The Daily Scoop Podcast

A pair of Democratic lawmakers are reviving a push to guarantee federal agencies that use artificial intelligence systems have a civil rights office dedicated to curbing “bias and discrimination” in AI. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa., reintroduced the Eliminating Bias in Algorithmic Systems (BIAS) Act on Thursday. If enacted, federal agencies that use, fund, or oversee the development of AI algorithms would be required to establish civil rights offices staffed by experts and technologists. According to the bill text, these experts would focus primarily on bias, discrimination or other harms, including the impact on certain communities, groups or individuals, or bias against certain characteristics related to race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, disability and more. These offices would also be mandated to report their efforts to Congress. The bill comes as federal agencies race to adopt and integrate AI into their workflows. Government watchdogs found the use of generative AI in federal agencies “rapidly” jumped from 2023 and 2024, with that number expected to have increased over the past year. Markey's office noted federal agencies often lack civil rights offices “whose principal mission is to protect vulnerable communities,” and the ones that exist often are not required to have staff familiar with algorithmic bias. The Department of Homeland Security is finalizing plans for a new body that would replace the functions of the Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council (CIPAC) and serve as a communications hub between industry and government to discuss ongoing threats to U.S. critical infrastructure, including from cyber attacks. Under previous administrations, CIPAC served as a nerve center for federal agencies, industry and other stakeholders. While industry widely praised its utility, the council was one of many DHS advisory bodies that were shuttered last year by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem when President Donald Trump returned to office. Now, according to multiple sources, a proposed regulation for a new replacement council is in the final stages of review and approval from Noem's office. The new body will be called the Alliance of National Councils for Homeland Operational Resilience, or “ANCHOR,” and will also serve as an umbrella organization for other federal sector risk management agencies. Its goal is to restart conversations and planning around infrastructure security that took place under the previous CIPAC, according to a former DHS official. 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.

After leaving her role performing the duties of the chief information officer for the Department of Defense last month, Katie Arrington has taken a new position as CIO at quantum computing company IonQ. Arrington will step into the role Jan. 19, reporting to the company's COO and CFO Inder Singh, IonQ announced Wednesday. Kirsten Davies was nominated by President Donald Trump in May 2025 to be the Defense Department CIO, and it took most of the remainder of 2025 for the Senate to confirm her into the role. She was sworn in just before the Christmas holiday, at which point Arrington stepped away from her service to the Pentagon. In joining IonQ, Arrington will serve on the company's executive team. As CIO, Arrington will continue to support the U.S. military from a different vantage, leading modernization and security of IonQ's enterprise systems in support of its mission to deliver quantum capabilities to American warfighters. Before rejoining the Pentagon a year ago, then as deputy CIO for cybersecurity, Arrington had a previous stint as CISO in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, where she was largely responsible for the development of the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) program. Now: President Donald Trump re-nominated Sean Plankey to lead the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on Tuesday, after Plankey's bid for the position ended last year stuck in the Senate. It's not clear whether or how Plankey's resubmitted nomination will overcome the hurdles that left many observers convinced his chance of becoming CISA director had likely ended, but it does definitively signal that the Trump administration still wants Plankey to have the job. Plankey's nomination was included in a batch sent to the Senate announced on Tuesday. CISA spent all of 2025 under Trump without a permanent director. Trump nominated Plankey, who held a couple cybersecurity roles in the first Trump administration, to lead CISA in March. He got a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing in July, then won approval from that panel that same month. But Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., had placed a hold on Plankey's nomination over a Coast Guard contract that the Homeland Security Department had canceled in part. While he awaited confirmation, Plankey had been serving as a senior adviser to the secretary for the Coast Guard. A spokesperson for Scott did not immediately respond to a request for comment. North Carolina's GOP Senate delegation also had placed holds on DHS nominees related to disaster aid to their state. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said last week that the holds would remain until Secretary Kristi Noem appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee. A White House official had denied reports that Plankey's nomination was all but over last year. “President Trump has been clear that he wants all of his nominees confirmed as quickly as possible, including Sean Plankey, who will play a key role in ensuring a strong cyber defense infrastructure,” the official told CyberScoop. Asked Wednesday at the Surface Navy Association national symposium about what he was doing to convince senators to lift their holds, Plankey answered, “The administration, the White House has to say that this is a priority of us.” 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.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared his team's long-awaited new plans to outpace U.S. adversaries by rapidly advancing the military's arsenal of AI, drones, hypersonics and other disruptive technologies — and drastically reshaping the Pentagon's approaches for safely deploying them. Speaking onstage at SpaceX's Starbase launch site in Texas, during a tour hosted by its billionaire CEO Elon Musk, Hegseth said: “In short, when it comes to our current threat environment, we are playing a dangerous game with potentially fatal consequences. We need innovation to come from anywhere and evolve with speed and purpose.” Hegseth's speech and three accompanying memorandums released Monday reveal the Trump administration's latest, fast-moving and multifaceted vision to overhaul the Defense Department's technology enterprise and dismantle perpetual barriers that have historically slowed the military's commercial capability adoption. Hegseth said that old era ends today, and that the department is done running what he called a peacetime science fair while our potential adversaries are running a wartime arms race. The revamped structure notably aims to anchor a “unified innovation ecosystem built around six execution organizations” that will now collectively operate under the purview of DOD Chief Technology Officer and Undersecretary for Research and Engineering Emil Michael. Those newer and more legacy entities include: the Pentagon's Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO); Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA); Defense Innovation Unit (DIU); Office of Strategic Capital (OSC); Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO); and Test Resource Management Center (TRMC). Senate and House appropriators are eyeing White House work on IT, artificial intelligence and cloud infrastructure — and a continued presence for DOGE — as part of their fiscal year 2026 bill to fund Financial Services and General Government. On the executive branch funding released Sunday for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, lawmakers agreed on $124.3 million for salaries and expenses in the White House's Office of Administration, with up to $12.8 million used for IT modernization. No more than $10 million of that IT pie should be spent for security and continuity of operations improvements. The Information Technology Oversight and Reform (ITOR) bucket, which historically has supported the Office of the Federal CIO and the now-defunct U.S. Digital Service, would receive $8 million under the new budget. House Appropriations Republicans said in their press release that that money would be used to fund the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which has replaced USDS as the U.S. DOGE Service. That $8 million figure is a fraction of the Trump administration's initial ask. In its June 2025 budget proposal, the White House requested $45 million in funding for DOGE, the Elon Musk-created group that led the decimation of the federal workforce in the early days of the Trump administration under the auspices of rooting out waste, fraud and abuse of agencies, but ended up raising government spending. The White House also sought $19 million for the ITOR account. 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 Homeland Security is launching a new office focused on unmanned aircraft systems that will oversee strategic investments in drone and counter-drone technologies. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in the Monday press release: “We are entering a new era to defend our air superiority to protect our borders and the interior of the United States. This will help us continue to secure the border and cripple the cartels, protect our infrastructure, and keep Americans safe as they attend festivities and events during a historic year of America's 250th birthday and FIFA 2026.” The creation of the dedicated office builds on preceding efforts to beef up drone and counter-drone technologies. In December, FEMA awarded $250 million in grants for counter-drone capabilities to the 11 states hosting FIFA World Cup 2026 matches and Washington, D.C. DHS also expanded authorization the same month to allow state and local law enforcement to combat drone threats, according to the announcement. The department is also fielding proposals from industry partners for a $1.5 billion contract that will facilitate the procurement of these technologies for Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The new Program Executive Office has “already begun its work,” according to DHS. The drone-focused entity is finalizing a $115 million investment in counter technologies that will support the two upcoming celebrations. The funding and focus come amid heightened risks regarding threat actors' use of unmanned aircraft systems. DHS said Monday that the agency has conducted 1,500-plus missions to address illicit drone activities since 2018. Unauthorized drones have impeded sporting events, disrupted public gatherings and sparked concern among residents. Calls on Congress to put money into the Technology Modernization Fund may have been answered — albeit at much lower levels than what the General Services Administration-run funding vehicle for agency IT projects has been accustomed to. Senate and House Appropriations Committee lawmakers released a package of conferenced bills Sunday to fund several federal agencies through the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, including GSA. Tucked into the 488-page agreement was a note that $5 million would be provided to the TMF, “to remain available until expended.” The appropriations bills must still be passed by both chambers of Congress and signed by the president before the funding can take effect. The potential funding comes as the TMF expired last month for the first time since it was created in 2017, freezing nearly $200 million in funding for agency technology projects. The program has enjoyed bipartisan support since its launch nearly a decade ago: former Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., was a staunch advocate for the program until his death from cancer last year, while Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., has led a sustained push for TMF's reauthorization. The fund has similarly strong backing from civic technologists and industry groups, and a spokesperson for the House Oversight Committee told FedScoop last month that its reauthorization was a “high priority” that the Office of Management and Budget also supported. Nevertheless, efforts to get TMF reauthorization through the fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act didn't pan out, leaving the program out in the cold. 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 Small Business Administration is enlisting Palantir's help in its nationwide probe of suspected loan fraud, as yearslong fraud allegations in Minnesota draw national attention. According to federal spending records, the SBA signed a $300,000 contract with the data analytics and software giant last week. The contract's description read “SBA Fraud Prevention Pilot and Bootcamp,” and has a projected end date of April 4. The contract, signed through the General Services Administration's Multiple Award Schedule, was made public just days after SBA Secretary Kelly Loeffler announced that the agency had suspended 6,900 Minnesota borrowers for alleged fraud following its review of thousands of pandemic-era loans administered to the state. Loeffler said the borrowers were approved for 7,900 Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster (EIDL) loans totaling about $400 million. When asked about the Palantir contract, SBA spokesperson Maggie Clemmons pointed to the agency's Minnesota probe, writing: “We're now expanding our investigations nationwide as part of a broader zero-tolerance policy on fraud.” Clemmons added: “The agency has multiple audits underway, from pandemic-era programs to federal contracting, and will work with law enforcement to hold fraudsters accountable and put the criminals who have cheated American taxpayers behind bars.” The Office of Personnel Management launched a new workforce data website last week, replacing an antiquated interface and aiming to bring more transparency to federal employment figures. OPM officially announced the new Federal Workforce Data site last Thursday, with data up to November for most categories. That site includes accessible statistics of interest — such as a reduction of 220,000 workers under President Donald Trump — as well as multiple interactive charts that users can filter by agency, timeframe, or other factors. In a written statement, OPM Director Scott Kupor called the website “a major step forward for accountability and data-driven decision-making across government.” While federal workforce data has long been made publicly available online, the old interface, FedScope, was cumbersome and offered data updates on a quarterly basis that lagged by months. In addition to a more modern interface, the new website adds datasets for payroll and recruitment, and promises updates on a faster monthly interval. Per a note on the website, FedScope will no longer be available as of Jan. 28. Despite controversy over the Trump administration's efforts to shrink the workforce, publication of the website was immediately well received by federal data users and advocates. In comments to FedScoop, several sources both applauded the new website and noted that interest in improving the publication of federal workforce data began before the current administration. 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 Trump administration is withdrawing the United States from a handful of international organizations that work to strengthen cybersecurity. As part of a broader pullback from 66 international organizations, the administration is leaving the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise, the Online Freedom Coalition and the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats. Trump's decision is in line with a president who has expressed hostility toward the existing international order, an approach critics fear creates a leadership power vacuum for U.S. adversaries to fill. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement Thursday: “The Trump Administration has found these institutions to be redundant in their scope, mismanaged, unnecessary, wasteful, poorly run, captured by the interests of actors advancing their own agendas contrary to our own, or a threat to our nation's sovereignty, freedoms, and general prosperity.” Rubio criticized the international organizations over “DEI mandates,” “‘gender equity' campaigns” and activities that “constrain American sovereignty.” The National Quantum Initiative has another chance at reauthorization under the latest iteration of bipartisan legislation introduced Thursday. Sens. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Todd Young, R-Ind., are again sponsoring a bill that would authorize new funding to support quantum research and development at federal science agencies after aspects of the program lapsed in September 2023. The National Quantum Initiative Reauthorization Act would provide support for five more years of the coordinated efforts at agencies, including $85 million per year for the National Institute of Standards and Technology and $25 million per year for NASA. The National Science Foundation and White House Office of Science and Technology Policy would also play key roles. Introduction of the new legislation comes after past attempts at reauthorization failed to pass Congress. The previous Senate reauthorization introduced in 2024 didn't advance out of committee and a House bill from 2023 was unanimously approved by a committee but later stalled. Quantum continues to be a promising and globally competitive area for R&D as researchers work toward advancements in quantum computing. Once fully realized, quantum computing poses potential for both major advancements and challenges for cybersecurity. The initial establishment of the National Quantum Initiative in 2018 was bipartisan recognition that the U.S. needed its own cross-government strategy to coordinate R&D efforts in the public and private sector. 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 Homeland Security's plans for counter-drone efforts are coming into focus with the agency's announcement last week of $250 million in funding allocations for 11 states and Washington, D.C. The push comes ahead of the district and states hosting the FIFA World Cup 2026 and America 250 national events. The two occasions are expected to bring unprecedented levels of spectators, and, in turn, bad actors, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Karen Evans, acting administrator at FEMA, said in a statement“We knew we needed to act quickly to keep the World Cup safe from the rising threat of unmanned aircraft systems and that's exactly what we did. This is the fastest non-disaster grant program ever executed by FEMA with funds being awarded just 25 days after the application deadline.” California is set to receive the lion's share of the funding, at just under $34.6 million. Texas and Washington, D.C., rounded out the top three highest allocations, surpassing $30 million and $28 million, respectively. The awarded investments will go toward boosting drone-tracking infrastructure and detection technologies, in response to hostile actors that have “intensified” their use of the technology, the agency said. There have been several drone-related incidents in past years that have given cause for pause. In 2023, an NFL matchup between the Baltimore Ravens and the Cincinnati Bengals was delayed due to a drone flying over the stadium. The 2024 AFC Championship was interrupted as well after a drone was identified in restricted airspace. Other sports events and gatherings, such as the Boston Marathon, have also been the target of unauthorized drones. Congressional appropriators mostly ignored the Trump administration's requests to slash budgets at several science and data agencies in a package of fiscal year 2026 bills released this week. House and Senate lawmakers revealed a package of three bipartisan appropriations bills on Monday, including legislation to fund the Department of Commerce, Department of Justice, and science agencies — such as the National Science Foundation and NASA — as well as bills that cover the Department of Energy and Department of Interior. While the Trump administration sought deep cuts for Commerce and many science agencies in its budget for FY 2026, the final bill doesn't adopt those requests. It instead opts for small decreases or increases at some agencies and maintains relatively similar funding to previous years at others. The three-bill “minibus” — a term used to describe a subset of appropriations bills that would make up an omnibus appropriations package for the entire government — signals important agreement as the government again nears a possible shutdown. However, lawmakers still have several more negotiated appropriations bills to release and must pass that legislation before the continuing resolution currently keeping the government open expires Jan. 30. 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 Pentagon is looking to launch a new Enterprise Command and Control Program Office in a move that would consolidate and refresh its long-standing efforts to provide common operating panes and user-specific AI tools to track and target enemies in real time. This envisioned hub would combine and expand the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office's Maven Smart System (MSS) and Edge Data Mesh capabilities into the “Enterprise C2 Suite” — a new platform and program of record for Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control and Al-enabled warfighting options, according to sources familiar with the plan who requested anonymity to discuss it ahead of a forthcoming, official announcement. Internal guidance regarding a new EC2 Program Office suggests that its establishment would ensure that the Defense Department has the “authority, resources, and accountability to deliver capability at the speed of relevance.” DOD's undersecretariats for Intelligence and Security (I&S) and Research and Engineering (R&E) would be directed to deliver a plan for “the expedient transition of MSS authorities, infrastructure, support activities, and responsibilities” from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency to the EC2 Program Office. This new program office would essentially fuse multiple Pentagon elements that have come to fruition since the late 2010s, and are associated with digitizing command-and-control processes and deploying AI across the joint force. The Defense Department is soliciting ideas for how artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities can assist in the zero-trust assessment process as the deadline to reach target-level compliance approaches. According to a request for information posted Tuesday, the DOD's Zero Trust Portfolio Management Office is interested in leveraging “automation, AI and ML to accelerate and scale [zero trust] assessments” across the entire department — specifically for “purple team assessments.” The technologies will help the Pentagon mitigate its limited capacity to validate initial compliance and conduct continuous assessments, the RFI noted. Zero trust is a cybersecurity concept that assumes IT networks and systems are constantly under attack by adversaries, requiring the Pentagon to continuously monitor and authenticate users and their devices as they move through the network. The department's Zero Trust Strategy mandates all DOD components to achieve “target levels” of zero trust by the end of fiscal 2027. Validating compliance requires a combination of internal and third-party assessments. A key part of the Pentagon's independent evaluation process is a method called purple teaming, which analyzes and tests both how “red team” adversaries and “blue force” cyber defenders move and interact in an IT network. However, officials have previously noted that conducting comprehensive purple teaming can be a time-consuming process that can take warfighters away from other important missions. 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 Defense and the unifromed military services are undertaking a massive acquisition overhaul prioritizing speed and rapid innovation. One of the services leading the way on that journey is the Department of the Navy. Last month at DefenseTalks, CTO Justin Fanelli delivered a dynamic keynote sharing how the sea service is going about its technology-enabling acquisition transformation. Kirsten Davies has been formally sworn in as chief information officer at the Defense Department where she'll oversee a “broad portfolio” of important programs, the Pentagon announced. Davies took the reins shortly before the Christmas holiday, according to officials, less than a week after she was confirmed by the Senate. “She brings to the Department two decades of transforming organizations for the digital age, building cyber defenses, tackling tech debt, and innovating at scale,” officials wrote in a post on the Office of the CIO's LinkedIn page, noting her private sector experience working in top leadership roles for major companies such as Unilever, Estee Lauder Companies, Barclays (Africa Group), Hewlett Packard Enterprises, and Siemens AG. Her extensive IT and cybersecurity background was previously touted by experts who wrote a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee in support of her nomination for Pentagon CIO. In social media posts, DOD officials noted that Davies will be serving under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth while leading digital modernization efforts and “overseeing for him the information enterprise, cybersecurity, technology innovation, and a broad portfolio of national security programs.” Davies took the helm from Katie Arrington, who has launched and shepherded major initiatives while performing the duties of DOD CIO in a non-Senate-confirmed capacity. The Federal Aviation Administration is taking another step toward its goal of modernizing systems and processes by picking two partners to help replace more than 600 radars. The agency said Virginia-based RTX and Spanish firm Indra Sistemas will come onboard the FAA's air traffic control overhaul, marked by high stakes, tight timelines and billions of dollars in funding. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in the Monday announcement.“Most of our radars date back to the 1980s. It's unacceptable.” The radar replacement will kick off this quarter, with a finish line of June 2028 as the goal. The contracts will be paid for by the initial funds allocated in the One Big Beautiful Bill, which earmarked $12.5 billion for the air traffic control modernization project. The radar overhaul is much needed and critical to ensuring safety and efficiency, according to DOT officials. FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said in a statement. “Many of the units have exceeded their intended service life, making them increasingly expensive to maintain and difficult to support. We are buying radar systems that will bring production back to the U.S. and provide a vital surveillance backbone to the National Airspace System.” Also in this episode, Salesforce EVP Paul Tatum joins SNG host Wyatt Kash in a sponsored podcast discussion on how Agentic AI is accelerating decision-making and enhancing readiness across the defense and intelligence communities. This segment was sponsored by Salesforce. 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 Marine Corps is gearing up to expand its first-person view drone capabilities in the New Year by purchasing 10,000 new platforms and increasing the number of troops who are trained on them, according to government contracting documents and service officials. Earlier this week, the Corps announced a standardized training program for small-sized unmanned aerial systems, which include several courses for attack drone operators, payload specialists and instructors. Several units, from III Marine Expeditionary Force in the Pacific to Marine Forces Special Operations Command are now authorized to immediately start these courses. Meanwhile, the service is also asking industry to make thousands of UAS for under $4,000 per unit, according to a request for information posted in December. The intent is for Marines to be able to modify these drones with “simple” third-party munitions and repair them on their own. The RFI also inquired about autonomy and machine learning integration for these systems. Over the next several months, the service will aim to certify hundreds of Marines to use FPV drones, according to the Pentagon, with the goal of having every infantry, reconnaissance and littoral combat team across the fleet equipped with these platforms by May. Officials said that these courses were shaped by recent certifications and the Drone Training Symposium in November, an event intended to solidify and scale training across the fleet. DefenseScoop also reported last week that the Marine Corps had certified forward-deployed Marines on FPV drones for the first time in November. More than two dozen troops with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit deployed to the Caribbean trained for more than a month-and-a-half to qualify on various FPV drone capabilities, a significant milestone for the force after a year of navigating untrodden ground. The Army recently established an artificial intelligence career field that select officers can transfer into starting next month, DefenseScoop has learned. It is also considering the potential for warrant officers to join the new role. The service created the 49B “area of concentration” for AI and Machine Learning on Oct. 31, according to Maj. Travis Shaw, a spokesperson for the Army. Between Jan. 5 and Feb. 6, 2026. Army officers who already have a few years of service or more can apply for the role through the Voluntary Transfer Incentive Program (VTIP), which is meant to support the Army's manning needs. It was unclear how many officers the Army hopes to transfer into the job, but those selected will reclassify by Oct. 1, 2026, Shaw said. The service expects those personnel to have completed their transition into the AI field by the following year. The effort comes as the Department of Defense continues to boost the use of large language model AI systems for military purposes. Earlier this month, the Pentagon launched GenAI.mil, a hub for commercial AI tools — one that DefenseScoop reported military personnel were meeting with mixed reviews and a bevy of questions about how to use it in their daily operations. The Army has also been embracing LLMs and AI, including through its Army Artificial Integration Center (AI2C), which was established in 2018 to integrate those systems into the service. 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.

Douglas Matty is exiting his role as the Pentagon's chief digital and artificial intelligence officer and moving on to focus on the Trump administration's “Golden Dome for America” missile defense initiative, DefenseScoop has learned. Principal Deputy CDAO Andrew Mapes will lead the department's AI hub in an acting capacity until a new CDAO is hired. Ahead of reaching full operational capacity in 2022, the AI-accelerating office merged and integrated multiple technology-focused predecessor organizations at the Pentagon, including the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC), Defense Digital Service (DDS), Office of the Chief Data Officer, and the Maven and Advana programs. The DOD's vision and priorities for the CDAO have been reconfigured several times since its inception. And while AI is a major priority for the U.S. government under President Donald Trump, the Pentagon's CDAO office has seen an exodus of senior leaders and other technical employees this year. Matty's departure also comes as the office is hustling to execute on a range of DOD-wide efforts to speed up the delivery and fielding of data analytics, automation, computer vision, machine learning and other next-generation AI capabilities for military and civilian personnel. Last week, Pentagon leaders unveiled a new purpose-built platform — GenAI.mil — to provide commercial options directly to most of its workforce on their desktops. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has tapped ID.me to verify the identities of beneficiaries on Medicare.gov, according to a Tuesday announcement from the identity-proofing company. ID.me will be available as an option for identity verification and sign-in on Medicare.gov starting in early 2026, per the release. The deal adds to the growing number of federal programs opting to use the digital identity service that leverages facial recognition technology and has been the subject of some controversy in the past. Already, ID.me is used at 21 federal agencies, including the Social Security Administration and Department of Veterans Affairs, per the release. Opting in means an ID.me user could sign in with the same credentials at any of the other federal, state or private-sector entities that use the service, the company said in a statement to FedScoop.

The House on Monday passed a bill that would revamp how agencies purchase software, putting the legislation in the same place it was a year ago: waiting for the Senate to follow suit as the clock ticks down on the congressional calendar. The Strengthening Agency Management and Oversight of Software Assets (SAMOSA) Act would require agencies to examine their software licensing practices, with the aim of streamlining IT buying practices to avoid duplicative purchases. The bill is identical to legislation that passed the House last December but did not move forward in the Senate. The House bill, co-sponsored by Reps. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., Shontel Brown, D-Ohio, Pat Fallon, R-Texas, and April McClain Delaney, D-Md., would press agencies to better manage their software without limiting procurement options. They would be required to submit IT assessments to the Office of Management and Budget, the General Services Administration and Congress, so better oversight could be conducted. On the House floor Monday, Brown credited her three co-sponsors as well as former Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., who died of cancer in May after taking the lead on this bill in addition to his myriad other government IT efforts. Brown, ranking member of the House Oversight Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation subcommittee, said the SAMOSA Act is a “straightforward good government bill that has strong bipartisan support from members of the Oversight Committee.” A new bill from Sens. John Fetterman, D-Pa., and Ted Budd, R-N.C., would establish a national network of cloud laboratories led by the National Science Foundation and supported by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, with the goal of enhancing collaboration between institutions while improving research efficiency with AI. If passed, NSF will select up to six programmable cloud laboratories from a range of applicants, including academic institutions and private-sector research groups. NIST would be tasked with setting standards and reporting to Congress about the feasibility for expansion. The bill, introduced last week, aligns with provisions laid out by the Trump administration's AI Action Plan and aims to codify existing NSF proposals, according to the sponsors. NSF earmarked $100 million for a similar AI-powered cloud network in August as it looked to expand access to emerging technologies. Researchers in the co-sponsors' home states have developed methods to ease automated discoveries, which will serve as a blueprint for the national effort. NSF will judge applicants on the level of existing data integration and automated capability infrastructure and capacity to support multi-user cloud workflows, among other criteria. In addition to bipartisan backing, the legislation garnered support from officials at Carnegie Mellon University, the Accelerate Science Now coalition and the Allegheny Conference on Community Development. 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 Trump administration launched a new governmentwide hiring program Monday aimed at filling technology hiring gaps in federal agencies with workers who will serve in two-year stints. That program, dubbed the U.S. Tech Force, is being spearheaded by the Office of Personnel Management and has buy-in from private-sector tech companies that will serve as partners in the hiring initiative.The first cohort of recruits will be roughly 1,000 individuals who will range from early-career data scientists and engineers to engineering managers from the private sector. According to a release from OPM, their mission will be to accelerate AI adoption in government and fulfill a priority of the Trump administration. On a call with reporters Monday, OPM Director Scott Kupor said the goal of the program isn't to get workers to commit to “a 40-year career in federal government.” While that's welcome, he said, the aim is to “get the benefit of really smart people working on some of the world's most complex and difficult problems” and provide them with an opportunity, if they so choose, to then go work in the private sector. More than two dozen technology companies have already agreed to Tech Force partnerships, including Amazon Web Services, Meta, Microsoft, xAI, Anduril, Nvidia, Oracle, Adobe and ServiceNow. Those companies have not made firm agreements to hire program alumni but can do so in line with their needs, Kupor said. The commitment that OPM has made to those partners, he said, is “to do a great job of recruiting fantastic people.” The White House and Office of Personnel Management shared more details last Wednesday about the effort to transition federal government HR platforms to a single system, outlining a timeline and expectations. In a memo to agency leaders, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought and OPM Director Scott Kupor said the transition portion of the administration's “Federal HR 2.0” project will take place over the next two years, with some agencies coming online earlier than others. Agencies must also stop current projects related to their current systems unless they have an exception. Kupor said in an emailed statement with the memo: “For too long, taxpayers have footed the bill for duplicative HR systems that no modern organization would tolerate. Today's announcement is a major win for efficiency, accountability, and good government.” The memo is the latest action in the Trump administration's push to centralize HR systems as a way of saving money. Per the document, the government currently has more than 100 “core human capital management” systems, and the administration expects that consolidating those systems — as well as HR services — will save billions. 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.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday to limit states' ability to regulate artificial intelligence and pave the way for a “minimally burdensome” national policy framework for the emerging technology. The move caps a monthslong saga among policymakers in Washington over how to regulate the rapidly evolving technology at the federal level, as states take matters into their own hands in the absence of any nationwide standards. The order is a significant win for several major AI developers that argue that a patchwork of state AI regulations hampers innovation and competitiveness on the global stage. Its provisions have the potential to impact the hundreds of state laws. The Office of Management and Budget released long-awaited guidance Thursday that outlined how federal agencies are expected to ensure that artificial intelligence models are “unbiased” when procured and deployed by the government. The memo from OMB Director Russell Vought addresses some questions that arose after President Donald Trump signed an executive order last July to prevent “woke AI” in the federal government. The order, signed alongside the release of the White House AI Action Plan, stated the federal government has an obligation not to procure models “that sacrificed truthfulness and accuracy to ideological agendas.” The order did not provide details on how agencies should evaluate models and directed OMB to issue guidance. The seven-page memo fulfills this directive by outlining how agencies must approach contractual requirements for new partnerships, modify existing contracts, and update their procurement policies. 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 Trump administration outlined management plans for implementing its priorities Monday in a brief agenda focused on downsizing the government, leveraging federal buying power, and implementing technology solutions. At just two pages, the President's Management Agenda framework and memo from Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought is shorter than past versions. Nonetheless, the plan largely reflects the existing focuses of the administration. For example, the government will continue to “eliminate woke, weaponization, and waste,” specifically calling to “end discrimination” and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. It will also maintain cuts to the federal workforce. The president's first year has already been characterized by his significant shrinking of the federal workforce and cuts to programs related to DEI. Continuing plans for technology use and contracting were mentioned in the agenda. Per the document, the government plans to “consolidate and standardize systems,” reduce the number of federal websites, “eliminate data silos” in government, and replace “wasteful processes” with AI. The Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration is moving forward on several modernization and AI projects with help from the Technology Modernization Fund. The more than $28 million investment will go toward three main initiatives: implementing machine learning to track fire boundaries and enable data sharing between systems for NNSA's FireGuard program; migrating its Turbo FRMAC radiological assessment tool to a cloud-based platform; and improving AI infrastructure to mitigate nuclear-security threats and enhance its cybersecurity posture. NNSA CIO James Wolff said in a LinkedIn post Tuesday, days before the funding vehicle is set to expire: “TMF has given us the chance to accelerate mission critical work while also improving the technology infrastructure for the Genesis Mission.” NNSA was quick to mobilize after a Trump administration executive order last month launched a national AI effort dubbed the Genesis Mission, which put the DOE at the helm of the majority of the efforts.

As 2025 and the first year of the second Trump administration come to a close, Federal CIO Greg Barbaccia sat down with FedScoop reporter Madison Alder for a wide-ranging interview on the state of federal IT, including critical initiatives like FedRAMP modernization, AI adoption, federal tech talent, the consolidation of federal tech and contracting, what's ahead in 2026, and much more. 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.

Peraton has emerged as the winner to overhaul the air traffic control system, securing a contract to oversee the multi-billion dollar project with the Federal Aviation Administration. In an announcement Thursday night, the FAA said the Virginia-based technology firm will be the integrator for the project. Initial funding includes a $12.8 billion infusion from Congress as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill earlier this year, but the agency is eyeing billions more to complete the project. FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said an additional $20 billion will be needed to finish the modernization effort. Bedford said in a statement included in the release: “This is a long-term investment in the future of air travel, and we're committed to getting it right.”. According to the agency, Peraton had capabilities that matched the needs of the project, including “integrating complex tech platforms and successful collaboration with federal government agencies.” The project is planned to take just three years. The FAA's search for an integrator for the modernization effort began earlier this year and came amid concerns over its aging air traffic control systems. The issues with the existing infrastructure range from IT outages that cause travel delays to the continued use of antiquated technology, such as floppy disks. In a public appearance in September, Bedford said the current system is “failing every day.” The Education Department informed numerous Office of Civil Rights employees Friday that they are expected to return to work later this month while they await a court ruling on reduction-in-force orders that sidelined them nearly eight months ago. Multiple workers in Education's OCR told FedScoop they received notices from the agency late Friday afternoon. Those notices stated that they are expected to return in person to their assigned-duty location on either Dec. 15 or 29. The notice, according to four copies obtained by FedScoop, said the following: “While RIF notices are tolled during litigation, it is important to refocus OCR's work and utilize all OCR staff to prioritize OCR's existing complaint caseload.” The notice stated: “In order for OCR to pursue its mission with all available resources, all those individuals currently being compensated by the Department need to meet their employee performance expectations and contribute to the enforcement of existing civil rights complaints.” The agency told workers this will boost enforcement activities in a way that “serves and benefits parents, students, and families.” Workers have until Monday to inform the agency if they do not plan on returning to their positions. 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 Trump administration is aiming to release its six-part national cybersecurity strategy in January, according to multiple sources familiar with the document. The document, which is a mere five pages long, will possibly be followed by an executive order to implement the new strategy. The administration has been soliciting feedback in recent days, which one source considered more of a “messaging” document than anything, with more important work to follow. According to sources familiar with the strategy, the six “pillars” focus on cyber offense and deterrence; aligning regulations to make them more uniform; bolstering the cyber workforce; federal procurement; critical infrastructure protection; and emerging technologies. An opening section of the draft offers a Trumpian call for a more muscular approach to cyberspace. Despite its short length — the Biden administration's cybersecurity strategy was 35 pages long — it touches on a significant number of topics. Those subjects include cybercrime, China, artificial intelligence, post-quantum cryptography and more. A source told CyberScoop the administration appeared genuinely interested in soliciting feedback on the strategy to incorporate or change. The release date of the strategy is fluid. While the administration is targeting January, its publication might follow the broader national security strategy. In other news: Anthropic's Claude for Government is now available across the Department of Health and Human Services, according to an internal announcement obtained by FedScoop. The launch was announced in an email to staff Wednesday from HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O'Neill, and comes two months after the department made ChatGPT available to all of its workers. O'Neill encouraged workers to use either ChatGPT or Claude for their queries or “ask both and compare the responses.” He said in his email: “HHS users can work confidently and securely, with minimal restrictions on the types of information entered, while maintaining full compliance with federal cybersecurity and privacy standards. With this release, we are ensuring that all divisions, programs, and employees have access to two secure cutting-edge AI capabilities.” The email doesn't mention specific contracting details of how HHS is providing access to the tool, but ChatGPT at least was provided through the company's nearly free OneGov deal with the General Services Administration. Anthropic similarly has such a deal with GSA to offer its services to government customers for a nominal fee of $1. 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 bill that would overhaul how the federal government purchases software has found itself in a familiar place: moving forward in the House while awaiting Senate consideration with just a few weeks left in the congressional calendar. The Strengthening Agency Management and Oversight of Software Assets (SAMOSA) Act advanced out of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Tuesday, teeing it up for a vote in the full chamber. The SAMOSA Act, which would direct federal agencies to assess their software licensing practices and streamline future IT buying decisions to avoid duplicative purchases, was reintroduced in the House in September following the Senate's move to do the same in July. The bill passed the House a year ago but stalled out in the upper chamber, despite backing from a host of software and IT trade groups, including the Computer & Communications Industry Association, the Alliance for Digital Innovation, NetChoice, OpenPolicy and the Software Information Industry Association. Congress has been trying to move forward with the SAMOSA Act since at least 2022. House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., noted during Tuesday's markup that the current iteration of the SAMOSA Act is “identical” to what passed the chamber last year. In other news: The Small Business Administration may soon be forced to confront the flawed rollout of an online certification platform it launched late in the Biden administration.The House on Monday passed a bill that would require the SBA to implement nearly a dozen recommendations made in a Government Accountability Office report about the agency's Unified Certification Platform for small business contracting assistance. The lawmakers behind the SBA IT Modernization Reporting Act — Reps. Gil Cisneros, D-Calif., and Brian Jack, R-Ga. — believe the legislation will help the agency avoid various pitfalls that plagued the UCP, helping it better develop and manage digital projects going forward. The UCP project was launched in 2023 with the goal of easing small businesses' interactions with the SBA's contract assistance programs. But deployment of the platform was delayed and applications for certification were paused in August 2024. The UCP went live two months later, but according to the GAO, work to migrate data and secure the system was incomplete. House Small Business Committee Chair Roger Williams said before Monday's vote that the “failed … portal rollout resulted in delays, errors and cybersecurity risks, shutting out small businesses from the vital government contracting opportunities.” 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 Heath and Human Services has been leaning into the use of artificial intelligence to drive better health outcomes for the American public, highlighted by the rollout of ChatGPT across the agency early this fall. In particular, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been a leader in generative AI adoption since 2023. And Travis Hoppe, CDC's chief AI officer, believes AI innovation can continue to move the needle on public health operations. Hoppe joined me recently onstage at FedTalks to share the latest on CDC's AI journey, how the Trump administration's AI Action Plan is guiding the agency's implementation and what's next. The National Nuclear Security Administration is looking for information on potential AI uses for its mission, following an executive order to establish an integrated AI platform that will fuel scientific discovery. In a request for information posted to SAM.gov on Monday, the Department of Energy subcomponent that oversees the nation's nuclear stockpile said it's exploring the use of the budding technology, and specifically requested information about its use in classified environments, best practices for data curation, and how to approach developing and enhancing AI models, among other things. The request comes just a week after the Trump administration launched the “Genesis Mission,” aimed at scientific discovery through AI. That effort will not only create an AI platform for such discovery, but it will also depend on the country's existing research and development infrastructure, including DOE and its national labs. To further the Genesis program, NNSA said it's proactively exploring the use of AI for its “critical operations to accelerate nuclear weapons development timelines, ensuring our deterrent remains responsive, effective, and state-of-the-art against evolving global threats.” Software company SAP inked a new agreement with the General Services Administration to offer federal agencies access to its services at significantly discounted rates, deepening its longstanding partnership with the federal government. The GSA announced the OneGov deal Tuesday, stating that the agreement offers up to 80 percent discounts on SAP's database, cloud, and analytics services. The agency estimated this will lead to $165 million in savings for federal agencies. Specifically, agencies will be able to access products related to SAP's database and data management services with an 80 percent discount. SAP's cloud services, including SAP Business Technology Platform, SAP Analytics Cloud and HR Payroll, will be offered at a 35 percent discount, GSA said. Also in this episode: Databricks VP of Public Sector Todd Schroeder joins SNG host Wyatt Kash in a sponsored podcast discussion on why agencies are prioritizing the use of AI that works across existing data environments, saving time and infrastructure costs. This segment was sponsored by Databricks. 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 Defense Department's Blue UAS program maintains an ever-expanding index of commercial drones that are meant to be devoid of components from adversary nations including China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea, and endorsed for speedier purchasing by U.S. military buyers. This list of compliant options is growing rapidly in late 2025 as the government moves to incentivize the adoption of more affordable U.S.-made drone products for modern military operations, and simultaneously reduce the nation's reliance on foreign supply chains. Blue UAS also marks a key feature of the second Trump administration's plan for “unleashing American drone dominance.” However, multiple sources told DefenseScoop this month that the majority of the unmanned aerial systems cleared through this effort have motors that are sourced in China. One former senior defense official who was granted anonymity to speak freely said: “It's a big enough problem that we should do something. If you don't have motors, you can't fly a drone.” They added: “And I think if you had to pick the top three [Chinese components that are currently in Blue UAS-approved platforms], it would be the motors, the batteries and the electric speed controllers — if you want to call them, like, ‘dumb' parts.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is asking the Trump administration to detail any plans it has to subsidize AI companies, alleging that OpenAI might be positioning itself for such relief, despite denials by its leadership. Warren's Tuesday letter comes as the ChatGPT owner has faced questions in recent weeks about the health of its finances and whether it's becoming so enmeshed in the U.S. economy that the federal government should or would prevent its failure — in other words, whether it's become “too big to fail.” The speculation was enough to elicit a response from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who earlier this month pushed back on the theories in a social media post and said the company should not be bailed out in the event of failure. Yet, Warren is still seeking information about any potential plans by the government to “prop up” the company, arguing OpenAI's decisions paint a different picture. Warrend wrote: “While Mr. Altman has claimed that the company is not looking for a ‘bail out,' OpenAI's actions suggest that it may be pursuing a deliberate strategy to entangle itself with the federal government and the broader economy so the government has no choice but to step in with public funds. We have seen this before: take on enough debt, make enough risky bets, and then demand a taxpayer bailout when those bets go south so the economy does not crash.” The letter was addressed to White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks and Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios, and asks for assurances that the administration will not bail out OpenAI or any of its competitors should they fail. 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.

President Donald Trump appears to be eyeing an executive order that would target individual state efforts to rein in artificial intelligence and initiate several actions aimed at preempting those laws. A draft order viewed by FedScoop includes plans to establish an AI litigation task force to challenge state AI statutes, restrict funding for states with AI laws that the administration views as “onerous,” and launch efforts to preempt state laws via the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, and legislation. In response to a FedScoop inquiry about the six-page draft order, which was also marked “deliberative” and “predecisional,” a White House official said that until announced officially, “discussion about potential executive orders is speculation.” The document comes as long-discussed desires by the Trump administration and congressional Republicans to preempt state AI laws and clear the field for AI companies appear to be coming to a head. Republican lawmakers are again planning to include a state AI law moratorium in the must-pass National Defense Authorization Act, and Trump, in a Tuesday social media post, voiced clear support for a federal standard to be included in the NDAA or another bill. The Defense Department's CTO has revised its list of critical technology areas — reducing the number of research-and-development priorities by more than half. The Pentagon announced on Monday that the 14 critical technology areas established during the Biden administration will be trimmed to just six categories. In a video shared on LinkedIn, Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Emil Michael emphasized that the shortened list will steer the department's efforts to efficiently deliver the emerging capabilities that warfighters need. Michael said Monday in a statement: “When I stepped into this role, our office had identified 14 critical technology areas. While each of these areas holds value, such a broad list dilutes focus and fails to highlight the most urgent needs of the warfighter. 14 priorities, in truth, means no priorities at all.” The focus areas in the updated catalog include applied artificial intelligence (AAI); biomanufacturing; contested logistics technologies (LOG); quantum and battlefield information dominance (Q-BID); scaled directed energy (SCADE); and scaled hypersonics (SHY). Since its creation, the Pentagon's outline of critical technology areas has included the most pressing challenges and capabilities needed for modern warfare. The list serves as a guide for where the department should focus its investment, research and development efforts. 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.

Perplexity AI, an AI-powered search engine, is ramping up its push for government use, inking a new deal with the General Services Administration to offer its product for just 25 cents per agency. GSA announced the deal with Perplexity on Wednesday, emphasizing that the product will be offered directly through the agency's Multiple Award Schedule rather than through a government reseller, a first-of-its-kind agreement. The move aligns with GSA's OneGov initiative, which aims to work directly with technology vendors to cut prices and streamline contracting. Under the deal, Perplexity's Enterprise Pro for Government will be available on GSA's MAS for a quarter to agencies over an 18-month term. In doing so, Perplexity also received prioritized authorization under FedRAMP, the government's primary security review program that approves cloud-based technologies for federal use. Perplexity is only the second company to do so, joining OpenAI, which received prioritized authorization in September. According to GSA, Perplexity's Enterprise platform was also streamlined through the FedRAMP 20x pilot, which is focused on simplifying the cloud services approval process and reducing the timeline from months to weeks. Perplexity's platform uses large language models from other companies, such as Anthropic's Claude or OpenAI's ChatGPT, to conduct real-time internet searches and generate summaries for users. GSA noted Perplexity's platform has optional connections to common agency systems like Microsoft's OneDrive, Outlook or SharePoint. The Department of Health and Human Services is exploring how artificial intelligence can support caregivers with the launch of a new $2 million prize competition for AI caregiver tools. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the “Caregiver Artificial Intelligence Prize Competition” at an event Tuesday for National Family Caregivers Month, stating the agency is calling on engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs to use AI to “make caregiving smarter, simpler and more humane.” Kennedy said: “Many caregivers work around the clock, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, taking care of their loved ones with lifelong disabilities, dementia or chronic illness. Too many lose their income, their job, their aspirations and ambitions for themselves and even their own health in the process.” The HHS's Administration for Community Living (ACL) emphasized that the direct care workforce is facing increased shortages, leaving family caregivers to fill the void. According to an AARP report published in July, nearly 1 in 4 adults provided ongoing care for an adult or child with a complex medical condition or disability. These caregivers spend, on average, about $7,200 a year in out-of-pocket caregiving expenses, the report found. The competition will seek tools that benefit the professional care workforce or personal caregivers. Developers could be awarded up to $2 million for the products. 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.

storically tumultuous year for federal employees didn't dim the public's pre-shutdown view of government services, according to a new survey that largely credited tech adoption for the positive perceptions. The 2025 American Customer Satisfaction Index Federal Government Study, released Tuesday, found citizen satisfaction with federal government services at a 19-year high with a score of 70.4 on a 0-to-100 scale, a 1% jump from 2024. The survey of 6,914 randomly chosen respondents was conducted before the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, but ACSI's director of research emeritus emphasized that the results still “reflect real momentum in improving how citizens experience federal services.” Forrest Morgeson, an associate professor of marketing at Michigan State in addition to his role at ACSI, said that the introduction of AI is making a large impact, and such advancement “signal a future where government services can be more responsive and accessible to all.” Many of the highest-ranking federal agencies in customer satisfaction were lauded for their implementation of technologies, including USDA, the State Department and the Small Business Administration. The National Institutes of Health didn't ensure that the entity housing personal health information of over 1 million people — including biosamples — implemented proper cybersecurity protocols, according to an internal watchdog. In a report publicly released Friday, the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General made five recommendations for the security of the All of Us program — a database of diverse health information from 1 million participants that's meant to aid research — after finding weaknesses. According to the report, while the award recipient operating the program's Data and Research Center implemented some cybersecurity measures, NIH failed to ensure other controls were addressed. The report found that NIH didn't ensure that the awardee, which wasn't identified, appropriately limited access to the program's data and didn't communicate national security concerns related to maintaining genomic data — or data relating to DNA. It also failed to ensure that weaknesses in security and privacy were fixed within a timeline outlined in federal requirements. The audit was initially conducted by the inspector general due to the threats that cyberattacks and the potential exposure of sensitive information can pose to the agency's programs. The watchdog's objective was to scrutinize the access, security and privacy controls of the program. Also in this episode: HPE Networking Chief AI Officer Bob Friday joins SNG host Wyatt Kash in a sponsored podcast discussion on how agencies can leverage cloud and AI to build more automated, secure and mission-ready networks. This segment was sponsored by HPE.

U.S. officials are moving to deputize state and local law enforcement partners for counter-drone activities ahead of the 2026 World Cup in an attempt to address a gap in legal authorities. While certain federal officials have been given the authority to counter unmanned aircraft that pose a credible threat to specified locations, that same authority has not yet been extended by Congress to state and local officials. So, as U.S. cities look to enhance the security of their skies ahead of the World Cup matches they're slated to host, the federal government is moving to train and deputize law enforcement in those areas so they, too, can participate in counter-drone efforts. Details of those plans were shared at an event last week on drone mitigation co-hosted by the White House Task Force on the FIFA World Cup, Commercial Drone Alliance, and DroneResponders. former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman, who represents the 11 U.S. cities hosting World Cup matches on behalf of Hogan Lovells, told reporters: “There are some technical issues about who has the capacity to do counter-drone technology — who can operate that equipment.” Working with the FBI, he said, the White House is requiring officials to be trained, and “in effect, they become deputized, they become federal agents for this limited purpose.” While Coleman said it “would be cleaner” and easier to do it via legislation, he told reporters “the public should understand that we have the capacity to ensure that the folks who need to operate the equipment will be able to do it.” Through a recently launched FBI training program known as the National Counter-UAS Training Center, state and local law enforcement officers will be educated and then granted authority by the Department of Justice for counter-drone work. That schoolhouse located in Alabama was ordered under President Donald Trump's executive order on drone mitigation and graduated its first class in recent weeks. Days after deploying America's newest and largest aircraft carrier to the Caribbean to target what the Trump administration alleges are drug-trafficking boats from Venezuela, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth unveiled a large-scale military and surveillance operation in the region that will commence later this month. “Operation SOUTHERN SPEAR defends our Homeland, removes narco-terrorists from our Hemisphere, and secures our Homeland from the drugs that are killing our people. The Western Hemisphere is America's neighborhood — and we will protect it,” Hegseth wrote in a social media post last Thursday night. Venezuela launched a major military mobilization campaign this week in response to the U.S.' unusual surge of weapons and Navy assets to its Southern Command area of responsibility. Last Tuesday, Hegseth deployed America's most advanced aircraft carrier — the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) — and its strike group to Southcom, following an order from President Donald Trump. Tension has risen between Trump and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro this year, continuing to escalate in recent months. The U.S. has conducted multiple deadly strikes in the region Southcom covers since early September against vessels Hegseth has accused online of smuggling drugs from Venezuela. 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 Army is initiating massive organizational reforms for how it buys new weapons and capabilities in an effort to drastically shorten procurement timelines and promote innovation, according to top service officials. Announced Friday, the Army's acquisition portfolio overhaul will consolidate the service's program executive offices (PEOs) responsible for buying new weapons into six new offices called “portfolio acquisition executives” (PAEs). The plan also creates a new office dedicated to rapidly injecting and scaling emerging technologies into Army formations. The transformation comes after Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced his intent to revamp acquisition processes across the entire Pentagon on Nov. 7, as well as an April directive from Hegseth that called on the Army to consolidate many aspects of the service — including its procurement organizations. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll told reporters Wednesday ahead of the announcement that the new structure aims to mimic best practices from private industry, creating a new system that accepts risk and streamlines capability delivery. The Defense Department's civilian employees whose pay was impacted by the record-setting government shutdown and lapse in appropriations that ended this week are expecting to receive their missed paychecks retroactively. However, questions are swirling about the Pentagon's plans as it reopened Thursday — including the timeline for that out-of-cycle backpay process, whether it will arrive in the form of lump sum payments, and more. According to a new policy memorandum from the White House Office of Personnel Management issued Wednesday after President Donald Trump signed legislation to fund the government: “Federal employees who did not receive pay because of the lapse in appropriations that began on October 1, 2025, must receive retroactive pay at the employee's standard rate of pay for the lapse period as soon as possible after the lapse ends,” pursuant to the U.S. Code. That guidance applies explicitly to the department's personnel affected by the lapse who were either furloughed or performed excepted work activities. Service members and some DOD civilians designated “essential” reported to work during the shutdown — but only military officials were paid. More than 1 million federal employees reportedly missed one partial and two full paychecks during this shutdown, which caused serious financial strain for public servants across the nation. Several reports surfaced this week regarding when the Pentagon might begin processing paychecks and how soon they could start to arrive. The DOD did not appear to publicly release final, comprehensive guidance with details on its workforce repayment schedule and plans. 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.

After 43 days, the longest federal government shutdown in history has ended. President Donald Trump signed the legislative spending package into law late Wednesday night after the House passed it 222-209. While the reopening of the government is certainly a step in a positive direction, it comes with lingering questions. First and foremost on that list is whether much of the government will be right back facing the threat of a second shutdown come the end of January, when the continuing resolution is set to expire for a large block of federal agencies. However some agencies, like the Department of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration, as well as the legislative branch, will receive full appropriations through fiscal 2026 as lawmakers on the subcommittees that oversee them were able to pass full funding bills as part of the package. On top of that, though the government's doors are officially back open for business, there will be some lag in getting key services back online and returning workers to their posts. Issues that were key during the 43-day saga like air travel operations and SNAP benefits will take some time to return to normal. As will paying federal employees who were furloughed without pay during the shutdown. And, it's not clear yet what the end of the shutdown could mean for federal employees who were removed from their jobs via reductions in force since Oct. 1. The congressional package that reopened the government placed a caveat on funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs' Electronic Health Record system, putting new pressure on the agency to resolve its yearslong challenges with the rollout. The bill to fund the VA through fiscal 2026 will dish out $3.4 billion for the EHR rollout, but the full amount is contingent on the agency updating Congress on the revised timeline and cost estimates. The provision, tucked into the 394-page spending package, would withhold 30% of the funding until July of next year and gives the agency secretary until June 1 to hand over the requested information. This information includes an updated life-cycle cost estimate for the EHR Modernization program, based on the VA's announcement earlier this year to accelerate deployments in nine facilities. The Senate also requested a facility-by-facility deployment schedule for all facilities expected to receive the EHRM program, along with the projected federal VA staffing levels and required resources. The secretary is also expected to certify that all VA facilities using the EHR have exceeded or met health care performance metrics and certify that the department has at least four consecutive, successful site deployments without delays or patient harm. It comes after Senate staff was informed in 2023 that the rollout of the EHR system was linked to six cases of “catastrophic harm,” including four deaths. Later that year, the Biden administration paused the EHR rollout. 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.

Senate Democrats are ratcheting up pressure on the White House over artificial intelligence data centers and the surging utility costs that have accompanied their nationwide buildout. In a letter sent Monday to Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, five senators blasted the Trump administration for the “sweetheart deals” it has made with Big Tech companies on data centers, and its “reckless abandonment” of consumers as their electricity bills soar. The letter, which was led by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., states: “​​Since his second inauguration, President Trump has cozied up to Meta, Google, Oracle, OpenAI, and other Big Tech companies, fast-tracking and pushing for the buildout of power-hungry data centers across the country.” According to the letter — which was also signed by Democratic Sens. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Ron Wyden of Oregon, Ed Markey of Massachusetts and independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont — national power consumption from data centers could jump from 5% to 12% within three years, and even the White House noted in its AI Action Plan that “technological advancements of AI are increasing pressures on the grid.” At the same time, the second Trump administration has seemingly traded in the all-of-the-above approach to energy sources pursued during the president's first term for a decidedly anti-renewables bent that the senators said has “supercharged this cost-of-living crisis by making it harder to increase and diversify sources of household electricity sources.” The Department of Veterans Affairs' push to modernize decades-old systems faced a technical issue earlier this year, delaying education benefits payments for tens of thousands of students at the start of the school year. A group of veterans' service organizations, including the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS), highlighted the issue this week, telling reporters that the technical glitch occurred in August, when the VA began converting benefits claims from its legacy system to a new processing system for Chapter 35 Survivors' and Dependents' Educational Assistance. The VA launched its initiative to modernize the GI Bill process in 2022, and the Digital GI Bill platform was set to be fully operational by April 2024 but faced its own delays last year. A part of the multi-billion-dollar initiative involves overhauling multiple legacy systems, including those related to the education benefits process. Ashlynne Haycock-Lohmann, the director of government and legislative affairs at TAPS, told FedScoop in an interview that the veterans' service community welcomes the changes to decades-old systems, but the timing around the school year could present risks. 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.

U.S. service members transitioning out of the military will now be able to access ChatGPT Plus for a year under a new offer from OpenAI that's aimed at helping them with their job hunt. The new offer, announced Monday ahead of Veterans Day, is available to service members who are within 12 months of separation or retirement, and any veteran within their first year of leaving service. Katrina Mulligan, OpenAI for Government's head of national security partnerships, said on a call with reporters ahead of the announcement. “We know that nearly 70% of veterans say finding employment is their biggest challenge, and we want to make that transition a little bit easier by providing support that's available anytime.” Mulligan said the idea for the offer started with OpenAI's own veteran employees who used the platform for their own career navigation. “They urged us to make these tools available to others going through the same experience, and we were really glad to support it,” she said.Through the new offer, eligible service members and veterans are able to access ChatGPT Plus — which is typically a $20 per month subscription, and boasts faster response time as well as priority access to new features — as well as some personalized content for veterans. That includes a “getting started” video targeted toward veterans, and over 100 example chats that Mulligan said were developed by veterans based on real tasks during a transition. The offer is not a direct partnership with the U.S. government via the Department of Veterans Affairs or Department of Defense — which the Trump administration calls the Department of War — but such collaboration isn't out of the question. The Department of Energy officially installed Dawn Zimmer as its chief information officer Friday, putting a pause — for now — on the revolving door at the agency's IT leadership office. According to an internal email obtained by FedScoop, Energy Secretary Chris Wright announced that Zimmer had been named Energy's permanent CIO. Her appointment comes after the installation — and subsequent departures — of two other permanent CIOs during the Trump administration. Zimmer joined Energy in 2024 as principal deputy CIO and has been serving as the acting IT chief between the appointments of permanent officials throughout this year. She was acting CIO before SpaceX engineer Ryan Riedel was named to the role and briefly took over in an acting capacity again when he left after one month. Days later, Google and Twitter alum Ross Graber was named CIO, but he left after less than two months in the role. That has left the agency without a permanent official since the end of April. Wright said in the email that “Dawn will continue her stellar oversight of the Department's information technology and cybersecurity initiatives, ensuring that our systems are secure, efficient, and innovative.” 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 federal agency that supplies budget and economic information to Congress has suffered a cybersecurity incident, reportedly at the hands of a suspected foreign party. A spokesperson for the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) acknowledged the incident Thursday after The Washington Post reported that the office was hacked, with the attackers potentially accessing communications between lawmakers and researchers at the agency. CBO spokeswoman Caitlin Emma said: “The Congressional Budget Office has identified the security incident, has taken immediate action to contain it, and has implemented additional monitoring and new security controls to further protect the agency's systems going forward.” Congress established the office in 1974 to serve as a nonpartisan research organization for the legislative branch. Republicans took aim at the CBO this year when it assessed that a GOP tax and spending policy bill would add trillions to the national debt, prompting conservatives to criticize its conclusions. It's not unprecedented for unauthorized parties to obtain access to sensitive information from congressional offices. Hackers who broke into the Library of Congress last year were able to read email correspondence with offices on Capitol Hill. And a breach of a health insurance marketplace two years ago exposed the data of House staffers. The Trump administration's ongoing decimation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has rendered the agency's overall information security program ineffective, a federal watchdog revealed Monday. In an audit of CFPB's cybersecurity program, the Federal Reserve's Office of Inspector General found that the agency is no longer keeping up with its authorizations to operate many systems, and is “using risk acceptance memorandums without a documented analysis of cybersecurity risks.” As a result of those floundering protocols, the Fed OIG said the CFPB's overall information security program has declined to level-2 maturity (defined) in fiscal 2025, down from level-4 (managed and measurable), and overall is not effective. Backsliding on these security measures can be at least partially attributed to a loss of contractor support for continuous security monitoring and testing, per the audit, as well as the mass exodus under the Trump administration of CFPB staff. 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.

When a pair of high-profile internet outages took down large chunks of the internet last month, the events briefly brought hundreds of organizations to a near-halt and prevented millions of users from accessing core services for everyday business needs. From Starbucks to crypto exchanges to the messaging app Signal, the outages rippled across nearly every sector, shining a spotlight onto the country's — and even the government's — reliance on a mere handful of cloud service providers. In the wake of those incidents, watchdog groups are calling on federal regulators to scrutinize the role that massive cloud companies like Amazon and Microsoft play in owning and maintaining much of our collective backend IT infrastructure. Meanwhile, technology and cybersecurity experts point out that, because of financial and business realities, there are very few alternatives to the large companies that now dominate the market. The Amazon Web Services outage began Oct. 19 and lasted into Oct. 20. According to Amazon's post-mortem, a single software bug in DynamoDB — the system that manages website addresses, along with efforts to repair it — caused all services in the Northern Virginia region that relied on the tool to go down for 15 hours. Just over a week later, Microsoft's Azure cloud platform experienced an outage impacting several of its services. According to Microsoft, an “inadvertent tenant configuration change” occurred in Azure Front Door, the company's content delivery network. The outages exposed just how fragile the country's digital infrastructure is and showed the risks of letting a few companies hold so much power. As a result, some groups are urging federal regulators to address the issue. Federal agencies would be required to report artificial intelligence-related layoffs to the Department of Labor under a new bill from a bipartisan pair of senators. The AI-Related Job Impacts Clarity Act from Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., calls on agencies and major companies to deliver quarterly reports to DOL on the impact AI has on their workforces, detailing job cuts and displacements. Hawley said in a press release“Artificial intelligence is already replacing American workers, and experts project AI could drive unemployment up to 10-20% in the next five years. The American people need to have an accurate understanding of how AI is affecting our workforce, so we can ensure that AI works for the people, not the other way around.” The bill would also require agencies and companies to report hirings that can be “substantially” credited to AI, as well as the number of individuals they are retraining because of AI. There's also a callout to keep track of open positions an agency or company decided not to fill because of automation. 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.

As the Office of Personnel Management makes progress toward a long-pursued goal to move the government's paper-based retirement system into the 21st century, its director said a “fully automated” process is about six months away. OPM Director Scott Kupor said in an interview with FedScoop: “That's not going to happen overnight.” But, Kupor said he believes the agency can get there within six months “for sure.” The human capital agency hit a milestone in May with the launch of its Online Retirement Application, operationalizing a yearslong development effort and marking the end of paper file submissions. Yet behind the scenes at OPM, there's still much work to do to bring about a truly automated process. Though the application submissions are now online, humans still currently check the information coming in to make sure they've been completed properly and manually key in information into a calculator in “a significant number of cases,” Kupor said. That introduces “a huge amount of delay in the system” and is something the agency is working to fix. The aim is to ultimately have a system where the retiree, human resources, and the payroll provider all submit their information online and route that package electronically — not to a person in the agency's retirement services division, but to a Digital File System that can fill in the application and do the calculations, Kupor said. Under that future process, he said, all individuals at OPM will be doing is reviewing and spot checking. The simple target of what OPM is trying to do with retirement services, Kupor said, is to go paperless “as quickly as possible.” The Department of Energy is refreshing its investment in five research centers focused on quantum information science after five years of operation. In a Tuesday announcement, DOE said it's putting up $625 million to keep all of the existing National Quantum Information Science Research Centers (QIS) going for up to five more years, matching the same investment that launched those centers in 2020. Darío Gil, DOE undersecretary for science, said in a written statement: “President Trump positioned America to lead the world in quantum science and technology and today, a new frontier of scientific discovery lies before us. Breakthroughs in QIS have the potential to revolutionize the ways we sense, communicate, and compute, sparking entirely new technologies and industries.” The centers were authorized by Congress and signed into law in 2018 during the first Trump administration as part of the National Quantum Initiative Act. Since the first January 2020 investment from DOE — which envisioned “two to five multidisciplinary Quantum Initiatives” — centers led by its Brookhaven, Argonne, Lawrence Berkeley, Oak Ridge, and Fermi National Laboratories have been established. According to a DOE press release, the work of each center includes supporting science that has “disruptive potential across quantum computing, simulation, networking, and sensing,” as well as establishing “community resources, workforce opportunities, and industry partnerships.” 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 Homeland Security's non-federal government partners in communities across the U.S. can now apply for funding grants for certain counter-drone capabilities to address national security and safety threats posed by the illegal and nefarious use of unmanned aircraft systems. Officials wrote in a notice published online last week: “The funding enables state, local, tribal, and territorial governments, along with first responders and public safety entities, to acquire detection and tracking technologies designed to safeguard public spaces and critical infrastructure.” DHS estimates that $250 million will be obligated for the program in fiscal 2026 alone, and more money is expected to flow. Decisions about individual awards will happen between 30 and 60 days of the application submissions. The department expects to make 12 awards, with the financial assistance amounts to-be-decided and ranging across the winners. All projects will have a performance period of 36 months. Notably, the awardees will not be permitted to use the federal funding to purchase “Enhanced Detect, Track, Identification (DTI) systems,” including those that “capture, record, intercept, demodulate, decrypt, or decode signals” between UAS and ground control stations. Due to significant legal restrictions, privacy concerns and federal airspace regulations, SLTT entities don't currently have official authorization to employ those types of technologies. Drone threats associated with surveillance, disruption, or attacks, have intensified across the nation in recent years. The U.S. military is significantly expanding work and investments to deploy defensive weapons, modernize electronic warfare capabilities, enhance sensor protection and other tools to protect its facilities in the United States and abroad. And with America hosting major, upcoming global events, agencies and officials have been calling for coordinated efforts to more aggressively confront the risks. Anduril's prototype drone developed for the Air Force's Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program has taken its first live flight, the service announced Friday. The company conducted the flight of the unmanned fighter jet — known as the YFQ-44A — on Friday at a test location in California, the Air Force said in a press release. Beginning live flight tests of the CCA prototype “expands the program's knowledge base on flight performance, autonomous behaviors and mission systems integration,” the service noted. The announcement that Anduril has moved into the flight test stage comes after General Atomics conducted the first flight of its CCA offering in August. Both companies are vying for Increment 1 of the CCA program, which is part of the Air Force's Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) family of systems. General Atomics and Anduril received contracts for the first CCA increment in 2024, while the Air Force is also working with Shield AI and RTX to provide the drone's mission autonomy. With both airframe vendors now in the next stage of the program, the Air Force is one step closer to making a final production decision for Increment 1 — expected in 2026. 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.

Nearly two months after calling on the Office of Management and Budget to bar use of xAI's Grok chatbot in government, a coalition of advocacy groups is pressing its case further after the General Services Administration struck a deal with Elon Musk's AI company to deploy Grok across the federal government. In a letter sent Wednesday to OMB Director Russell Vought, the advocacy groups reiterated their concerns in the wake of the GSA OneGov deal, along with recent comments from Michael Kratsios, the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “OMB is entrusted with ensuring that AI systems procured by the federal government meet the highest standards of truth-seeking, accuracy and neutrality,” the letter, led by Public Citizen, stated. “Grok has repeatedly demonstrated failures in these areas and Director Kratsios himself has confirmed that such behavior is the precise type that Executive Order 14319 was designed to prevent.” The letter refers to an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in July that seeks to prevent “woke AI,” or ideological biases in models that are used by the federal government. The groups argued in their August letter to Vought that the use of Grok contradicts this order, given its past controversies with spewing antisemitic and pro-Hitler content. Weeks after the letter was sent, GSA inked a deal with xAI to offer Grok models to the government for a nominal cost. Under the deal, federal agencies can buy Grok 4 and Grok 4 Fast for 42 cents until March 2027. The White House appears to be moving forward with plans to redesign federal government websites, registering a new government domain — techforce.gov — this week. The new URL, which was first discovered Thursday by a bot tracking new government domains, leads to a sign-in page that states “National Design Studio” and “Tech Force” at the top. It includes a form for users to submit their email and receive a code to access the website. Records maintained by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency show the domain was registered Oct. 24 and last changed Wednesday. The domain registration comes more than two months after President Donald Trump signed an executive order launching an “America by Design” initiative focused on both digital and physical spaces. A new National Design Studio and chief design officer will lead the initiative and coordinate agency actions. 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 Army's top acquisition official told DefenseScoop that he expects to see further growth in resources for the service's FUZE initiative. FUZE, which was announced last month by Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, combines elements of multiple technology innovation programs — including the xTech, Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR), ManTech, and Technology Maturation Initiative efforts — under a more integrated framework to accelerate the delivery of new capabilities to soldiers, according to the service. Driscoll has described it as the Army's “new cradle-to-grave capital funding model.” Driscoll said at the recent AUSA event that the Army's goal with FUZE is to contract with startups that have never, ever worked with the United States Army before in just 60 to 70 days. And for companies that the Army has worked with that have prototypes, the intent is to contract in 10 and start “soldier iterations in 30 to 45 days,” he said, adding, “We train like we fight. Acquisition should be no different.” The Army has already aligned $750 million to this model under FUZE, according to Driscoll. Next year, it plans to raise that slightly to $765 million. Brent Ingraham, the new assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, said he anticipates that funding levels for those efforts will be higher in subsequent years. The federal judiciary has distributed interim guidance on artificial intelligence that allows for use of the technology, while also addressing procurement and security of the tools, according to a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee leadership that was made public Thursday. In correspondence to Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts Director Judge Robert J. Conrad said an AI task force formed earlier this year developed the guidance and it was distributed to federal courts across the country July 31. Although the policy is a temporary measure while the courts work on more permanent guidance, courts can explore the budding technology in the meantime. Disclosure of the guidance came as part of a response to Grassley's inquiry about the use of AI in error-ridden orders from two federal judges. In addition to letters from the two judges admitting to clerks' use of generative AI tools and assurances that they'd implemented measures to prevent future issues, Conrad provided detail on the broader efforts to address the technology within the third branch and the balance between use and risk management. A spokesperson for the judiciary declined to share a copy of the guidance with FedScoop. Conrad, however, provided a description of its scope to Grassley. 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.

Edward Forst told lawmakers Thursday that he wasn't privy to the decision-making behind the General Services Administration's deal with xAI's Grok — but if confirmed to lead the agency, he signaled openness to examining the process that led to the procurement of the generative AI chatbot known for having an antisemitic meltdown. During a Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee hearing, ranking member Gary Peters, D-Mich., asked the GSA administrator nominee if he shared his concerns about Grok, pointing to the day the tool “produced racist and antisemitic content widely across [Elon] Musk's social media platform.” Forst, a former private equity and financial services executive, told Peters that he had “not been a part of the decision” by the GSA to contract for the chatbot from the Musk-owned AI firm. With some additional pressing by Peters, Forst acknowledged that procuring a tool with a history of racist and antisemitic posting is “not, I think, the signal we would necessarily want to send to the country.” Peters attempted to get Forst to commit to pausing use of Grok until the committee received “documentation about the details of the procurement, including whether the GSA actually performed a comprehensive risk assessment.” Forst wouldn't go that far on Grok, which once referred to itself as “MechaHitler.” But he did says his commitment to the lawmakers is that he will “meet with the team, and I'll understand the process used in selecting them, and I'll make sure that we have all the facts and if there was incompleteness to the process, that we'll rectify it.” A pair of federal judges said staff use of generative artificial intelligence tools and premature docket entry were behind error-ridden orders they issued, according to letters made public by Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley on Thursday. Judges Henry T. Wingate and Julien Xavier Neals, who sit on the U.S. District Courts for the Southern District of Mississippi and District of New Jersey, respectively, both stated in letters that their law clerks had used AI tools to draft orders that were then entered into the dockets before they had been reviewed. Both judges also described measures to prevent repeat issues. The letters come after the orders from both judges were ridden with errors — including misquotes and references to parties not in the current cases — and later withdrawn. Speculation swirled as to whether those judges used AI, which is known to hallucinate, in their orders. Earlier this month, Grassley, R-Iowa, sent letters to both jurists asking for an explanation. The communications published Thursday are responsive to those inquiries. In his response, Neals indicated that previous reporting by Reuters that a “temporary assistant” had used ChatGPT was correct. “In doing so, the intern acted without authorization, without disclosure, and contrary to not only chambers policy but also the relevant law school policy.” Neals said he prohibits generative AI use in legal research and drafting of opinions and orders. While that policy was verbal in the past, he said it is now a “written unequivocal policy that applies to all law clerks and interns, pending definitive guidance from the AO through adoption of formal, universal policies and procedures for appropriate AI usage. 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.

An open letter released Wednesday has called for a ban on the development of artificial intelligence systems considered to be “superintelligent” until there is broad scientific consensus that such technologies can be created both safely and in a manner the public supports. The statement, issued by the nonprofit Future of Life Institute, has been signed by more than 700 individuals, including Nobel laureates, technology industry veterans, policymakers, artists, and public figures such as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. The letter reflects deep and accelerating concerns over projects undertaken by technology giants like Google, OpenAI, and Meta Platforms that are seeking to build artificial intelligence capable of outperforming humans on virtually every cognitive task. According to the letter, such ambitions have raised fears about unemployment due to automation, loss of human control and dignity, national security risks, and the possibility of far-reaching social or existential harms. “We call for a prohibition on the development of superintelligence, not lifted before there is broad scientific consensus that it will be done safely and controllably, and strong public buy-in,” the statement reads. Signatories include AI pioneers Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton, both recipients of the Turing Award, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, businessman Richard Branson, and actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Pentagon personnel could soon be told to participate in new training programs designed to prepare them for anticipated advancements in biotechnology and its convergence with other critical and emerging technologies, like quantum computing and AI. House lawmakers recently passed an amendment en bloc in their version of the fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act that would mandate the secretary of defense to set up such trainings, no later than one year after the legislation's enactment. Biotechnology refers to a multidisciplinary field that involves the application of biological systems or the use of living organisms, like yeast and bacteria, to produce products or solve complex problems. These technologies are expected to revolutionize defense, energy, manufacturing and other sectors globally in the not-so-distant future — particularly as they are increasingly paired with and powered by AI. And while the U.S. historically has demonstrated many underlying strengths in the field, recent research suggests the government may be falling behind China, where biotechnology research efforts and investments have surged since the early 2000s. 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 Trump administration should reverse cyber personnel and budget cuts, strengthen the Office of the National Cyber Director and expand federal workforce initiatives, the successor organization to the Cyberspace Solarium Commission recommended in a report published Wednesday. The annual implementation report from CSC 2.0 is the first of five iterations to actually determine that the nation has gone backward on enacting the agenda of the landmark bipartisan commission, whose suggestions led to the creation of major new federal organizations and policies, including the national cyber director's office. In grading the degree to which its 2020 report had been enacted — whether they're “implemented,” “nearing implementation,” “on track,” “progress limited” or facing “significant barriers” — the percentages dropped in every category, after years of rising or staying steady. President Donald Trump nominated Lt. Gen. Christopher LaNeve on Monday to serve as the next vice chief of staff of the Army and recommended his appointment to the grade of general. An official hearing date has not been made public, but if confirmed by the Senate, LaNeve will replace Gen. James Mingus, the long-time innovator who was sworn in as the Army's No. 2 general officer and principal deputy to Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George in January 2024 under the Biden administration. The announcement follows an unusual gathering of hundreds of top U.S. military officials at Marine Corps Base Quantico last month, where Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stated that he had already removed several high-ranking service members and suggested that more people would be pushed out if they did not conform to his vision for a “less woke” military that's “fit not fat.” There's not a fixed term or limit to the position of vice chief of staff, and former officials' tenures in the capacity vary. A Pentagon spokesperson did not immediately answer questions from DefenseScoop about the timing for or reasoning behind this nomination, but confirmed LaNeve was selected by the president to serve in the post. 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 Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services appears to be quietly considering Palantir to support its yearslong efforts to build a national provider directory for health care providers and patients across the country. Federal spending records show Palantir to be one of four recipients to receive awards from the Department of Health and Human Services and CMS containing the phrase “national provider directory” and “proof of concept.” The four separate contracts, made public Sept. 30, award $1 to each company and are set to expire Nov. 13. Two sources familiar with the efforts told FedScoop these contracts are for a prototype product with CMS. One source confirmed the prototype is for the agency's national provider directory, an effort the agency has been exploring for years. CMS has suggested the directory could serve as a centralized data hub for health care provider and facility information nationwide. The move marks the latest sign of civilian agencies' growing interest in Palantir, which offers extensive data integration and analytics capabilities. The Department of Energy is requesting proposals for the buildout and maintenance of AI data centers and energy generation infrastructure in and around Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In an RFP published last week, the national lab's site and environmental management offices said they are seeking proposals from entities interested in entering into long-term leases in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The work on those DOE sites would include “designing, financing, permitting, developing, constructing, installing, owning, maintaining, operating, and decommissioning AI data center and/or energy generation infrastructure,” per the posting. For those sites, Oak Ridge is specifically seeking construction of data center facilities with specialized computing equipment, cooling facilities, infrastructure for energy supply, transmission and storage, and other related equipment and facilities. The DOE said entities responding to the RFP could be private-sector companies with experience in the development and operation of AI data centers, advanced computing facilities or energy storage. 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.

Federal cyber authorities issued an emergency directive last week requiring federal agencies to identify and apply security updates to F5 devices after the cybersecurity vendor said a nation-state attacker had long-term, persistent access to its systems. The order, which mandates federal civilian executive branch agencies take action by Wednesday, Oct. 22, marked the second emergency directive issued by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in three weeks. CISA issued both of the emergency directives months after impacted vendors were first made aware of attacks on their internal systems or products. F5 said it first learned of unauthorized access to its systems Aug. 9, resulting in data theft including segments of BIG-IP source code and details on vulnerabilities the company was addressing internally at the time. CISA declined to say when F5 first alerted the agency to the intrusion. CISA officials said they're not currently aware of any federal agencies that have been compromised, but similar to the emergency directive issued following an attack spree involving zero-day vulnerabilities affecting Cisco firewalls, they expect the response and mitigation efforts to provide a better understanding of the scope of any potential compromise in federal networks. Many federal agencies and private organizations could be impacted. CISA said there are thousands of F5 product types in use across executive branch agencies. Sens. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, moved to mandate comprehensive new safety reviews for all aircraft operations near DCA and at all major and mid-size U.S. airports, in a new bipartisan agreement that would also require fleets across the nation to be equipped with more precise situational awareness technology. Their proposal aims to resolve safety issues identified by the federal investigation into the tragic crash in January, where an Army UH-60M Black Hawk helicopter fatally collided with an American Airlines passenger plane over the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. All 67 people aboard both aircraft were killed in the collision. In a statement on Thursday, Tim and Sheri Lilley — whose son was the first officer onboard that AA Flight 5342 — called on Congress “to continue moving quickly and decisively to pass and fully implement these reforms, because every person who boards an aircraft depends on it.” The 42-page Cantwell-Cruz Bipartisan Aviation Safety Agreement combines elements of legislation the lawmakers previously put forward separately in the months after the fatal collision. It includes language that directs every military service with an aviation component to sign a memorandum of understanding with the Federal Aviation Administration to share appropriate safety information and expand coordination to prevent future accidents. Another safety failure that came to light in the wake of the crash was associated with the Army Black Hawk helicopter not transmitting via Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast (ADS-B) technology, which essentially enables aircraft to receive data and information about other systems, weather and traffic — delivered directly in the cockpit. The senators' proposal would set a clear 2031 deadline for aircraft operators to equip their fleets with the full package of ADS-B capabilities. 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 new report from the password management company NordPass is challenging the idea that federal institutions are more secure than local governments against cybersecurity threats. The study, conducted by NordPass and threat exposure management platform NordStellar, found a total of 53,070 passwords belonging to U.S. civil servants were exposed in public sources since the beginning of 2024. Of the impacted institutions, NordPass found the Department of Defense had 1,897 total exposed passwords, 222 of which were unique. The State Department had 15,272 total exposed passwords, 190 of which were unique, while the U.S. Army had 1,706 exposed passwords, 167 of them unique. The Department of Veterans Affairs also ranked among the top five most-affected institutions, with 1,331 total password exposures, 53 of which were unique. Seven passwords of White House employees were also compromised, according to the study. A State Department spokesperson told FedScoop the agency is “committed to cybersecurity across the department.” They said the agency has instituted multi-factor authentication and regularly rotates credentials. A Biden-era director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy slammed the Trump administration's cuts to research and development funding Wednesday, warning of adverse effects to areas such as artificial intelligence. Arati Prabhakar said during a panel held by Harvard's Kennedy School: “Today what we are in the middle of is an assault on the public investment in research unlike anything we have seen in our country's history.” Prabhakar specifically pointed to the Trump administration's moves to withdraw support from certain projects, its removal of federal workers at research agencies, its attacks on universities, reversal of immigration policies that bring talent to the U.S., and the administration's budget proposal that sought to cut federal R&D spending by roughly $44 billion. 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.

Starting next year, the Army will be able to domestically mass-produce upwards of 10,000 small unmanned aerial systems each month, according to the service. Army Materiel Command is leading a new pilot program dubbed “SkyFoundry” that will allow the service to rapidly develop, test and produce small drones using innovative manufacturing methods. Officials are currently identifying multiple facilities where the platforms will be designed and produced. The department expects it can manufacture at least 10,000 UAS per month once the first site is up and running, Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James Mingus said Tuesday. He said during a fireside chat at the annual AUSA conference: “We'll be at 10,000 a month by this time next year, if not more.” The effort comes as the Pentagon looks to ramp up production of small drones across the services following Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's “Unleashing U.S. Military Drone Dominance” directive, issued in July. The memo requires low-cost, attritable drones to be fielded to every Army squad by the end of 2026 and calls on the military to partner closely with domestic industry to scale up manufacturing. Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., sent a letter Tuesday to acting CISA Director Madhu Gottumukkala raising concerns about staffing levels and the direction of the nation's primary cybersecurity agency, writing that the “Trump Administration has undertaken multiple efforts to decimate CISA's workforce, undermining our nation's cybersecurity.” Swalwell, the ranking member on the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection, called out the agency for its reported shift of cybersecurity personnel to the Department of Homeland Security's deportation efforts, on top of the approximately 760 people that have been let go from the agency since January. Swallwell wrote: “Amid reports that the Department of Homeland Security is now forcibly transferring CISA's cybersecurity employees to other DHS components, it has become apparent that the Department's exclusive focus on its mass deportation campaign is coming at the expense of our national security,” calling it “further evidence of the Administration's failure to prioritize cybersecurity” how CISA is engaging in Reductions in Force that could threaten its capacity to prevent and respond to cybersecurity threats. In the letter, he demanded that DHS cease all efforts to cut CISA's workforce, reinstate employees who were transferred or dismissed, and provide details on the impacts of the agency's workforce reductions. 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 Trump administration pushed forward Friday with plans to fire federal employees amid the government shutdown, directing reductions-in-force at the Departments of Health and Human Services, Education, and Housing and Urban Development, among other agencies. Prior to and during the current shutdown, the White House repeatedly threatened to lay off additional federal workers in a bid to further its efforts to shrink the size of the government. The Trump administration maintains Democrats are to blame for the shutdown, though Democrats contend that a spending bill from Republicans — who control all levers of power — wouldn't adequately fund health care. Russ Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, posted on X early Friday afternoon that the “RIFs have begun,” without offering additional details. An OMB spokesperson told FedScoop the RIFs began and are “substantial.” In a preview of his discussions with Vought last week, President Donald Trump said in a post to his social media platform that they would target “Democrat Agencies,” calling them “a political SCAM.” According to a court filing from the Trump administration late Friday, at least 4,100 federal workers across eight federal agencies may have been sent RIF notices, with the bulk of the staff reductions at HHS, with 1,100 to 1,200 workers impacted, and the Department of Treasury, with 1,446 workers impacted. Deploying artificial intelligence requires taking on the right amount of risk to achieve a desired end result, a National Institute of Standards and Technology official who worked on its risk management framework for the technology said on a panel last week. While federal agencies, and particularly IT functions, are generally risk averse, risks can't entirely be avoided with AI, Martin Stanley, an AI and cybersecurity researcher at the Commerce Department standards agency, said during a FedInsider panel on “Intelligent Government” last week. Stanley said: “You have to manage risks, number one,” adding that the benefits from the technology are compelling enough that “you have to go looking to achieve those.” Stanley's comments came in response to a question about how the federal government compares to other sectors that have been doing risk management for longer, such as financial services. On that point specifically, he said the NIST AI Risk Management Framework “shares a lot of DNA” with Federal Reserve guidance on algorithmic models in financial services. He said NIST attempted to leverage those approaches and the same plain, simple language. “We talk about risks, we talk about likelihoods, and we talk about impacts, both positive and negative, so that you can build this trade space where you are taking on the right amount of risk to achieve a benefit,” Stanley said. 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.

Federal agencies' latest status updates on how they're using artificial intelligence reveal persistent barriers and variability on where agencies stand with ”high-impact” use cases. The release of the 2025 AI compliance plans offers one of the first in-depth glimpses at how federal agencies are addressing issues of AI risk management, technical capacity and workforce readiness under the second Trump administration. Those documents, which were required under the Trump administration's AI governance memo to agencies, were supposed to be released publicly by Sept. 30. As of publication time, FedScoop located roughly 20 plans and 14 strategies across 22 agencies. For nine of the roughly two dozen Chief Financial Officers Act agencies, FedScoop was unable to find either a plan or a strategy. The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, meanwhile, produced only strategies. FedScoop and DefenseScoop attempted to contact the CFO Act agencies that didn't produce both documents, but the agencies either didn't respond or didn't provide the documents. Two of those agencies, NASA and the Justice Department, noted the government shutdown in their responses, and both the DOJ and Department of Defense indicated they were working to post at a later date. Agencies were also required to submit AI strategies for the first time this year. Those documents contain some of the same information as the compliance documents, including plans to train the workforce, examples of use cases, and systems for governance. The compliance plans, meanwhile, which are in their second year, have changed only slightly from their previous iterations, with some agencies showing progress on their implementation of the technology and risk management practices. A top Senate Democrat introduced legislation Thursday to extend and rename an expired information-sharing law, and make it retroactive to cover the lapse that began Oct. 1. Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, introduced the Protecting America from Cyber Threats (PACT) Act, to replace the expired Cybersecurity and Information Sharing Act of 2015 (CISA 2015) that has provided liability protections for organizations that share cyber threat data with each other and the federal government. Industry groups and cyber professionals have called those protections vital, sometimes describing the 2015 law as the most successful cyber legislation ever passed. The 2015 law shares an acronym with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which some Republicans — including the chairman of Peters' panel, Rand Paul of Kentucky — have accused of engaging in social media censorship. As CISA 2015 has lapsed and Peters has tried to renew it, “some people think that's a reauthorization of the agency,” Peters told reporters Thursday in explaining the new bill name. 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 Environmental Protection Agency's pledge to “get out of the way” on chemical reviews to accelerate the buildout of artificial intelligence data centers doesn't mean those reviews would be any less “robust,” a top EPA nominee told lawmakers Wednesday. Appearing before the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee, Douglas Troutman — President Donald Trump's pick for assistant administrator for toxic substances — was pressed by Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., about comments made by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin last month following a White House roundtable with AI and data center leaders. In a Sept. 18 press release, Zeldin announced that the EPA would begin prioritizing the review of new chemicals — under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) — that would be used in data center projects. Markey asked Troutman, a former chemical industry lobbyist, what provisions in federal toxic safety laws indicate the EPA can “get out of the way of reviewing chemicals for safety.” Troutman responded that “nothing will change with regard to the robust review based on the risk-based statute enacted under Section Five of TSCA.” Markey appeared unconvinced, telling Troutman that if he's confirmed, he will “be under orders from Administrator Zeldin to get out of the way.” The Massachusetts Democrat made the case that “big tech bosses” with ties to the administration could lean on the agency to bypass regular review protocols. Voting rights groups are asking a court to block an ongoing Trump administration effort to merge disparate federal and state voter data into a massive citizenship and voter fraud database. Last week, the League of Women Voters, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and five individuals sued the federal government in D.C. District Court, saying it was ignoring decades of federal privacy law to create enormous “national data banks” of personal information on Americans. On Tuesday, the coalition, represented by Democracy Forward Foundation, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), and Fair Elections Center, asked the court for an emergency injunction to halt the Trump administration's efforts to transform the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements into an immense technological tool to track potential noncitizens registered to vote. Until this year, SAVE was an incomplete and limited federal database meant to track immigrants seeking federal benefits. In an Oct. 7 court filing, the groups said an immediate injunction was needed to prevent permanent privacy harms due to the “illegal and secretive consolidation of millions of Americans' sensitive personal data across government agencies into centralized data systems” through SAVE. 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 federal workers' union is suing the Education Department after agency employees on furlough or administrative leave discovered that their automatic email replies had been changed to a message blaming Democratic lawmakers for the ongoing government shutdown. The complaint, filed by the American Federation of Government Employees, asks a court to prohibit the Education Department's alleged efforts to “put political speech in federal employees' mouths.” “Forcing civil servants to speak on behalf of the political leadership's partisan agenda is a blatant violation of federal employees' First Amendment rights,” the suit stated, adding that “employees are now forced to involuntarily parrot the Trump Administration's talking points with emails sent out in their names.” The suit came one day after some furloughed workers discovered that their automatic out-of-office email replies were changed without their knowledge, from neutral language to partisan messaging that blamed Democrats for the shutdown, which began last Wednesday. Three House Democrats questioned the Department of Homeland Security on Monday over a reported Immigration and Customs Enforcement contract with a spyware provider that they warn potentially “threatens Americans' freedom of movement and freedom of speech.” Their letter follows publication of a notice that ICE had lifted a stop-work order on a $2 million deal with Israeli spyware company Paragon Solutions, a contract that the Biden administration had frozen one year ago pending a review of its compliance with a spyware executive order. Paragon is the maker of Graphite, and advertises it as having more safeguards than competitors that have received more public and legal scrutiny, such as NSO Group's Pegasus, a claim researchers have challenged. A report earlier this year found suspected deployments of Graphite in countries across the globe, with targets including journalists and activists. 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.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a new edict last week to reduce the time personnel spend on cybersecurity training, among other reforms. The directive came in a Sept. 30 memo to senior Pentagon leadership and DOD agency and field activity directors, ordering the military departments, in coordination with the Pentagon's chief information officer, to “Relax the mandatory frequency for Cybersecurity training.” Hegseth also called for narrowly tailoring records management training to service member roles and allowing flexibility in training delivery, as well as automating information management systems to eliminate training requirements. Additionally, Hegseth directed the military departments and other Pentagon leaders to “relax” the mandatory frequency for controlled unclassified information (CUI) training; remove Privacy Act Training from the Common Military Training (CMT) list; eliminate the mandatory frequency for “Combating Trafficking in Persons” refresher training after appropriate legislation is enacted; consolidate mandatory training topics, “as appropriate”; and develop an integrated CMT program plan. The changes are to be “implemented expeditiously,” per Hegseth's directive. Federal courts are upgrading their cybersecurity on a number of fronts, but multifactor authentication for the system that gives the public access to court data poses “unique challenges,” the Administrative Office of the United States Courts told Sen. Ron Wyden in a letter last week. Wyden, D-Ore., wrote a scathing August letter to the Supreme Court in response to the latest major breach of the federal judiciary's electronic case filing system. The director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts responded on behalf of the Supreme Court. It is “simply not the case” that the courts have, in the words of Wyden, “ignored” advice from experts on securing the Case Management/Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) system, wrote Robert Conrad Jr., director of the office. Conrad wrote in the Sept. 30 letter: “Substantial planning for the modernization effort began in 2022, and we are now approaching the development and implementation phase of the project. We expect implementation will begin in the next two years in a modular and iterative manner.” In recent years, the office has been testing technical components on its modernization effort, and is centralizing the operation of data standards to enable security, Conrad said. 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.

Former State Department employees whose roles were eliminated as part of a reduction-in-force still received information about whether they would be needed during the government shutdown — including some workers who were told their positions were “excepted.” While the full extent of the issue wasn't immediately clear, three such employees shared those notifications with FedScoop on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. Others were also aware of the problem even if they didn't receive the messages themselves. In response to a FedScoop request for comment, a State spokesperson indicated the department was aware of the issue and had taken steps to address it, confirming there were “minor” discrepancies with data, saying that the department immediately worked to resolve any outstanding issues. Of the three State Department notices reviewed by FedScoop, one informed the RIF'd employee that their position was “excepted” and explained that those roles are defined as those needed for emergencies that threaten life and property or are essential for national security. It then ordered that worker to “report to work on your next regularly scheduled workday.” The other two already RIF'd employees were told that they would be furloughed during the shutdown but that it was “in no way a value judgement on the work you do for the Department.” Those employees were also instructed to review their department emails for updates despite not being able to access that information. Of the three RIF'd employees, only one — a foreign service officer — is still on the department's payroll. As employees at the Education Department prepared for a looming government shutdown this week, several set an automatic email reply to inform others of their furloughed status. But by Thursday morning, some furloughed workers discovered that their automatic email replies had been altered, without their knowledge, to include a message blaming Democratic senators for the ongoing government shutdown. According to two furloughed Education Department employees, the agency sent workers suggested language to use for their out-of-office messages earlier this week, but the language was “neutral” regarding the shutdown. One of the employees, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told FedScoop they and other furloughed staff mostly cut and paste from the suggested language with little to no changes when setting their automatic replies. But when they checked their automatic email replies Thursday morning, the message changed and included partisan language mentioning Democrats, the employee said. The other furloughed worker said they set the generic text for their OOO email Wednesday morning and the message was changed by Wednesday night. 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.

It's day two of the federal shutdown, and with the Senate on leave, there won't be any sort of appropriations deal until Friday at the earliest — though many have doubts about that possibility. As federal agencies adjust to the new normal with hundreds of thousands of federal employees furloughed and the White House threatening more layoffs targeting those who've been sent home, FedScoop took the time to compile a near-complete look at how agency IT organizations are affected. An analysis of the nearly two dozen civilian Chief Financial Officer Act agencies found that some agencies explicitly outlined plans to scale back IT operations amid the shutdown, while others deemed several IT staff members essential for managing technology and cybersecurity infrastructure. For instance, at the Department of Commerce's Office of the CIO, just one individual is tasked with taking responsibility for shutdown tasks and assurance that the office will continue to work on critical IT functions. If the lapse in funding continues for an extended period, there is also the potential for staff to be recalled on an intermittent or full-time basis for cybersecurity and maintenance work, and limited staff may be called for administrative functions. While at the Labor Department, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management has selected “a minimal IT staff” within the OCIO to oversee tech operations. Those employees are now tasked with managing Labor's technology services, applications and website, in addition to having other IT security responsibilities that support the agency's excepted and exempt staff. A nonprofit legal group is suing a handful of federal agencies, calling on the federal bodies to release documents related to the use of artificial intelligence to carry out the Trump administration's “deregulation agenda.” The lawsuit, filed by Democracy Forward on Wednesday, asks a court to require the General Services Administration, Office of Personnel Management, Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Housing and Urban Development to comply with public records laws amid concerns over how AI is being used to “weaken” existing federal regulations. Democracy Forward said it reviewed both public records and documents obtained through FOIA requests and found GSA plays a “central role” in the White House's efforts to overhaul regulations. The nonprofit cited an apparent email trail, in which a GSA-affiliated email informs other agencies of “significant progress” in reviewing its internal and external policies to ensure consistency with President Donald Trump's directives. The suit further pointed to reports of an AI tool called SweetREX developed by an affiliate of the Department of Government Efficiency. 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.

It's Oct. 1 and Congress has failed to pass appropriations for fiscal year 2026. And you know what that means: the federal government has shut down. For the first time since 2019, also during a Trump administration, federal appropriations have lapsed, resulting in furloughs for hundreds of thousands of federal employees and contractors and the halting of many agency operations. Only “excepted employees” and federal workers who are “exempt” from furlough may perform work until the current lapse in appropriations is over. Though Washington has experienced a number of shutdowns and shutdown threats in recent memory, the politically combative climate surrounding this one is much more amplified. The Trump administration has already threatened to use the shutdown to permanently cut jobs that aren't aligned with the president's agenda. And so far, neither party seems willing to budge, with many pundits speculating the lapse could drag on long-term without an agreement between Republicans — who control both houses in Congress and the White House — and Democrats. But one thing is clear: Until that agreement is reached, many of the federal government's most important missions will operate at less than full capacity, including in areas like cybersecurity. FedScoop will keep you informed as the battle around the shutdown continues. The Trump administration's sweeping U.S. military shakeup is expected to gain momentum in the months to come — with more leadership changes, major acquisition updates and possible personnel cuts in the Pentagon's pipeline, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suggested during an unusual gathering of military brass Tuesday. At the “key leaders all-call” meeting with hundreds of top generals and admirals summoned from around the world at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Hegseth and President Donald Trump unveiled a broad docket of new and forthcoming directives meant to reflect their overarching vision for “woke”-ending reforms. Trump said: “We will not be politically correct when it comes to defending American freedom. We will be a fighting and winning machine. We want to fight, we want to win, and we want to fight as little as possible.” Theories swirled about the intent behind this mass gathering after Hegseth hastily ordered it last week. In the portion that was publicly livestreamed, Hegseth outlined his plans for policy shifts — via 10 directives — around physical fitness and grooming standards, mandatory training, oversight processes, records retention rules and more. 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.

As the federal government races to adopt AI, many agencies are looking to buy and build the same exact solutions. Recognizing this, the General Services Administration earlier this year launched USAi, a platform that offers agencies access to leading commercial AI models that they can deploy in a streamlined manner, eliminating redundancy across government and leading to greater efficiencies at scale. Zach Whitman, chief data scientist and chief AI officer for the GSA, recently joined me for a discussion at the Agentic AI Government Summit and Jamfest in Washington, D.C., to highlight the USAi effort, how it's progressing, the challenges GSA faces and what's next. The Department of Health and Human Services has tapped DOGE affiliate Zachary Terrell to be its chief technology officer, sources told FedScoop. Terrell's CTO title was confirmed by three officials, who were granted anonymity to be more candid. Taking on the role of CTO comes after his involvement in Department of Government Efficiency work at both HHS and the National Science Foundation, including the cancellation of grants at the science agency. One of those sources told FedScoop that Terrell has been in the technology chief role since the beginning of this month and is still at the NSF as well. While his leadership role is new, Terrell has previously been involved in work at HHS, including as a member of the department's DOGE team, according to a recent legal filing by the government. Per that document, Terrell was listed as one of the 10 team members given access to at least one sensitive system as part of the DOGE work. Specifically, Terrell was one of five team members who weren't directly employed by the U.S. DOGE Service — the White House home for the group. Congress is poised to make yet another run at legislation to reform agency software purchasing practices, with the reintroduction in the House last week of the Strengthening Agency Management and Oversight of Software Assets Act. The SAMOSA Act, which passed the House last December, would require federal agencies to comprehensively assess their software licensing practices, a move aimed at curbing duplicative tech, streamlining future purchases and reducing IT costs. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., chair of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation, said in a press release: “The GAO has found the federal government spends more than $100 billion annually on information technology and cybersecurity, including software licenses. Far too often, taxpayer dollars are wasted on these systems and licenses agencies fail to use.” The SAMOSA Act, Mace goes on to say, “requires agencies to account for existing software assets and consolidate purchases: reducing redundancy, increasing accountability, and saving potentially billions for American taxpayers.” Also in this episode: Salesforce Global Digital Transformation Executive Nadia Hansen joins SNG host Wyatt Kash in a sponsored podcast discussion on how Agentic AI is reshaping the way government teams work and why agencies need top-level sponsorship, transparent governance and workforce training to realize its potential. This segment was by sponsored by Salesforce. 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.