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Posts tagged government
White House Launches Data.gov, Fails To Impress
May 22nd
One of the cornerstones of President Obama’s campaign bid for the White House was more government transparency. After being inaugurated, Obama issued an executive order directing government officials to determine ways to make government information more accessible to the public. Data.gov is one of the fruits of this labor, having just launched today. The intent of the site is to be an information clearinghouse for all publicly available government data. Unfortunately, while the efforts are to be lauded, the site fails to impress.
EFF to Fight Obama Administration on Access to ACTA Documents
May 7th
A couple months ago we reported on President Obama’s failure to live up to his desire for a transparent government when he opted to allow his administration to play the national security card to keep details of the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) out of the eyes of the general public.
On April 30, 2009, the government released a second batch of documents related to the treaty, ultimately providing little substance. Since the Obama administration continues to withhold more than a thousand pages of material about ACTA the EFF has opted to resort to legal attacks to force the government to open up about this potentially dangerous [secret] treaty.
Viva La Vivek! America’s New CIO Assigned To Mission Impossible
Apr 23rd
TechMiso reported back in early March that the “U.S. Government Needs Visionary CIO Leadership for 21st Century Success.” At the time, it was widely speculated Vivek Kundra was to become the first CIO of the United States of America.
As expected, President Obama announced Kundra’s appointment to CIO on March 5th, 2009. Kundra’s stint as CIO however was cut short as the FBI raided his former offices for evidence related to possible financial misdoings as D.C. CIO. The FBI subsequently cleared Kundra of any implication, thus paving the way for him to work on President’s Obama’s mission impossible.
Government Must Embrace Social Networking, Not Ban It
Mar 21st
President Barack Obama was the first candidate to make extensive use of social networking tools during his campaign for the presidency. His campaign used these tools so the average user benefitted from visiting Obama’s various web sites and social networking profiles. With Obama at the helm of the United States, one would expect the President to force a bureaucratic culture change, ushering in a new era of governmental use of social networking and embracing the web. Unfortunately, the government has both embraced and banned social networking in the same breath.
Obama Administration Dims Transparent Government Hopes, Declares Proposed ACTA Treaty a “National Security” Secret
Mar 14th
One of the significant promises Barack Obama made during his run up to the presidency was overturning the Bush era culture of White House and governmental secrecy. Americans, knowing full well there will never be a complete removal of political backroom drug-deals, were eager to see a more open, transparent government – a pledge Obama was intent on keeping. Unfortunately it appears the President has been unable to keep that promise, instead opting to allow his administration to play the national security card to keep details of the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) out of the eyes of the general public.
Obama’s Web Savvy Team Hitting Major Roadblocks
Mar 3rd
President Barack Obama ran arguably the most technologically advanced political presidential campaign in modern politics during the run up to the primaries in November 2008. Obama assembled an exceptionally savvy campaign team, making use of social networking, YouTube, blogging and other innovative methods of communicating with his [potential] supporters. This same team of clever technologists is apparently finding it quite challenging to adapt those effective techniques to the Federal government.
U.S. Government Needs Visionary CIO Leadership for 21st Century Success
Mar 2nd
The United States Government (USG) is in dire need of strong, visionary CIO leadership to fix the myriad of Information Technology (IT) issues which plague the numerous disparate government agencies such a position is designed to oversee. The USG has long needed visionary leadership, but the current proliferation of IT assets deployed throughout the agencies is at a boiling point – a point requiring reconciliation before a major collapse occurs.
RECOVERY[dot]gov – The Transparency Experiment
Jan 25th
Taking into account the substantial improvements made in technology through to this 21st century, we can easily say the US Government is long overdue in bringing its people a transparent look into civil service dealings.
President Barack Obama appears set to reverse the tide of secrecy and ambiguity in how the US has does business — starting with — Recovery.gov.
Obama had this to say:
We’ll launch an unprecedented effort to root out waste, inefficiency, and unnecessary spending in our government, and every American will be able to see how and where we spend taxpayer dollars by going to a new website called recovery.gov.
Obama’s New Blackberry? Ugly Gets The Job Done!
Jan 15th
There’s a lot of talk lately about Obama’s Blackberry and what choices he will have once he enters his presidency. What initially shocked me was the lack of understanding by the general public when it comes to secure devices.
Engadget shed some light on the only two devices NSA has approved for use by government and DoD personnel.
Fleecing of the Government – IT Contractor Severely Overcharging for Classified Spillage Cleaning
Jan 13th
Another day, another fine example of an IT contractor unnecessarily fleecing the government. This time we have EDS, the technology services company who administers the Navy/Marine Corp Intranet (NMCI), severely overcharging for “classified spillage” cleaning efforts.
The Navy report from October disclosed that in fiscal 2008 there were 52 incidents of classified data being placed on unclassified electronic systems, about half of them Pacific Fleet and Naval Education and Training Command systems, and a total of 37 were on the Navy Marine Corps Intranet, the massive unclassified computer network used for command and control on more than 350,000 military computers.
Current reports have EDS charging the Navy to the tune of approximately $5 million annually, a figure roughly 10 times the cost of merely replacing the infected hard disk drives with new ones.
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