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Conflict of interest at DARPA being investigated by Department of Defense Inspector General (IG)
This is a fascinating look into conflict of interest within the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). According to the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) -- which always reminds me of Pogo the comic: "we have met the enemy and he is us" :-) -- they sent a letter to DARPA which prompted an investigation into DARPA Director Regina Dugan's possible conflict of interest in awarding contracts to a company she used to own and which is now run by her father:
The Department of Defense Inspector General (IG) is auditing the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and looking into financial ties of DARPA Director Regina Dugan after POGO called for an investigation into potential conflicts of interest at the agency. The audits will cover two areas: all of DARPA's contracts and grants from the last two years and a special look at the contracts awarded to RedXDefense, a bomb detection firm founded by Dugan and currently run by Dugan’s father. The Pentagon IG explained the audits in a letter to POGO sent on Friday. In addition to having family ties to the company, Dugan still has a financial relationship with RedXDefense. “RedXDefense owes Dugan $250,000 for a “loan/note” and additionally details that she has between $151,000 and $305,000 in assets and income from RedXDefense,” we said in a May 9, 2011, letter to the Department of Defense Inspector General.here's more explanation from Wired's Spencer Ackerman, who tracks these types of issues via the Wired Danger Room blog.
President Obama: there are too many .gov Web sites
Evidently, sharing government information with the public is "wasteful." While I'm all for spending tax dollars responsibly, and don't want the federal govt to waste dollars on superfluous and wasteful things (like $3 billion for duplicative engines for the F-35 fighter jet), I would prefer if he didn't use the printing of the Federal Register as an example of govt waste. As we noted in our earlier post:
Public Printer Bill Boarman, in a Mar. 17, 2011 Senate Appropriations hearing for the Government Printing Office, stated that 70% of the cost and work of publishing the Congressional Record is done in pre-press, and many of the same duties necessary to publish it in print are still necessary to put it out digitally.While it is true that many more people these days access government information (including the Federal Register) in digital format, there is still a need for print from both a usability and preservation standpoint. Gary Price points out some of the incongruities with the White House's line of reasoning regarding .gov domain:
More from the White House blog post:Our point here is not to say that what’s being discussed is 100% wrong but rather if considerations about many issues (several noted above) are in place about how to proceed going forward?
- Top-level web domains are one thing but in saying that there are t0o many subsites/microsites is another. What does this mean? Are we talking sub-sites inside a focused site like this mentioned at the beginning of the blog post OR sub-sites on any web domain?
- What exactly is a sub-site? A focused area of a large site, often beginning with the name or a subdirectory or all sites that begin with something other than the top-level domain? Is Chronicling America a sub-site at Chronicling.loc.gov? What about Travel.state.gov or Jobs.Faa.gov?
- The White House should know that sub-sites (no matter the definition) CAN be a useful way to organize a lot of focused information and then have an easy URL to share with others and market the content. Yes, of course, it’s also possible to go overboard but have info organization and info architecture been considered?
- If old sites are to be taken offline have they been archived properly and are URLs going to be redirected to where the material is being archived? What does the White House have to say about the long term preservation of government web sites and making it easy for researchers to access? NARA does conduct web harvests (using Internet Archive technology). Are the harvests large enough? Are they being promoted properly? Learn more about the harvests at: http://www.webharvest.gov (is this top-level domain necessary? (-:
As the President points out in this video, our government doesn’t need a website dedicated to foresters who play the fiddle. We also don’t need multiple sites dealing with invasive plants (here and here). And I‘m pretty sure the website dedicated to the Centennial of Flight can come down… particularly since the Centennial was in 2003. Today, there are nearly 2,000 top-level federal .gov domains (this means a top-level url, [WEBSITENAME].gov, that links to a distinct website). This includes WhiteHouse.gov, as well as others like USDA.gov, USASpending.gov, NOAA.gov and USA.gov. Under many of these domains are smaller sub-sites and microsites resulting in an estimated 24,000 websites of varying purpose, design, navigation, usability, and accessibility. While many government websites each deliver value to the taxpayer through easy-to-use services and information, an overall online landscape of literally thousands of websites – each focusing on a specific topic or organization – can create confusion and inefficiency. In addition to confusing the public, duplicate and unnecessary websites also waste money. And while the costs for some of these websites may be relatively small, as President Obama also said in the video, ”No amount of waste is acceptable. Not when it’s your money, not at a time when so many families are already cutting back.” So the federal government will do more with less, improving how it delivers information and services to the public by reducing the number of websites it maintains. To help drive this change we’ve set a specific goal that over the next year, we’ll get rid of at least half of them.Watch the video in which President Obama talks about his campaign to cut waste:
Budget woes at GPO: GPO to offer employees buyouts/early outs
According to a press release this morning (PDF), GPO management will soon be reducing their personnel by 15% (a reduction of 330 positions out of 2,200) including a reduction of 25% in management and supervisory levels. This is one more grim announcement on top of drastic budget cuts to govt information services and govt transparency efforts across the federal government. Stay tuned for more as we learn more about these reductions.
In response to overall Government cutbacks and projected reductions in appropriated funding, the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) informed employees today of its plan to send a request to Congress and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) for authority to offer buyouts and early outs to the agency’s 2,200 employees. GPO’s goal is to achieve a personnel reduction of 15% (or 330 positions), including a reduction in management and supervisory levels of 25%. Once GPO is given authority, employees can be offered lump-sum payments up to $25,000 as an incentive to voluntarily separate from the agency. The actual amount of the payout is based on a formula. GPO will use current funds to conduct this program, which needs to be concluded by the end of the first quarter of FY 2012 to achieve the needed savings for the coming year. In combination with a careful workforce restructuring plan, GPO management believes these reductions in personnel can be achieved without compromising the agency’s ability to carry out mission critical operations. “GPO has restructured and reinvented itself numerous times throughout the last 150 years to carry out the critical mission of meeting the dissemination and information needs of the U.S. Congress and Federal agencies,” said Public Printer Bill Boarman. “These challenging economic times have no boundaries and are forcing many Federal agencies to seek ways to survive. GPO is open for business. We are an agency with a dedicated workforce that will continue to reengineer itself in the 21st century to serve as the digital information platform for the Federal Government.”Continue reading
how many G-20 countries make CRS-like reports available to the public?
The United Nations and the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) recently released the World e-Parliament Report 2010. The Report, prepared by the Global Centre for ICT in Parliament, is based on the results of the Global Survey of ICT in Parliaments conducted by the Global Centre for ICT in Parliament between July and November 2009, to which 134 parliamentary assemblies responded. The 134 parliaments were surveyed on a number of issues, including whether or not they make the work of their parliamentary research services available to the public. Daniel Schuman, Policy Counsel for the Sunlight Foundation, contacted one of the report's authors, and asked for the underlying data on which countries make their CRS-like reports publicly available. Although they could not share that specific data, they told Daniel how many countries made those reports available. Answers to Daniel's questions were provided in an email from the Global Centre for ICT in Parliament, for which Daniel had permission to make public. Here are the highlights:
With regard to parliamentary chambers within members of the G-20:Thought this might be interesting and helpful. Thanks Daniel for sharing this information. Continue reading
- Parliamentary chambers in 16 of the 20 members of the G-20 responded to the 2009 survey. Because the European Union is a member of the G-20, the European Parliament is included in this group of 16. The names of all parliaments and chambers that participated in the 2009 survey can be found on page 5 of the Report.
- Parliamentary chambers in 4 of the G-20 members did not participate in the survey.
- Parliamentary chambers in 13 of the 16 G-20 members who responded to the survey reported that they did have subject matter experts on public policy issues who provide research and analysis for members and committees.
- Parliamentary chambers in 3 of the G-20 members reported that they did not have subject matter experts on public policy issues who provide research and analysis for members and committees.
- Parliamentary chambers in 11 of the 13 G-20 members who reported that they did have subject matter experts on public policy issues also reported that they make the results of that research and analysis available to the public. This represents 85% of the G-20 members whose chambers have subject matter experts (11/13).
- A number of the parliaments among the 13 who have subject matter experts are bi-cameral. These 13 therefore include a total of 19 separate chambers. Of these, 16 (84%) have subject matter experts whose work is made available to the public (16/19).
- NOTE: the Global Centre for ICT in Parliament has assured all participants of the confidentiality of their responses to the survey and that the names of individual chambers have not been provided in this correspondence.
Ric Davis named CTO of Govt Printing Office
Ric Davis, former acting Superintendent of Documents of the Govt Printing Office -- and FGI guest blogger :-) -- has just been named Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of GPO (PDF). Congratulations to Mr. Davis. I'm sure his prior work with the FDLP, FDsys, and GPO Library Services and Content Management (LSCM) will put him in good stead to do the ongoing technological work needed at the GPO. Continue reading
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