In late 2021, the Biden administration issued landmark citizen and customer experience focused policy items in the President's Management Agenda and an Executive Order on Transforming Federal Customer Experience and Service Delivery to Rebuild Trust in Government. And to further bolster those efforts, the administration in this year’s budget request called for more than $500 million to support CX efforts across federal agencies, including standing up news customer service offices at agencies like Agriculture, Homeland Security, Interior, Labor, Treasury and Veterans Affairs and more than a 100 employees to staff them.

While it remains to be seen if that request gets funded in fiscal 2024, the message is loud and clear: improving the government’s customer service delivery, largely through digital services, is a top priority.

Joining the podcast to discuss the progress made since 2021 and why CX has become such an important theme in the Biden administration in recent years is Martha Dorris, founder and CEO of Dorris Consulting International, through which she runs the Service to the Citizen Awards. Dorris also worked hands-on with federal CX, IT and acquisition at the General Services Administration for more than three decades.

The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon.

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Why the federal government’s focus on CX has reached a fever pitch.

Based on the draft guidance OMB published recently to modernize the FedRAMP cloud security authorization program, it appears the practice of enlisting vendors to build government-specific cloud enclaves could be a thing of the past. As it stands, the policy would push federal agencies to use the commercial public cloud services that vendors provide most any of their other customers rather than these Gov Clouds.

Joining The Daily Scoop Podcast to discuss that change, other details from the new FedRAMP guidance and much more is Jeanette Manfra, Global Director, Risk and Compliance at Google Cloud and former Assistant Secretary for Cybersecurity and Communications at the Department of Homeland Security.

The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon.

If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.

Making the case to move away from GovClouds

It’s all you need in life.

0:00 – Mic Test
3:09 - Intro
4:38 - What Can’t You Wrap Your Head Around?
16:39 - Bussin’ Ballots: Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi
32:06 - DEI Efforts in NC are being challenged
42:41 - White Women Getting Randomly Punched in NYC  
47:51 - Francis Scott Key Bridge Collapses Due To Ship Collision 
52:56 - Diddy’s Homes in LA and Miami Are Raided And He’s Missing
1:10:12 - McDonald’s To Sell Krispy Kreme donuts 
1:13:39 - Kendrick Lamar Takes Shot at J.Cole and Drake
1:22:00 - Outro/Corny Joke
  
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Bussin' Ballots Links:

Michigan - https://www.michigandaily.com/government/five-bills-to-watch-in-the-michigan-legislature-february-2024/
Minnesota - https://www.house.mn.gov/sessiondaily/Story/18137
Mississippi - https://www.supertalk.fm/bill-signed-into-law-creating-tuskegee-airmen-day-in-mississippi/

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Email: hosts@headwrapsandlipsticks.com

Money. Power. Respect. - S8, E8

Kiersten Todt has worked on just about every hot-button cybersecurity issue you can imagine. Currently the CEO of Liberty Group Ventures, her most recent role in government was as the chief of staff at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. As a Senate staffer, she drafted key parts of the legislation that created the Department of Homeland Security, and during the Obama years, she was the executive director of the Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity. 

She sits down with CyberScoop’s Elias Groll for a wide-ranging conversation about the evolving cybersecurity policy landscape.

The evolution of the cybersecurity policy landscape

As the federal government journeys into uncharted territory with the adoption of AI, it’s no surprise that the nation’s space exploration agency is one of the most innovative among the bunch. Krista Kinnard is NASA’s Digital Transformation, Culture and Communications Lead and was recently promoted to that agency's deputy chief AI officer, where she'll continue to play a key role shepherding the cultural push behind the agency’s AI revolution. The Daily Scoop recently caught up with Kinnard at ACT-IAC’s Imagine Nation ELC event in Hershey, Pa. During our conversation, we touched on her role at the agency and how it relates to AI, the progress the agency has made in adopting AI, and what’s ahead. 


The Department of Homeland Security has built an artificial intelligence-based chatbot it’s calling DHSChat, the latest in a string of agency experimentations with generative AI. DHSChat is designed as a chatbot meant for internal use within the agency, according to a press release shared Tuesday. The tool was developed by DHS’s AI Corps and its director, Michael Boyce, after employees experimented with commercial generative AI tools, including Claude and ChatGPT.  In a statement, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said that the “cutting-edge tool” would help workers across DHS “draft vital reports, summarize critical information, develop new software, streamline administrative tasks, and much more."

The Department of Health and Human Services was among the first federal agencies to release its 2024 AI use case inventory Monday, reporting a roughly 66% increase in uses from the previous year. In a post accompanying the inventory, Steven Posnack, HHS’s principal deputy assistant secretary for technology policy and principal deputy national coordinator for health IT, highlighted the health agency’s increase from 163 to 271 use cases and noted the varying stages of development. The new figure, for example, includes uses for operation and maintenance and in acquisition and development, as well as 16 uses that are retired. The inventory comes as agencies across the federal government are expected to release new and expanded lists of AI use cases for 2024.

The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon.
If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Lift off! How NASA is faring in its exploration of AI

The Department of Government Efficiency has arrived at the Office of Biometric Identity Management, a quiet but powerful component of the Department of Homeland Security that handles a critical database of fingerprint, facial, and iris data used throughout the federal government. Three people, including one person within DHS and two more familiar with the matter, confirmed that DOGE now has a presence at the agency. Two of those sources added that DOGE seems to have restarted conversations about the future of the Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology (HART) program, which DHS has long hoped would replace the agency’s current biometrics database — the Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT), one of the world’s largest known systems of that kind. OBIM was created more than a decade ago to manage the biometric information used to make border security decisions. As a relatively small office, OBIM provides assistance to DHS and federal agencies, including the State Department. OBIM also sometimes exchanges biometrics with other countries. OBIM’s biometric database stores hundreds of millions of biometric data points. A DHS website notes that a single query of the system “can retrieve data for an individual tied to a Department of State visa application, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection log of an entry into the United States, and an immigration status change logged by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.”

The Trump administration has launched an effort to overhaul the Federal Acquisition Regulation with a focus on delivering a quicker, more efficient and less burdensome procurement process for federal agencies. To provide details on the progress of the so-called “Revolutionary FAR Overhaul,” the General Services Administration — one of the federal government’s lead procurement agencies and a member of the FAR Council — launched a new website Tuesday for the initiative. Federal acquisition stakeholders can expect to find a streamlined version of the FAR, buying guides — the first of which will be focused on software-as-a-service — and opportunities to share their feedback about acquisition policy on the new website, according to a release from GSA. The Trump administration’s overhaul of the FAR was spurred by an executive order in April that called on the Office of Federal Procurement Policy in the Office of Management and Budget to lead the effort with FAR Council members GSA, NASA and the Defense Department. Within 180 days of that order, the group is expected to “amend the FAR to ensure that it contains only provisions that are required by statute or that are otherwise necessary to support simplicity and usability, strengthen the efficacy of the procurement system, or protect economic or national security interests.” 

The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon.
If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

DOGE enters Homeland Security’s biometrics operations; Trump administration kicks off acquisition overhaul

Amid a governmentwide effort to bring federal employees back to the office, a small but powerful biometrics office based in the Department of Homeland Security is now so packed that employees were briefly asked to bring their own chairs to work. An email viewed by FedScoop shows that employees of the Office of Biometric Identity Management (OBIM) were at one point guided to bring their own chairs to work. That advice was quickly rescinded, with the email saying that despite the initial guidance, staff should not bring their own chairs to the office while thanking employees for their patience as they worked through logistical challenges. OBIM, which was established more than a decade ago to manage the biometric information used to make border security decisions, is based at the Transportation Security Administration’s offices. Another email, also viewed by FedScoop, highlights the severe space constraints at OBIM. Employees were sent lists of conference rooms that could be used for seating options for work. The email said: “With these space limitations, we encourage staff to please be accommodating and share offices and workspaces to the extent it is possible. Please connect directly with your supervisor and division leadership to discuss creative seating solutions. Please remember that we are all in this together and are working to find viable solutions. Thank you again for your patience as we work through these logistical challenges.” Because there isn’t enough office or cubicle space, it’s possible that staffers could unintentionally expose information to those that don’t need to know it, given their proximity to other people, one former OBIM employee said.

As DOGE continues its decimation of the federal workforce, grinds various operations to a halt and touts dubious cost-savings claims, the congressional agency with deep experience rooting out fraud, waste and abuse in government released a litany of recommendations Tuesday that it says could save the public tens of billions of dollars. The Government Accountability Office’s 15th annual report on federal programs that have “fragmented, overlapping, or duplicative goals or actions” identified 148 cost-cutting measures across 43 topic areas, delivering a playbook to Congress and federal agencies aimed at lowering costs, improving programs and increasing revenues. Comptroller General Gene Dodaro said in a press release that the GAO’s updated report details “new and meaningful opportunities to save federal funds across a wide range of programs.” “By addressing this year’s updated list, as well as open recommendations to both agencies and Congress from GAO’s past work, the federal government could potentially save an additional” $100 billion, he added.

The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon.
If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.


A DHS office asked staff to bring their own chairs to work; GAO identifies $100B in potential government cost savings

When you talk about operations at the edge, the State Department is up there among federal agencies with largest forward-deployed mission sets. With more than 270 posts that diplomats work out of in foreign territories, the State Department has a massive footprint at the edge. And according to Gharun Lacy, State’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Cyber & Technology Security, each of those posts comes with its own unique challenges in securing their digital operations. Earlier this month, I hosted Lacy for a fireside chat at the GDIT Emerge: Edge Forward event, during which we discussed how State is innovating at the edge to boost security of consulates and embassies, how the department incentivizes innovation, the adoption of emerging technologies at the edge, and much more.

U.S. authorities unsealed indictments, seized financial accounts and made an arrest in the latest attempt to crack down on North Korean remote IT workers as part of a coordinated action that the Justice Department announced Monday. The workers obtained employment at more than 100 U.S. companies using stolen and fake identities, costing them millions in damages and losses. The crackdown also included the seizure of websites and searches of 29 known or suspected “laptop farms” across 16 states that hosted victim company-provided laptops used to deceive companies. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts and the DOJ’s National Security Division arrested Zhenxing “Danny” Wang of New Jersey on Monday pursuant to a five-count indictment of Wang and eight alleged co-conspirators, all Chinese and Taiwanese nationals. A second five-count indictment from the Northern District of Georgia charged four North Korean nationals. 

The Department of Homeland Security is canceling a $10 billion IT and software contract, a move that comes amid the Trump administration’s push to route all deals through the General Services Administration. In a posting Friday, DHS said the decision to scrap all existing IT value-added reseller deals under its FirstSource III contract aligns with recent executive orders and was made following “a thorough analysis of active contract awards and solicitations to assess mission-criticality and continued needs.” The cancellation also includes solicitations and evaluations of proposals submitted via a second category for software, per the posting, and no additional awards will be made. 

Also in this episode: Deloitte's Ed Van Buren and Google Public Sector's Amina Al Sherif join SNG host Wyatt Kash in a sponsored podcast discussion on why agentic AI is essential for agencies striving to scale operations, lower costs and enhance efficiency. This segment was sponsored by Deloitte.

The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon.
If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

The State Department’s innovation-driven approach to security at the edge

This is a teaser, a taste of what is in the second of our two podcasts featuring Angelique Bickford, a 26-year-old first time mother. While working in the packing shed, she fell in love with Maico, another employee on the organic farm. She learned Spanish easily to communicate with him and her fellow workers and after a period of shy courtship they decided to make a life together. 

Right when their baby was born, four members of their family living nearby were violently seized—the door knocked down—without a warrant or provocation, and abducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, some detained, others deported. Angelique and her partner lived in fear, all the while loving their life together with their housemates and their new precious child. But soon enough, on the way to work Maico too was pulled out of the vehicle in which he was riding early one morning this spring. He too is in detention. Angelique expresses hope, a sense of calm mixed with distress and outrage, along with her own theory as to why so many of her new family members and co-workers are being seized.

Angelique on ICE

In this week's update, we look at the the details of this past Sunday's church shooting in Kentucky, and the enduring problem of lone wolf attacks in the homeland. We then shift to a "Duty to Warn" notification from the Army regarding a potential terrorist threat targeting retired senior officials. This episode concludes with highlights from congressional hearings on the growing homeland security threats stemming from the use of unmanned aircraft systems.  An expanded written version of this report can be found in our weekly Threat Journal email newsletter. You can subscribe for free by visiting https://www.ThreatJournal.com. A link to this issue will be sent to you immediately via email.

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Homeland Security Weekly Update - July 19, 2025

A podcast covering the latest news & trends facing top government leaders on topics such as technology, management & workforce. Hosted by Billy Mitchell on FedScoop and released Monday-Friday.

Come on a journey with two HBCU alumni, Sharelle and Sierra, for a weekly discussion covering topics from politics to pop culture to current events! Welcome to Headwraps and Lipsticks where the conversations are plentiful, thought-provoking and funny!

Wit and wisdom on race, class, the environment, community economics and local history from the Appalachian coalfields and frack fields AND the Dawnland of the Northeast USA--stories and music by the people who live here, who want to connect with YOU

A weekly podcast from AlertsUSA, Inc expanding on SMS alerts sent as part of the National Threat and Incident Notification Service for Mobile Devices. Topics covered include terrorism, border security, nuclear and radiological emergencies, civil unrest, embassy warning messages, major public health threats such as epidemics and pandemics and more. Each weekly episode is a fast paced roundup of threats, developments and practical advice directly impacting your safety and security.

New tracks tagged #Homeland Security