Monday federal headlines – August 25, 2014

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.

• The Homeland Security Department soft-launched functional category one for the EAGLE-2 technology services contract. It’s the biggest of the four EAGLE-2 focus areas. It covers network and security operations, system, design, development, software design and development and maintenance. Twenty-three possible procurements are scheduled to go through EAGLE-2. (Federal News Radio)
• Homeland Security officials will offer 25,000 employees credit monitoring. The move follows disclosure of a cybersecurity breach at USIS, the company that conducts most of the department’s background checks. In an email, employees learned hackers obtained names, Social Security numbers, job titles, investigation case numbers and many other personal details of affected employees. USIS acknowledged the breach earlier this month, saying it had the marks of a state-sponsored actor. (Federal News Radio)
• Federal cyber information sharing policy swings into gear. Homeland Security officials warned more than 1,000 U.S. retailers, they might be infected with malicious software in their point of sale systems. DHS advises the retailers to scan for a virus known as Backoff. Officials said it was discovered last year, but only now has anti-virus software been able to flag it. Backoff lets hackers siphon off consumers’ credit card information. (Associated Press)
• America’s chief technology officer is out. Todd Park is leaving his job by the end of the year. He is only the second dedicated CTO for the country. Aneesh Chopra was the first, and Park was handpicked by President Barack Obama to take over the role in 2012. He is expected to start a new White House job focused on recruiting and bringing technology talent into government roles. The White House has not commented on the news. Park first joined the Obama Administration in 2009 as CTO for the Health and Human Services Department. (Federal News Radio)
• The Federal Aviation Administration was hit with three lawsuits filed by groups that fly unmanned aircraft. FAA has clamped down on model planes and commercial drones as it tries to come up with a comprehensive policy for letting them share U.S. airspace. Suits were filed by the Academy of Model Aeronautics, the Council on Governmental Relations and several commercial drone and model aircraft interests. They called on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to review whether the FAA’s drone directive was valid. (Associated Press)
• The Defense Department issued a formal complaint to China about what it calls dangerous, mid-air intercepts over the South China sea. The latest incident occurred last week. A heavily armed Chinese fighter flew over, under and in front of a U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon patrol plane. It came within 20 feet. Pentagon spokesman Adm. John Kirby said the fighter showed its underside, as if to emphasize its armament load. He said Pentagon officials believe the intercept and others like it were carried out by a rogue fighter unit without orders from Chinese military leadership. He said the fly-bys harm efforts to establish professional military relations between the two nations. (Defense Department)
• The deputy defense secretary just finished his first official trip to Asia. Bob Work is reporting progress in advancing regional security, including deploying a second ballistic missile defense radar to Japan. Work’s week-long trip included stops in Guam, South Korea and Japan, along with Hawaii to meet with the U.S. Pacific Command. In Japan, Work and officials discussed efforts to revise Japan’s defense cooperation guidelines and to reduce the number of U.S. forces in Okinawa. In Korea, he said more strides are needed to increase interoperability among the country’s air and missile defense system. (Defense Department)
• Economists, for the most part, approved of the direction being taken by the Federal Reserve. A new survey by the National Association of Business Economists skewed mostly positive in terms of whether the agency was repairing the U.S. economy. The survey found that 53 percent of economists classified the Fed’s stimulus programs as being on the right track for economic recovery. Forty-two percent of economists also called Congress and White House fiscal policies “about right” in spurring economic recovery. That number was up from 31 percent a year ago. (Associated Press)
• The Education Department needs to provide better oversight of a multimillion- dollar program that ensures homeless students have access to public schooling. The assessment is from a new report by the Government Accountability Office. Under the Education for Homeless Children and Youth grant program, states and their school districts are required to identify homeless children and provide them with needed services. But the GAO found that under-identification of homeless students is a big problem, and it recommended that the Education Department come up with a formal plan for better monitoring. In fiscal year 2014, the department received about $65 million to administer this program. (Government Accountability Office)
• Sorry, monkeys and elephants. Only humans qualify for copyright protection under the law. The finding was reaffirmed by the the U.S. Copyright Office as part of the first major update to its copyright manual in 30 years. It’s been a requirement for some time that a human be the one to produce a work in order for it to qualify for copyright protection. But in this manual update, the Copyright Office added examples to clear up confusion. Since 2011 there has been a dispute over who owns the rights to a now-famous photo taken by a monkey. A group of monkeys gained possession of a British photographer’s camera and snapped away. A selfie of one of the monkeys became especially popular. (GovExec)

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