January 2010

The Federal Communications Commission has launched a Notice of Proposed rulemaking to consider amending its rules governing the Emergency Alert System (EAS) to provide for national testing of the EAS and collection of data from such tests.

The EAS is a national alert and warning system that exists primarily to enable the President of the United States to issue warnings to the American public during emergencies. To date, however, neither the EAS nor its predecessor national alerting systems have been used to deliver a national Presidential alert. Moreover, while FCC rules provide for periodic testing of EAS at the state and local level, no systematic national test of the EAS has ever been conducted to determine whether the system would in fact function as required should the President issue a national alert, and, in their current form, our EAS rules do not mandate any such test.

The FCC proposes a yearly test of the system. It seeks public comment on the specific language of the proposed rule and its sufficiency to ensure an adequate framework for the conduct of national tests implemented by this agency in collaboration with FEMA and our other Federal partners. The FCC also seeks comment on whether the specific rule that it proposes is, on balance, the best way to implement national testing of the EAS, or whether different provisions should be adopted.

Comments are due in mid-February.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology awarded Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. a contract to help develop a testing method and processes for certifying electronic health record systems.

The $400,000 contract, announced Jan. 13, calls for the consulting firm to help NIST build a testing framework for health IT, a certification "process document" and other planning tools. NIST announced the short-term contract on the Federal Business Opportunities Web site Jan. 13. The work is part of a larger contract BAH already has with NIST for health IT consulting services, according to the announcement. The just-announced contract will provide a bridge until NIST finishes a competition for providers to complete the work. NIST said it had two goals for the program: to develop testing and certification documents to help set up a health IT certification program, and to set up a "proficiency testing framework" for authorizing certification and testing organizations.

Private sector executives on Thursday let Obama cabinet deputy secretaries learn the secret behind their success: technology-driven operations.

Federal chief performance officer Jeffrey Zients announced that the mentorships will continue. He asked the execs to take calls from the deputy secretaries next week and debrief them on the lessons they should have learned. And he said he hopes the feds will become comfortable enough with their private sector counterparts to call whenever they need advice. Zients added that within 30 days the administration will post online an implementation plan to execute the ideas generated during Thursday's exchanges.

The American Civil Liberties Union said Thursday that a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit has revealed that the Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection agency searched more than 1,500 computers, cell phones and other electronic devices belonging to international travelers as they entered U.S. airports or other border posts. The searches were conducted between October 2008 and June 2009. The group blasted the policy that allows customs agents to search computers and other devices without suspecting any particular wrongdoing.