No Furloughs at Customs and Border Patrol
Uncharted Financial Waters at Defense
Postal Service Eyes Cuba
Should Leaders Ever Lie?
Unions: Efficiency Board Is 'Offensive,' 'Unwise'
Tangherlini as GSA's Mr. Fix-It?
AUTHOR ARCHIVES
Bob Brewin
Editor at Large
Bob Brewin joined Government Executive in April 2007, bringing with him more than 20 years of experience as a journalist focusing on defense issues and technology. Bob covers the world of defense and information technology for Nextgov, and is the author of the “What’s Brewin” blog.
Navy Readies Full Production Buy of Shipboard Network Systems
May 20, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
The Navy expects to kick off by the end of May procurement for full production sets of standard network computing equipment for ships and submarines. It anticipates awards to up to three vendors. The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command said it expects to release a request for proposals for ...
VA National Cellular Contract Mystery Solved
May 17, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
When the Veterans Affairs Department awarded its $200 million national cellular contract on May 9, two key players -- Sprint and T-Mobile -- were mysteriously missing from a lineup that included AT&T Mobility; Verizon Wireless; and A&T Systems, a small business located in Silver Spring, Md. Adam Nouravarsani, the telecommunications ...
Navy Wants Some Good Anti-Terrorist Computer Games
May 16, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
The Naval Post-Graduate School in Monterey, Calif., wants to acquire a bunch of anti-terrorist games that can run on a variety of gadgets, including computers and iThings to support -- I’m not making this up -- its Combatting Terrorism Fellowship program. Types of games NPS is looking for include: Terrorist ...
Military Commands Will Tap AirWatch to Manage Mobile Devices
May 16, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
To manage and secure Apple iPads used by B-2 nuclear bomber crews, the Air Force Global Strike Command quietly selected the same mobile device management software used by the Veterans Affairs Department. Global Strike Command, which manages the nation’s fleet of nuclear bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles, will piggyback on ...
VA Takes a Brute Force Approach to the Claims Backlog
May 15, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
The Veterans Department has mandated overtime for its 15,000 employees who process disability claims in order to whittle down the backlog, which has drawn heat from Congress, veterans groups and even comedian Jon Stewart on the “Daily Show.” The mandatory overtime will run through Sept. 30, the end of the ...
Lawsuit Says IRS Illegally Seized 60 Million Health Records
May 15, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
This story was updated at 4:12 p.m. A lawsuit filed in California accuses the Internal Revenue Service of illegal seizure of 60 million electronic health care records belonging to 10 million Americans. The suit filed in the Superior Court of San Diego by Robert Barnes, a Malibu lawyer representing a ...
House Spending Panel Backs Joint Defense-VA Electronic Health Record
May 15, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
This story has been updated. The House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday solidly backed development of a single, joint electronic health record for the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments in its preliminary version of VA’s fiscal 2014 spending bill. The committee provided $344 million in development funds for the integrated electronic ...
My Sidewalk Coverage of the iEHR Conference
May 14, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
This Wednesday and Thursday the Defense Strategies Institute plans to hold a conference on the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments’ planned integrated electronic health record (iEHR) that, as I reported, is open to vendors who want to peddle their wares to the government but not to the media. So many ...
Intel Research Arm Wants to Tap 'Media in the Wild' for Facial Recognition
May 13, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
Human eyeballs, not fancy facial recognition software, helped identify the Boston Marathon bombers, due to the fact that the software works best on well-posed, frontal facial photos taken for identification purposes. The Intelligence Research Projects Agency says it wants “to dramatically improve the current performance of face recognition tools by ...
Army Awards $156.6 Million Anti-Nerve Gas Agent Contract
May 13, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
This story has been updated with additional details and background. The Army has awarded a $156.6 million contract to the DynPort Vaccine division of Computer Sciences Corp for development of an anti-nerve gas agent that protects against a wide range of nerve gases for up to 60 days. The agent ...
