New center to demystify data for legislators

In the next few weeks, both congressional lawmakers and the public will have a new online resource that aims to demystify data, FedScoop has learned.

The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation is launching the ITIF Center for Data Innovation, with the goal to make data more accessible. The online center will strive to be the main destination for lawmakers searching for information on data, a topic many in Congress tend to shy away from because of its complexity.

“Our goal is to help people understand data, give people up-to-date news on how data is being used, and connect it to policy,” Daniel Castro, senior policy analyst at ITIF, told FedScoop. “There are so many areas in the economy where data can be used to improve it – areas that have yet to be tapped into — and we want to showcase that information.”

The Center for Data Innovation will feature a “Data Innovation 101” for policymakers, and look at which policies are driving data innovation domestically and internationally. The website will also have a library of resources on data innovation for policymakers. In addition, the center will serve as a resource for ITIF reports and blogs on the effect of data-driven innovation on economy and society.

To accompany the web portal, ITIF is also launching a weekly newsletter that will connect leaders in business and government with the latest information on big data, open data, data analytics, and data visualization.

“We want to separate out the marketing hype from the important trends and educate policymakers about the benefits and opportunities of data-driven innovation,” Castro said. “One way we will do this is by telling the stories of how data innovation is changing communities and industries around the world, and help policymakers understand how this transformation impacts the problems and solutions that they are working on.”

One of the first projects at the center will be sending new hire, Travis Korte, to participate in the Millennial Train Project. Korte’s project will highlight how data is changing communities across the U.S., creating connections between likeminded individuals involved in data innovation.

In January, ITIF hosted the first Data Innovation Day in D.C., which facilitated discussion of how to use data to improve society. This event proved to be the catalyst in creating the Center for Data Innovation, according to Castro.

ITIF will launch the Center for Data Innovation “in the next few weeks,” Castro said.

With Senate’s backing, VA claims go electronic

In one afternoon, the Veterans Affairs Department announced a new web portal to make disability claims entirely electronic and got an approving, $20 million nod from Senate lawmakers.

On June 18, VA announced eBenefits, a website that allows the public to file claims electronically. The system is integrated with the Veterans Benefits Management System, and sends claims directly to the database. It’s part of the agency’s goal to both eliminate the robust disability claims backlog and make the claims process completely paperless.

Paper submissions will still be accepted, but might take longer to process, as VA will start scanning all paper claims into the just-announced system.

“There are so many advantages to making this move from paper to digital — for both veterans and VA,” Allison Hickey, VA’s undersecretary for benefits, said in statement. “Veterans can now file their claims online through eBenefits like they might do their taxes online.”

But the new filing system comes with a cost. And Tuesday, the Senate took the first step to rubber stamp the spending. The Senate Appropriations Committee panel handling VA funding tacked $20 million onto VA’s 2014 budget request, indicating the extra money was earmarked for additional hardware to support the Veterans Benefits Management System.

The panel also approved an additional $10 million for overtime pay and training for claims processors. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., said it was all part of the 10-point plan to eliminate the VA claims backlog.

“Our committee insisted on a sense of urgency and a fire in the belly to get the job done,” Mikulski said in a statement. “The result is the 10-point action plan to end the backlog included in this bill. It’s progress. But more needs to be done.”

At the beginning of this week, VA had 840,898 claims pending; 66 percent of those have languished for more than 125 days. The 10-point plan also calls on VA to boost its capacity to ingest all electronic health records from the Defense Department and increase its monthly and quarterly performance data reporting to Congress.

The VA IT funding outlined by the Senate  — $3.7 billion — is roughly $20 million above the level requested by the White House, and allocates a total of $119.4 million for to improve the benefits management system. An additional $251.9 million would be earmarked for integrating electronic health records from DOD.

The total amount also surpasses the House-approved VA budget, which means any negotiation between the two houses could negate the Senate’s earmarks in the final budget.

DHS cybersecurity monitoring lacks clear metrics, long-term goals

Although the Department of Homeland Security has improved its program to monitor the federal government’s information security, the agency still must clarify its long-term planning, reporting metrics and personnel training procedures, according to a recent inspector general report.

Since 2010, DHS has worked to ensure the federal government’s information is secure: refining annual metrics, reviewing the government’s information security systems and developing an interagency hub to report cybersecurity stats.

A year ago, the Office of Cybersecurity and Communications — which has handled this task for DHS — was reorganized after an executive order. The DHS Office of Inspector General audited the office to determine the effectiveness of the new structure. The audit identified four problem areas — technical deficiencies, ill-defined long-term goals, metrics and security training programs — and six recommendations, all of which DHS accepted.

The Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 essentially ordered all federal agencies to implement information security programs and report the results. DHS has worked with each agency to manage this annual reporting program, help agencies identify their system deficiencies and get them secure access to CyberScope — a web-based application used to report monthly information security data.

But while cybersecurity office has helped other agencies establish reporting metrics, it has failed to delineate its own program goals. Specifically, the report found Federal Network Resilience — one of the cybersecurity office’s five divisions — was lacking direction.

“FNR has not developed a strategic implementation plan that describes its cybersecurity responsibilities or establishes specific timeframes and milestones to provide a clear plan of action for fulfilling its cybersecurity responsibilities,” the report reads, adding it does have a number of policies in draft, but not final, form. “In addition, FNR has not established performance metrics to measure and monitor its progress in accomplishing its mission and goals. As a result, FNR cannot ensure that it is effectively overseeing federal agencies’ information security programs.”

Frequent management turnover has hindered the office’s ability to finalize these procedures and establish long-term goals, according to the report. It recommended the cybersecurity office coordinate with the Office of Management and Budget to establish these long-term goals and milestones.

While the cybersecurity office lags in its own monitoring, the report also indicated federal agencies took issue with the monitoring metrics they are required to submit regularly. Two agencies said the reporting process has too many metrics, straining their personnel resources. Another agency said CyberScope needed more instructions and details on reporting metrics.

In addition, agencies aren’t sure what happens to the data once it is submitted, as DHS “has not provided any detailed information, such as trending analysis, regarding their monthly vulnerability data submissions,” the report reads. The cybersecurity office should work to communicate better with federal agencies, the report concludes, and provide them with clear analysis of the data received.

The cybersecurity office also does not communicate enough with contractors about the specific training their employees should receive. It’s the second straight year the inspector general has noted this pattern.

The office “does not have a process to maintain training records for CyberScope contractors or ensure that all training requirements have been completed,” the report reads. “Additionally, [the cybersecurity office] does not require contractors to receive any specialized IT training in addition to what is mandated by the hosting facility.” Steps must be taken, the report concludes, to ensure all contractors are trained to meet DHS, OMB and National Institute of Standards and Technology guidelines.

CyberScope is also vulnerable to unauthorized access. The report identified guest accounts that exist, and default accounts that have not been disabled or renamed. Both practices go against DHS cybersecurity best practices. But the cybersecurity office submitted documents in March, showing it had already begun work to address this issue.

Tangherlini likely to be confirmed as GSA administrator

Could it be smooth sailing for Dan Tangherlini to become the permanent head at the General Services Administration? Judging from today’s confirmation hearing, the answer is yes.

The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs held the hearing June 18 for the nomination of Tangherlini as GSA administrator. He has been serving in acting capacity since April 2012.

“GSA deserves a leader who understands the complexity of these challenges,” committee Chairman Thomas Carper, D-Del., said in his opening remarks. “He is the logical choice to be confirmed as administrator.”

Tangherlini has extensive experience serving the public, a commitment he says is inspired by his father, and his dedication to public service. Tangherlini’s career began at the Office of Management and Budget, and from there he went on to work at the Transportation Department, the D.C. government, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, and most recently prior to GSA, the Treasury Department.

GSA came under scrutiny this past year when a report from the inspector general revealed the agency spent more than $800,000 on a 2010 conference in Las Vegas.

During his 15 months at GSA, Tangherlini has eliminated 50 conferences, saving $28 million.

“We sat here eight years ago talking about the GSA, and it doesn’t seem like we’ve made any progress since then,” Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., said. “Some of the pains we’ve felt from the sequester wouldn’t be here if we had already solved some of the issues with the GSA.”

GSA has struggled in large part due to the lack of leadership, as pointed out by several committee members. In the last eight years, GSA has had eight different leaders; the last two resigned after scandals in their administration were made public.

In Tangherlini’s short time at GSA, he has worked to cultivate a culture of continuous evaluation and improvement, according to his opening statement. In the past fiscal year, GSA reduced its spending on travel, IT devices and printing, ending the year’s expenses 43 percent lower than the previous fiscal years. In cutting travel alone, GSA saved $28 million. In addition, Tangherlini slashed bonuses throughout GSA by 64 percent, and eliminated them completely in the administrator’s office.

Sen. Kelly Ayotte, D-N.H, called on a drastic need for a change of culture in GSA, highlighting the corruption found in the June inspector general report.

In response to that report, Tangherlini sent out a joint letter to the organization, urging employees who witnesses misconduct to report it to their coworkers, superiors and most important, the attorney general.

Another measure Tangherlini took was launching the “Great Ideas Hunt” program. The program encouraged employees at GSA to suggest ideas, and more than 600 ideas and 20,000 comments resulted from it. Implementing these in the past 14 months has resulted in $5 million in savings.

Tangherlini expressed optimism about the work his agency has done in the last year, and his plans if confirmed as GSA administrator.

“I hope the information presented to you today is suggestive of what we can do to make GSA a fantastic agency, better than it already is,” he said.

The chairman said he was “very confident” Tangherlini would be confirmed.

‘Zero Dark Thirty’ filmmakers never met with SEALS

For nearly two years, lawmakers have repeatedly accused government officials of leaking classified information to filmmakers about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. But in a report released June 14, the Defense Department inspector general revealed — in excruciating detail — its findings that the White House did not communicate with DOD about providing the filmmakers with access to military special operators. And while DOD did, on its own, take steps to set up a meeting between a special operations planner and the filmmakers, no such meeting ever occurred.

Four months after bin Laden’s death in May 2011, rumors started circulating that administration officials were providing classified information to filmmakers Mark Boal and Kathryn Bigelow. The duo had been the team behind the award-winning “The Hurt Locker,” about a bomb disposal unit in Iraq. Bigelow directed and Boal wrote the screenplay; both won Academy Awards for their efforts, and the film won Best Picture. It was known the two were working on a film about bin Laden, initially about his escape from U.S. forces in Tora Bora, but later shifting focus to the fatal raid.

With the film, “Zero Dark Thirty” — which eventually grossed more than $130 million and was nominated for five Academy Awards — slated for release weeks prior to the 2012 election, many saw propaganda in the works.

“The moviemakers are getting top-level access to the most classified mission in history from an administration that has tried to throw more people in jail for leaking classified information than the Bush administration,” New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote Aug. 6, 2011. “It was clear that the White House had outsourced the job of manning up the president’s image to Hollywood when Boal got welcomed to the upper echelons of the White House and the Pentagon and showed up recently — to the surprise of some military officers — at a CIA ceremony celebrating the hero SEALS.”

Bigelow denied these allegations of White House favoritism shortly after Dowd’s column.

But responding to the widespread allegations, Peter King, R-N.Y., former House chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, submitted a congressional request to the inspectors general at DOD and CIA. Most important, King wanted to know whether the White House had advised DOD or CIA on providing access to “covert military operators and clandestine CIA officers,” and why Boal had appeared at the ceremony for the SEALS involved in the bin Laden raid.

Nearly two years later, he finally has his answers.

DOD and White House never met “regarding the advisability of providing filmmakers with access to military special operators,” the report reads. The White House did coordinate with DOD about getting the filmmakers set up in a meeting with Michael Vickers, undersecretary of defense for intelligence, through June and July of 2011. But from there, Vickers’ emails and other communications revealed an internal DOD discussion over the level of support the agency wanted to give the film.

Emails revealed a high level of support from DOD’s director of entertainment media and then-CIA Director Leon Panetta, who became defense secretary July 1, 2011. But Special Operations Command balked at the request to interview Navy SEALS, sending an email stating its position “there was already too much information released concerning the bin Laden raid and has obvious concerns about DOD providing any support for this effort.”

But Boal was welcomed at the CIA awards ceremony Dowd wrote about June 24. According to the DOD Public Affairs Office, the CIA Public Affairs Office did not want him to attend, but that fact was not passed along in time. The CIA Public Affairs team was worried as the SEALS would be visible, “with nametapes, because it was a formal ceremony. [They] were in the front row, front, left side, prominently on display for everybody,” according to one official’s testimony.

Other officials paint a different picture. One described it as: “a huge enormous crowd, I mean they built a tent and it was not sensitive, I would say it was not a highly sensitive event. It was pretty much a cattle call for a lot of folks and for around the community and obviously not open to the public per se.” It was even broadcast on the CIA’s closed circuit television. A video depicting the event was accessible via the CIA’s classified network.

But SOCOM officials were wary of Boal’s appearance at the event. Navy Adm. William McRaven — commander of Special Operations Command after Aug. 8, 2011 — was described as “visibly, surprised and shocked,” by one official.

Still, DOD did work to grease the wheels at SOCOM. Douglas Wilson, assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, sent Boal an email directly, saying he “will work to unclog the SOCOM pathway for you.” And he did just that. An email from Vickers revealed McRaven, despite initial hesitations, had agreed to allow a special operations planner to talk on background.

“His main task is to provide accuracy and context where needed,” wrote Eric Olson, the previous commander of Special Operations Command. “My (our) hope and intent is that [the special operations planner’s initials] not be identified by name as having participated in any way.”

But the special operations planner actually never participated in any way. No meeting ever occurred.

Throughout July, the filmmakers and Wilson continued to communicate. But in mid-August — eight days after King filed his request and 11 days after The New York Times charged the White House catering to Bigelow and Boal — the special operations planner was told, “We may want to let the dust settle a little,” before any meeting should take place.

In the end, no meeting ever did.

The myth of deleted data

Remember the cautionary tale of “Be careful what you post on the Internet; it will be out there forever”? Turns out, that warning applies to much more than just the Internet.

You may assume that whenever you change jobs and turn in your old mobile device, all your information gets wiped from the device. However, deleting that data off the face of that device doesn’t necessarily mean the data is actually gone.

According to J.R. Reagan, U.S. federal chief information officer at Deloitte, “we’ve gone past that line, where data is truly deletable.”

“We’re all now in this mode of creating digital exhaust,” he said. “In all of the things we do, we’re constantly producing information, and it raises the question of what happens to all of that data over time.”

A big challenge in data deletion is that data doesn’t always live on the device. There’s currently no way to tell if data has been transferred or duplicated from a mobile device. In the same respect, when a hard drive is “wiped,” it’s impossible to know whether data on that drive is somewhere on another device.

This is an issue Reagan raised in last week’s blog post titled, “Are we creating a digital landfill?” The potential for the amount of data to be stored is virtually limitless. Data storage is more available than ever, and people are constantly detailing their personal and professional life on the Internet. That paired with improved data aggregation programs has made the average Internet user’s life a digital open book.

An idea gaining traction in Europe known as “the right to be forgotten” is addressing what happens to data after someone dies or if someone simply want his or her online presence erased. Privacy advocacy groups in the U.S. have picked up the issue, and advocate for individuals to have the ability to delete their own data whenever, even information that is public.

Since January 2012, the Data Protection Regulation has been debated by many in the European Union, particularly the content of Article 17, which includes “the right to be forgotten.”

The controversy arising over the proposal has even continued on this side of the Atlantic. The Washington, D.C.-based Center for Democracy and Technology published a paper in response to Article 17 stating it “risks jeopardizing the rights of Internet users, failing to set out an appropriate system to balance between individuals’ data-protection rights and the free expression rights of others.”

The U.S. doesn’t have a mandatory data deletion policy in place, and nor will it ever, according to Reagan.

“There will be a lot of attempts to force data deletion, and privacy issues will always be there,” he said. “And those ideas of data deletion will constantly be at odds with people who have a real desire to digitally catalogue their lives. But there won’t ever be a legal enforcement to delete data permanently.”

The amount of data being stored has drastically increased in the last three years, and it’s only expected to expand even further. As technology gets more advanced, storage will be more accessible and individuals will want to store more. Already, the world is seeing the evolution of 3-D holographics, and the ability to store things in three dimensions.

Reagan said the issue of data deletion is a contextual one. People’s feelings on being digitally erased are “schizophrenic” — they want the good to stay and the bad to be deleted, he said.

It’s also an ethical issue; data storage allows for great amounts of research to be done, and many believe it is beneficial for future generations.

“It becomes a moral issue when you consider someone’s digital memory being erased from the face of the earth,” Reagan said. “Data storage allows us to track many important factors, for example, immigration patterns. Then, there’s the more simple reasoning: that some people may just want to know about your life.”

Infographic: The State of Cybersecurity

Presenting the State of Cybersecurity Infographic underwritten by Symantec and produced by Fedscoop, which highlights the responses of more than 200 government employees polled recently in FedScoop’s 2013 Cybersecurity Survey.

Cybersecurity is still a major concern across the federal government, according to the findings. More than half of the 200-plus government employees polled said cybersecurity was “high priority” among their agency’s current IT initiatives. And employees are looking to the National Institute of Standards and Technology for guidelines on continuous monitoring and securing mobile platforms and cloud software. More than two-thirds of respondents said continuous monitoring would have the most influence on cybersecurity moving forward, but only 38 percent felt their agency had a process in place to address continuous monitoring. Moving forward, the largest barrier to better cybersecurity that government employees identified is personnel and training issues. Still, nearly half of those surveyed were confident in their agencies security posture.

See the full results below.

5 must-read stories of the week

FedScoop rounds up the top 5 must-reads of the past week.

CIO no more? House passes bill to slash number of federal CIOs 

Why duplication in federal IT happens: ‘We lack transparency and good metrics’ 

Augmented reality in government: far from science fiction

IT leaders converge for FedTalks 2013 

The Cyber Command overhaul

FedOSS: Creating open source communities

FedScoop’s Luke Fretwell and Red Hat U.S. Public Sector Chief Technology Strategist Gunnar Hellekson discuss the latest in federal government open source software. (Archive · RSS)

This episode

Juli Klemm, head of Cancer Biology and Genomics Section, National Cancer Institute, and Chris Mattmann, senior computer scientist, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, join us to discuss building government open source communities and the upcoming Open Source Summit, June 25-26 in Washington, D.C.

After hours: Where to schmooze with government techies

D.C. is known for its networking happy hours. Even after the 9-to-5 grind, folks are still gathering at local watering holes to relax with colleagues and talk shop. So where do government techies end up after business hours?

Websites such as MeetUp.com serve as a resource for the like-minded to — literally — meet up and share ideas. A popular MeetUp for digital folks is the Federal Innovative Technology – Web, Cloud & Mobile group. The group’s 435 members describe themselves as federal thought leaders, who meet up to exchange ideas about leveraging technology to improve government, and discuss similar challenges.

For a more low-key meetup, try the Third Thursday New Media Drink Up. Grab drinks with government new-media and tech types at this regular gathering that rotates around a number of local bars, most frequently the Post Pub.

The group usually meets in the back room and enjoys some drinks and conversation, according to John McGuire, a server at Post Pub.

Ben Balter, government liaison at GitHub, said locations with Wi-Fi tend to attract the techie crowd after hours. Balter has also created a useful “crowdsourced work in progress,” which maps Wi-Fi-enabled spots in D.C. that attract the techie crowds.

As Justin Herman, social media coordinator at the General Services Administration, has previously told FedScoop, the tech-focused feds in the area also have a tendency to frequent karaoke nights. On Wednesday nights at Hill Country BBQ, members of the digital government world can be found singing their rendition of the greatest hits from the ’80s and ’90s. On some nights, federal Chief Technology Officer Todd Park has even been known to sing a song or two.

Popular spots for feds and techies in the NOMA area are Union Pub and 201 Bar. Bartenders there are known for being almost as savvy in social media and government data services as the patrons.

And if you’re interested in using big data out of the office, head to Big Board on H Street, NE. Here, the true data geek can be embraced all while ordering a beer. Big Board takes its name from the stock market and functions similarly. Prices of beer depend on how many are being ordered; the more a beer is ordered, the lower the price. With a trusted group of mischievous friends, patrons can see how low they can drive down the price.

According to a 2012 Examiner.com article, other great hangouts for digital media professionals in the District are Busboys and Poets on U Street, Coffy Café in Columbia Heights, and Tryst in Adams Morgan.

Did we leave anywhere out? Tweet at us @FedScoop!