National & World Headlines

  • How will the Budget Control Act impact national security? "We will no longer be immune from coercion," said Joint Chief's Chairman General Martin Dempsey, speaking at the Aspen Security Forum. Dempsey borrowed the original quote by Creighton Edwards in 1974 to illustrate concerns about how budget cuts will affect the U.S. Moving forward, Dempsey said, "if we stay on this path, we will no longer be as immune as you think we should be."

    July 29, 2014
  • About 83,000 Defense Department employees and contractors, who held or were determined eligible for a security clearance, owed more than $730 million in unpaid taxes as of June 2012, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office. Per GAO's recommendations, the Office of Personnel Management, Office of the Director of National Intelligence and DoD are now working to include tax-compliance checks to enhance security clearance processes.

    July 28, 2014
  • "Cut it some slack" is what Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition Technology and Logistics Frank Kendall asks critics of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. Kendall made those comments Thursday at a ceremony marking the delivery of two F-35s to Australia. The F-35 isn't likely to go away soon, but the buzz about what would replace it may be getting a little louder. Robert Farley is assistant professor at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce. He writes in The National Interest about five options for replacing the F-35. He said on In Depth with Francis Rose that one choice is restarting the F-22 line.

    July 28, 2014
  • Congress is a step closer to transforming the Veterans Affairs Department. House and Senate negotiators have agreed to a $17 billion deal. Among many things, the bill will provide funding for veterans to seek care at non VA facilities. Martin Matishak, staff writer for the Hill Newspaper, joined Tom Temin and Emily Kopp on the Federal Drive to break down the numbers.

    July 28, 2014
  • Chief legal counselor to NSA says intelligence disclosures may have set back efforts to improve nation's cybersecurity posture because of increasing unease about public-private cooperation, and that it's time to reexamine the digital privacy trust relationship between government and the public.

    July 28, 2014
  • Maj. Gen. Gregg Martin, the president of the National Defense University for the past two years, quietly stepped down last week. The university's vice president will lead the institution in his stead until the Pentagon recruits a permanent replacement.

    July 28, 2014
  • The Pentagon's main IT provider shuttered its large data center in Huntsville, Alabama. in May, leaving only 10 of its large Defense Enterprise Computing Centers in its inventory. The mission of those remaining DECCs, however, is growing, not shrinking.

    July 25, 2014
  • In this edition of Inside the Reporter's Notebook, Executive Editor Jason Miller shares news and buzz about the IT and acquisition communities.

    July 25, 2014
  • Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Fla.) introduces the third iteration of the SAVE Act with a host of policies for federal agencies designed to cull wasteful spending

    July 24, 2014
  • Nearly 800 current and former Veterans Affairs employees and patients have submitted complaints about the department to a watchdog group. The Project on Government Oversight set up a special website to collect their complaints. It says the number of submissions is a record. Lydia Dennett is an investigator for the Project On Government Oversight. She joined Tom Temin and Emily Kopp on the Federal Drive to discuss what POGO found.

    July 23, 2014
  • Suicides among active-duty military rose this year compared with the same period last year, but Pentagon officials indicate more service members are seeking help through hotlines and other aid programs. Pentagon documents obtained by The Associated Press show there were 161 confirmed or suspected suicides as of July 14, compared with 154 during the same time frame in 2013. The increase was among the Air Force and Navy, while soldiers and Marine suicides went down.

    July 23, 2014
  • The Defense and Homeland Security departments are pushing project managers to test technology or weapons systems earlier in the acquisition lifecycle to understand and solve potential roadblocks sooner. DoD submitted recommendations to Senate leaders for how to better integrate testing and evaluation into the acquisition lifecycle.

    July 23, 2014
  • Testing and evaluating federal programs might be an old idea, but it's getting a new lease on life. Agencies are using testing and evaluation earlier in the process, and that's gaining support as a potential fix for longstanding problems. For instance, the Defense and Homeland Security departments are pushing project managers to test weapons and other new technology early in the acquisition lifecycle. Federal News Radio's Executive Editor Jason Miller joined Tom Temin and Emily Kopp on the Federal Drive to discuss this emerging trend. Read Jason's related article.

    July 23, 2014
  • U.S.-Russia tensions over Ukraine haven't yet impacted the flow of critical rocket engines to the U.S. space program, but that could change at any time. The military's top space official says another reason to get going on an American-made alternative is to sustain a deteriorating portion of the defense industrial base.

    July 23, 2014