News Briefs

The recently formed Interagency Alternative Technology Assessment Program (IATAP) announced last Friday it plans to collect and review oil spill response solutions from scientists and vendors.

The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) has awarded 11 contracts totaling $6.6 billion as part of its Solutions for the Information Technology Enterprise, or SITE. The indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contracts will last five years and extend across the defense intelligence enterprise and the intelligence community.

The Defense-wide Information Assurance Program has published an Information Assurance (IA) Policy Chart on the Information Assurance Technology Analysis Center (IATAC) website.  The program's goal for the publication is to capture the large breadth of applicable policies, some of which IA personnel may not know, in a convenient organizational scheme. The IA Policy Chart uses color, hatching, fonts and hyperlinks to provide additional assistance to professionals who need to understand the IA policies to build, operate and secure the GIG. Background notes on the effort also can be found on the IATAC site.

The Department of Defense yesterday launched the Open Government Plan, its latest salvo aimed at increasing transparency and opportunities for engagement and collaboration.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Office of Emergency Communications (OEC) is looking for solutions to communications interoperability problems along the U.S. southern and northern borders. To entice community governments to tackle these problems, the OEC is offering up to a total of $25.5 million.

The U.S. Defense Department has announced its policy on "Responsible and Effective Use of Internet-Based Capabilities"--in less formal words, its social and new media policy. This is the DOD's first official policy on new media.

Or rather, insignia. The U.S. Navy's chief of naval operations has approved officers and enlisted to wear the Information Dominance Corps Warfare insignia after they have completed a qualification program.

President Obama's Open Government Initiative is underway, and the government wants to hear from you. What are your ideas on open government? Help the government draft open government plans by sharing your thoughts on how each agency can be more open and transparent.

Although the U.S. Navy has been in the cyber arena for many years, today the service officially moved into the operational cyber domain as Vice Adm. Barry McCullough, USN, took command of the U.S. Fleet Cyber Command/U.S. 10th Fleet.

Beginning this month, 14 government agencies across the U.S. are part of a pilot program testing a new multiband radio that enables first responders to talk to each other across frequency bands.