In Depth interviews – August 13

On the In Depth show blog, you can listen to the interviews, find more information about the guests on the show each day and links to additional resources.

This is the In Depth show blog. Here you can listen to the interviews, find more information about the guests on the show each day and links to additional resources.

Today’s guests:

janet KopenhaverWashington Representative, Federally Employed Women

Congress is in its August recess right now, meaning no new moves to modify federal pay and benefits at least for the immediately foreseeable future. Janet Kopenhaver joined In Depth to talk about what bills women federal employees are still watching as Congress runs short on legislative days before the end of the session.

Read more about what federal women are talking about here.

The Few List (Related Story)


Ron DiftlerRobonaut Project Lead, Robotic Systems Technology Branch, NASA

Fifteen years ago, NASA began their Robonaut project to create a robot that would be capable of working in space. Despite various funding problems, the resulting humanoid machine is currently on the International Space Station helping crew members with various tasks . The robot has “skin” covered arms connected to fingers nimble enough to use sign language and twist knobs without breaking them. Ron Diftler has been with the project since the beginning. He and the Robonaut2 team are finalists in the Science and Environment category of the Service to America Medals.


Paul RosenzweigVisiting Fellow, Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, Heritage Foundation

More than a week ago, Congress adjourned for its August recess without passing a cybersecurity bill. The Cybersecurity Act of 2012, a watered-down version of a federal cyber overhaul first proposed by Sen. Joe Lieberman and others. Some guests on In Depth have expressed frustration about the Senate’s failure to move that legislation. Paul Rosenzweig offers a different perspective. He says the bill’s support would struggle to name a single recent incident that would have been prevented if the new standards had been in place.

Rosenzweig has broken down why he thinks the bill will do more harm than good in a new < a href="http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/07/questions-on-cybersecurity-that-need-to-be-answered" target="_blank">issue brief.

Energy wants utilities to make cybersecurity top priority (Related Story)


Cary RussellActing Director for Defense Capabilities and Management Issues, GAO

Last year alone, the US Transportation Command moved 715,000 tons of supplies by air and almost 20 million tons by sea. In many cases the ultimate destinations were places where UPS and FedEx don’t deliver. TRANSCOM is one of the key stakeholders in the DoD’s vast global supply chain. But that supply chain is one of numerous DoD areas that have been on the Government Accountability Office’s high risk list for decades. But last week, GAO released a fresh look at some of the work DoD has done to improve its distribution of material around the world and found some areas had improved. Cary Russel tells In Depth what they found.

GAO has posted the full report on its website.


Hord TiptonExecutive Director, (ISC)²

It’s looking less and less likely that Congress will manage to pass a comprehensive cybersecurity bill this year. The House has passed a measure focused on cyber threat information sharing. But the Senate adjourned more than a week ago without enough votes to move forward on a more comprehensive bill. So the Obama administration is considering a move to implement parts of the cyber legislation by executive order. Hord Tipton explores what the White House could and couldn’t do without Congress. He’s the executive director of ISC-squared and a former chief information officer for the Department of the Interior.

Obama may act to stop infrastructure cyberattacks (Related Story)


Also on the show:

In Depth interviews – July 23

Sammies finalists build a space-bot to aid astronauts

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