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SIIA Alert: Government Shutdown Looming — How Government Contractors Should Prepare

September 20, 2013 By

With Congress and the President seemingly at loggerheads over federal spending, there is an increasing possibility that the federal government will shut down on October 1 when the funding for the current fiscal year expires.   While we’ve been down this road before, each of the last 3 years for example, prudent business planning suggests that government contractors should be preparing themselves in the event there is a shut down.

What’s the status?  Congress has failed to enact any of the 12 annual appropriations bills for FY 2014 and the current fiscal year funding is set to expire at midnight on October 1, meaning funding for the entire federal government is at stake.  On September 20, 2013 the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government through December 15.  Also included in this legislation was language defunding the so-called Obamacare health care plan.  The Democrat-controlled Senate is expected to strip the language defunding Obamacare and send the bill back to the House.  This sets up a potential gridlock situation and it is unclear if either side is willing to budge.

Why does this matter?  As a government contractor you need to be prepared in the event of a shutdown, since funding for many if not all of your current contracts may be affected.  Your employees are reading the news and they know the potential and they want to know their leadership is making contingency plans.

What should you do?  OMB has sent a memo to government agencies telling them to prepare for a shutdown and prudent business planning suggests you need to be ready too.  Here’s a quick checklist of things you should be doing and thinking about related to a potential shutdown:

  1. Be Proactive:  Don’t sit back and let the rumors swirl, take charge of the situation within your company.
  2. Communicate:  Communicate honestly, early and often with your employees about what you know and what you expect will happen if the government shuts down.  Make sure your company speaks with “one voice.” This will keep misinformation (i.e. rumors of furloughs and layoffs) to a minimum.
  3. Understand Your Contracts:  Review your current contracts to understand which will be affected in the event of a shutdown and which will continue.  Projects funded by revolving funds for example won’t be affected.
  4. Gather Intelligence:  Gather as much intelligence as possible by talking to industry partners and trade associations and having your engagement managers talk to their contracting officers and COTRs, i.e. the client.
  5. Set Up a War Room:  Set up a formal process inside your company to monitor developments related to the potential shutdown, a “war room” if you will.  Be ready to kick it into high gear if a shutdown occurs.

Let’s all keep our fingers crossed and hope that Congress and the President are able to work out an agreement that keeps the government open and operating beyond October 1, while preparing yourselves for a potential shutdown through effective communication with your employees and smart business planning. Contact me at mhettinger@siia.net or (202) 789-4456 with any questions.

Michael Hettinger is VP for the Public Sector Innovation Group (PSIG) at SIIA. Follow his PSIG tweets at @SIIAPSIG. Sign up for the Public Sector Innovation Roundup email newsletter for weekly updates.

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Filed Under: Government, PSIG, Software

Public Sector Innovation Roundup

September 19, 2013 By

Potential Government Shutdown Looms Large: With Congress back in town, the talk of a potential government shutdown has really picked up in the last few weeks. House Speaker Boehner put together a short term continuing resolution to fund the government through December 15th, with a companion resolution to defund Obamacare but was forced to pull it from the schedule amid concerns by some republicans that the Obamacare provision was not included in the bill itself. That puts the issue back to the drawing board with less than two weeks to go before the end of the fiscal year. It seems like the situation is changing daily or in some cases hourly as Speaker Boehner and other leaders in Congress try to find a way to avoid a shutdown while battling over Obamacare, spending cuts and the debt ceiling. Reuters has a good report from Wednesday on the latest plan.

NIST Recommends Not Using NSA-Influenced Standards: The National Institute for Standards and Technology is now strongly recommending against using encryption standards that leaked documents show were effectively weakened by the NSA. NIST has also now launched an effort to revise the standards, published in Special Publication 800-90A, 800-90B and 800-90C, by reopening them for comment. The original standards were published in 2006. FCW has a good report.

DOD to Mandate Move to Enterprise Email: DOD CIO Teri Takai, in a memo to component agencies on September 5th indicated that the time had come for them to stop running their own email systems and move to an enterprise environment. According to the memo, components have 120 days to draw up plans to migrate their current email to enterprise email. Prior to the memo, DOD agencies had been allowed to make their own determination as to whether or not they would move email to the department’s private cloud, operated by DISA. DOD has potentially more than two million email users. Here’s Takai’s memo.

Obama to Nominate New Deputy Director for Management: President Obama finally got around to announcing a new Deputy Director for Management at OMB, a position that has been filled in an acting capacity by Federal CIO Steven VanRoekel since May when Jeff Zients left the government. The nominee, Beth Cobert, comes to the Administration from McKinsey and Company where she has been for nearly 20 years. On another personnel note, Zients is already on his way back into government, being named as the replacement for Gene Sperling as Director of the National Economic Council. Here’s the latest on the Beth Cobert announcement via Federal Times.

New CIOs to be Nominated for DHS and FEMA: FCW is reporting that President Obama is set to name Luke McCormack, currently CIO at the Justice Department as the new CIO at DHS and Adrian Gardner, currently CIO at NASA Goddard as the CIO at FEMA. McCormack would be filling the spot left vacant earlier this year when Richard Spires left DHS amid some confusion over the reasons for his departure. Here’s the FCW report: http://fcw.com/articles/2013/09/17/mccormack-gardner-dhs-cio.aspx

GSA Official to be FTC CIO: In other personnel news, Bajinder Paul, currently Deputy Associate Administrator in GSA’s Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies will be leaving GSA to become CIO at the FTC. A long time government technology official, Paul had previously been CIO at the OCC and Deputy CIO at HUD. Fedscoop has the scoop.

Michael Hettinger is VP for the Public Sector Innovation Group (PSIG) at SIIA. Follow his PSIG tweets at @SIIAPSIG. Sign up for the Public Sector Innovation Roundup email newsletter for weekly updates.

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Filed Under: PSIG

Public Sector Innovation Roundup

September 5, 2013 By

White House Moving Forward on Open Data Initiative: According to a blog post earlier this week from Nick Sinai, the federal government’s Deputy Chief Technology Officer, the Obama Administration is moving forward with the open data initiative announced earlier this year and continues to seek the public’s input on how to improve transparency, what types on information should be released and how open data can enhance government services. The White House is accepting comments on this through September 23rd. See the full blog post on the Open Data Initiative website here.

IBM Issues Guide to Federal Acquisition: Earlier this week the IBM Center for the Business of Government released a report by Trevor Brown of the Ohio State University entitled A Guide for Agency Leaders on Federal Acquisition: Major Challenges Facing Government. The report is viewed as a how-to guide designed to assist government executives with understanding the federal procurement process, one of the most complex processes in the government and one that has put more than one agency leader in an uncomfortable position. The report aims to answer eight key questions about federal procurement, believing that a better understanding of the process is the key to a successful tenure for agency leadership. Read the full report here.

NARA Focused on Email Archiving: The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) launched a new initiative for email management known as Capstone. The goal of the program according to NARA is to make it easier for agencies to archive the millions of emails generated annually by federal employees. Capstone will help agencies meet the requirements of the OMB Managing Government Records Directive including complying with the December 2016 deadline. FedNewsRadio has a report.

Budget Uncertainty Hurting Feds and Contractors Alike: Rep. Gerry Connolly told “In Depth with Francis Rose” this week that the budget uncertainty, and the prospect of a short term continuing resolution, coupled with issues like the debt ceiling and the long term impact of sequestration is having a strongly negative impact on the federal government as well as contractors, as agencies hold back on making long term contract commitments. The result is an overall slowdown in federal investment and a general nervousness in the contracting community over what the next few months will bring. See the full report from FedNewsRadio here.

Michael Hettinger is VP for the Public Sector Innovation Group (PSIG) at SIIA. Follow his PSIG tweets at @SIIAPSIG. Sign up for the Public Sector Innovation Roundup email newsletter for weekly updates.

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Public Sector Innovation Roundup

August 30, 2013 By

OASIS Protest Dropped: US Falcon, one of two companies that had protested the RFP for GSA’s $60 billion OASIS GWAC said this week that the issue on which the protest had been based — essentially how past performance would be evaluated for companies that had changed ownership — had been resolved and the protest withdraw. The other OASIS protest, filed by AAIC, was ordered to move ahead last week under the original schedule, when a GSA official rejected the Office of General Counsel’s motion to dismiss. FCW has a full report.

FedRAMP Adds Akamai Content Delivery to list of approved CSPs: FedRAMP announced this week that it had added another approved CSP to the FedRAMP repository, Akamai Content Delivery Services. This approval brings the number of FedRAMP approved CSPs to eight. Akamai’s globally distributed intelligent platform providing delivery benefits for all content types, including HTML, images, dynamic Web 2.0, SSL, live and on-demand streaming media is now available for agencies to leverage. Knowledge Consulting Group (KCG) acted as the 3PAO. More info.

Amazon to be major player in Interior cloud contract: While Amazon Web Services was not included as a prime contract holder in the recently awarded $10 billion foundation cloud hosting services contract at the Department of Interior they are still expected to be a major player. According to this report in FCW, AWS is part of the proposed contract offerings of no fewer than five of the 10 contract awardees, with two of the awardees — Aquilent and Smartronix — being premier AWS partners.

U.S. to hit debt ceiling in mid-October: The Department of Treasury announced this week that it had exhausted the extraordinary measures it has been using to delay hitting the debt ceiling and said that the Congress will need to increase the borrowing limit by mid-October or risk the U.S. government defaulting on its financial obligations. This sets up an expected fight between Congress and the Obama Administration over spending cuts and the need to increase the borrowing limit and will come quickly on the heels of Congress having to address the annual appropriations bills and/or the need for a Continuing Resolution to keep the government running past September 30th. This is sure to get interesting with Congress only in session for nine legislative days in September. Roll Call has a report.

Michael Hettinger is VP for the Public Sector Innovation Group (PSIG) at SIIA. Follow his PSIG tweets at @SIIAPSIG. Sign up for the Public Sector Innovation Roundup email newsletter for weekly updates.

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Filed Under: Policy, PSIG Tagged With: , , ,

Public Sector Innovation Roundup

August 22, 2013 By

Postal Service Picks Vendor to Run Cloud Credential Exchange: This week the U.S. Postal Service announced that it has awarded a 1-year, $2.4 million contract to SecureKey Technologies to develop the Federal Cloud Credential Exchange (FCCX). The contract allows for two additional one-year extensions which could bring the total value of the contract to $15 million. FCCX is an outgrowth of the White House’s National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC). Under the terms of the contract, SecureKey is to develop cloud-based hub that allows users to utilize third-party credentials to securely access multiple federal websites and services. See FCW for more.

NASA Releases SEWP V RFP with China Sourcing Language: It’s been a fairly busy summer for big IT contract watchers, between EAGLE II awards, the OASIS RFP and now SEWP V. This week NASA released the long-awaited formal RFP for its Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V government-wide acquisition contract, expected to be worth at least $20 billion with a base term of 5 years and the potential for 5 option years. SEWP V will replace SEWP IV, which currently boasts 38 contract holders. Overall SEWP vendors provide wide range of advanced technology including tablets, desktops and servers, as well as network equipment, security tools, software products and cloud-based services. In an interesting twist, the RFP includes language extending Sec. 516 of the FY2013 continuing resolution which requires a risk assessment of IT hardware or software manufactured or assembled by “entities that are owned, directed or subsidized by the People’s Republic of China.” This provision would potentially extend that requirement through the life of SEWP (2024 if all option years are exercised) and is something that industry is concerned about and will be watching closely. Responses are due October 14th with questions due September 16th. See more on SEWP V including the full RFP here.

White House Adds Additional Detail to Open Data Policy: Earlier this week, the White House released a supplemental guide to its open data memorandum (OMB Memorandum M-13-13) originally released back in May. The new guide seeks to provide additional clarification to help agencies effectively implement the five main objectives of the earlier memo which include: creating an inventory of enterprise data assets, creating a listing of public data, creating a customer engagement process to help prioritize what data to release, documenting if data cannot be released and clarifying the roles and responsibilities for the effective release of data to the public. Under the memo, agencies have to meet these initial goals by November 1st. See the supplemental guidance here: http://project-open-data.github.io/implementation-guide/ Schneck Appointed to DHS Cyber Post: Former McAfee Vice President and Public Sector CTO, Phyllis Schneck has been appointed as the new Deputy Undersecretary for Cyber Security at DHS, filling a key position that has been without a permanent leader since Mark Weatherford left DHS for the Chertoff Group over a year ago. Schneck is expected to start sometime in September and will have her hands full as DHS is coordinating the implementation of the President’s Cyber Security Executive Order and trying to expand its internal cyber capabilities. See more here from Softpedia.

Government Shutdown Corner: Even though Congress is still out of town for the August recess, there continues to be talk of what will happen when they come back as it relates to funding the government beyond the end of the fiscal year. While no one knows for sure, if recent history is any judge it will come down to the last minute. That said, there’s a lot of speculation as to who wins and who loses if there is a government shutdown. Politico has the latest.

Michael Hettinger is VP for the Public Sector Innovation Group (PSIG) at SIIA. Follow his PSIG tweets at @SIIAPSIG. Sign up for the Public Sector Innovation Roundup email newsletter for weekly updates.

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Filed Under: PSIG

Serious Business Challenges Posed by NSA Surveillance Revelations

August 20, 2013 By

Recent revelations about the National Security Agency’s (NSA) surveillance efforts have clearly changed the privacy landscape for the remainder of 2013, if not much longer. This is a complex policy issue with very broad implications.

Importantly for SIIA members, it is one that poses the following serious business challenges:  (1) enhanced privacy concerns among customers around the world, (2) policymakers around the world seeking to restrict the cross-border flow of data and enact technology localization requirements, and (3) conflation of private sector data collection with government surveillance as an inseparable public-private partnership that necessitates strict new commercial privacy legislation or regulations—FTC Commission Julie Brill has recently made this connection in an op-ed, which has also come from influential thought-leaders such as former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta.

As a preliminary assessment, the Information Technology Innovation Foundation (ITIF) estimates that the U.S. cloud computing industry alone could lose up to $35 billion over the next three years if foreign customers decide the risks of storing data with a U.S. company outweigh the benefits.

SIIA has been very engaged in policy debates surrounding this issue for several months, and we expect to remain highly engaged to combat these challenges for months to come.  Recently, SIIA President Ken Wash was invited to a meeting at the White House in early August, which was one of several consultations leading up to the President’s call for reforms to NSA programs on August 9.

As a follow-up to the discussion with Administration officials and the SIIA this week joined with other leading technology trade associations in sending a letter to Administration officials urging that discussions about national security must be kept separate from conversations about commercial privacy issues, as the policy considerations in these two areas are distinct. In the letter, SIIA and industry partner organizations made the following recommendations for action that are likely to frame our priorities for the remainder of 2013:

  1. Implement transparency with respect to national security programs – in order to separate fact from fiction regarding the intersection of private sector IT companies and the U.S. Government, it is critical that the Administration enhance transparency and enable companies to share information publicly about the scope and frequency of Government inquiries;
  2. Promote policies that allow for unimpeded cross-border data flows such as the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor Framework – We are already seeing that longstanding and effective cross-border data mechanisms are being questioned in light of the recent disclosures about the U.S. government surveillance programs. For instance, recent statements by government officials in the EU indicate a lack of “trust” in the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor framework, which allows for the transfer of information from the EU to the U.S. for participating companies. This is one of many critical policies that facilitate digital trade for U.S. companies, and it is critical that U.S. government must vigorously engage with the international community to promote cross-border data flows while addressing privacy and civil liberties concerns; and
  3. Support reforming the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) to enhance privacy in law enforcement investigations – SIIA has been a leading supporter of ECPA, seeking to update the outdated statue by correcting the double-standard that inappropriately provides for a lower level of privacy for communications stored remotely, or “in the cloud.” Currently, the law provides for a challenging legal environment for industry and a disincentive for customers to embrace hosted information and communications technology solutions as an alternative to on-premise solutions.

SIIA believes that these are critical steps to ensuring that concerns about U.S. Government surveillance do not impose an unnecessary impediment to U.S. information technology businesses.  We are also closely monitoring a range of proposals in Congress that would seek to enhance transparency surrounding U.S. Government surveilance.  The  Surveillance Transparency Act of 2013 (S.1452) was introduced by Senator Al Franken on August 1st, 2013, and the Surveillance Order Reporting Act of 2013 (H.R.3035) was introduced by Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren on August 2nd, 2013.  SIIA has not endorsed any bill at this point, but the Lofgren-Franken approach goes in the right direction by allowing companies to reveal how many national security requests they have received, how many they have complied with and how many users or accounts are affected.

We will continue to focus heavily on this critical issue to promote the ability of U.S. businesses to thrive in the U.S. and markets around the world.  To that end, we will provide further updates regarding new developments.

David LeDuc is Senior Director, Public Policy at SIIA. He focuses on e-commerce, privacy, cyber security, cloud computing, open standards, e-government and information policy. Follow the SIIA public policy team on Twitter at @SIIAPubPolicy.

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Filed Under: Content, Education, Education Policy, Policy, Policy - Privacy, PSIG, Software Tagged With: , ,

Public Sector Innovation Roundup

August 19, 2013 By

DOD aiming for 30-day approval for mobile devices: The Department of Defense announced this week that it is overhauling its process for approving mobile phones, tablets and apps aiming to get new technologies in the hands of personnel quicker. Under the new policy, DOD hopes to be able to approve new technologies within 30 days. To speed the process DOD is working with industry to ensure that devices are built to DOD standards. This action follows the awarding of a mobile device management contract in June. DOD expects the process to be fully operational by April. Federal Times has a report.

DHS adds 18 to EAGLE II: DHS announced this week it has added 18 new companies to the EAGLE II contract, 11 for business and technical management and 7 for service delivery. Each EAGLE II contract comes with a 5 year base period of performance with 2 options years. Overall EAGLE II is expected to be worth approximately $22 billion over the life of the contract. See GovConWire for more.

OASIS RFP Protested: In procurement news, there have been two protests related to the release of the GSA OASIS RFP a couple of weeks ago, one filed with GAO challenging the terms of the solicitation and another filed at the agency level challenging the evaluation criteria. GAO said it will rule on the protest by October 18th and under the FAR agency-level protests must be dealt with in 35 days. Questions on the RFP are due August 20th and responses due September 17th. FedNewsRadio reports.

DHS awards continuous monitoring BPA: DHS award 17 companies a spot on the new continuous monitoring and diagnostics contract, which could be worth up to $6 billion. Under the terms of the award companies can provide tools, hardware and software, designed to implement continuous monitoring as a service (CMaaS) at civilian agencies. See FedNewsRadio for more, including a list of BPA winners.

MyUSA.gov moving forward: MyUSA.gov, a personalized web services portal for citizen interaction with government moved closer to reality as GSA released a notice in the Federal Register seeking comments regarding information collection related to the program. The program itself is being developed by the Presidential Innovation Fellows Program and was included in a July 8th speech by President Obama announcing his plans for a new management agenda, designed to leverage technology to drive government innovation. See the Federal Register Notice here.

Michael Hettinger is VP for the Public Sector Innovation Group (PSIG) at SIIA. Follow his PSIG tweets at @SIIAPSIG. Sign up for the Public Sector Innovation Roundup email newsletter for weekly updates.

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