A bipartisan bill making its way through Congress directs agencies to ensure that approved security clearances for federal employees and contractors apply governmentwide.

NextGov.com reports that the legislation, sponsored by Sens. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) and George Voinovich (R-Ohio) amends the portion of the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act that deals with the security clearance process. It mandates the creation of a performance accountability council to oversee the reduction of the government’s security clearance backlog and extends reporting requirements.

A provision in the bill would direct agencies to recognize other agency clearances. Many federal agencies traditionally have used their own security clearance standards and do not necessarily accept background checks other executive branch agencies perform.

And . . .

It’s the time of the year for top 10 lists — and the National Association of State Chief Information Officers has published their list of the top 10 challenges facing state IT executives. Coming in at number six: security. That includes everything from risk assessment to enterprise policies, employee education to data protection and insider threat.

Utah CIO Steve Fletcher tells Federal News Radio that security is a ubiquitous issues — and that state CIOs in many ways are on the front lines of security issues because state governments hold so much citizen data.

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