Digital Government

Security funding foiled by politics

The Clinton administration is urgently seeking a 15 percent increase in funding for critical infrastructure protection initiatives in its fiscal 2001 budget, but its request is being blocked by electionyear politics and partisan paralysis, according to experts.

Digital Government

Like a sieve

Recent disclosures of classified or sensitive information:

Digital Government

Feds digitize spread of West Nile virus

USGS has launched a hightech surveillance effort to track the spread of the virus using stateoftheart mapping and geographic information systems

People

Technology on deck

A sampling of the electronics aboard USNS Bruce C. Heezen:

People

Pentagon to outsource network ops

DOD plans this year to outsource support for more than 7,000 desktop users and consolidate all Pentagon network operations and security support with a single vendor

Digital Government

Security education in crisis

Educators warn that IT whiz kids lack adequate training, education and professional discipline to handle information security

People

Portrait of a displaced Navy intranet worker

When the Navy awards its longawaited N/MCI contract in September, it will substantially alter the government careers of nearly 2,000 IT workers

People

Intercepts

Intercepts

People

DOD reining in software buys

The Defense Department has approved a draft version of a policy that would direct the DOD information technology community to first consider using existing Pentagon programs for all commercial software purchases before orchestrating major acquisitions.

People

Navy reaps savings with biz tool

The Naval Undersea Warfare Center at Newport, R.I., has saved as much as $1.5 million a year as a result of a business intelligence program that has helped the agency eliminate unneeded paper and personnel and redundant data entry costs, according to officials at the center.

Modernization

N/MCI: Buyers beware

Had the Navy opted to conduct a pilot of its proposed mega-intranet, users at the Naval Air Systems Command would have been forced to pay more than 50 percent more per seat during the first year than the estimated average cost during the first year of the contract, according to a Navy report to Congress issued late last month.

People

House targets spy center in Cuba

In political fallout from the Elian Gonzalez saga, the House passed a bill that calls for Russia to shut down a massive listening post in Cuba

People

NSA finds one of its own in industry

The National Security Agency director last week nominated William Black Jr., a retired NSA employee who started a new career in the hightech industry, to become the agency's next deputy director

People

NSA posts declassified intelligence from Korean War

The National Security Agency has setup a World Wide Web site where it plans to post newly declassified documents outlining the triumphs and pitfalls of signals intelligence known as SIGINT during the Korean War

People

Intercepts

My mobile receiving station parked outside the Naval Air Systems Command in Patuxent River, Md., reports that a woman will be leading the first effort to roll out the Navy/Marine Corps Intranet.

People

FAA, Customs testing drug sniffer

Security officials from the Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. Customs Service are testing a new document scanner that can detect minute traces of illicit narcotics on airline passenger boarding passes.

Digital Government

ACLU: Block FBI e-snoops

The American Civil Liberties Union appealed to Congress last week to protect Americans from unreasonable searches and seizures on the Internet in light of recent revelations that a new monitoring tool could enable the FBI to intercept the email of lawabiding citizens.

People

Navy zooms in on imagery intelligence

Technology that has delivered highdefinition television to tens of thousands of 'Monday Night Football' fans may soon furnish the military with digital imagery intelligence.

People

Intell turf battles rage

Major portions of a bill that would authorize appropriations for the U.S. intelligence community would significantly limit the Defense Department's ability to support military operations, warn Defense Secretary William Cohen and his top military adviser.

People

A war, not a battle

Intelligence experts characterized the latest report on the bill from the House Armed Services Committee as little more than a tool in the struggle for control over the intelligence budget between the House and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, chaired by Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.).