November 23rd, 2009

Internet: A threat to government or the other way around? (Part 4)

Posted by Doug Hanchard @ November 23, 2009 @ 10:51 AM

Categories: Antitrust, Blogs, Censorship, China, Commerce, Congress, Copyright, Courts, Cyber Security, Cybercrime, Cyberwar, Defense, Disaster recovery, E-government, Elections, European Parliament, European Union, FCC, FTC, Government 2.0, Government technology, Green Dam, Homeland security, Intellectual Property, Intelligence, International, Journalism, Justice, Law enforcement, Open government, Regulations, Security, Senate, Social networks, Spam, Standards, State & Local Govt, Telecom, UK, United Kingdom, United Nations, Web, politics

Tags: Law, Court, Counter Point, Internet, Government, Doug Hanchard

Justice systems around the world had their entire world turned upside down over the past several years because of the Internet. The basic sets of laws, often founded on a nation’s constitution are being used in ways that many forefathers never anticipated or envisioned. Republic, Dominion and Socialist government institutions around the world are all facing the same issues - often without any clear path of legal precedent.

One of the challenges facing courts is jurisdiction. Because of the very nature of the Internet, legal systems are now faced with new roadblocks that did not exist 10 years ago. Traditional methods of law enforcement and legal treaties do work and continue to be the basis of process and dealing with prosecution and trials. Interpretation of existing laws and applying them to Internet-related cases has not been a significant challenge in many cases. But there are some new aspects of what is admitted into court.

Evidence

What has shocked the system is how Internet-based materials are now used in the courts as evidence. Everything from ISP logs, website blogs, and social media sites (among others) are now being used in ways that prosecutors and jurists have never had to deal with in the past. It is also becoming a battle ground for several areas of law, particularly the integrity of evidence. This has many in the legal world concerned. It’s becoming clear that this will be an area of significant debate and will have far-reaching consequences. Internet evidence does not have look and feel of traditional evidence and, in many cases, has yet to be challenged as to its validity. Prosecutors are faced with a dilemma that impacts how and what they prosecute. This in turn has created a new source of political initiatives that are not only questionable, but in some parts of the world viewed as extreme.

Don’t have a Law yet? We’ll make one

The evolution of law and how it is created has traditionally been a slow and low priority part of the political system. No longer is that the case. Government ministers and cabinet officials appear to be fast-tracking new laws, specifically because of the Internet at a rapid pace of late. Politicians are practically tripping over themselves drafting new bills that claim that they know how to fix the problems of cybercrime and abuse. These ideas are moving at such a rapid pace that often few people actually have read the fine print. What concerns many is the advice politicians are getting on how Internet law should be created. Governments all over the world will have significant impact on such issues as free speech, Net neutrality, news, crime and governance of institutions.

Prosecution

There is not much sympathy for the courts in many parts of the world. That may soon change as news travels across the multimedia world of the Internet. Attorneys general throughout the United States are political and create their own priorities and thus control what is heard before the courts. This may have significant consequences as to the timing of how the Internet evolves and impact the economics of the service that potentially influences it’s usage for decades. In the United Kingdom, the courts will have to take into account European treaties and the European Parliament. Canada’s magistrates may strike down or uphold newly created laws that may wind up creating in-balance that could take years to reverse.

Rules await the Internet

Regulators such as the CRTC, FCC, OfCom are charting new territory in communication rules and regulations. Lawmakers are beginning to micro-manage this process. No one yet knows what the impact these new elements will have on the judicial system. It will take years before this is known and goes through several rigorous tests of the court system. Case law may take a decade or more before any true outcomes are known. By that time, a nation will have changed political administration and have new agendas that reset the cycle before some true outcomes are known. Net Neutrality will be debated and wind up before the courts in jurisdictions around the world. The results will vary like your bandwidth speed and access to content.

Global perspective

Laws of a nation are now being combined in many parts of the world. The very essence of a sovereign nation set of laws is slowly being merged into a single set by which it will adhere to. This is particularly true in Europe where the European Parliament is attempting to create laws specifically surrounding the Internet. This has the potential to create political and legal challenges for courts in how they make decisions. The consequences have significant long term impacts on how courts operate and what order of Appeals and jurisdiction as they enter cyber space with profound outcomes yet to be decided.

The Supreme Court

Supreme Court decisions have not had an impact on the Internet - but likely will. Major court decisions at local, state, and provincial levels are being appealed and many will eventually be argued before the Supreme Court. That draws concern because of how many governments nominate and select jurists to be a part of the Supreme Court framework. In general terms, the institution is politically driven and has the potential to create decisions that may in fact be contrary to the very principles that many of us take for granted. It also works in the other direction. Many a government has had policies and laws overturned by the courts. Key segments will be privacy, Internet access and tracking - along with content management tangled with identity security. It could be argued that elected government officials are not a threat to the Internet, the courts are. The counter point is that will force parliamentarians to change the law, a task far easier said than done. Compounding the problem is that the highest courts around the world have (almost) unlimited tenure until death.  Jurists that will have profound impacts on the stance of governments surrounding Internet issues are in China, Pakistan, India, Russia, and the Middle East. China is unique in that it will have to eventually deal with treaties in which it is a signatory to, but no one has yet to appeal any government policies. It may soon have to. If WTO treaties are before their court system, the Internet could be next.

The court system in most democratic nations has dynamics rarely resulting in quick decisions. It may take years before government’s leaders and the lawmakers truly understand what they are dealing with. Some will fail in creating new laws that are considered extreme by many; others may actually pass the litmus test of a Supreme Court decision. History awaits the outcome.

Epilogue - it will never have an ending

So here we are; some of the files are out in the open, more need further decryption, understanding and updating. The pace of the discussion is increasing and appears to be moving along with few delays. 2010 promises to be the start of a new decade that has a few fundamental issues to resolve. The debate has begun and could be a pivotal point in how society uses and government manages the Internet.

Go back to:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3 in this series

November 22nd, 2009

Internet: A threat to government or the other way around? (Part 3)

Posted by Doug Hanchard @ November 22, 2009 @ 3:32 PM

Categories: Censorship, Congress, Courts, E-government, Elections, Government 2.0, Government technology, Homeland security, Journalism, Justice, Law enforcement, Regulations, Senate, Social networks, State & Local Govt, Web, politics

Tags: U.S., Safety Agency, Government, Internet, Vertical Industries, Doug Hanchard

Part III

From 1959 to 1975, the era of demonstration (Vietnam War) was to protest on the lawns and parks of universities and public venues. The Kent State shootings by National Guard troops in May of 1970 was not the first demonstration against government, but it certainly was the event that ignited further demonstrations at universities all over the United States. Demonstrators had no defense against armed troops and the toll was significant both in political values and individual trust in government. News organizations covered every demonstration nationally from that event onwards until the end of 1975.

There are more Internet Packets than there are bullets

Almost 40 years later, some government officials and elected official are pushing agendas that have long term consequences to its people that have similar overtones of big brother control.  Today the landscape is very different.  If people don’t like what they see potentially becoming Law, they have a new tools without fear of an M-16 being pointed at them. At one extreme end of protest, several protests went directly onto the offensive and have launched cyber war attacks against government institutions such as Estonia. It has been alleged that a U.S. Congressman suggested cyber attacks should be ordered against North Korea. I investigated this claim and could not find a single article verifying its authenticity, but it’s been reported all over the internet. A request for an interview was declined by the Congressman’s office.

It doesn’t stop there; non government groups are also launching political cyber attack campaigns against (VANK vs. Japan) each other. Emailing an elected official was the first step. Media tools which are now at the disposal of anyone, is an arsenal that has far more power than any individual or group in government can defeat. Instead of thousands of journalists covering a story, there is potentially billions of people reporting bits of news that are crisscrossing the globe that nobody can stop - for now. There is the potential for citizens to protest by using the internet to attack their own government, particularly in the United States and the U.K. and may believe it is their right to do so. This is not the kind of digital divide that government knows how to deal with either.  The days of the Boston Tea party are long gone and we know what happened two years later and that is not a scenario that will unfold or be repeated.

Governments have seen this potential and are developing applications and systems that can defend and attack any Internet event, foreign or domestic. This is not (just) about firewalls and creating offensive capabilities, but also about proposing new laws, which many believe are the beginning of a new era of government knows best.

Information is power

Many fear this could behold a future that dictates who holds control over the Internet. Early indications are that this view has some validity. Several nations (United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, China, and Russia) are already monitoring and archiving significant information about their constituents.  There’s nothing new in knowledge that databases exist containing information about its citizens. Here’s what is new: the scale and ultimate purpose. Public safety agencies are encouraged to share multiple databases of information. That has created a new culture in police enforcement and created a new breed of police officer that simply has far more information than they need or should have available to them upon which to make an appraisal or use with valid merit. We have witnessed new variants of stereotype and investigation methods police officers use which are wrong in its outcome. England’s decision to maintain DNA records of individuals, even if found innocent has already caught several police officers making snap decisions that a suspect must be guilty of ’something’ - is a classic example that happens routinely.

What’s good for catching the bad guy maybe worse for the upstanding citizen

People realize that information is kept and archived about them. How it is used or manipulated however, is a completely different discussion. Privacy and protection from abuse of such information has now become a priority concern for everyone and currently there is a widespread worry that government simply does not have the trust of people to ensure its safeguarding. Memories of May 4, 1970 may come back to haunt many.

Governments are proposing laws allowing the tracking and archiving where users are on the Internet. These laws have their foundation in protection against illegal downloading of copyright materials and while valid, have far more reaching consequences than that purpose, and most recognize it as such - except many politicians. How much more information is the government going to track - this blog perhaps? I know that the 754^th ELSG - Electronic System Group (part of the 554^th ESW Wing) of the U.S. Air Force out of Hanscom Air Force Base has visited the blog, as has the Central Intelligence Agency. That doesn’t mean they are monitoring or tracking this blog, but what’s to stop them for doing so (hi guys! *wave*) and creating a file? - Good thing I know they’re the good guys…..
Go to:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 4 in this series

November 22nd, 2009

Internet: A threat to government or the other way around? (Part 2)

Posted by Doug Hanchard @ November 22, 2009 @ 3:30 PM

Categories: Blogs, Censorship, Congress, Courts, Elections, Government 2.0, Government technology, Homeland security, Journalism, Justice, Multi-media, Obama, Open government, Senate, Social networks, Spam, State & Local Govt, Web, politics

Tags: News, Internet New, Spin Bad New, Internet, Portals, RSS, Government, Blogging, Doug Hanchard

Part II

It’s been suggested in many articles that President Obama won the U.S. election in 2008 because his campaign used Twitter, Facebook and other social media effectively over the course of the campaign that spanned two years.  But this new instant social media clearly it works both ways: Bad news travels much faster, and with significantly more power, than good news ever does. Face it: People love dirt and passing on bad news more often, with negative results which tend to stick in a voters mind for a longer period of time than good news does.

The snowball effect

There’s more to it than just a story being uploaded and published on a blog or RSS feed. It goes a lot farther, much much farther. Internet news is now available in every language, where anybody who has access to a computer or smart phone is now a potential audience for ‘news’. That has politicians nervous because just how many of these stories are published with incomplete information along with confirmation that the material they are publishing is true. Harder still, once it’s published, how much effort do you put into getting a retraction if the story is inaccurate? And if the politician pushes too far, it may be perceived that there is in fact truth to the article, compounding the problem.  Twitter spreads news like a virus and it’s unstoppable and often it doesn’t, if ever, post retractions or corrections at the same velocity. We thought we understood the 7/24 news cycle when the era of 200 television stations became a reality… uh no…not even close were we in understanding what this cycle means - until now.

The Spin

Bad news is also how the opposition takes aim at its targets. Once a story is in the wild, you can bet your opposite is firing out their take on a story, sometimes with twice the venom and quadruple the amount of information that can literately engulf the target.  If you thought spam was a problem, political drama is going to crush it in the years to come.  One question it raises is: Can we absorb it all? The politician may have an escape route after all. But there’s an old saying: If enough junk is thrown at the wall, some of it is going to stick…

The story

News is also about agendas that elected leaders want to you to vote for. Out go the press releases, RSS alerts, Twitter, blogs and social portal postings. You become engulfed in it. You can’t surf anywhere without it coming at you. Well, you can, but don’t worry; they’ll find you anyway and make sure you listen. As opposing sides pitch you why each respective side is right and the other is wrong, you wonder if they even remember what they represent you for in the first place. This onslaught of political news is ignored, absorbed and debated and the arguments and dilution of substance begins. Often it can be ugly at one extreme to complete blandness at the other.  Politicians rarely remember which side of the bed they woke up on, why should it be any different trying to get a bill passed on the floor of the legislature?

What some leaders are starting to realize is that if they are not careful, their constituents will tune out. So far that’s not holding true, with the majority of western world eligible voters having access to the internet and having an email address or a cell phone with a data plan. Most troubling for elected officials are secondary news sources that create perception beyond their editorial control. These secondary sources are your friends that pass on the news, as a tweet, email, blog or text message which are condensed and revised pieces of news. This audience tends to get engaged BECAUSE it came from a source they associate with. The future might hold that people create firewall or filter rules that prevent political messages getting to them, but rarely will they reject these secondary sources of news.

Reaction to government has moved from the lawns of universities and parks to the Internet.

Go to:
Part 1
Part 3
Part 4 in this series

November 9th, 2009

Northrop Grumman sells consulting firm in leveraged buy-out

Posted by Doug Hanchard @ November 9, 2009 @ 7:12 AM

Categories: Antitrust, E-government, Ethics, Government technology, Homeland security, ICT, IT Management, International, Telecom, Transportation

Tags: Northrop Grumman Corp., Consulting, TASC, Ronald D Sugar, Outsourcing, Operational Accounting, It Operations, Business Operations, Outsourcing & Subcontracting, Finance

Like the accounting industry, selling products and offering consulting services creates conflicts. Northrop Grumman offers both services to government agencies, particularly U.S. Homeland Security and the military.  The U.S. (and other countries) have new guidelines and regulations, resulting in Northrop Grumman announcing that it is selling its consulting group TASC.

Northrop Grumman, one of the largest suppliers to U.S. military has sold the division to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) and the Atlantic Group for $1.65 billion.

Ronald D Sugar is notes that this is in the best interests of Grumman Northrop;

“

This transaction is in the best interest of Northrop Grumman’s customers, employees and shareholders,” said Ronald D. Sugar, chairman and chief executive officer. “It reflects Northrop Grumman’s desire to align quickly with the government’s new organizational conflict of interest standards, while preserving TASC’s unique organizational culture and its status as the advisory services employer of choice. TASC is a remarkable organization with a proud 43-year heritage of supporting critical national security missions. We are confident the investors understand the critical importance of its customers’ missions and the depth and sophistication of its employees’ expertise.”

TASC has revenues of $1.6 billion. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year with the cash going to buy back its stock.

November 4th, 2009

U.S. Ethics Committee staffer file-shares sensitive document

Posted by Doug Hanchard @ November 4, 2009 @ 3:52 AM

Categories: Congress, Cybercrime, Ethics, Journalism, Justice, Regulations, Security

Tags: File-sharing, Ethics, Computer, Post, Business Ethics, Productivity, Peer To Peer (P2P), Leadership, Management, Internet

Perhaps file sharing should be banned.  The Washington Post reports that a (now) ex-employee of the U.S. House Ethics Committee put a sensitive report detailing 30+ current investigations  on to a public accessible computer. Wired Magazine also reported on this story, saying it was put onto a personal computer, and then placed it into a file folder used for peer to peer file sharing to the Internet. No word on what file sharing application tool was used. If it was setup as anonymous FTP, it may have been from one specific computer or wound up on hundreds if not thousands of computers.

The Post reveals;

The ethics committee is one of the most secretive panels in Congress, and its members and staff members sign oaths not to disclose any activities related to its past or present investigations. Watchdog groups have accused the committee of not actively pursuing inquiries; the newly disclosed document indicates the panel is conducting far more investigations than it had revealed.

Washington Post staff reporters Ellen Nakashima and Paul Kane indicate that they did not receive the document directly from the employee personal computer, but through other sources.

The website for the Ethics Committee issued a release immediately following the story by the Post and stated that regardless of how much cyber security was put into place, it was impossible to avoid ‘individual error’.

Ironically, prominently placed on their website is a direct link of employee training & responsibilities on Ethics. What astounds me is how an employee would even think it’s necessary to put such sensitive information onto a personal computer at home. Surely there must be more to this story than just a whole whack of rules that a staffer on the Ethics Committee chose to ignore. Sounds like somebody escaped a plethora of federal charges. If not, there may be one more investigation to add to the list.

October 30th, 2009

ZDNet Government version of Throw out the Trash Day

Posted by Doug Hanchard @ October 30, 2009 @ 1:12 PM

Categories: Blogs, Congress, E-government, FCC, Government 2.0, Government technology, Journalism, Open government, State & Local Govt, Telecom, UK, White House

Tags: FCC, Web Site, Wired Magazine, Web Site Development, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), Web Technology, Federal Government, Internet, Government, Doug Hanchard

Friday is always an interesting day to report news. In the hit political drama series produced and written by Aaron Sorkin, The West Wing, he came up with how the White House Press Secretary got into a routine with staffers in the Communications office to gather up all the news that should be announced, but prayed nobody read about it. Well guess what, covering the news on Government issues can be the same! So every Friday, it will be Take out the Trash Day .

Here’s my take on some news that isn’t all that interesting but still made it online somewhere….

Throw out the trash day

From the New York Times - Governor of California sends secret code message (this too was a story line in one of the episode of  The West Wing) - Arnold got some pretty good writers!

Wired Magazine says an ISP owner still under gag order by the FBI. Wonder if the ISP had any other news to report, like are customer connections still working?

The BBC found thieves who think copper is still worth stealing from British Telecom - an entire Kilometer ripped out from a conduit by truck!

Minister of Environment for Australia jumps onto the smart grid energy bandwagon.  Soon the entire world will have governments and utility companies capable of remotely shutting off your electricity and you won’t have a choice.

Also included on the last Friday of each month, I will blog my take on the best and worst government websites. Send me an email if you find ones that I should rate. At the end of the year I’ll announce the ‘awards’ of each category.

Best Website for month of October for Content

City of Los Angeles

Best Website - Organization of Content

Whitehouse, Washington D.C.

Most innovative government website:

Open Internet by the FCC

Worst website for Content

City of New York

Worst website - Organization of content

Federal Communications Commission

October 29th, 2009

Traffic management: New Internet coming to your local roads

Posted by Doug Hanchard @ October 29, 2009 @ 9:18 AM

Categories: Canada, Congress, Government 2.0, Government technology, Intelligence, International, Mobile/wireless, Networking, Regulations, State & Local Govt, Transportation

Tags: Internet, Traffic Management, Australia, Radio, Advertising & Promotion, Wireless And Mobility, Marketing, Doug Hanchard

Since the mid 1980’s, there have been proposals to implement traffic management via wireless. Often referred to as Intelligent Transport System (ITS), the goal is to enable analysis and traffic flow services on a nation’s road system.  Study and working groups have been active in the Canada, United States, United Kingdom, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia. Other European countries are in various stages of reviewing similar requirements.

ITS services would be operated via wireless devices attached to any motor vehicle. It could monitor volume, speed and direction of traffic. There would be significant benefits of such a tool for various agencies. The current designs being contemplated are looking for synergies on platform standards along with radio assignment in the 5.9 GHz frequency band.

During initial development the goals became clear and benefits in public safety and traffic management could save billions of dollars. Fast forward to see how we use technology today brings new concerns and other challenges that may cause significant concerns with respect to Law, Privacy and a host of security implications.  It could also prove to be a terrorist’s or hacker’s dream come true and thus a whole new level of challenges arise.

Australia has just released its analysis and request for comment for ITS solutions and the future of such a project. In it you will find some fascinating ideas, concepts and issues that raise more questions than there are answers. The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is specifically looking for comments on the radio frequencies recommended for such a deployment. There is no current timetable when this infrastructure would be enabled. Is this the beginning of a new era of how people management maybe becomes the norm? Perhaps…

October 20th, 2009

Electronic voting: Changing the world faster than a Windows upgrade

Posted by Doug Hanchard @ October 20, 2009 @ 10:07 AM

Categories: Blogs, Canada, E-government, Elections, Government 2.0, Government technology, International, Microsoft, Open government, Social networks, Twitter, Web services, White House

Tags: Microsoft Windows, Web Site, Whitehouse, Government, Internet, Web Site Development, Web Technology, Vertical Industries, Portals, E-voting

The world changes every day and often our lives get impacted every second by outcomes out of our domain or control.  Government institutions and the leaders we elected change political behaviors at a slower pace. Lawmakers react along party lines and tout change as the promised path to improvements. They have four years, sometimes longer, in office to create change.  It can take decades for policies and laws to actually happen in many parts of the world. The Internet world is pushing to shorten those time lines.

Computers, smart phones, and applications are now a part of the social fabric that we all use. It seems we are a very vocal bunch. No longer is it about having your own website or voice on a newsgroup posting — that’s old stuff. Today, it’s being a part of a social network both as an individual and a group or business. You join different clubs and organizations, sign virtual petitions and speak out on issues and still talk to your lost long family, friends and make new ones.

Who would have ever thought that 300 million users would be on Facebook in such a short time? Language translation of a web page now takes place in a nanosecond. Nobody should to be left out if they are connected to the Internet. The world access to the Internet is now approximately 1.6 billion people — roughly 25% of the population.

The recent global financial crisis was predictable by computer modeling, some argue — if the regulators around the world had integrated laws and data sharing. That’s unlikely, given the reality of how much risk people were simply willing to take and given the lax rules that existed.  It’s true, some blogs and information about the crisis that occurred exploded on the internet and published on many of the social websites we visit every day. Publishing articles about the disaster are global since it impacted so many people’s lives. Governments have reacted, this time quickly. Financial reforms and bailouts are happening around the world at lightning speed compared to normal government day-to-day ramblings. Government is listening, making fundamental changes in how they govern when they link to Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and many others and update almost daily. The White House is linked to all of them!

Are the changes in direction about faces to implementation of such web portals? Is this truly going to change governments and how they create law? As technology, security solutions and applications improve and become trusted, I would not be surprised to see certified referendums, municipal and federal government level voting on specific issues be made available and counted on web sites or portals, a reality within a year in some parts of the world. Some countries are already doing limited online voting (U.K., Canada, Switzerland) for elections. In the U.S., it has been used for primaries. Read the rest of this entry »

October 6th, 2009

NYC expands Gov 2.0 with Big Apps

Posted by Richard Koman @ October 6, 2009 @ 9:52 AM

Categories: Government 2.0, State & Local Govt

Tags: New York, NYC, Times, Kundra, Advertising & Promotion, Marketing, Richard Koman

New York City is rolling out developer access to 170 data sets supplied from more than 30 city agencies, as part of its NYC Big Apps initiative, the latest big news is the rollicking Gov 2.0 space, Jenna Wortham blogs for the New York Times. The city’s site explains:

The City of New York is improving the way it provides information and transparency to citizens. But delivering great information requires great tools. The NYC BigApps Competition will reward the developers of the most useful, inventive, appealing, effective, and commercially viable applications for delivering information from the City of New York’s NYC.gov Data Mine to interested users.

The Times quotes Kristy Sundjaja, vice president of media, green, and emerging technology at the New York City Economic Development Corporation, which is co-sponsoring the competition:

Crowdsourcing is a very hot topic in the Gov 2.0 space right now. What’s distinct in New York is the amount of data we’re releasing and that we already have a very impressive developer community here. In terms of scale and magnitude, this is one of the largest competitions that any city has put together.

Transparency of municipal data was pioneered in Washington, D.C., by Vivek Kundra, now, of course, the federal CIO. Kundra has pushed aggressively for opening up federal data as well, primarily through the data.gov site.

March 9th, 2009

Feedback on federal contracting

Posted by Richard Koman @ March 9, 2009 @ 12:07 PM

Categories: Contracting, Government 2.0, Government technology

Tags: Information Technology, U.S. Congress, Financial Crisis, Government IT, Government, Vertical Industries, Enterprise Software, Software, Richard Koman

Writing over the weekend about Vivek Kundra, I said that if Obama planned to seriously make government more efficient, he would need to reform contracting:

[Without reform], government IT will never match the private sector’s and more importantly we will continue to waste taxpayer money at a time when we can least afford to do so. If reform succeeds it will benefit government and taxpayers for decades to come.

I received two interesting comments that pushed back on that sentiment.

As a former USAF acquisition person — currently teaching government contracting — my response is “good luck.” The Federal Acquisition Regulations are passed by Congress (not the Executive). They drive average acquisition lead times to almost two years in order to get through all the hoops. Unless Congress is willing to step to the plate and reduce some of the requirements for small business and other set-asides; to shorten the time for competitive responses; and lots more — we are not going to get anywhere. By the way, no-bid contracts are a thing of war as far as DOD is concerned. A no-bid contract is almost unheard of except in emergencies.

I don’t really have an opinion on whether Congress will be able to do this. I admit it seems unlikely but I would suggest that the ONLY way it could happen would be for the Administration to make the push and to push hard for Congress to reform the rules. I think this is an area that will fit under the “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste” umbrella. The financial crisis is obligating the government to spend huge amounts of money, Republicans are asking for fiscal discipline (which is of course the worst possible thing to do in a deep recession but Obama is promising line-by-line scrutiny to cut unnecessary costs). I have no doubt that billions can be saved by allowing the government to operate more freely, by contracting with less red tape and more accountability — that is, as any rational business would act.

Unfortunately, another commenter wrote, it’s not that simple.

I think it’s important to recognize that Government is (and should be) held to a different set of standards than private business. Government is required by regulation to deal equitably with all willing contractors. Private business, on the other hand, is under no obligation to offer equal opportunities to all interested offerors and can work within existing business relationships, even if the contract cost is greater. This probably accounts for business’s greater agility.

Well … in business, you are always trying to cut costs, to get vendors to compete with one another. But you also realize that the cost of a purchase is not just the amount on the bottom line, it’s also the cost of maintenance contracts, the associated internal costs, the training costs. Most importantly, it has to work and you have to calculate the lost productivity, the lost hours when something doesn’t work as advertised. You build relationships with trusted vendors and you don’t risk big projects on unproven vendors because they bid 10 percent cheaper.

The problem with government IT is that there is a tendency, even a need to build huge, mammoth systems that are so complex they are inherently primed for failure. Everyone knows the projects will fail but neither the vendor nor the government employees are able or interested in stopping them. What I think Kundra can offer is a completely transformed mindset away from giant projects and towards breaking IT into smaller bits that can talk seamlessly and securely with one another. I don’t know exactly what that looks like but I think that’s going to be how you get the right level of data- and knowledge-sharing.

Since the big vendors have failed so spectacularly, I think the door is wide-open for agencies to put real programmers on its payroll to create projects like the ones Kundra has created, doing it with open interfaces so that the open source community can create new applications, and letting small fast-moving developers into the bidding process.

Perhaps this is all blue sky and the realistic response is Good Luck. Or perhaps something hugely better is within our grasp. Government IT is not the problem. Bad IT (and in general terms, IT contractors) is the problem.