GovConJudicata Weekly Debrief (9/16–20)
This week's Weekly Debrief covers a number of interesting topics, from a Whole-of-Society Approach to Cybersecurity, to the Government's civil lawsuit against Snowden for publishing a book in violation of his NSA and CIA nondisclosure agreements, as well as some insight into DHS and Treasury's plans for the cloud.
Capitol Hill
Federal News Network – House clears 7-week CR with additional OPM funding
"The House of Representatives Thursday afternoon cleared a seven-week continuing resolution, an important first step in Congress’ attempts to avoid another government shutdown at the fiscal year deadline. The measure passed the House with a 301-123 vote. The CR would fund agencies at 2019 levels through Nov. 21, buying lawmakers more time to negotiate over several full-year appropriations bills."
Homeland Security
"The Department of Homeland Security wants to make a big play for the cloud, but the moves are creating some ripple effects within its legacy IT environment and two of its biggest data centers. DHS is in the midst of a major overhaul, using the pending expiration of contracts for two of its primary data centers in Mississippi and Virginia -- frequently referred to as Data Centers One and Two -- to consolidate and modernize the software systems hosted there. A DHS official told FCW in February that the department planned to eventually close the Virginia data center (DC 2) after migrating many of its 153 systems and 8,000 devices to the Mississippi location (DC 1)."
Treasury
Federal Times – Will this enterprise cloud suit its agency to a T?
"The Department of the Treasury released its cloud acquisition roadmap Sept. 15, a plan that includes an enterprisewide cloud it is looking to award in fiscal year 2022. The department wrote that it needs an enterprise cloud in part because components across Treasury are moving forward with their own cloud solution, an approach it wrote wasn’t cost-effective. Treasury wrote that its “desire” is to “minimize the number of cloud acquisitions across Treasury by sizing them for the enterprise.”"
Health
FedHealthIT – Catching the Federal Health Wave of Disruption
"There’s a wave of disruption driving fundamental changes to the $3.6T U.S. Healthcare market. What’s remarkable is the role the Federal sector will play in this wave of industry transformation. There are three trends fueling the wave:
Industry convergence: Lines are being blurred across historically distinct market segments.
Outside – In: Big consumer brands from adjacent markets are declaring Healthcare core to their growth strategies.
The wave starts in Federal."
Cyber
"Skeptics may grumble about a “cybersecurity moonshot” metaphor—and, of course, there is no obvious finish line in the mission to protect and secure our IT systems and networks—but this obscures the crucial need for a healthy infusion of optimism and bold, unconventional thinking to tackle the central challenge of our era. Like the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee, who proposed the “moonshot” in a November 2018 report, we believe our nation should commit itself to the goal, before this decade is out, of achieving a safe and secure Internet."
Justice
"The United States today filed a lawsuit against Edward Snowden, a former employee of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA), who published a book entitled Permanent Record in violation of the non-disclosure agreements he signed with both CIA and NSA. The lawsuit alleges that Snowden published his book without submitting it to the agencies for pre-publication review, in violation of his express obligations under the agreements he signed. Additionally, the lawsuit alleges that Snowden has given public speeches on intelligence-related matters, also in violation of his non-disclosure agreements."
Other News
LA Times – Claiming to be Cherokee, contractors with white ancestry got $300 million
"The case highlights a major failure in the nation’s efforts to help disadvantaged Americans by steering municipal, state and federal contracts to qualified minority-owned companies. In many instances, government agencies have not vetted those companies to protect the interests of taxpayers and legitimate minority contractors."
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