One of the longest-tenured CIOs in the government announced this week he is stepping away from federal service. Gundeep Ahluwalia sent a letter to staff stating that Friday will be his last day after more than eight years with the Department of Labor. In his note, Ahluwalia called the department’s biggest accomplishment during his time its “ability to attract talent and create leaders,” saying that Labor’s Office of the CIO is “a formidable leadership factory.”

The White House issued a report Monday calling for more funding and interagency coordination for the advancement of international cooperation in quantum information science and technology. The document, released by the Office of Science and Technology Policy, details a series of QIST-related recommendations from a subcommittee within the National Science and Technology Council, including that the U.S. government create long-term funding mechanisms for QIST collaboration and cooperation and “establish and track” global metrics for QIST and the competitiveness of “enabling technologies.”

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 on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Gundeep Ahluwalia leaving Labor after 8 years as CIO

Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Information Technology says it’s reviewing the loss of three physical servers, a public records request shows. According to a document produced by CBP’s Cybersecurity Directorate, about 200 government devices have been stolen or gone missing in recent years. Of these devices, 140 were cell phones, and just under 40 were laptops. No items were reported to be lost abroad, according to the document. That federal employees would have lost phones and tablets isn’t surprising. FedScoop has reported on lost electronics at the U.S. Agency for International Development and NASA, and agencies often review inventories of employee devices. Still, the loss of government-furnished equipment can raise concerns about the security of sensitive data. Some federal employees have even been caught stealing government IT equipment in order to sell it. The loss of three servers is somewhat unusual. The agency did not answer a series of questions about the lost servers, including what data they might have held or whether the losses were ever reported to law enforcement. In response to FedScoop questions, an agency spokesperson said, “CBP is currently reviewing this issue.”

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency must brief Congress on proposed deep cuts to agency personnel, a top Democrat said in a letter to its acting director. California Rep. Eric Swalwell, ranking member of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection, wrote in the letter to acting Director Bridget Bean on Thursday that CISA is obligated to notify Congress of its plans. CISA reportedly plans to cut agency staff by nearly 40%, or 1,300 people. Swallwell wrote in his letter that “upending an agency that plays such an important role in defending the homeland while keeping Congress in the dark is wholly unacceptable,” adding that CISA hasn’t provided the subcommittee any justification for the cuts or explained how it will execute its congressionally mandated mission with a fraction of the workforce and resources. CISA had already cut 130 probationary staffers, a move blocked in court before being overturned in an appeal.

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.

CBP servers go missing; Rep. Swalwell demands a Hill briefing on planned CISA personnel cuts

The CODY bot, a tool used to streamline procurement processes at the General Services Administration, is now ready for use across the federal landscape after three years of buildout. CODY aggregates prerequisite data into a checklist, according to GSA officials familiar with the tool, enabling staffers to see if a vendor has met all representation requirements — ensuring there is no active federal debt against a vendor, and no exclusionary or responsibility cautions to trigger notifications. The agency primarily tracks how many hours the bot saves in a year rather than the costs saved, according to one of the officials. GSA Administrator Stephen Ehikian posted on X that the bot’s completion resulted in the cancellation of a $423,000 contract. “President Trump’s GSA is at the forefront of leveraging technology for government to produce tools that boost productivity and our employee’s potential,” Ehikian said in a statement to FedScoop.

A pair of House Democrats are sounding the alarm about the U.S. Secret Service’s use of counter-drone technology, which recently triggered air traffic control system alerts at the Washington National Airport. Democratic Reps. Rick Larsen of Washington and Bennie Thompson of Mississippi are demanding more information about the use of the technology and raising concerns about whether the Department of Homeland Security component is following proper procedures. In a Monday letter sent to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, the lawmakers pointed to alerts produced by the Traffic Collision Avoidance System last month. These alerts made erroneous recommendations to several commercial and Coast Guard aircraft, Larsen and Thompson say. And according to analysis conducted by the Federal Aviation Administration, the alerts were produced by Secret Service anti-drone technology at a nearby Defense Department location.  The confusion comes after the deadly crash between a commercial airline and an Army helicopter at DCA airport earlier this year, which resulted in dozens of deaths. While DHS has launched an investigation, the Democratic congressmen say the counter-drone technology deployed by the DOD was operating outside existing notifications — and that the Secret Service did not share required notifications with the FAA.

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.

Meet CODY, GSA's new procurement automaton tool

The Internal Revenue Service’s chief information officer is leaving the tax agency this month, the latest in an increasingly long line of veteran IT leaders exiting the government amid President Donald Trump’s gutting of the federal workforce. Rajiv Uppal told IT staffers in a Monday email, obtained by FedScoop, that he had “decided to depart” the tax agency, and that his last day will be April 28. Kaschit Pandya, the agency’s chief technology officer, will take over as acting CIO “while leadership finalizes long-term plans for the role,” Uppal wrote.

President Donald Trump signed a pair of executive orders Tuesday to revamp the federal procurement and contracting processes, part of the administration’s sweeping takedown of government regulations. The procurement order takes aim at the Federal Acquisition Regulation, which the White House says has evolved “into an excessive and overcomplicated regulatory framework and resulting in an onerous bureaucracy.” To “create the most agile, effective, and efficient procurement system possible,” Trump’s EO calls for the removal of “undue barriers” and “unnecessary regulations” in procurement.

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.

IRS CIO Rajiv Uppal is stepping down; Trump EOs aim to overhaul federal contracting

On this week’s Priorities Podcast, we’re joined by Mark Lindeman, the policy and strategy director of election nonprofit group Verified Voting, to discuss the final passage of a piece of legislation in Maryland that would require the state to conduct a post-election, risk-limiting audit process after each statewide election. 

The legislation also allows for the audits, which Lindeman’s organization says are highly effective methods to ensure correct election results and increase public trust in elections, to be done via an automated software after a statewide election. But Lindeman tells StateScoop that with software audits, “it's important to go beyond the software. It's important to get human eyes on the ballots and to have a check that doesn't depend on the software working correctly.”

Going beyond the software for election audits in Maryland

The Trump administration has decided to terminate the IRS’s Direct File program, according to a source familiar with the situation, putting an end to the free electronic filing system that congressional Republicans and the tax preparation industry have had in their crosshairs since its creation. Work on Direct File began during Joe Biden’s presidency, bringing together some of the administration’s top technical and product minds and tapping into funds from the Inflation Reduction Act. Providing all U.S. taxpayers with a free filing tool would have put the country in line with most developed nations. But despite what the IRS considered to be a successful launch last year, Direct File’s future was murky after President Donald Trump’s election and the administration’s welcoming of Elon Musk’s DOGE into the government tech world. The pending elimination of the free filing tool was celebrated Wednesday by the makers of TurboTax. Derrick Plummer, an Intuit spokesman, called Direct File “a solution in search of a problem, a drain on critical IRS resources and a waste of taxpayer dollars.” Consumer advocate groups panned the Trump administration’s decision. Susan Harley, managing director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division, said in a statement that scrapping Direct File “is almost literally taking money out of our pockets.”

Dean Ball, a policy scholar with a focus on the intersection of history, political theory, policy and technology, is joining the Trump administration as a senior policy advisor on artificial intelligence and emerging technology, he announced Tuesday on the social media platform X. Ball said in his post of joining the Office of Science and Technology Policy: “It is a thrill and honor to serve my country in this role and work alongside the tremendous team [OSTP Director Michael Kratsios] has built.” He comes to OSTP from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, where he has served as a research fellow for the past year. Ball is also the author of an AI-focused blog called Hyperdimensional, in which he has defended the AI Safety Institute and commented on the Trump administration’s terminations of probationary employees, saying the move had unintended consequences. Ball also wrote recently that he is interested in AI being built at the same time that the Trump administration and Republicans “seek to advance theories of a ‘unitary executive’ — the notion that the president exercises the powers granted to him by the Constitution and Congress absolutely.”

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.


Trump administration to end IRS’s Direct File; OSTP taps Dean Ball as AI, emerging tech advisor

The General Services Administration is not happy with the top-10 consulting firms it asked back in February to self-identify contracts that could be terminated to save the federal government money, going as far as to call their efforts under the initiative “insulting.” Josh Gruenbaum, commissioner of GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service, wrote in a letter to those 10 firms, viewed by FedScoop, that GSA and its contracting partners are “unanimously unimpressed” with the cost savings those contractors identified in the so-called “scorecards” they submitted after the agency called for the termination of government contracts with those top consultants. As a result, the agency is calling on those firms to submit a second “waste review” by 5 p.m. ET on Friday with their proposals demonstrating how they can “lean into developing taxpayer friendly pricing” with “dramatic price reductions.” “In good faith, and with high expectation, we offered firms the opportunity to join us in reducing wasteful spending and do their part in addressing the twin issues of the federal debt and deficit,” Gruenbaum wrote. “The efforts to propose meaningful cost savings were wholly insufficient, to the point of being insulting.” 

The Labor Department’s new chief information officer is looking to reduce staff in the Office of the CIO by about 30%, according to a source within the agency. Hundreds of people currently work in Labor’s CIO office, but leadership is hoping many workers will voluntarily leave the team. Thomas Shedd, who was appointed to Labor’s CIO role last month, is optimistic that the goal will be achieved through the federal government’s deferred resignation programs and reduction-in-force efforts, the source said.  Going forward, Labor’s Office of the CIO plans to focus on systems used to disburse benefits, as well as programs required by law that need business systems and software to work, according to documents viewed by FedScoop. There will also be an emphasis on efficiency and consolidating systems while providing value, the documents said. The department told employees that they’re not “tracking” staff, despite media reports, and that the agency is only interested in measuring results.

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.

‘Unimpressed’ GSA gives consulting firms new deadline in quest to terminate contracts; New DOGE CIO looks to reduce Labor IT office by 30%

Dozens of Democrats wrote a letter to Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought on Wednesday demanding information on the Department of Government Efficiency’s unauthorized use of artificial intelligence systems. The letter, which was led by Reps. Don Beyer, D-Va., Mike Levin, D-Calif., and Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M. and signed by 45 other lawmakers, expressed concerns about privacy and security risks associated with the group’s use of federal data in unapproved AI systems, as well as potential conflicts of interest involving Elon Musk, who leads an AI firm called xAI. Specifically, the lawmakers flagged reports of DOGE affiliates inputting data into unapproved AI systems and the risk that sensitive federal data could be used to train future commercial models.

Douglas Matty assumed the role of the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and AI Officer on Monday, according to an internal unclassified email viewed by DefenseScoop. The principal deputy who has been temporarily leading the AI hub ahead of the Trump administration’s selection for the new chief, Margie Palmieri, sent the announcement to several senior officials Friday morning. In the email, she indicated that more communications on the team’s path ahead would soon follow, once Matty takes the reins. Matty previously founded the Army AI Integration Center under Army Futures Command, which he led between 2020 and 2022. Palmieri wrote: “We are excited to get appointed leadership at the helm of CDAO so early in the administration. The prioritization on filling the top Al and data related leadership position in DoD will enable the Department to better accelerate and scale the adoption of data, analytics, and Al in line with the Secretary’s priorities.”

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.

Dozens of lawmakers question DOGE’s use of AI; Former Army AI leader tapped as Pentagon’s next CDAO

Labor Department employees can now access two OpenAI models through the company’s partnership with Microsoft Azure, making the agency the latest to integrate generative AI into its workflow. The two OpenAI models now available to Labor staff are GPT-4o and GPT-4o mini, according to documents viewed by FedScoop. The agency’s platform for the OpenAI tech suggests that staff use the technology for specific applications, including a language translator, a “pros and cons analyzer,” and a memo writer. A large document analyzer and document comparison tool are also available in the interface. Along with that, the department has published a guide on the appropriate use of AI systems and cautions agency users that their role in properly using the generative AI tools is “crucial.” Staff are flagged with a warning before using the tool and are instructed to review outputs for accuracy. Previously, these kinds of generative AI tools had not been approved for Labor Department use and employees were warned not to enter federal information into the systems, a source within the agency told FedScoop.

Two top officials at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency who worked with the private sector to manufacture secure products and technology are leaving the agency. Bob Lord, senior technical adviser and Lauren Zabierek, senior advisor at CISA, were two of the chief architects behind CISA’s Secure by Design initiative, which garnered voluntary commitments from major vendors and manufacturers to build cybersecurity protections into their products at the design stage. On Monday in separate posts on LinkedIn, Lord and Zabierek both said they are departing the agency. Neither offered a rationale or motivation for the decision, with Lord simply calling it a “difficult decision” and Zabierek saying it was “not an easy choice.”

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 Department of Labor gets access to OpenAI tech; Top officials behind CISA’s ‘Secure by Design’ resign

Members of the Department of Government Efficiency have made their way into the National Science Foundation, as grants throughout the agency are being terminated. Three DOGE affiliates are currently listed as working in the Office of the Director at NSF, according to multiple sources within the agency: Luke Farritor, a former SpaceX intern and AI engineer who has shown up at other agencies DOGE has entered; Rachel Riley, a former McKinsey consultant who has also appeared at the Department of Health and Human Services; and Zachary Terrell. As part of the arrangement, Farritor has a “Budget, Finance, and Administration” clearance, which a source said allows him to view and modify the agency’s funding opportunity system. Farritor and Terrell are listed in an agency directory as consultants. On April 18, NSF published a statement that it was terminating grants and awards that don’t align with the administration’s priorities, including those related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and misinformation and disinformation.

Alexis Bonnell has stepped down from her positions at the Air Force Research Laboratory and transitioned to a new job at OpenAI, the company responsible for the development of ChatGPT. In 2023, Bonnell was tapped to serve as AFRL’s first-ever chief information officer and director of the laboratory’s Digital Capabilities Directorate, where she led the lab’s information technology strategy and overall modernization efforts. According to a Tuesday post on LinkedIn, Bonnell is now working at OpenAI as a partnership manager, a position she took on in March.

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.

How DOGE got into the National Science Foundation; Air Force Research Lab CIO joins OpenAI

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong recently recommended that the state’s lawmakers strengthen a statewide privacy law enacted two years ago, including by sending “warning letters” to violators and investigating consumer complaints. Kara Williams, law fellow at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, joins the Priorities Podcast to share why she thinks Connecticut’s law is weak in some respects, but that changes could create a “cascading effect” that leads other states to strengthen their data privacy laws or create new ones. "It’s encouraging to see that the AG advocates for this strong data minimization framework,” she says, “but it’s also great to see that some of these principles are included in [a proposed] update bill. … It's not really an option to sit and wait for the federal government to act on privacy.”

Top stories this week:

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration on Tuesday notified states that they’ve been granted a 90-day extension to submit their final spending proposals for the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program.

Like most large government organizations, Oklahoma has for years been using various AI tools and machine learning models to trawl endless network logs for abnormal activity. After several years of using network monitoring software from the British firm Darktrace in “human confirmation mode,” Oklahoma last year allowed the company’s “Cyber AI Analyst” product to make decisions on its own.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro on Monday launched a WhatsApp channel, with an English and Spanish language option, aimed at providing residents with updates on state news, services and initiatives.


New episodes of StateScoop’s Priorities Podcast are posted each Wednesday.
For more of the latest news and trends across the state and local government technology community, subscribe to the Priorities Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Soundcloud or Spotify.

States shouldn't wait for federal action on data privacy, says one expert

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.

Gundeep Ahluwalia leaving Labor after 8 years as CIO

The Daily Scoop Podcast

Related tracks