But that’s not the only important decision on which Obama has delayed. There’s also the question of appointing a “cyber czar,” a White House official to coordinate cybersecurity policy. Obama announced the new position in May, during a White House speech on cybersecurity, but the position has remained vacant for more than five months.

The delay is starting to attract criticism. Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., said last week that he was frustrated with the delay. TechAmerica, an IT industry group, put out a press release this afternoon calling on Obama to appoint a czar “at the earliest possible opportunity.”

Why is the decision taking so long? I’ve posed this question to a few people in recent weeks.

The consensus seems to be that, at first, nobody wanted the job. Several cybersecurity officials have resigned in frustration this year: Mischel Kwon, formerly in charge of US-CERT, stepped down in August; and Rod Beckstrom, the former director of the National Cybersecurity Center, resigned in March.

There’s a general sense that cybersecurity officials don’t have the authority and resources they need to do their jobs — and that scared off a number of would-be applicants for the cyber czar job.

But it seems the White House is finally close to a decision. Several sources told me it could come by the end of the month — perhaps timed around Thanksgiving, when Congress is out of town. (The announcement will surely prompt cries of “what took you so long,” and the administration wants to minimize those.)

MS. GREENBERG: Okay. Our next question comes from Jim Finkle:

Can you please let the staff use an alternative web browser called Firefox? I just – (applause) – I just moved to the State Department from the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and was surprised that State doesn’t use this browser. It was approved for the entire intelligence community, so I don’t understand why State can’t use it. It’s a much safer program. Thank you. (Applause.)

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, apparently, there’s a lot of support for this suggestion. (Laughter.) I don’t know the answer. Pat, do you know the answer? (Laughter.)

UNDER SECRETARY KENNEDY: The answer is at the moment, it’s an expense question. We can -

QUESTION: It’s free. (Laughter.)

While today’s BoingBoing post ends there, we here at FedLine wanted to bring you the next line in the conversation– Kennedy’s explanation of what he meant by “it’s an expense question.”

From the transcript posted on the State Department’s Web site:

UNDER SECRETARY KENNEDY: Nothing is free. (Laughter.) It’s a question of the resources to manage multiple systems. It is something we’re looking at. And thanks to the Secretary, there is a significant increase in the 2010 budget request that’s pending for what is called the Capital Investment Fund, by which we fund our information technology operations. With the Secretary’s continuing pushing, we’re hoping to get that increase in the Capital Investment Fund. And with those additional resources, we will be able to add multiple programs to it.

Yes, you’re correct; it’s free, but it has to be administered, the patches have to be loaded. It may seem small, but when you’re running a worldwide operation and trying to push, as the Secretary rightly said, out FOBs and other devices, you’re caught in the terrible bind of triage of trying to get the most out that you can, but knowing you can’t do everything at once.

What say you, dear readers, of Kennedy’s points about cost, budget and management?

Today the White House, the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board and the National Academy of Public Administration launched a site to gather input on how information technology can bring greater transparency to recovery spending.

The week long “National Dialogue” is soliciting ideas from the public on what Recovery.gov should do and how it should do it. Topics include data collection, data storage, data analysis, data presentation, Web site design, and waste, fraud and abuse detection.

At 3:30 p.m., there were approximately 75 ideas posted on The National Dialogue web site, www.thenationaldialogue.org.

Site users can view, rate and comment on ideas — as well as post their own — until May 3.  And, as always, you can post your ideas at FedLine anytime.

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, apparently because the administration hasn’t read the final report yet. I’m told that the White House deputies committee is meeting to review it today or tomorrow. So we’ll probably see a final copy early next week.

Hathaway did confirm that the final report calls for the White House to coordinate governmentwide cybersecurity policy. (If you want to watch her whole talk, it’s posted here.)

There was one other item from the RSA conference that caught my attention — details after the jump.

You might remember Adm. Dennis Blair’s testimony (pdf) before the House intelligence committee in February. He said the NSA should run governmentwide cybersecurity:

I think there’s one key aspect of this future cyber strategy which this committee and your counterpart in the other body can really help us with, and that is the role of the National Security Agency outside of the intelligence, its intelligence functions. I agree with you; the Department of Homeland Security is finding its footing in this area. The National Security Agency has the greatest repository of cyber talent.

But on Tuesday, during his speech to the conference, Lt. Gen Keith Alexander, the NSA director, said this:

We do not want to run cybersecurity for the United States government. That’s a big job.

Who’s going to be in charge? We’ll find out next week…

U.S. government systems are still popular targets (nearly a quarter of attacks on government systems target the U.S.); most of the attacks come from China, it seems.

The FBI tweets too. And is tweeting right now to let folks know that agency hostage negotiators are on their way from Albany to Binghamton, N.Y. to respond to the shooting and ongoing hostage situation there.

Already, the Food and Drug Administration’s recall twitter feed, which helped to quickly spread information about the nearly 4,000 products recalled during the peanut crisis, is tweeting about recalled pistachio products.

Other tools HHS used during the salmonella outbreak in peanuts could come into play as the department shares information about pistachios, Andrew Wilson, a Web manager for HHS’s Web Communications and New Media division, told Federal Times today.

I spoke to Wilson following a speech at an American Public Health Association event about using social media (like Twitter,  YouTube, blogs, widgets and social networking sites) to respond to crises (like salmonella outbreaks or terrorist attacks).

During the peanut crisis, HHS used the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s existing network of social media tools to spread the word for FDA on peanut product recalls, Wilson said in his speech.  This interagency collaboration allowed the department to vastly and quickly increase the reach of information also being pushed out through traditional media campaigns, he said.

As the crisis progressed, the department created more tools for FDA to use. It set up a blog to centralize information on the crisis. It also created a self-updating product recall widget for information providers and average citizens to embed on their own Web sites to inform readers on the latest recalls, Wilson said. 

Wilson personally went on to Twitter and began “tweeting” with those discussing the outbreak, sharing links to CDC and FDA information. He has approximately 1,000 followers today, many of whom re-tweet what he’s posted, reaching an audience of tens of thousands, he said. This network of followers can be tapped in the future to spread information about other crises, Wilson said. As can the nearly 3,000 followers of FDA’s product recall Twitter feed.

After his speech, Wilson told me that while the strategy for the pistachio outbreak is still being developed, the social media outreach done for the peanut crisis is not a one-off event. Rather it is a new approach to keeping the public informed in the spaces citizens typically go for information, he said. The department is even “crowdsourcing” for ideas on how it can use social media here.

This could be the start of another round of protests for the already protest-plagued procurement.

This time last year, a federal court upheld the protest of eight bidders that claimed GSA didn’t properly evaluate their bids. All eight of those protesters were awarded contracts this time around, but it’s not clear if the losing bidders will seek to protest this latest decision.

The awardees are:
1. Abacus Technology Corporation
2. Accenture National Security Services, LLC
3. Advanced Management Technology, Inc.
4. Advanced Technology Systems, Inc.
5. Alion Science and Technology Corporation
6. Alliant Solutions, LLC
7. American Systems Corporation
8. Analytical Services, Inc.
9. Apptis, Inc.
10. ARINC Engineering Services, LLC
11. ARTEL, Inc.
12. AT&T Government Solutions, Inc.
13. BAE Systems Information Technology, Inc.
14. BAE Systems Science and Technology, Inc.
15. BearingPoint, Inc.
16. Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc.
17. CACI, Inc. – Federal
18. Centech Group, Inc., The
19. CGI Federal, Inc.
20. Client Network Services, Inc.
21. Communication Technologies, Inc.
22. Computer Sciences Corporation
23. Dynamics Research Corporation
24. Electronic Data Systems, LLC
25. Engineering and Professional Services, Inc.
26. Federal Network Systems, LLC
27. General Dynamics One Source, LLC
28. Harris Corporation
29. Honeywell Technology Solutions, Inc.
30. INDUS Corporation
31. International Business Machines Corporation
32. ITS Corporation
33. Keane Federal Systems, Inc.
34. L-3 Services, Inc.
35. LGS Innovations, LLC
36. Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems, Inc.
37. MacAulay-Brown, Inc.
38. ManTech Advanced Systems International Corporation
39. McNeil Technologies, Inc.
40. NCI Information Systems, Inc.
41. Nortel Government Solutions, Inc.
42. Perot Systems Government Services, Inc.
43. Professional Software Engineering, Inc.
44. Raytheon Company
45. Science Applications International Corporation
46. Serco, Inc.
47. Smartronix, Inc.
48. Southwest Research Institute
49. Stanley Associates, Inc.
50. STG, Inc.
51. SYS (DBA SYS Technologies, Inc.)
52. Systems Research and Applications Corporation
53. TASC, Inc.
54. TKC Communications, LLC
55. Trantech, Inc. (DBA T3 Alliance)
56. TYBRIN Corporation
57. Unisys Corporation
58. Vangent, Inc.
59. Wyle Information Systems, LLC

The announcement comes about one year after a federal court upheld a protest against a previous set of awards GSA made, forcing the agency to re-evaluate the procurement meant to become the government’s premier IT contract.

Following the protest decision, Federal Times uncovered an apparent conflict of interest regarding the contractor GSA hired to collect performance information from the bidders. The GSA IG found other irregularities with GSA’s evaluation process.

One has to wonder whether this round of awards will spark new rounds of protests and more delays for the already troubled procurement.

While the raid was going on Kundra spoke at an IT conference today. He set out bold plans for reforming federal IT by opening up more information to the public for review and feedback.

During today’s White House press briefing, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs declined to comment on the investigation into Kundra’s old office.

Stay tuned.

Update 1: The U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia released some court documents related to today’s raid at the District of Columbia’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer.

The documents accuse D.C. employee, Yusuf Acar of conspiring with a contractor, Sushil Bansal, to steal from city taxpayers. Both Bansal, president of Advanced Integrated Technologies Corporation, and Acar were arrested today.

According to the documents, Acar, acting chief security officer for the D.C. government, allegedly approved work orders for products and services from Bansal’s company that were in excess of what the city actually received. The difference between the actual cost to Bansal’s company and what the D.C. government paid was split by the two defendants, according to the documents filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Until February, the office where Acar worked was led by the new Federal Chief Information Officer, Vivek Kundra. Kundra is not mentioned in the court documents and sources said he is not under investigation.

View the original post after the jump.

 

The FBI raided the Office of the District of Columbia’s Chief Technology Officer today, the Associated Press is reporting.  Two D.C. officials and a third man were arrested in a bribery sting.

A spokeswoman for the FBI’s Washington, D.C. field office told Federal Times arraignments will be held this afternoon. The U.S. Attorney for D.C. is expected release more information following the court hearing.

Vivek Kundra, President Obama’s newly minted federal chief information officer, led that office until Feb. 4. He has not been linked to the raid, according to WTOP, a local radio station.

More as it comes.