Lawmakers will be looking to follow through with three key policies on federal information technology acquisition, China sourcing and surveillance in the new year, FCW reported Tuesday.Adam Mazmanian writes that while the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act was scrapped from the defense authorization bill at the last minute and similar legislation is expected to push ahead in 2014.
“(Bill sponsor Rep. Darrell) Issa is optimistic a standalone bill addressing critical IT procurement reforms will move forward in both houses next year,†an unnamed congressional aide told FCW.
Chinese sourcing restrictions that continue to be part of a House spending bill are expected to be reconsidered again for the fiscal 2014 appropriations bill, the report said.
IT vendors have lobbied for a rewording of the cyber supply chain law, noting in a Dec. 10 letter to Congress that the language may be doing more harm than good.
FCW reported that calls from several quarters for stronger legislation on intelligence data collection may be materializing in the form of two opposing bills.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee, is pushing one measure that would permit the intelligence community to maintain telephone and email databases and utilize each to aid its missions.
Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) have proposed a more restrictive measure that does away with bulk data collection to promote privacy interests.
