As we work with the Administration on implementation, a priority for our industry will be to avoid rigid regulations that impede the innovation that is essential for effective cybersecurity.

A regulatory approach seeking to cover a broad, rapidly-evolving cross-section of industry would have the unintended consequence of slowing technological innovation and limiting our collective cybersecurity preparedness. Therefore, it is essential that the Administration work with industry to implement the Executive Order in a way that retains necessary flexibility. Technological innovation must be allowed keep up with rapid developments pertaining to both cybersecurity threats and protections.

To that end, we look forward to continuing to work closely with the Administration and congressional leaders to implement this policy.

Ken Wasch is President of SIIA. Follow the SIIA Policy team on Twitter at @SIIAPolicy.

A key theme unifying the work of SIIA on behalf of its members is an increased focus on advancing the effective collection and positive use of data. It is essential that public policy recognizes that innovation and business strategies are increasingly driven by data. Importantly, data-driven innovation not only holds the promise of advancing economic opportunity and jobs, but of providing tremendous consumer and societal benefits.

With so much at stake, SIIA is committed to actively promoting the economic and social value of data-driven innovation. Our efforts will involve direct outreach to legislators, along with a White Paper that includes recommendations for policymakers and governments. Our goal is to make certain that public policy helps enable the tremendous societal and economic benefits of data-driven innovation.

With members in both technology and information services, SIIA is uniquely positioned to highlight and address the public policy issues that arise from the increased salience of data-driven innovation. We began to focus more strongly on this issue in 2012, and it will be an even more important part of our work in 2013.

SIIA also announced its general tech policy priorities for 2013, along with policy priorities in the areas of: intellectual property; public sector IT, and; education technology.

Technology Policy Priorities

• Promote and enable the economic and social value of data-driven innovation, including through a White Paper with recommendations for policymakers and governments.
• Actively support voluntary, enforceable codes of conduct to provide enhanced data privacy protections, and oppose legislative and regulatory proposals that lack the flexibility to accommodate rapid technological innovation.
• Promote policies around the world that facilitate cross-border data flows, and develop interoperable legal frameworks that help to advance global implementation of cloud computing.
• Promote critical cybersecurity policies, in the U.S. and around the world, that will help the public and private sectors work together to more effectively mitigate this threat, without stifling innovation.

Intellectual Property Priorities

• Protect the economic interests and creative rights of software and content publishers by responding as appropriate to the Supreme Court opinion in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons Inc. and any other cases, policies or legislation relating to the copyright law’s first sale exception/exhaustion principle that may unduly limit their ability to license and control the distribution of their software and content products
• Encourage economic growth and innovation by working for further reform of the patent system to address the ongoing problem of patent trolls, including measures to restrict asymmetric discovery burdens.
• Monitor the ICANN’s domain name expansion process with the goal of enhancing and strengthening online transparency and accountability by working to ensure that domain name and IP address Whois databases remain publicly accessible, accurate, and reliable, as key tools to combat online infringement of copyrights and trademarks, and other fraudulent or criminal acts online.
• Actively monitor for, and act upon as necessary, hearings, legislative or regulatory copyright reform proposals in the United States and abroad, such as issues relating to orphan works, library exceptions and piracy, to ensure that they advance and do not adversely affect the copyright interests of SIIA members.
• Oppose changes to the CFAA that would unduly limit the ability of SIIA members to deter and prevent unauthorized access – and access that exceeds authorized access to databases, subscription services and cloud services.
• Ensure that any international treaty relating to copyright exceptions for the blind and visually impaired that may be adopted by WIPO includes adequate safeguards to protect the copyright interests of SIIA’s publishers.

Public Sector IT Priorities

• Encourage Administration IT initiatives for federal agencies to be more open, transparent and efficient, delivering better services to citizens, while reducing the overall cost of government. Information Technology has and will continue to play a role in the Federal government’s effort to deliver better services to citizens, while reducing the overall cost of government.
• Support a continuation of the effort to move agencies to cloud, consolidate the existing data center infrastructure and better leverage government data.
• Advocate for key administration initiatives that support the overall mission of the SIIA Public Sector Innovation Group including: Cloud First, Big Data, Data Center Consolidation, Digital Government/Mobile, and FedRAMP.
• Support reasonable reform of the Federal acquisition process, which needs to change to keep pace with the rapid pace of technology.
• Intervene to support member interest in the legislative consideration of the proposal by Chairman Daryl Issa to reform federal IT acquisition, which will serve as a basis for a broader discussion around the need to improve IT acquisition to keep pace with technology in 2013.

Ed Tech Priorities

• Seek increased investment in education technology and its integration into teaching and learning, including to personalize learning for each student.
• Reform outdated regulations in favor of 21st Century e-learning policies, especially the shift from seat-time to anytime, everywhere competency-based learning.
• Support education technology research and development through government-industry partnership, not government competition with the private sector.
• Support the value of the for-profit sector in providing education products and services to public schools, agencies and institutions.
• Encourage targeted STEM education, training and other workforce development policies to meet the economy’s needs for a skilled high-tech workforce.
• Actively translate public policies, programs and regulations into actionable market intelligence for SIIA members.

Ken Wasch is President of SIIA.

DHS Releases Continuous Monitoring RFQ:  In cybersecurity news, DHS, working through GSA, released a final RFQ this week seeking bids to meet requirements  of the new Continuous Diagnostic and Mitigation program and for continuous monitoring as-a-service.  The BPA includes 15 tools and 11 task areas aimed at improving DHS’s IT security.  The BPA has an estimated value of $6 billion and responses are due January 28, 2013. Federal News Radio has the details.

PSIG Members Featured in 10^th Anniversary of the E-Gov Act Event:  This week marked the 10^th anniversary of the E-Gov Act and SIIA PSIG Members Doug Bourgeois of VMware, Mark Forman of Government Transaction Services and David Mihalchik of Google all were featured prominently in the event marking the anniversary.  Other SIIA members were included as well, including Dan Chenok of IBM and former Congressman Tom Davis, now of Deloitte.  C Span covered the event, which focused on the advances made in government technology since passage of the E-Gov Act.  See the video here.

 Appian Receives FISMA Moderate Certification from GSA:  Appian announced this week that it had received FISMA moderate certification from the General Services Administration for a major business process management application, built on Appian Cloud.  Appian Cloud is built on Amazon Web Services.  See the press release for more information.

Federal News Radio to host live chat with CBP CIO:  Our friends at Federal News Radio are hosting a live chat on January 3^rd at 11am with DHS Customs and Border Protection CIO Charlie Armstrong and are encouraging interested parties to submit questions in advance.  See the link for more details.

Michael Hettinger is VP for the Public Sector Innovation Group (PSIG) at SIIA. Follow his PSIG tweets at @SIIAPSIG.

GSA pulls the plug on Apps.gov: The federal government pulled the plug on Apps.gov this week. The cloud application storefront, which was the brainchild of former Federal CIO, Vivek Kundra, was intended to provide a one-stop-shop for cloud apps for the federal government and make it easier for federal IT personnel to acquire cloud services. The initiative never took off as intended. GSA didn’t give a reason for decommissioning the initiative, but noted that everything that was available through Apps.gov, would still be available through Schedule 70. Information Week has a story.

NextGov Prime highlights procurement reform, big data: NextGov held its first-ever Prime Conference at the Ronald Reagan Building this week. The event included a keynote panel featuring Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and Rep. Gerry Connelly (D-VA), ranking member of the panel’s Technology Subcommittee, two leaders pushing an update to the 1996 Clinger-Cohen Act. The intent of the legislation, which SIIA has been tracking closely and which is expected to be introduced early in the next Congress, is to improve the speed and efficiency of federal IT purchasing. FCW has the wrap up. The event also had a heavy focus on big data and how data analytics can make the government more effective. FCW covers that angle as well.

Michael Hettinger is VP for the Public Sector Innovation Group (PSIG) at SIIA. Follow his PSIG tweets at @SIIAPSIG.

Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed Chairman Leahy’s (D-VT) ECPA reform legislation (Electronic Communications Privacy Act) with strong bipartisan support. The revised proposal passed with minimal amendments, in what was a huge victory for SIIA members and a wide range of supporters, as it was the first official strong bipartisan showing of support for legislation to level the playing field for access to remotely-stored email and electronic communications. While the next step for the legislation is uncertain in the waning days of the 112th Congress, at minimum it provides an excellent starting point for enacting legislation next year.

Continuing to move forward with targeted privacy proposals, Chairman Leahy has scheduled a markup of the Location Privacy Protection Act of 2011 (S.1223), legislation that would require app providers to seek affirmative “opt-in” consent from consumers before using their location information. This is another proposal that is unlikely to advance this year, but it is likely to draw broad support and put additional pressure on the NTIA-led multistakeholder discussions that have been ongoing since July.

Major Trade Talks Continue with Little Fanfare, Overshadowed by World Telecom Conference

While much of the world is focused on the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) taking place in Dubai this week, the 15th round of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks launched yesterday, where officials from the 11 countries participating in the negotiations will try to move toward the goal set by some TPP leaders last month of completing the deal by the end of next year. Intellectual property rights are one of the key issues of interest to the technology community during the ongoing trade talks.

Additionally, in the multilateral arena, World Trade Organization members this week will engage on a wide range of topics, including government procurement, the status of the Doha round and the race to select a new WTO chief. Current Director-General Pascal Lamy will step down next September, and Dec. 1 marked the date WTO members could begin formally submitting names for candidates to succeed him.

SIIA Internet Governance Event This Week

Just a reminder, this Thursday, Dec. 6, SIIA is cosponsoring an event with GW University and several other groups to examine how countries use trade policy to advance cross border information flows, and how these trade discussions could impact Internet freedom. SIIA’s Mark MacCarthy will moderate a panel on the challenges associated with IPR, Privacy and Internet Freedom.

All of this bodes well for “innovation” and we expect to see a continuation of the effort to move agencies to cloud computing, consolidate the existing data center infrastructure and better leverage government data. We also expect to see a continued focus on performance and mission-oriented goals and increased attention paid to the need to reform federal IT procurement.

As for federal IT personnel, we know there will be changes at the agency CIO level and probably at other places like GSA and OMB where federal IT policy is driven – we just don’t know what they are yet. All indications are that Federal CIO Steven VanRoekel is planning to stick around for a while as should Federal CTO Todd Park (pure speculation on my part, but I haven’t heard anything to the contrary). We know that President Obama will have to appoint a permanent OMB Director sooner rather than later and that could trigger a reshuffling of some responsibilities and priorities at OMB.

On Capitol Hill, there will be a significant change to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee leadership, as current HSGAC Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-CT) retires and current Ranking Member Susan Collins (R-ME) has to step down as RM because of term limits. Tom Carper (D-DE) appears to be in line to be Chairman and Tom Coburn (R-OK) to be Ranking Member. Both Carper and Coburn have focused in the past on reducing government waste and maximizing the efficiency and effectiveness of government, so we can anticipate some focus there. Sen. Carper’s ascension to the Chairmanship, along with Sen. Coburn’s new role leaves vacancies on the Federal Financial Management Subcommittee. Sen. Brown’s (R-MA) reelection loss and Sen. Akaka’s retirement leave a couple of other subcommittee spots to be filled. Other members of the Senate who can play a key role in government technology are Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) and newly elected Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), both of whom represent the tech heavy Commonwealth of Virginia.

The House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee will be more stable than its Senate counterpart with Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) remaining Chairman and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) remaining as Ranking Member of the full committee. The key Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and Procurement will continue to be led by Rep. James Lankford (R-OK), with Gerry Connelly (D-VA) likely to remain as Ranking Member.

The Government Reform Committees are going to play a significant role in the look and shape of federal IT over the next two years as Chairmen Issa and Lankford move forward with legislation to reform federal IT acquisition. The bill, known as the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) which has yet to be introduced seeks to empower federal CIOs and speed the acquisition process. This bill will likely draw a lot of the federal IT community’s attention next year and I expect Rep. Connelly to play a key role in this debate, with his newly drawn 11th Congressional District heavily populated by tech contractors.

Michael Hettinger is VP for the Public Sector Innovation Group (PSIG) at SIIA. Follow his PSIG tweets at @SIIAPSIG.

EPA Awards Contract for Email, Collaboration in the Cloud: On October 31st, EPA awarded Microsoft and Lockheed Martin a $9.8 million contract to migrate existing EPA email and related applications to Microsoft 365, their cloud-based email and communication platform. Under the terms of the contract award more than 25,000 users will be transitioned to Microsoft Office 365 for Government, a new multi-tenant service that stores U.S. government data in a segregated community cloud and includes e-mail, calendars, scheduling and collaboration tools for internal and external use. See the press release here.

Next 4 Years to Bring Continued Innovation to Government IT: Nextgov has a profile on what the next four years will look like for Federal IT, regardless of who wins next week’s election. Their point and it’s an accurate one, is that four years ago as President Obama came into office, there was little discussion about cloud computing, agile development, mobile apps for agencies, or bring your own device. Today, agencies have moved mission-critical applications to the cloud and we continue to debate a host of key IT issues such as BYOD, collaboration and how to better empower federal CIOs. Read the full take from Nextgov.

Cloudy Election? Did you know that some states, including battleground states Virginia and Florida allowed residents of their state living overseas to cast their primary votes using LiveBallot, an online balloting website based on Microsoft’s cloud-computing platform? No word on whether or not the general election will allow that same technology. Information Week has the story from earlier this year.

Michael Hettinger is VP for the Public Sector Innovation Group (PSIG) at SIIA. Follow his PSIG tweets at @SIIAPSIG.

Watch the full segment:

The justices seemed fairly split on the case during the argument. Wiley’s counsel, Ted Olson, reiterated a critical point made in SIIA’s amicus brief – that there are many of exceptions in the Copyright Act, including the Fair Use Defense, which can be used to prevent the concerns raised by the appellant.

We believe that the First Sale Doctrine should not apply to materials made and sold overseas. It threatens to severely undermine U.S. companies’ ability to compete in foreign markets. Ultimately, we hope that the Court will be convinced by the very real argument that both publishers and consumers will face direct harm if our markets are allowed to be flooded with copyrighted material that was intended for purchase overseas. American consumers will be defrauded into buying products that may be inferior or otherwise very different from those intended for U.S. markets, while confronting higher prices in the long run. Meanwhile, consumers and students abroad will lose access to valuable U.S. resources that were created for them.

Laura Greenback is Communications Director at SIIA. Follow the SIIA Public Policy team at @SIIAPolicy.

• Organizational entrenchment and disruption
• Software-defined networks
• Bigger data and storage
• Hybrid cloud services
• Client and server architecture

For the full list see the report from Forbes.

Top IT Trends, Part II: Now that we know what the top overall IT trends are for the next five years, what can we expect for government in 2013? According to the Government Business Council, the research arm of GovExec, it’s more of what we have been seeing over the past couple of years. That means: cloud, big data, data center consolidation, mobility, cybersecurity and health IT. Read the full report here.

OMB reporting big savings from PortfolioStat: OMB savings estimates resulting from the coordinated effort to identify and eliminate wasteful IT spending across government will total $2.5B over 3 years as a result of PortfolioStat. The savings come by reducing federal commodity IT spending and leveraging innovative tools like big data to maximize the efficiency of existing IT resources. See more on the OMB blog.

Sequestration makes its way into final Presidential debate: As Washington continues to try and figure out the potential impact of “sequestration” on agency budgets, should Congress and the White House fail to reach a deal to avoid it, President Obama vowed Monday night that it would not happen. The proposed cuts, totaling $120B, which go into effect on January 2nd, are already reportedly slowing contracting by some agencies, as uncertainty causes concern. Politico has a story.

Michael Hettinger is VP for the Public Sector Innovation Group (PSIG) at SIIA. Follow his PSIG tweets at @SIIAPSIG.

George Washington University hosts discussion on Rep. Issa’s IT reform proposal: On Thursday, GWU’s Law School hosted an open discussion on House Oversight and Government Reform (OGR) Chairman Darrell Issa’s proposed reform of the 1996 Clinger-Cohen Act, which governs federal IT acquisition. The proposal, which is not expected to be introduced until early next year, would empower federal CIOs by giving them budget authority, as well as codifying a number of the Obama Administrations proposals from the 25 Point Plan to Reform Federal IT Management such as data center consolidation and FedRAMP. Ecommerce Times has a story. See the draft bill on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee site.

FedRAMP continues to make progress, news: FCW / 1105 Media released a report this week on the challenges of implementing the FedRAMP program. FedRAMP, which reached its initial operating capabilities in June has not yet approved a single Cloud Service Provider under the program. FedRAMP has approved 15 third party assessment organizations (3PAOS) to work with CSPs to meet the baseline control requirements and expects to grant provisional authorization to 3 CSPs by the end of this year. Read more with a link to the survey here.

Michael Hettinger is VP for the Public Sector Innovation Group (PSIG) at SIIA. Follow his PSIG tweets at @SIIAPSIG.