VA Launches New Online Form for Healthcare Applicants; Sloan Gibson Comments
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VA Launches New Online Form for Healthcare Applicants; Sloan Gibson Comments


healthcare systemThe Department of Veterans Affairs has rolled out a web-based tool designed to help veterans gain access to VA’s healthcare enrollment form.

According to a VA blog entry posted Thursday, the new healthcare application tool available on vets.gov is the default access system for veterans who would apply for benefits in addition to the existing 10-10EZ paper form.

“In order to improve access to care, we reviewed many of the steps veterans must take to receive that care and found that improvements needed to be made in the initial application to improve the veteran experience and remove barriers that hinder access,” said Sloan Gibson, VA deputy secretary.

“Veterans could previously apply for health care online, but the user experience was often frustrating, and the process required VA employees to generate paper applications that were manually entered into our eligibility verification and enrollment processing systems,” Gibson added.

Gibson said the new application form is in the form of HTML “that requires nothing more than an internet connection and 15-45 minutes of your time depending on the complexity of the application.”

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GAO: FDIC Security Program Concerns Put Financial Information, Systems at Risk
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GAO: FDIC Security Program Concerns Put Financial Information, Systems at Risk


cybersecurityThe U.S. Government Accountability Office has warned the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation‘s financial information and systems are at risk due to security concerns within the FDIC’s information security systems.

GAO said Thursday that the study conducted on FDIC showed the agency had vulnerabilities on the third-party softwares that supported its financial processing and lacked a process to rectify user access rights to its financial processing systems.

The agency recommended the FDIC’s chief information officer implement access control procedures that require the authorization of access rights modifications to be documented and a policy that will work to identify monitoring changes to critical files to be included during the audit.

FDIC has concurred with GAO’s recommendations to apply the new recommendations.

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Gen. David Goldfein Confirmed as Air Force Chief of Staff
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Gen. David Goldfein Confirmed as Air Force Chief of Staff


David Goldfein
David Goldfein

Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein received Senate confirmation Wednesday as the military branch’s next chief of staff and will be sworn into office Friday.

The 33-year veteran was nominated by the White House for the Air Force’s top uniformed post in April and testified at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing about his nomination June 16, the branch said Thursday.

He will succeed the retiring Gen. Mark Welsh, who served as the Air Force’s lead officer for four years.

Goldfein previously managed the Air Staff as well as served on the Requirements Oversight Council and Deputy Advisory Working Group of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon.

The Air Force commissioned him in 1983 and deployed him to numerous assignments across the globe.

GovExec: OPM to Guide Agencies on SES Bonus Spending Cap Increase
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GovExec: OPM to Guide Agencies on SES Bonus Spending Cap Increase


US office of personnel managementThe Office of Personnel Management will issue additional guidance strategies on rewards for Senior Executive Service and senior-level career position holders to help agencies manage the spending cap increase on bonuses in October, GovExec reported Thursday.

Kellie Lunney writes the aggregate spending cap on agency performance awards will increase from 4.8 percent to 7.5 percent in fiscal 2017 as part of an executive order from President Barack Obama in December that works to streamline the SES hiring and make pay adjustments to help recruit and retain leaders.

The report said adjustments on senior executive salary should be performance-based and considers the pay of an executive’s direct reports in the General Schedule.

Lunney added the executive order also calls for agencies to update the development, hiring and onboarding of senior executives through strategies such as a resume-based application process.

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Boulder County, Colorado Adopt NIST Community Resilience Guide for Buildings and Infrastructure Systems
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Boulder County, Colorado Adopt NIST Community Resilience Guide for Buildings and Infrastructure Systems


infrastructureBoulder County and the state of Colorado have adopted the National Institute of Standards and Technology‘s community resilience planning guide for building and infrastructure systems to support the development of the collaborative’s own infrastructure standards.

NIST said Wednesday that the new standard is designed to let cities and towns within the collaborative set goals that will establish the desired resilience performance, including the ability to prepare, recover and adapt from disasters, of structures and infrastructures for 50 years.

The standard will also focus on clusters of building, such as housing, healthcare and retail, are also taken into account with the standard, NIST added.

“Organizing the built environment into clusters provides a basis for developing an estimate of how to prioritize systems for recovery and sets a workable timeline goal for recovery after a disaster,” said the county report on the collaborative standard.

DARPA Completes Integration of Live Data Feeds Into Space Surveillance Network; Jeremy Raley Comments
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DARPA Completes Integration of Live Data Feeds Into Space Surveillance Network; Jeremy Raley Comments


deep_spaceThe Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has finished its work to integrate live data feeds from several sources into the U.S. Space Surveillance Network run by the Air Force in an effort to help space monitoring teams check when satellites are at risk.

SSN is a global network of 29 military radar and optical telescopes and DARPA added seven space data providers to the network to help monitor the space environment under its OrbitOutlook program, the agency said Wednesday.

DARPA plans to test the automated algorithms developed to determine relevant data from the integrated feed in order to help SSA experts carry out their mission.

“By including new telescopes and radar facilities based in diverse locales, and by revolutionizing how we process different data types, we anticipate vast improvements in our tracking of potentially hazardous objects and our ability to efficiently avoid collisions in space,” said Lt. Col. Jeremy Raley, a DARPA program manager.

SSN’s new data providers consist of four networks such as StellarView, SpaceView, EchoView and Low Inclined Low Earth Orbit Object detection initiative to consolidate data from various communities, plus three commercial and government networks ExoAnalytic Solutions, Raven and Rincon that provide a fee-for-service model.

DARPA will start to test the algorithm in the fall and then share the algorithm with the space-debris-tracking community through the DARPA Open Catalog if the demonstration succeeds.

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Poland, Germany to Form Joint Submarine Command
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Poland, Germany to Form Joint Submarine Command


submarineGermany and Poland have agreed to set up a joint operating authority over both countries’ submarines, Defense News reported Wednesday.

Lars Hoffmann writes Vice Adm. Andreas Krause, German navy’s inspector, and his Polish counterpart Rear Adm. Miroslaw Mordel signed a memorandum of understanding to facilitate the establishment of the joint submarine command in Glucksburg, Germany.

The Polish navy will link its U-boats to Germany’s submarine broadcast control system and assign two naval officers at the German maritime operations facility in Glucksburg as part of the joint command, the German navy said in an announcement.

The Polish navy has one Soviet Kilo-class and four Kobben-class U-boats and the Germany navy operates six 212A-class submarines, according to Defense News.

The report said Poland has begun negotiations with Norway to jointly procure submarines and that possible vessel suppliers on Norway’s list include Germany-based ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems and France’s DCNS.

A spokesman for the German navy said the joint submarine command will help facilitate training of Polish naval forces in Germany and could serve as a basis for the establishment of a joint navy authority in the Baltic Sea region, according to the report.

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Andrew Mayock Eyes Focus on Cyber, Background Investigations as OMB Nominee
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Andrew Mayock Eyes Focus on Cyber, Background Investigations as OMB Nominee


Andrew Mayock
Andrew Mayock

Andrew Mayock, nominee for the deputy management director post at the Office of Management and Budget, has said he would prioritize federal cybersecurity and background investigation efforts if he is confirmed by the Senate, Government Executive reported Wednesday.

Charles Clark writes Mayock also discussed with members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee how he intends to address issues of improper payments, last-minute regulations when the new administration takes over, duplicative information technology procurement and federal hiring process.

He called on the Congress to pass the $3.1 billion Cyber Security National Action plan intended to help agencies replace old IT systems and to support the administration’s category management push across the government.

The report said Mayock also called for a review of how regulators control the lavish spending in government.

He told the committee he would help to facilitate a smooth presidential transition if confirmed within the final six months of the Obama administration, during which he would chair the Agency Transition Directors Council, according to the report.

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DHS Sets $1.6B for FY 2016 Preparedness Grant Initiatives; Jeh Johnson Comments
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DHS Sets $1.6B for FY 2016 Preparedness Grant Initiatives; Jeh Johnson Comments


Jeh Johnson
Jeh Johnson

The Department of Homeland Security has allocated more than $1.6 billion in fiscal 2016 funds to both competitive and non-competitive preparedness grant programs that seek to help state, local, territorial and tribal agencies respond to disasters and other emergencies.

“These 2016 homeland security grant allocations will support our partners at all levels of government and the private sector, ensuring we remain vigilant and keep the homeland secure,” DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson said in a statement released Wednesday.

For competitive grant initiatives, DHS will allot $100 million to the Port Security Grant Program, $87 million to the Transit Security Grant Program, $55 million to the Operation Stonegarden, $20 million to the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, $10 million to the Tribal Homeland Security Grant Program and $3 million to the Intercity Bus Security Grant Program.

The department will also provide funds for non-competitive initiatives, including more than $1 billion for the Homeland Security Grant Program, $350 million for the Emergency Management Performance Grant Program and $10 million for the Intercity Passenger Rail-Amtrak Program.

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Lawmakers Goodlatte, Grassley Raise Legal Concerns Over NTIA’s Internet DNS Oversight Transfer Plan
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Lawmakers Goodlatte, Grassley Raise Legal Concerns Over NTIA’s Internet DNS Oversight Transfer Plan

cybersecuritySen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Virginia) have asked whether the National Telecommunications and Information Administration‘s plan to transfer oversight of the internet domain name system to a multi-stakeholder community complies with the Constitution.

NTIA might relinquish ownership of a U.S. property without Congress authorization if it follows the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers‘ proposal to privatize the management of Internet Assigned Numbers Authority’s functions, the lawmakers said Monday in letter to Lawrence Strickling, NTIA assistant secretary for communications and information.

The agency extended a contract with ICANN in August 2015 to manage IANA’s DNS Root coordination, internet protocol address and other IP-related functions while the transition work is underway.

Grassley and Goodlatte added NTIA commissioned outside studies and allocated staff time to support the transition, which they say violated the fiscal year 2016 omnibus spending bill that prohibits the agency from use of funds provided in that legislation to support the IANA transfer.

The lawmakers asked NTIA to explain issues surrounding the transition plan such as its impact on free speech and human rights as well as the possibility that foreign governments might limit internet freedom.

NTIA was also urged give answers on Constitutional and legal concerns as well as its views on a possible Congress vote on the IANA functions transition.

Grassley and Goodlatte want NTIA’s response by July 22.

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