Long-time FBI employee admits to leaking sensitive information to China

The Federal Headlines is a daily compilation of the stories you hear discussed on  Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

• A man who worked for the FBI for nearly 20 years pleaded guilty to being an agent of the Chinese government. Kun Shan Chun, know as Joey Chun, faces up to 10 years in prison after he admitted to using his security clearance to provide sensitive information to a Chinese government official. The Justice Department said the disclosures included information on the FBI’s internal structure, as well as technology used by the bureau. (Department of Justice)

• Changes are coming to the way the government can collect and use data on U.S. citizens for the first time in more than 30 years. The Defense Department is finishing up a policy that will dictate how the intelligence community can share data with personal information in it. The policy will also put limits on how long the government can hold information with personal data in it. DoD officials said they would need help from private companies to build a system that sifts through and tags personal data. (Federal News Radio)

• Agencies are on the hook to once again try and cut the number of data centers they run over the next three years. The Office of Management and Budget updated the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative yesterday. The memo requires agencies to develop plans to reduce the governmentwide total by at least 52 percent. OMB also wants to see cost savings and cost avoidance from those consolidations to the tune of $2.7 billion by the end of 2018. Agencies will be strongly encouraged to use shared services to meet any new data center needs. (The White House)

• The Defense Department amended the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement to combat the purchasing of counterfeit electronic parts with four new rules. DoD published a final rule mandating contractors and subcontractors acquire electronic parts from trusted suppliers and to let the department know when it doesn’t. Another rule approved Japan and Slovenia for contractor purchases. (Federal Register)

• The Pentagon launched a survey to see if the genders in the armed services get along. Today’s armed services let men and women serve in combat. Gay and transgender people can also openly serve. Now the Pentagon wants to find out if the genders get along OK and if sexual harassment is still a widespread problem. The Defense Manpower Data Center will mail surveys to 735,000 active-duty members. Results will help commanders evaluate workplace relations and professionalism. (Air Force)

• The man who was set to become the next commander of the Army Space and Missile Defense Command died sudenly. Maj. Gen. John Rossi was found on the Redstone Arsenal installation in Alabama on Sunday. He was scheduled to take over his new command today. Army officials said the cause of death is still under investigation. Rossi most recently served as the commanding general of the Army Fires Center of Excellence and Fort Sill, Oklahoma. (Army)

• State and federal agencies have made major progress in reducing veteran homelessness during the Obama administration, but not nearly enough to meet the President’s goal of wiping it out entirely.  The White House distributed new figures on Monday that said the total population of homeless veterans across the country is now about 40,000. That’s down 17 percent from a year ago and down 47 percent from 2010. In a speech to a conference of veterans with disabilities in Atlanta, the President said two states, Connecticut and Virginia, had effectively ended veteran homelessness. Twenty-seven cities have done the sames. The administration planned to hold a summit this fall to discuss which local and federal policies have done the most good, and which ones should be abandoned. (Department of Veterans Affairs)

• The oversight community celebrated National Whistleblower Appreciation Day. Congress has passed a resolution for the past four years encouraging agencies to recognize whistleblowers’ contributions to combat waste, fraud and abuse. The Office of Special Counsel said it has more whistleblower cases than ever before. OSC Special Counsel Carolyn Lerner she saw that as a good thing as more whistleblowers become more comfortable with speaking out. Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz said he receives more than 10,000 calls to the IG hotline a year. (Federal News Radio)

• Agencies can save millions of dollars in real estate costs and transit subsidies by embracing telework policies, a new Government Accountability Office report found. The Department of Agriculture saved $10 million between 2011 and 2015. Agencies also cited improved recruitment and retention, increased productivity and better work/life balance as benefits of telework. (Government Accountability Office)

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