According to the latest ruling out of the Ninth Circuit Court, it’s perfectly legal for federal agents to secretly plant a GPS locator on your car in the middle of the night, even if it’s parked in your driveway, and then use said locator to track your movements as they see fit. Even without a [...]

Leaked Defense Department files from the controversial website WikiLeaks.org appear to confirm that Pakistan’s ISI spy agency attempted to poison at least one contractor using alcoholic beverages.  The incident happened in June 2007 but the bizarre story was recently lent credence by a leaked intelligence warning issued in February 2007 that ISI tried to poison [...]

Jacob “Jack” Lew, Obama’s nominee to replace Peter Orszag as Director of OMB, has served at the State Department since the last time he served as Director of OMB for President Clinton.  Regardless of whether Orszag’s departure resulted from policy differences with President Obama, it’s clear that at least some fiscal policy changes are coming.
For [...]

At last Thursday’s AFCEA Cybersecurity Symposium held in Washington, D.C., White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt delivered a keynote speech emphasizing a strategy of deterrence to fight cyber criminals and the need to educate Americans on how to safely operate in cyberspace.
Schmidt, who made a rare public appearance as the day-long event winded down at [...]

As we reported last week, Navy CIO Robert Carey is expected to leave his current position by the end of the summer, departing as the Navy’s Next Generation Enterprise Network kicks into high gear and legacy IT architectures like the Navy/Marine Corps Intranet continue to be phased out.
Whoever moves in to fill CIO Carey’s shoes [...]

In a publication issued June 4th, DoD’s Standards of Conduct Office (SOCO) reminded all DoD employees that its policy guidelines prohibit them from serving on the boards of non-federal entities (NFEs) that they deal with professionally.
This announcement comes ahead of a proposed DoD plan to insource 11,000 acquisition personnel, bringing them out of the private [...]

Last month, we brought you the top iPhone apps for government, but since they’re mostly worthless if you can’t use them on the job, we took a look at federal smartphone policy to determine when and where government workers can use their iPhones or BlackBerrys.
In compliance with FISMA, agencies are required to assess smartphone vulnerabilities [...]

The White House recently released the Obama Administration’s comprehensive National Security Strategy online.  As a sweeping articulation of the administration’s goals in domestic and international policy, the strategy is short on specifics but nonetheless offers insight into the current administration’s operational philosophy in advancing America’s interests.  The strategy breaks down into three areas:
Building our Foundation
Obama’s [...]

The success of programs like Apps for Democracy, Federal CIO Vivek Kundra’s contest to develop iPhone Apps for the city of Washington, DC, has proven the usefulness of smart phone apps and crowd-sourcing.  Currently, the federal government is in the process of launching similar programs to increase public engagement and government transparency.
Below is our list of the top [...]

Currently, the United States suffers from an impending shortfall in acquisitions personnel, a major focus area for “inherently governmental” work.  “In fiscal year 2000, there were 56,000 federal employees to manage $208 billion worth of contracts. Seven years later, there were 61,000 acquisition personnel managing $517 billion. So, while the value of [...]