Federal Drive with Tom Temin

The National Security Agency is establishing a new “Artificial Intelligence Security Center” to help spur on the secure development and adoption of AI capabilities, and defend AI advancements from foreign adversaries. NSA Director and Cyber Command chief Gen. Paul Nakasone broke the news during an event at the National Press Club on Thursday. “The AI Security Center will become NSA’s focal point for leveraging foreign intelligence insights, contributing to the development of best practices guidelines, principles, evaluation methodology, and risk frameworks for AI security, with an end goal of promoting the secure development, integration, and adoption of AI capabilities within our national security systems and our defense industrial base,” Nakasone said. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Congressman Gerry Connolly couldn’t wait any longer for the Republican majority to jump on the FITARA bandwagon. The Virginia Democrat and ranking member of the House Oversight and Accountability Subcommittee on cybersecurity, IT and innovation handed out grades under the 16th iteration of the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) scorecard today with agencies earning 3 “As”, 16 “Bs” and 5 “Cs.” Connolly is holding a FITARA roundtable this afternoon on Capitol Hill featuring testimony from the Government Accountability Office, the General Services Administration, the Social Security Administration and the departments of State, Veterans Affairs and Commerce. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Every public institution needs an outside, independent look from time to time to make sure it's meeting its mission with integrity. But if you’re they biggest and most trusted government auditing organization in the country, who audits you? It turns out it is teams from other countries. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) just underwent a peer review by a team made up of auditors from Sweden, Norway, Canada and New Zealand. GAO “passed” – which is actually the highest score you can get. Ben Nelson is GAO’s managing director for quality and continuous improvement. He joined Federal News Network Deputy Director Jared Serbu to talk about what GAO learned from that latest round of outside scrutiny. GAO Report link Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The National Archives doesn’t hang on to every document the government generates – only the 5% or so that are deemed to have “continuing value”. But that’s still billions of pages of text, plus all kinds of other media, from maps to electronic records. There’s a new official in charge of figuring out how to preserve and present those records to the public. Dr. Colleen Shogun was confirmed by the Senate this summer as the eleventh National Archivist of the United States, and the first woman ever to serve in that role. She spoke about her vision for NARA with Federal News Network Deputy Director Jared Serbu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

To the surprise of just about everybody, the Federal Government is fully functional this Monday, October 2, 2023. Some surprise last-minute votes in both the House and Senate on Saturday happened just in time to get a continuing resolution (CR)to the president’s desk – just hours before much of the government was set to run out of appropriations. That CR will maintain 2023 funding levels for the next 45 days – now 44 days. Loren Duggan is deputy news director and director of legislative analysis at Bloomberg Government. He worked well in to the weekend to have this conversation with Federal News Network Deputy Director Jared Serbu. Duggan and Serbu had a "recap discussion" and took a look ahead to the next 6 weeks or so. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As of Sunday, 1.5 million federal civilian employees and 2 million servicemembers got the news they were hoping for: House and Senate leaders reached a deal to keep the government open. The last several weeks of anxiety, hopefully, melted away among federal employees and contractors as President Joe Biden signed the 45-day continuing resolution ensuring the missions continue and people get paid. The emotional toll of preparing for a shutdown, of potentially being furloughed, of your routine being interrupted and the spending all the time and energy to close down the mission you love — or at least like on most days — can be just as taxing. And this physical and emotional toll of preparing for a shutdown is a huge test for any public or private sector manager and leader. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Senior officials at the National Science Foundation plan to cut the salaries of several hundred employees starting in January. NSF leaders made the announcement to staff after learning that the agency, in violation of federal law, has been overpaying some of its scientists, engineers and program directors for the last six years. Approximately 315 NSF employees on levels 4 and 5 of the Administratively Determined (AD) pay scale will see cuts to their salaries take effect on or after Jan. 14, NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan and Chief Operating Officer Karen Marrongelle said Thursday in an email to agency employees, obtained by Federal News Network. “We recognize pay is a personal issue and can have a significant impact on people’s day-to-day lives,” Panchanathan and Marrongelle said in the email. “We value all of our staff’s contributions and their dedication to our agency and mission, and dedicated a significant amount of time and resources to try and get the best possible outcome in this difficult situation.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A new contract awarded to Discseel® Technologies by the Veterans Affairs Department, tasks the company with training physicians to perform a new, non-surgical spine procedure - to all Department of Defense and V.A. hospitals in the United States and overseas. For more on what is called the Disceel procedure, Federal Drive Executive Producer spoke to its creator, Dr. Kevin Pauza, who is also Chief Medical Adviser and Director of Discseel® Technologies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Recently, MITRE and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released the Open-Sourced Extension of MITRE's Caldera platform, specifically for operational technology. This is meant to be utilized by security teams to run automated adversary emulation exercises that are specifically focused on threats to operational technology. Federal Drive Executive Producer Eric White got the chance to speak with two of the people who helped build it: Alex Reniers, Chief of the Industrial Controls Systems section within CISA's Cybersecurity Division and John Wunder, the Department Manager of CTI and Adversary Emulation for the MITRE Corporation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Let's face it, the IRS is not necessarily the most popular agency. But while most just grouse about having to deal with it, some take it to an even more harmful level, by making and acting on threats of physically harming IRS agents. So what processes are in place for agents to report these people? A recent audit by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), looked to answer that question. To learn what it found, Federal Drive Executive Producer Eric White spoke with Kent Sagara, who is the Acting Manager of TIGTA's Office of Inspections and Evaluations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today's episode of the Federal Drive with Tom Temin: How much training is there for IRS agents facing the threat of physical harm? A new way for organizations to launch cyber attacks against themselves. VA and the Pentagon look to take advantage of a new spinal procedure for those injured in the line of duty. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is preparing to furlough more than 80% of its workforce under a government shutdown, potentially leaving the lead U.S. cyber agency with a skeleton crew to initially respond to attacks on the networks of federal agencies and critical infrastructure. The Department of Homeland Security’s plan for a “lapse in appropriations,” updated today, shows CISA estimates it would retain 571 employees out of the 3,117 it had onboard as of mid-June. Those “excepted” staff would be required to work during a government shutdown, while the rest would be furloughed. Unless Congress acts in the coming days, funding for DHS and most other agencies expires at 12:01 a.m. Sunday, shutting down the government. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today's episode of the Federal Drive with Tom Temin: A potential shutdown couldn't come at a worst time for Medicaid. Details on how the census actually causes distribution of federal funds. Meet the team leaders behind last year's successful fusion experiment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For more on this discussion visit https://federalnewsnetwork.com/federaldrive It didn't last very long, but scientists at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) did run a test that resulted in nuclear fusion late last year. Fusion means the reaction put out more energy than the input to produce it. The proof of concept got lots of acclaim. And it produced finalists in the Service to America Medals program. Federal Drive Host Tom Temin spoke with those Sammies finalists: Dr. Sarah Nelson, Director of NNSA's Defense Programs Office and Dr. Samantha Calkins, Program Manager for High Density and Ignition Science. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How often have you heard it said: The census count determines how much federal money a state, county or city will get. Data analysis by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) shows that supposition is not quite as simple as it sounds. For more, Federal Drive Host Tom Temin spoke with POGO senior policy analyst Sean Moulton. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices