Not ready to comply with HITECH? That’s OK, HHS isn’t ready to enforce it yet either

Government observers are well aware that there is a big difference between passing a provision in a piece of legislation, crafting the rules that implement the provision, and then putting those rules into effect. Where new…

ONC names Joy Pritts as its first Chief Privacy Officer

HHS announced on Wednesday that Joy Pritts has been named the Chief Privacy Officer for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. Pritts, a lawyer and Georgetown University professor specializing in health law…

GAO weighs in on need for consistent data classification

In the wake of the recent release of the Report and Recommendations of the Presidential Task Force on Controlled Unclassified Information, the Government Accountability Office on December 15 released a report on Managing Sensitive Information that…

Structural reorganization announced for government health IT oversight

In a Federal Register notice effective December 1, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT announced a reorganization of its office. Among the most notable changes is the decision to create the position of…

Widespread security problems self-reported at Interior

In a sharp departure from the more typical agency-level FISMA self-assessments, the internal FISMA audit by the Inspector General of the Department of the Interior reveals serious systemic problems in DOI’s security management, with blame focused…

Congressional breach: balancing security with convenience

Whether or not you believe, as some pundits appear to, that the call for an inquiry into cybersecurity practices in the House of Representatives after the details of an ethics committee inquiry were disclosed is a…

Government security looks to address outcomes

In an development that should come as a welcome surprise to security watchers critical of U.S. federal information security efforts as too focused on compliance (at the expense of effectiveness), the Federal CIO Council announced last…