The Department of Commerce Office of the Inspector General (OIG) announced last month that it will be conducting a review of the department’s cyber threat data sharing capabilities, pursuant to the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 which set up structures for sharing threat data with government and private sector entities.  […]

After months with no movement and a weekend full of deal-making, Congress is expected to pass a $900 billion COVID-19 relief package as part of a broader Fiscal Year 2021 (FY21) omnibus spending bill. The relief includes a new round of Payment Protection Program (PPP) funding, money for broadband deployment and emergency use, and money to remove banned Huawei and ZTE equipment. […]

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a new report that four Federal agencies it examined are making progress on establishing data governance policies, but still have more work to do on some key milestones including assessing data and infrastructure maturity, and staff data literacy. […]

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused the Census Bureau to make a series of late-stage adjustments to the census design and these changes have opened risks to the “quality of data that the Bureau provides for apportioning congressional representation among the states.” […]

The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed the American Competitiveness on More Productive Emerging Tech Economy (COMPETE Act) and the Consumer Safety Technology Act (H.R. 8128), both now move to the Senate for consideration. […]

The 2020 decennial census is breaking new ground in several ways – it is the first census to be conducted primarily online, and it has been supported by the cloud. Alongside those advancements, a Census Bureau official explained last week that the 2020 census will mark the first major implementation of a new privacy regime. […]

In the September 2020 President’s Management Agenda (PMA) updates, two Federal agencies focused on rural broadband expansion reported they are meeting key milestones. […]

With the White House and Department of Defense recently announcing that additional mid-band spectrum will be made available to be shared with industry, the Federal government’s spectrum manager called on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to do its part to ensure the partnership occurs smoothly. […]

Nearly two years into an ambitious overhaul of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Cyber Security Center (NCSC), brighter horizons are in sight for the agency in the form of improved cyber analytics capabilities. From the start, NOAA took a holistic approach to the NCSC transformation that encompasses people, process, and technology – in equal parts. […]

While many agencies are looking to modernize their legacy systems or digital government services, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is undertaking a more unique modernization project – automating the identification of beluga whales. […]

In August, the Census Bureau announced that it would be delivering appointment data by the statutory deadline of December 31, 2020, despite the COVID-19 pandemic causing delays. Compressed timeframes, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), could present challenges to monitoring ongoing IT risks, among other issues. […]

While much attention has been focused on the Census Bureau’s ongoing 2020 decennial survey, another bureau operation whose impact will stretch well beyond then has proceeded with much less recognition – a training program to modernize the way employees deal with data. […]

The National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) has recommended that the Office of Space Commerce (OSC) within the Department of Commerce be selected to conduct Space Situational Awareness (SSA) and Space Traffic Management (STM) duties, including IT and data-related aspects of those functions. […]

As the final weeks of the nation’s first census conducted primarily online conclude, a Census Bureau official said the website of the 2020 decennial survey has experienced no downtime during peak operations as a result of a move to the cloud. […]

The Census Bureau hired a deputy director for data to help ensure “the 2020 Census data products are of the highest quality.” As of August 16 statistics, the Census Bureau’s Total Self-Response Rate for the 2020 Census was 63.8%. […]

An April decision by the Federal Communications Commission to grant wireless service provider Ligado permission to operate in a spectrum band adjacent to spectrum that the Defense Department says is critical for GPS services is not reviewable under the Congressional Review Act, said the Government Accountability Office in an August 13 finding. […]

Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross announced today that he has appointed Tip Osterthaler as chair of the FirstNet Authority Board. […]

One of the top positions at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration is now filled by an individual who joined the organization in April. […]

The Departments of Homeland Security and Commerce released an update to their ongoing work to address botnets, automated and distributed attacks on the internet, which threaten the nation’s internet infrastructure. […]

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) hopes to have its contractual support strategy fully transitioned by October 2021—showing no signs of slowed progress due to the COVID-19 pandemic. […]

Both the Departments of Agriculture (USDA) and Commerce are progressing ahead on rural broadband agency priority goals (APG) as a part of the President’s Management Agenda (PMA) with some help from emergency funds in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. […]

The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS), and Related Agencies approved by voice vote a $71.4 billion funding bill for fiscal year 2021.  […]

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is establishing a program to share “supply chain security risk” information with communications services providers with an aim to avoid future “rip and replace” programs that require removing potentially dangerous equipment from networks. […]

The Open RAN Policy Coalition pushed hard in a recent filing to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) that the group’s primary mission – promoting openness and interoperability in radio access networks for 5G wireless services – will boost U.S. national security as the U.S. and other nations increasingly roll out those networks. […]

The legislative effort to update the Federal government’s spectrum management processes got one step closer to becoming law when a bipartisan group of four House members introduced a bill identical to the version added to the Senate’s annual defense bill earlier this month. […]

The Department of Commerce announced a rule to allow American companies to participate in international standards setting bodies, an area previously vacated by the United States to discourage commercial cooperation with the Chinese company Huawei. […]

While the Census Bureau was already adjusting to embracing new tech for the 2020 Census, the COVID-19 pandemic has raised new concerns and pushed the agency to increase its focus on IT, data, and cybersecurity matters to properly manage risks.
Per a June 9 report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Census Bureau must closely manage its tech to ensure that the pandemic and other delays don’t impact the quality of its 2020 Census results. […]

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration is continuing to dispute a unanimous decision in April by the Federal Communications Commission to grant Ligado access to a spectrum band adjacent to a band used by the Defense Department for Global Positioning System. […]

The Departments of Commerce and Health and Human Services are teaming up to take down websites that sell opioids illegally online through a new pilot program with three domain name registries. […]

For the first time in 2020, the United States Census Bureau offers an internet response option for the decennial count, and data from the bureau shows that most Americans responding to the survey are taking it online. […]