with reporters, Blumenthal took issue with a recent study in the Archives [...]

The Office of Management and Budget wants to expand TechStat accountability sessions — face-to-face reviews of IT projects where OMB leaders and agency heads sit down together at the table to discuss IT progress. And, the agency is now offering a new “toolkit” for departments to hold their own department-level accountability sessions. The original sessions [...]

Two Democratic senators have proposed a law that would make it a federal crime to “misuse images” recorded by the Transportation Security Administration’s full-body scanners. Sens. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) offered the legislation as an amendment to the Federal Aviation Administration’s reauthorization bill currently before the Senate. According to a press [...]