Defense Department
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In the past, DoD's security review process took so long that devices were off the market by the time the Pentagon allowed them on government networks. This week, DoD approved a secure, commercial version of Android before its manufacturer even released it.
May 16, 2013 -
The Defense Department reduces the number of furlough days from 14 to 11. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said it's possible the number could drop further, but he offered no promises.
May 15, 2013 -
Beth McGrath, the Defense Department's deputy chief management officer, issued a memo in April creating a new integrated business framework. The goal of the framework is to tie costs to performance and strategy.
May 15, 2013 -
Civilian employees at the Defense Department will now face 11 days of furloughs beginning July 8. This is the second time the Pentagon has revised its furlough plan. Originally, the Pentagon called for 22 unpaid days off due to sequestration. That number was later reduced to 14. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel made the announcement today at a town hall meeting with employees in Virginia.
May 14, 2013 -
Funding reductions in 2013 appropriations act are sufficient to protect military construction accounts from further sequestration cuts, but funds used for upkeep on existing buildings are severely impacted.
May 13, 2013 -
Citing unacceptable delays by its contractor, the Pentagon waives the requirement for preauthorization of specialty care for military members, families and retirees in TRICARE's western region.
May 10, 2013 -
Pentagon says it will use its limited budget flexibility to compensate for unexpected war costs, not to blunt sequestration. Services continue to warn Congress about how budget cuts are impacting readiness.
May 09, 2013 -
The top lawmakers on the Senate Armed Services Committee have called on the Defense Department to detail how it will cut billions more from its budget if sequestration continues into next year. In a letter dated May 2, Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the committee, asked Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to provide a "package of reductions" to the department's proposed 2014 budget.
May 07, 2013 -
The Pentagon insists it is paying to maintain much more military base infrastructure than it needs, and the problem will only get worse as the Defense Department shrinks due to budget reductions. Congress, however, remains unsympathetic.
May 06, 2013 -
On the one-year anniversary of the Digital Government Strategy, the CIO Council and DHS are expected to issue a security baseline and reference architecture for mobile computing. The goal of the document is not to give agencies new requirements but to focus on those security standards that are mobile-centric.
May 03, 2013 -
The Pentagon's mobile plan includes device approvals that will involve some up-front costs. The expectation is those costs will be quickly offset by eliminating the inefficiency of the slow, stovepiped and outdated approaches that have characterized DoD mobility up until now.
May 03, 2013 -
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has been at the forefront of some of the most innovative technologies ever created — including the Internet. But as budgets tighten, the agency's director says she's trying to figure out how to deal with an increasingly complex threat environment as less money flows into the research and development pipeline.
April 29, 2013 -
The Pentagon's top acquisition official released guidance this week to implement the Defense Department's latest iteration of the Better Buying Power program. The plan tells acquisition managers their first priority should be to use their own expertise in making decisions.
April 26, 2013 -
The idea behind cyber threat intelligence is to understand more about the attack and the attacker than ever before by matching up patterns, anomalies and other characteristics of the bad guys. Energy, DoD, Commerce and DHS are all analyzing cyber attack data to develop this more complete picture.
April 25, 2013 -
Army leaders say the belated passage of a 2013 budget helped this year's fiscal picture, but the service still is more than $15 billion short of funds. If sequestration continues, the service will shrink by at least 100,000 soldiers.
April 24, 2013