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Army appointing new ‘data representatives’ across divisions

The Army has ordered each division to appoint a “data representative” who will work with the Defense Department’s chief data officer to help improve data interoperability and general data literacy across the service.

Divisions received the order in November and have since been working to appoint someone, Col. Jay Chapman, division chief of Mission Command HQDA G-3/5/7, said Thursday. The position is a part of a broader push to educate the Army in data, tech and IT know-how.

“A lot of people don’t have the skills,” Chapman told FedScoop after an AFCEA DC luncheon on the Army’s push to the cloud.

The order requires Army divisions, staff sections and component commands to seek out officers or civilians who can be data representatives. Most of the representatives will not be new hires but Army personnel in existing data-focused roles.

Improving the way the Army collects and manages its data is a critical part of its push to the cloud. Current cloud-stored data remains “stovepiped” and siloed among the different parts of the sprawling Army, said the service’s new leader of its Office of Cloud Enterprise Management, Paul Puckett. That comes as a result of the Army’s systems and culture not keeping up with technological change, he said.

Puckett said his office is “reaching everywhere” in the Army to find in-house data science, IT and software engineering talent to help bridge that gap. The goal is to create better communication and build stronger systems across the Army to prevent the siloing of data.

“We are creating a community,” Puckett said during a fireside chat at Thursday.

Puckett stressed the need for education in the Army for a better general understanding around the service’s cloud migration.

The defense industry will be a critical “partner” Puckett said, but he is not looking only for technology solutions. “You don’t take products on a journey, you take partners,” he said.

Department of Labor brings in the CoEs for acquisition modernization

The General Services Administration’s Centers of Excellence program announced on Thursday that it has found its newest client — the Department of Labor.

The project will focus on the “modernization of DOL’s acquisition capabilities using Robotic Process Automation (RPA) expertise,” and will leverage the initiative’s newest center, the AI CoE.

“The Department of Labor is always looking for ways to integrate new technologies into our operations,” Deputy Secretary Patrick Pizzella said in a statement. “By partnering with GSA, our Department will modernize our procurement process to better serve the taxpayers.”

“We’re eager to hone in on the specific challenges faced by the Department to achieve solutions that meet their needs, but are also repeatable and scalable,” Technology Transformation Services Director Anil Cheriyan said in a statement. “Our main focus is on improving outcomes for our agency partners and we’re pleased to serve as a catalyst to help them develop a culture of innovation. Robotics Process Automation in combination with Artificial Intelligence capabilities is gaining momentum in government, and is a strategic focus area for TTS this year.”

DOL is the CoE’s sixth client. Others include the Department of Agriculture, Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Office of Personnel Management, the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Department of Defense’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC). In addition to AI, the CoE’s help agencies modernize with regard to cloud adoption, contact center, customer experience, data and analytics and infrastructure optimization.

Earlier on Thursday Reps. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and Mark Meadows, R-N.C. introduced a bipartisan bill in the House that would codify the CoEs as a permanent fixture.

Foreign IT subcontractor had improper access to Commerce system, audit says

Employees of a foreign IT subcontractor had unauthorized access to sensitive data on a Department of Commerce document management system, and the department mishandled some aspects of the response, according to Commerce’s Office of the Inspector General.

As the Canada-based subcontractor was helping Salient Crgt, Inc. build the Enterprise Web Solutions (EWS) system from 2014 onward, the department sent the subcontractor thousands of high-level documents and gave workers remote administrative access to the system, the OIG report says. The subcontractor’s employees were “unvetted foreign nationals” who didn’t meet the contract requirements to work for the department, the OIG says.

The OIG says it briefed the department’s acting CIO in April 2019 about the data exposure, and Commerce “incident responders” did take the appropriate steps of reporting the case to the Department of Homeland Security. Commerce officials erred, however, because they didn’t consider another set of criteria that applied to the case.

The department should have considered Office of Management and Budget rules “regarding harm to foreign relations and the national economy that was posed by the release of sensitive trade and foreign relations data to unvetted foreign nationals based in a country with which the U.S. government was negotiating.” At that point, Commerce was part of the negotiations on new North American trade rules that included Canada.

EWS is based at Commerce headquarters in Washington and handles documents such as official correspondence between top officials at the department; notifications that are sent to state and congressional leaders about department grants; and the secretary of Commerce’s briefing book — a repository of resources and information, some of it related to “sensitive issues related to trade and foreign relations.”

The OIG recommendations include additional reviews of who has access to Commerce systems, and reviews of how the department responds to such data exposures in the future.

The department’s acting CIO, André Mendes, responded to the OIG report with a letter saying the Office of the Secretary “generally concurs” with the audit’s findings. The office made suggestions about the draft of the report that it saw during 2019, and those comments are reflected in the final version issued this week, the OIG says.

The briefing documents in question were all from previous Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, according to the report.

No new work under JEDI during protest, court rules

The U.S. Court of Federal Claims ruled Thursday to temporarily prevent any new work under the Pentagon’s Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud contract until it decides on Amazon Web Services’ protest of the acquisition.

Judge Patricia E. Campbell Smith issued a preliminary injunction barring the Department of Defense and JEDI awardee Microsoft from any new contracting activity until further notice.

Amazon is protesting the Pentagon’s award of the contract to Microsoft, claiming that overt political pressure from the top of the Trump administration led to “egregious errors” in the Pentagon’s evaluation of bids for JEDI and cost the company the award.

Last month, AWS filed a motion for a temporary restraining order and injunction to halt work under the contract, saying that “continued performance of the JEDI Contract could jeopardize the relief available to AWS if it prevails in the protest” and cause “irreparable harm.”

The DOD and Microsoft had agreed to hold off on awarding any task orders under JEDI until Feb. 14. Earlier this week, a Pentagon spokesperson told FedScoop the department was awaiting a decision from the court on Amazon’s motion for an injunction but said it was “prepared to begin providing early adopters with urgently-needed unclassified JEDI services starting on Feb. 14.”

“We are disappointed in today’s ruling and believe the actions taken in this litigation have unnecessarily delayed implementing DoD’s modernization strategy and deprived our warfighters of a set of capabilities they urgently need,” a DOD spokesperson said Thursday. “However, we are confident in our award of the JEDI Cloud contract to Microsoft and remain focused on getting this critical capability into the hands of our warfighters as quickly and efficiently as possible.”

A Microsoft representative said the company is also “disappointed” with the ruling. However, “we believe that we will ultimately be able to move forward with the work to make sure those who serve our country can access the new technology they urgently require,” Frank X. Shaw, corporate vice president of Microsoft Communications, said in a statement. “We have confidence in the Department of Defense, and we believe the facts will show they ran a detailed, thorough and fair process in determining the needs of the warfighter were best met by Microsoft.”

Amazon could not be reached for comment.

House bill would codify IT Modernization Centers of Excellence

Reps. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and Mark Meadows, R-N.C., introduced a bill Thursday that would make the General Services Administration’s IT Modernization Centers of Excellence program a permanent fixture.

The lawmakers call the Modernization Centers of Excellence Program Act a “light touch” codification of the existing initiative, which helps agency clients undertake IT modernization projects in the five subject matter areas of artificial intelligence, cloud adoption, contact center, customer experience, data and analytics and infrastructure optimization.

“Congress should take every opportunity possible to make government more effective and efficient as we work to better serve Americans everywhere,” Meadows said in a statement. “By bringing the best of private sector innovation to the federal government’s IT systems, these Centers of Excellence will allow agencies to better communicate with the Americans they serve, all while saving the taxpayer tens of millions by making agencies more efficient.”

The bill would give the CoE’s five key responsibilities:

The CoE concept, which aims to “accelerate” IT modernization across government by creating central repositories for “best practices” that can move from agency to agency, was first discussed by the White House in summer 2017 and then formally introduced in the fall of 2017. “The ultimate objective of the CoEs is to build change management capacity for enterprise-level change in the federal government,” White House special assistant Matt Lira told FedScoop in December 2018.

While the concept grew out of the White House Office of American Innovation, it is currently housed under GSA’s Technology Transformation Services. The CoEs currently work with the Department of Agriculture, Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Office of Personnel Management, the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Department of Defense’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC).

CoE leadership says the lessons learned at one agency are generally super applicable to the others, lending the model a certain scalability. “It gets better with size,” executive director Bob DeLuca told FedScoop.

Justice CIO Klimavicz set to retire

Longtime Department of Justice CIO Joe Klimavicz will retire from government at the end of February.

Klimavicz has more than 40 years in government service, the last six of which were as Justice CIO. He told staff Wednesday about his plans in an email, obtained by FedScoop.

Klimavicz didn’t mention what’s next for him, but said he is “excited and energized by what opportunities lie ahead of me.” He also summarized some of his office’s achievements, such as reducing the department’s “IT footprint by uniting the DOJ enterprise under a single cohesive email system and by consolidating our data centers from an inventory of over 110 facilities to less than a dozen.”

“I have operated under the mantra that we need to keep pace with American innovation,” he wrote. “Every decision I have made has been grounded by the resolution to drive the Department of Justice towards a more modern approach to mission delivery and evidence-based governance.  The progress we have made together as catalysts of positive change is remarkable, and, reflecting upon my years of service, it remains one of my greatest sources of pride.”

Melinda Rogers, deputy CIO, is likely to replace Klimavicz in an acting capacity upon his departure.

Klimavicz also serves as Justice’s chief data officer. Prior to joining DOJ, he was the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s CIO and director of high-performance computing and communications.

VA looks to rid supply chain of banned Chinese equipment

The Department of Veterans Affairs is taking a second look for any blacklisted Chinese equipment still lurking on its networks after lawmakers expressed concern Wednesday that the department may still be linked to companies banned by the U.S. government.

The VA responded to congressional questions last week that were requested in November on any equipment it may be using from banned Chinese companies, like Huawei, ZTE and others that the U.S. has asserted pose a security risk, like Lenovo and Hytera.

Huawei, ZTE and their subsidiaries were blocked from use by federal agencies last August in Section 889 of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act. U.S. officials believe these companies have backdoor access to the information flowing on their networks that poses a national security risk to the federal government.

That audit — described by the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs as a simple search of the Federal Procurement Data System — turned up one active contract with a Huawei serial number, three with Hytera and more than 100 with Lenovo that the department said are no longer active.

Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., called the VA’s search methodology flawed. The worry is that deeper in the supply chain or even deeper in the contracts themselves, VA and its contractors could use equipment or systems from the banned Chinese companies. Federal agencies will be forbidden from working with vendors that use the banned equipment starting Aug. 13. 

“The VA’s answer gives me absolutely no confidence,” Banks said at the hearing on data privacy in the VA. “I don’t believe anyone in the department actually knows what is really going on.”

VA CISO Paul Cunningham said he “stands behind” the response, which did not include a detailed accounting of the department’s or its contractor’s IT equipment. “We were answering the question that you asked,” he said.

“I think it is something we can get to and we will take appropriate action to do so,” Cunningham told FedScoop after the hearing.

Cunningham said he is confident the VA will comply with the law by the mid-August deadline. “It will take some time to go through our contracts,” he said.

Users blast new federal contracting website amid ongoing transition

A trade association comprised of more than 400 small, midsize and large businesses that deal with federal agencies is making its frustration with the government’s new contracting website known.

The Professional Services Council — which includes members like Amazon Web Services, Cisco Systems and Microsoft — sent a letter to the General Services Administration on Friday recommending improvements to beta.SAM.gov.

Chief among PSC members’ concerns are hangups in saving user authentication, problems with creating and saving automatic searches, irrelevant email updates and issues with the site design and its mobile display.

“Some of the search capabilities of the new platform are probably the most significant because companies use them all the time,” Alan Chvotkin, executive vice president of PSC, told FedScoop about the ability to create and save automatic searches. That capability — which allows users to get email alerts when a search produced a result — was a popular feature on the now-defunct FedBizOpps.gov.

The transition probably made it easier for the government to search contracts, Chvotkin added, but it’s now harder for companies to identify, track and assess opportunities.

GSA was “upfront” about the fact that saved searches would be lost in the transition. Users could rebuild and save the same searches on the new SAM site, but that could be a lot of work for some. There were thousands of saved searches among PSC members alone, Chvotkin said. Not until mid-January, when complaints about glitches from its members persisted, did PSC informally complain to GSA.

Then came Friday’s letter.

“GSA appreciates that the Professional Services Council shared the views of some members regarding the migration of FBO.gov to beta.SAM.gov, as we take the feedback of all users seriously,” said a spokesperson for GSA. “The agency’s Integrated Award Environment [IAE] team welcomes the opportunity to work with the council as it conducts a careful review of the input shared with GSA in early February.”

PSC’s letter contains anonymous comments from 17 companies of all sizes.

One company complained small businesses have been forced to buy commercial software — costing tens of thousands of dollars — for search capabilities comparable to FedBizOpps’. Overhead costs to government will rise as a result, according to the letter.

GSA is in the process of transitioning the Federal Procurement Data System’s reports function to beta.SAM.gov, the system being one of 10 merging into the IAE. Another company worried about FPDS’s fate because they use the system daily.

“I frankly don’t know why these systems need to be combined into one platform. Is there an award for the worst government system launch ever?” reads the comment. “Truly, the very best thing GSA could do at this point is to put FBO.gov back up.”

The letter is addressed to Julie Dunne, who took over as commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service when Alan Thomas resigned in October.

Chvotkin said he didn’t think the leadership change was to blame for issues with the transition to beta.SAM.gov, adding Dunne “hasn’t missed a beat.”

“I think she’s doing a great job as the commissioner,” he said.

GSA reported in December it was receiving about 200 comments daily containing questions and issues via the feedback tool on beta.SAM.gov. PSC’s letter didn’t come as a surprise, Chvotkin said.

While GSA questioned some of PSC’s characterizations of the issues, “they were very responsive,” he said.

PSC isn’t asking for changes overnight, and Chvotkin said he didn’t know GSA’s development cycle — “a couple of weeks, maybe a few months in, maybe longer.”

It’s possible GSA doesn’t find some of PSC’s requested changes worth making.

“We’re big boys,” Chvotkin said. “We can take thoughtful conversation and dialogue about why they’re not making a change.”

Rep. Lynch wants the Census Bureau to look into ‘blockchain viability’ for 2030

A senior member of the House Oversight Committee says he’s interested in exploring the use of blockchain for an upcoming decennial census.

“I know that blockchain is used extensively on databases and registries in other countries,” Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass, said Wednesday during a hearing on the 2020 census. “Are we looking at anything like that where we can use a more secure system, a distributed system, one that is less vulnerable in terms of where the census is going?”

The Government Accountability Office’s Nick Marinos, the watchdog agency’s director for IT and cybersecurity, replied that while he is “not aware” that the technology was explored for the 2020 census, it “may be an option for the bureau to consider” for 2030.

Despite some pockets of “strong interest” in blockchain in the federal government, the distributed ledger technology is generally unpopular among many members of the civic technology community. It’s seen as a poster child for hype, shiny object syndrome and government tech solutionism. It’s also a technology with a narrow range of use cases — and it’s either unnecessary or inefficient to use outside of these cases.

Lynch hinted that he might be interested in ordering the Census Bureau to conduct a study on “blockchain viability within the census,” and suggested that GAO should “take initiative” on such work. Lynch is a member of the panel’s Government Operations Subcommittee, which helps shape federal IT policy, and is chairman of its National Security Subcommittee.

Wednesday’s hearing followed release of a new GAO report on the 2020 census that details “mixed” readiness for upcoming census operations. Marinos testified that while the bureau has successfully delivered several operational systems to date, it still faces “schedule risks” for five out of the 11 remaining deliveries including on the system for internet self-response.

Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham, meanwhile, maintained that the systems are on schedule and will be delivered as needed. He told the Oversight Committee that he’s confident the online self-response system will be able to deal with any surge in user numbers, because it has been designed to “far exceed” the bureau’s expectations.

In total, the 2020 census will rely on 52 new or legacy IT systems.

Defense Digital Service grows its counter-UAS portfolio, opens DDS West

The Defense Digital Service (DDS) is taking over ownership of Rogue Squadron, a Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) team based in Mountain View, California, that develops hardware and software for small drones and counter-drone missions.

This addition to the DDS portfolio will deepen the group’s expertise in the small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) and counter-UAS technology. The “full integration” of Rogue Squadron’s military and contracting talent into DDS will also lead to the creation of “DDS West” — an outpost of the office at DIU’s headquarters in Mountain View.

Defense Digital Service director Brett Goldstein told FedScoop that the transition speaks to the digital services group’s desire to do more “applied” work. In the early days of DDS, he said, the group did a lot of what he categorized as “point in time projects.”

“As we push ahead” he said, “I want us to be touching a lot of critical areas.” Drones, a threat that the Department of Defense is taking “very, very seriously,” represent one such critical area, Goldstein said.

It also makes sense because Rogue Squadron was a bit of an odd fit within DIU.

DIU primarily facilitates contracts between DOD and startup companies with innovative technologies, but Rogue Squadron is more of a custom dev shop, Goldstein said. After working together on a project with the Navy, Goldstein said, DDS and Rogue Squadron realized “wow, we have this amazing synergy here.”

Under one roof, so to speak, Goldstein hopes the two organizations will work together to build the DOD’s capacity to rapidly respond to emerging drone threats.

“Rogue Squadron has solved some of the department’s most pressing counter-UAS challenges by bringing together commercial methodologies and technical expertise in different ways,” DIU Director Mike Brown said in a statement. “We are excited to see Rogue Squadron’s transition to DDS that will build and scale a powerful capability in DOD.”