State Department
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The State Department is increasing its capacity to train members of the Foreign Service, and expanding the fields of expertise for its diplomatic corps, as the department embarks on its largest hiring of career diplomats in more than a decade.
October 23, 2023 -
An urgent report from the Government Accountability Office is aimed at the State Department. GAO called for State to, in its words, "expeditiously get on with a cybersecurity risk management program." State has a plan, now it has to carry it out. For more on this, Federal Drive Host Tom Temin spoke with Jennifer Franks, GAO's Director of Information Technology and Cybersecurity.
October 18, 2023 -
The State Department tool cost about $400,000 to develop and is at least 97% as accurate as humans, according to an agency leader.
October 09, 2023 -
Andre Mendes, the chief information officer at the Department of Commerce, was one of several agency technology executives pushing for more consistency around cyber metrics under the FITARA scorecard.
October 02, 2023 -
The massively bipartisan Chance to Compete Act aims to modernize federal hiring — but experts say limitations in HR offices could stunt its potential, while others think the bill doesn’t take hiring reform far enough.
September 04, 2023 -
Jimmy Hall Jr., the State Bureau of Intelligence and Research’s chief information officer and director of the Technology and Innovation Office, said he will release a top secret cloud strategy to improve the agility, security and capabilities for the department.
August 28, 2023 -
Two young State Department foreign affairs officers helped secure recent releases of Americans held in by foreign countries. That fact has landed them as finalists in this year's Service to America Medals program, aka "the Sammies." Fletcher Schoen developed the negotiation strategy for basketball player Brittney Griner, among others. And Jennifer Harkins was instrumental in the 2022 release of nine Americans held by Venezuela.
August 24, 2023 -
The State Department is on track to issue a record-breaking number of passports this year, but is still dealing with a major backlog of applications and higher-than-average wait times.
August 15, 2023 -
She's a successful State Department negotiator dealing with the United Nations, no less. She's a lifelong athlete, excelling in several sports including rock climbing. And, she conducts her life from a wheelchair. Sofija Korac just received national recognition for work on behalf of people with disabilities.
August 11, 2023 -
The Biden administration is laying the foundation for greater use of artificial intelligence tools across the federal government — but agencies are already charting a path for how federal employees will work with AI tools.…
August 01, 2023 -
Warner says passport backlog ‘not sustainable,’ as State Dept aims for pre-pandemic processing timesSen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) says the current wait times for passports are “not sustainable," and urged the bureau to take more aggressive steps to address a major backlog.
July 14, 2023 -
The White House on Thursday released an implementation plan for its National Cybersecurity Strategy. The plan outlines 65 high-impact initiatives agencies must meet to stay ahead of emerging threats, and sets a timeline to complete those goals.
July 13, 2023 -
CISA says a federal agency was only able to detect the infiltration of its email accounts because it had access to Microsoft's "enhanced" logging capabilities.
July 12, 2023 -
The Federal Drive with Tom Temin recently brought you an interview with one of this year's Data for Diplomacy awardees from the State Department.
July 05, 2023 -
In today's Federal Newscast, one Senator says he’s working on legislation that would give the State Department more ways to handle its backlog of passport applications.
June 30, 2023