Government Executive - Authors - Josh Smith

ACLU: New domestic intelligence rules undermine privacy, security

Josh Smith, National Journal — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 17:09:00 -0400

New Justice Department rules allowing the government to retain domestic intelligence for up to five years not only infringe privacy, they could end up endangering national security, civil liberties advocates warned on Friday.

On Thursday Attorney General Eric Holder and intelligence officials approved new rules that allow the National Counterterrorism Center to store private information about Americans, even if they aren't suspected of being terrorists, The New York Times reported.

The idea is to give law enforcement and intelligence officials time to revisit information, but the American Civil Liberties Union says the rules could return the U.S. to the days of discredited Bush-era proposals.

"The decades-old rules limiting the collection and retention of U.S. citizen and resident information by the intelligence community and the military existed for a very good reason: to ensure that the powerful tools designed to protect us from foreign enemies are not turned against Americans," ACLU senior policy counsel Michael German said in a statement. "Authorizing the 'temporary' retention of non-terrorism-related citizen and resident information for five years essentially removes the restraint against wholesale collection of our personal information by the government, and puts all Americans at risk of unjustified scrutiny."

Beyond the privacy implications, by expanding the amount of information retained, officials could find themselves overwhelmed with data, he said. "Making the haystack bigger will only make it harder to find the needle, endangering both privacy and security."

But national security officials told the New York Times that the changes only streamline a process for managing information that the government already has access to.

The Bush administration proposed using databases of electronic records to identify terror groups within the United States. An outcry over the plans, dubbed "Total Information Awareness" after a British television miniseries, led Congress to partially reject them in 2003.

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Gingrich's moon plan finds little love at debate

Josh Smith, National Journal — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:28:00 -0500

Newt Gingrich's proposal to establish a permanent American colony on the moon elicited sharp rebukes and jokes from his rivals for the GOP presidential nomination at a debate in Florida on Thursday.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said the plan is simply pandering to Florida interests, and said he would fire anyone who suggested such an idea to him.

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, meanwhile, joked that he would send politicians to the moon.

The clash highlighted the conflicting values that brought down America's most recent efforts to revisit the moon.

President George W. Bush launched a moon program with a goal similar to that proposed by Gingrich, but budget realities and a lack of political will led President Obama to shelve the project in 2010.

More on how Gingrich's ideas jibe with old plans can be found here.

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A moon base? Tried that

Josh Smith, National Journal — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:38:00 -0500

Newt Gingrich’s space plan may not be quite as grandiose as he thinks.

In characteristic fashion, Gingrich compared his ideas for a moon base to acts by Abraham Lincoln, the Wright brothers, and John F. Kennedy, but the lofty goal was not far beyond one established by a much more contemporary leader: George W. Bush.

During a campaign speech in Florida on Wednesday, Gingrich put his own unique spin on his promise to have a moon base by the end of his second term as president: He called for a solely American colony with the potential to become a 51st state, and he proposed a series of contests to encourage private industry to pay for it.

The U.S. is no closer to having a colony on the moon than it was when the last astronauts left in 1972, but it’s not for a lack of thinking about it. Until 2010, a moon base was exactly what NASA was working toward.

In 2004, President Bush, who compared his plan to the voyages of Lewis and Clark, proposed returning to the moon by 2020 (which, coincidentally, would roughly coincide with the end of a two-term Gingrich presidency), calling it a “logical step toward further progress and achievement.”

“With the experience and knowledge gained on the moon, we will then be ready to take the next steps of space exploration: human missions to Mars and to worlds beyond,” Bush said in a 2004 speech at NASA headquarters in Washington.

Bush’s thinking was based not only on the scientific benefits of such a base, but on what he saw as the cost savings of having a presence on the moon. Bush planned to pay for the effort with savings from other programs, such as the space shuttle, which were ending.

And Bush's plan was more than just words. His speech helped lead to the official launch of the Constellation program, which was developed after the deadly 2003 loss of the shuttle Columbia. But costs soared, and the timeline became uncertain.

Finally, six years and more than $9 billion later, Bush’s plan to “gain a new foothold on the moon” came face to face with the reality of government budgets, and a new Democratic administration. In a speech of his own in 2010, President Obama shelved the moon mission in favor of robotic missions, with an eye on eventual travel to Mars.

Republicans have criticized that decision, as well as the end of the shuttle program (a decision actually made by Bush), but the desire to confirm America’s dominance in space has been undermined by efforts to slash government spending.

As Elliot Pulham, CEO of the Space Foundation, has pointed out, “The mastery of space has always carried with it a not-so-subtle message to friend and foe: This is what we are capable of…. You do not want to challenge us.”

That’s a message that resonates with conservatives who have blasted Obama’s perceived retreat from space. And that’s a message that Gingrich repeated on Wednesday.

"I am sick of being told we have to be timid and I'm sick of being told we have to be limited to technologies that are 50 years old," he told the Florida crowd. "I accept the charge that I am American and Americans are instinctively grandiose because we believe in a bigger future."

Even Gingrich’s "lean and aggressive" proposal for a series of government incentives and prizes to help drum up private investment in his space programs has companionship in Obama’s more-limited efforts to increase private-sector resources to send astronauts to the International Space Station.

In Congress, traditional supporters from states like Florida and Alabama have been divided in their support for more funding. Meanwhile, last year Obama’s budget proposals froze NASA’s budget at 2010 levels while House Republicans called for up to $379 million in cuts.

While any plans to expand space programs play well in Florida, hard-hit by the end of the shuttle program, it’s not clear that there is the national commitment necessary to put humans on the moon in any particularly quick fashion. In Washington and the country at large, a President Gingrich could find himself hampered by the same competing interests that have left NASA in limbo.

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Domestic drone programs spark civil-liberties lawsuit

Josh Smith, National Journal — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0500

United States Air Force

Remote-controlled aircraft have become a staple of the war in Afghanistan, but a civil-liberties group wants to know exactly who's using drones in the United States.

In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the Electronic Frontier Foundation argues that federal agencies have been slow to publicize the expanding use of drones to watch Americans.

"The use of drones in American airspace could dramatically increase the physical tracking of citizens - tracking that can reveal deeply personal details about our private lives," EFF staff attorney Jennifer Lynch said in a statement.

The lawsuit against the Transportation Department and its Federal Aviation Administration comes after Freedom of Information requests failed to provide the requested information, EFF said in its complaint.

The FAA restricts recreational unpiloted aircraft, such as remote-controlled airplanes, to below 400 feet. For more high-performance aircraft, like those used by law enforcement, the FAA requires a special permit.

According to the FAA, as of last year about 50 companies, universities, and government agencies were developing and producing roughly 155 different kinds of unpiloted aircraft.

The Homeland Security Department uses at least nine drones to patrol the U.S. border, but EFF says state and local law enforcement now often use them routinely.

"Drones give the government and other unmanned aircraft operators a powerful new surveillance tool to gather extensive and intrusive data on Americans' movements and activities," Lynch said.

According to the Los Angeles Times , the FAA plans to propose new rules governing unpiloted aircraft as soon as this month.

The 50 members of the Congressional Unmanned Systems Caucus have successfully pushed DHS to use more of the drones along the Southern border.

"This is an exciting and existing technology that will continue to grow, and improve our lives as public acceptance progresses," Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif., who cochairs the caucus, said in a statement.

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Agencies blast out hurricane warnings on every medium

Josh Smith — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0400

In a speech from Martha's Vineyard on Friday, President Obama urged Americans to listen to government officials for instructions and warnings.

"So the more you can do to be prepared now -- making a plan, make a supply kit, know your evacuation route, follow instructions of your local officials -- the quicker we can focus our resources after the storm on those who need help the most," he said.

To help people make plans, as well as to educate them about evacuation routes and other instructions, government agencies are using almost every form of communication possible, from television to Twitter.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is directing people in the hurricane's path to websites, Twitter feeds, Facebook pages, and mobile apps.

Nongovernmental organizations and companies are getting in on the action as well. Google and Facebook both have Web pages dedicated to information about the storm. And the Red Cross offers an online database where people can register and let loved ones know that they're safe.

In addition to using social media and other tools to inform the public, emergency officials will also be watching such websites to respond to problems quickly.

Wireless providers and the Federal Communications Commission are bracing for potential service outages once the hurricane hits. After the earthquake on Tuesday, many networks became overloaded. Now cell-phone networks face the additional potential of physical damage from high winds, flooding, or power outages.

The FCC has dispatched teams to monitor communication systems, and wireless carriers say they are preparing as well.

Appearing on CNN on Thursday, FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate said that television and radio stations and social media may be more useful than cell phones in the immediate aftermath.

"Remember, cell phones themselves, with heavy congestion, may not be able to get through," he said.

The National Association of Broadcasters said that television viewership spiked after Tuesday's earthquake rattled the East Coast, and a similar spike is likely during the response to Hurricane Irene.

For more information on how to find hurricane information online, sign up for alerts, download apps, or visit Tech Daily Dose.

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FCC: Should the government save the media?

Josh Smith — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Federal regulations designed to ensure that broadcasters serve the public interest are broken, allowing stations to dump local-news reporting and lowering standards for news ranging from international developments to government scandals, the Federal Communications Commission said on Thursday.

"Over time, court rulings, constitutional concerns, and FCC decisions have left a system that is unclear and ineffective," the agency said in a long-awaited report on the U.S. media. "The current system operates neither as a free market nor as an effectively regulated one; and it does not achieve the public-interest goals set out by Congress or the FCC."

The 470-page study turns the tables, with the FCC reporting on media outlets that usually are the ones doing the reporting.

To promote public-interest programming on public airwaves, the report recommends more disclosure from broadcasters. It also calls for C-SPAN-like public-affairs networks in each state.

Too often, the report asserts, the FCC rubber-stamps broadcast licenses without ensuring that the outlets involved cover the local community.

Further, the proliferation of Internet-based news outlets has not improved the quality of journalism, the researchers found.

"It turns out you can have an abundance of media outlets and a shortage of real news," said the report's lead author, former journalist Steven Waldman. At the root of the growing dearth of quality reporting, he concluded, is the fact that advertising is increasingly disconnected from content.

"If ad rates were the same online as they are in print, we wouldn't be having this conversation," Waldman said. In a first for the agency, the report urges lawmakers to consider the "positive benefits" of online tracking when drafting privacy legislation. Such tracking, the report states, offers a possible way for news websites to attract more ad revenue.

To help strengthen the public service potential of media, the report makes six broad recommendations: emphasize online disclosure as a pillar of FCC media policy; make it easier for citizens to monitor government by putting more information online; consider directing more existing government spending to local media; foster an environment for nonprofit media outlets to succeed; promote broadband access; and ensure that media policy helps historically underserved communities.

The highly anticipated report didn't go far enough for Democratic FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, who has long called for tighter public-interest regulations.

"Enlightened policy that promotes the public interest is basically glossed over by the staff report as having been tried and failed," Copps said at Thursday's commission meeting, where the findings were presented.

He took the report's authors to task for "tinkering around the edges" by not calling for major overhauls. "In the recommendations, there is some hedging about whether all that consolidation we are living with today-all these local, independent stations bought up by mega-media interests-has been good or bad," Copps said.

But Republican Commissioner Robert McDowell said that the report highlights the competitive and innovative nature of the media market. Regulations and policies will only hurt, he argued. "The government should keep its heavy hands off of journalism," McDowell said.

McDowell stressed that the report is only the beginning of a debate over potential solutions.

The findings contained few surprises in their evaluation of the media market, noting that many traditional news outlets have been decimated by economic challenges and shifting technology.

Hardest hit, the report found, is local-news gathering. While so-called hyperlocal (or neighborhood-based) reporting is better than ever thanks to new technology, news at the city and state level is "struggling mightily," with an especially significant decline in accountability reporting. The report argued, however, that national news remains vibrant while international reporting is a mixed bag.

"Our biggest fear is a slow, steady lowering of standards and expectations regarding what kinds of information Americans are entitled to," the report states. "It is easy to see how this could happen. A shortage of reporting manifests itself in invisible ways: stories not written, scandals not exposed, government waste not discovered, health dangers not identified in time, local elections involving candidates about whom we know little."

The report notes that the First Amendment prevents government from wading directly into the media market. "Nonetheless," it acknowledges, "greater transparency by government and media companies can help reduce the cost of reporting, empower consumers, and foster innovation."

That limited approach brought praise from industry groups.

"In an age where some have argued that the federal government has increased its reach over an increasing number of private sectors of American life, Steve Waldman's future of media report is a refreshing changes," Frank Wright, president of the National Religious Broadcasters, said in a statement. "It refrains from imposing mandates, but instead recognizes opportunities to incentivize the private media."

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Google says Chinese hackers breached e-mail accounts of U.S. government officials

Josh Smith — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Likely through a scam called "phishing," hackers, apparently based in China, tricked users into revealing personal information, including their e-mail passwords, Google said in a blog post.

"The goal of this effort seems to have been to monitor the contents of these users' e-mails, with the perpetrators apparently using stolen passwords to change peoples' forwarding and delegation settings," the company says.

Google said it recently identified the misuse of the Gmail accounts, many of which belonged to "senior U.S. government officials, Chinese political activists, officials in several Asian countries [predominantly South Korea], military personnel, and journalists."

The company said it has notified victims as well as government authorities and stressed that the attack did not come from a breach of Google's e-mail system.

"But we believe that being open about these security issues helps users better protect their information online," Google said.

Sony is still reeling from cyberattacks that compromised millions of user accounts, and data-breach issues are set to make another appearance at a congressional hearing on Thursday.

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As shuttle program winds down, uncertainty looms for NASA

Josh Smith — Wed, 18 May 2011 00:00:00 -0400

As the space shuttle program nears its final mission, Congress is criticizing NASA for moving too slowly to take the next step. But in many ways, it's still not entirely clear what that next step is.

"I'm worried that NASA's inaction and indecision in making this transition could hurt America's space leadership-something that would cost us billions of dollars and years to repair," Senate Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said in an opening statement for a subcommittee hearing Wednesday. He said he is concerned that the agency is not effectively implementing legislation passed last year that outlined a new focus for NASA, including more reliance on commercial space companies.

Senate Commerce ranking member Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, also questioned the speed of NASA's transition. "I think we are all concerned about how slow everything seems to be moving," she told the hearing of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Science and Space, called to examine how space exploration aligns with national goals.

Congress has yet to fully decide what that next step is. NASA often finds itself squeezed between competing interests in Washington. In 2009, President Obama halted a plan to send astronauts back to the moon, but this year Congress-with an eye to home-state jobs-appropriated $3.8 billion to continue the program.

Obama has called for more spending on climate science, commercial rockets, the International Space Station, and a new generation of space-exploration technology.

The space shuttle Endeavour took off Monday; the last shuttle mission is scheduled for July. NASA could be vulnerable, as the end of the space shuttle program coincides with efforts to slash government spending.

Lawmakers and witnesses at the hearing pointed fingers at congressional and White House proposals to cut NASA's budget. Obama's latest budget proposal froze NASA's budget at 2010 levels while House Republicans called for up to $379 million in cuts.

Reducing space budgets may be an attractive option, but in the long term it could hurt the U.S. economy, said Frank Slazer, vice president of the Aerospace Industries Association.

"While cutting the federal deficit is essential to assuring our economic future, cutting back on exploration investments is a penny-wise but pound-foolish approach that will have infinitesimal impact on the budget deficit," he said. "Cutting exploration further threatens our economic growth potential and risks our continued national technical leadership overall, even as emerging world powers increase their investments in this important arena."

Space exploration has real impact back on earth, said Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who represents Florida, which hosts the Kennedy Space Center and other NASA facilities and space industries.

"America's space program is not something we simply do for fun," he said. "Many industries exist because of the space program." Rubio called for a better-defined goal for NASA.

And losing the competitive edge in space could undermine American economic power and national security, said Elliot Pulham, CEO of the Space Foundation.

"The mastery of space has always carried with it a not-so-subtle message to friend and foe: 'This is what we are capable of. You want to work with us. You want to be our friend. You want to follow our lead. You do not want to challenge us,'" he said.

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NASA scrubs shuttle launch due to engineering problem

Maggie Fox and Josh Smith — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0400

NASA scrubbed the last scheduled launch of the space shuttle Endeavour on Friday, citing problems with failed heaters. Astronauts on buses heading to the shuttle turned around mid-route.

The next possible launch date is Sunday. Commander Mark Kelly, husband of injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., was leading the mission and Giffords was scheduled to watch the launch, along with President Obama and his family.

Space shuttle launches are often delayed and re-scheduled.

The shuttle is loaded with a $2 billion particle physics detector that will seek out antimatter and dark energy across the universe. Many in and outside NASA say the experiment, if successful, could validate science operations at the decade-old orbiting lab.

As many as 750,000 people were expected to crowd nearby coastal communities for the liftoff, the Associated Press reported. The very last shuttle mission is scheduled for June 28. After that, the United States will rely on Russian spacecraft to get astronauts in and out of orbit.

The Kennedy Space Center was groaning with 45,000 guests, including more than three dozen members of Congress, at least two former NASA administrators, and a score of high-level academic and space industry officials.

President Obama, who was touring tornado-struck Alabama, had not yet arrived.

NASA is ending the shuttle program this summer, after the last trip by Atlantis. Obama is pushing private space initiatives and encouraging robotic scientific mission.

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Study shows health IT efforts worthwhile

Josh Smith — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0500

A government study published on Wednesday indicates that the daunting task of implementing electronic health information systems across the country may not be a lost cause.

The review of 154 other studies about health information technology, or health IT, found that 92 percent were positive overall, researchers with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology found.

"These new findings are very significant in helping to confirm that our nation has made the right choice in moving aggressively toward adoption of health information technology," Dr. Donald Berwick, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said in a statement.

Most of the paperwork underlying U.S. health care is just that-paperwork. Prescriptions are scrawled on paper pads, medical records are kept in paper folders, and patients must often pay fees and transport written records if they want one physician to see another's notes, test results, or scans. The system discourages the sharing of information, which can lead to poorer care, and can foster deadly errors.

In 2009, President Obama signed the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health, or HITECH, Act, offering $14 billion to $27 billion in incentives to hospitals and doctors' offices if they would start using electronic health records. The Health and Human Services Department wanted to see how well the fledgling attempts at using health IT were working.

The study, published in the journal Health Affairs, looked at its effects on access to care, patient satisfaction, efficiency, and effectiveness of care, among other factors.

"This review of the recent literature on the effects of health information technology is reassuring," the study concludes. "It indicates that the expansion of health IT in the health care system is worthwhile."

Most strikingly, the team, led by Melinda Beeuwkes Buntin, noted, "The benefits of the technology are beginning to emerge in smaller practices and organizations, as well as in large organizations that were early adopters."

National Coordinator for Health Information Technology David Blumenthal, who helped write the study, called the results "very encouraging." He has overseen federal efforts to increase the use of electronic health records.

About two-thirds of office-based doctors still rely on paper records to keep track of patient care, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Computer-based records are promoted as a way for doctors, pharmacists, and insurers to seamlessly share patient information, reduce errors in prescribing, and, eventually, reduce costs.

While many doctors and hospitals have been skittish about switching to electronic records, government officials hope this latest research, with its predominately positive results, will encourage health care providers to adopt electronic systems.

"Electronic information, especially standards-based information, can become dynamic; interacting with other information to generate useful safety alerts, call attention to treatment alternatives, enable instantaneous assessments of quality of care or outcomes for patients, or contribute to public health surveillance," Blumenthal said in an interview. "We have never, in the history of medicine, had such tools at our disposal. Meaningful use will help usher them into routine, widespread, and effective use."

But widespread adoption of new technology has been complicated by a range of challenges, including the problem of interoperability and information sharing among institutions. Blumenthal said his agency is working with the health care industry to develop policies and standards for information transfer, but some have called for an increased government role.

In a letter published Saturday in The New York Times, Boston University health policy professor Alan Cohen called for more federal incentives and regulations to get health care providers to collaborate more.

"Federal government investment in health information technology, while a good first step, is insufficient to change hospital and physician behavior," he wrote. "Payment reforms and restructured health care delivery organizations are also needed.… The key ingredient, though, is government leadership."

Another challenge is cost. Another study in the same issue of Health Affairs found that for an average five-physician practice in Texas, health IT "implementation cost an estimated $162,000, with $85,500 in maintenance expenses during the first year." And implementing a new system took more than 700 hours of work, the study determined.

But Blumenthal says the federal grants, which can offer a private physician up to $63,750, are expected to be widely used. A survey released in January found that 41 percent of office-based doctors and 65 percent of hospitals intend to take advantage of the grants, which require recipients to effectively develop an IT system in order to keep the money.

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Patent bill passes Senate, House hurdles lie ahead

Josh Smith — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Who says bipartisanship is dead? After years of debate and failed attempts, the Senate passed patent-reform legislation on Tuesday evening by a 95-5 vote, approving a bill that was at the top of President Obama's innovation agenda.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who sponsored the legislation, touted it as a model of how Congress could come together to stimulate the economy.

The bill gathered wide, bipartisan support in the Senate, but the path ahead remains unclear. Several powerful business groups, as well some conservative activists, are opposed to some of the measure's provisions.

The Republican-controlled House, which now takes up the patent issue, has not fully outlined its plans. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who helped author the Senate bill, said he expects the process to go to conference.

If enacted, the legislation would be the first major overhaul of the patent system in more than half a century.

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Patent Office director touts agency's potential to stimulate economy

Josh Smith — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Speaking to a crowd at a conference organized by Innovation Alliance, a group of companies seeking to protect patent rights, Kappos said his unheralded agency could help pump jobs and billions of dollars back into the economy if Congress is successful in passing legislation to ease a massive backlog in patent applications.

"As our country seeks to regain the 8 million jobs lost during the recent recession, the USPTO is a great place to start," Kappos said. "Countless inventions that can spark new businesses are right there, sitting in the backlog. And reducing that backlog is one of (our) highest priorities."

A bipartisan group of senators announced Thursday they would introduce a patent reform bill next week. Kappos said he would not comment on details of the legislation until it is formally introduced, but he said he "strongly supports" comprehensive reform and "applauds" the latest effort.

"Proposals in this legislation -- many that will help USPTO do its job better -- have been discussed for the better part of the last 10 years," he said. "And this is the Congress where we should and must finish those many years of work."

Kappos touted the value of innovation in America's economy and said that once the patent office is given all the resources it needs, it can help companies monetize their innovations better.

"We must provide an environment that allows American innovators, small and large, to protect their IP and attract capital based on their ideas," he said. "For businesses to flourish, we must provide timely and high quality access to IP rights."

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USDA settles Native American lawsuit

Josh Smith — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Federal officials announced Tuesday that they had settled a decade-long class-action lawsuit brought by Native American farmers who accused the Agriculture Department of discrimination.

The Keepseagle litigation was filed in 1999 and stems from allegations of discrimination in the USDA farm-loan program dating to the early 1980s.

The $760 million agreement will help "turn a page" on the department's "tragic" civil-rights past, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told reporters.

"Today's settlement can never undo wrongs that Native Americans may have experienced in past decades, but combined with the actions we at USDA are taking to address such wrongs, the settlement will provide some measure of relief to those alleging discrimination," he said.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs also hailed the agreement for providing farmers and ranchers the "justice they deserve."

Under the terms of the settlement, which must still be approved by a U.S. District Court judge, the government will provide $680 million in damages and $80 million in debt forgiveness. Native American farmers seeking compensation may file claims with independent arbitrators, who will determine each claim's validity, Vilsack said.

The settlement will not require congressional approval because the money will come from the government's judgment fund, Assistant Attorney General Tony West said.

Vilsack, whose tenure has been marked by the controversial firing of Agriculture employee Shirley Sherrod over allegations of farm-program discrimination, said he has made civil rights a priority. He vowed to seek resolutions in the department's other pending cases, including the class-action Pigford II lawsuit brought by black farmers.

In a statement Tuesday, President Obama praised the Keepseagle settlement and also called on Agriculture to resolve the remaining cases.

"With today's agreement, we take an important step forward in remedying USDA's unfortunate civil-rights history," he said. The Keepseagle settlement "underscores the federal government's commitment to treat all citizens fairly."

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