Is Your Privacy Worth 50 Foiled Terror Plots?
Postal Service Eyes Cuba
Tangherlini As GSA's Mr. Fix-It?
Lew Cleans Up Signature for the Nation's Currency
The Plan to Open More Military Jobs to Women
Should Leaders Ever Lie?
AUTHOR ARCHIVES
Joseph Marks
Staff Correspondent
Joseph Marks covers government technology issues, social media, Gov 2.0 and global Internet freedom for Nextgov. He previously reported on federal litigation and legal policy for Law360 and on local, state and regional issues for two Midwestern newspapers. He also interned for Congressional Quarterly’s Homeland Security section and the Associated Press’s Jerusalem Bureau. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Wisconsin and a master’s in international affairs from Georgetown.
New iPhone App May be Fishing for Feds’ TSP Info
March 11, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
Officials are urging federal employees to steer clear of a new third-party application that may be fishing for personal information about their Thrift Savings Plan government retirement accounts. “A free iPhone App, TSP Funds, currently being offered through the Apple App store asks TSP participants for their account login information,” ...
Internet Censorship Is a Trade Issue Too
March 8, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
Correction: This article has been updated to correctly state the location of Friday's speech. Government Internet censorship doesn’t just hurt people inside a country; it may also damage companies outside that country, a former White House official said Friday. When China and other nations block the websites of U.S. companies ...
It's Not Enough to Close a Few Data Centers; Those Left Must Become More Efficient
March 7, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
The Office of Management and Budget wants to focus less on simply closing federal data centers and more on making sure the government’s existing data center stock is operating as efficiently as possible, an OMB official said Thursday. That’s why federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel’s office plans to roll ...
Japan Is the Most Cloud-Friendly Nation
March 7, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
Japan leads the world in creating a legal and security environment that’s conducive to cloud computing, with Australia, the United States, Germany and Singapore not far behind, according to a global scorecard the software industry group BSA released Thursday. The report focused on countries’ legal and regulatory protections related to ...
Open Source Government: Code-Sharing Site Hires Federal Liaison
March 6, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
The computer code sharing site GitHub's first government liaison says he hopes to be a bridge between the government and open source communities on legislation and regulations, not just code. Federal agencies and the White House have posted the underlying code running numerous websites and Web tools to GitHub in ...
The White House Has Heard Your Calls for Transparency…Sort Of
March 5, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
The Obama administration has heard citizens’ calls for open government, according to a White House blog post Monday. The post followed an earlier call for input on how the government should assess its own progress on transparency. The White House was soliciting advice by email and on the social question ...
Unlocking Cellphones Should be Legal, White House Says
March 4, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
People should be able to “unlock” their cellphones so they can use them on whatever carrier’s network they want, the White House said Monday in response to a popular petition posted to its We the People website. The petition asking the government to re-legalize unlocking cellphones is one of fewer ...
White House Seeks Transparency Advice on Quora
March 1, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
The Obama Administration is gathering advice on where it should focus its transparency efforts in the short term using the social site Quora. In the lead so far is making federal agencies stop using proprietary publishing formats such as PDFs in favor of formats from which people can easily cut ...
Open Source Software is Common at DHS
February 28, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
The government should not have an “open source first policy,” Homeland Security Department Chief Information Officer Richard Spires said Wednesday, but added officials should look to open source technology whenever possible. Spires was speaking at a hearing on the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act, which industry groups have charged ...
Coming in March: Biggest Fed IT Acquisition Overhaul Plan Since 1996
February 27, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
This story has been updated. House Oversight Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., plans to introduce legislation to overhaul the way the government buys information technology by the time Congress breaks for its spring recess in late March, he said during a hearing Wednesday. Issa first floated the proposed IT reboot ...
