Wednesday federal headlines – April 29, 2015

The Federal Headlines is a daily compilation of the stories you hear discussed on the Federal Drive and In Depth radio shows each day. Our headlines are updated twice per day — once in the morning and once in the afternoon — with the latest news affecting federal employees and contractors.

• Two-thirds of agencies fail to completely fulfill a basic Freedom of Information Act request. GovExec reports, seven of 21 agencies responded with completely useable information. Nine agencies didn’t respond at all or stopped responding after a certain point and four agencies seemed to be making progress but haven’t yet provided any information. One agencies denied the request. (FOIA Project/Gov Exec)
• President Barack Obama has named Coast Guard Vice Adm. Peter Neffenger to be the next administrator of the Transportation Security Administration. Neffenger is currently the Coast Guard’s vice commandant. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson called him one of the brightest and most capable flag officers in the U.S. military. Neffenger was deputy national incident commander during the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Melvin Carraway has been acting TSA administrator since January, when John Pistole stepped down. If confirmed, Neffenger would be the second high-ranking Coast Guard officer to run the TSA. (Federal News Radio)
• The intelligence community is losing the chief information officer it’s had since 2011. Al Tarasiuk retired yesterday after more than 28 years in government. Before joining the intelligence community, Tarasiuk spent his career at the CIA. He rose from electrical engineer building radios to CIO. His major project at the intelligence community was development of the ICIT environment. The information sharing effort is a top priority for James Clapper, the director of the office of national intelligence. Recently, Tarasiuk told Federal News Radio that 16,000 intelligence community employees were on the ICIT platform, with another 40,000 coming this year. (Federal News Radio)
• A CIA manager who was removed from his job last year is back. Jonathan Bank was removed for creating an abusive and hostile work environment. He was head of the Iran operations division at CIA headquarters. Officials said many employees in the division requested transfers. Bank was barred from CIA management for a year and transferred to a job at the Pentagon. He will now be deputy chief of counter- intelligence at the Counter Terrorism Center. The department conducts drone strikes and other operations against al-Qaeda, the Islamic State militants and other terror groups. ( Federal News Radio)
• Feds, it’s time to get out your cameras. Office of Personnel Management Director Katherine Archuleta is inviting feds to submit a short video. The topic — how do you honor the oath of office each day? The 30-to-60 second video should explain why you picked a career in public service, what the oath means to you and what you do each day to honor that oath. Archuleta will invite pick five feds to join her at a Washington Nationals game next Monday as she throws the opening pitch. Submit your videos at opm.gov/oath. The deadline is noon this Friday. (OPM)
• The White House is pushing back against a $604 billion defense plan from Republicans in Congress. President Barack Obama criticized the proposal from House Armed Forces Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) even before the committee starts debate. The draft bill would bar the President from moving prisoners out of Guantanamo Bay, and it would keep spending for the A-10 attack plane. The White House said the President opposed spending increases for Defense unless they were accompanied by equal increases for domestic programs. (Federal News Radio)
• An inspector general found thousands more emails from former IRS official Lois Lerner. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration uncovered 6,400 emails that the IRS never turned over to Congress. But now TIGTA is giving the emails to the Senate Finance Committee, which is investigating if the IRS wrongly targeted conservative groups. In total, TIGTA has found 35,000 emails on back- up tapes. The IRS called it “an encouraging development” and promised to cooperate with the IG. The IRS itself has given Congress 24,000 emails. (The Hill)
• Bills in the House and Senate would end bulk data collection from the National Security Agency. Instead, intelligence agencies could request metadata from phone companies. That’s everything from phone numbers, time stamps and durations of a call but not the actual content. Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.)and Mike Lee (R- Utah) are the lead sponsors on their chamber’s bill. Reps. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), John Conyers (D-Mich.), Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) are sponsoring the House version. Most lawmakers want to resolve the bills before June 1, when part of the Patriot Act expires. But others prefer to see Section 215 expire. (GovExec )
• CIA Director John Brennan said his own and other intelligence agencies must change if they’re to deal with fast-changing threats around the world. Brennan spoke last night at a dinner reception in McLean, Virginia. The Wall Street Journal reports Brennan said old methods like having a spy inside a foreign embassy aren’t as effective as they used to be. He said more emphasis is needed on street intelligence and on better technology to listen in on mobile data traffic. Brennan asked for help from industry, while urging Congress to not curtail proved intelligence tactics like bulk data gathering. (Wall Street Journal )
• At least one senator wants higher minimum wages for contract workers servicing the Senate. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) urged the Rules Committee to give preference to contractors that pay health insurance benefits and what he calls a living wage. Durbin’s action was prompted by published reports about a 63-year-old Senate cafeteria janitor who has no fixed address and sleeps outside of a Metro station. Last week, some low-wage contract workers held a one-day strike. (Federal News Radio)

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