GovernmentExecutive.com

It seems to be Whoops Day today. Bullet point one:

The federal government mistakenly made public a 266-page report, its pages marked "highly confidential," that gives detailed information about hundreds of the nation's civilian nuclear sites and programs, including maps showing the precise locations of stockpiles of fuel for nuclear weapons.

The article seems to imply that the information released isn't hugely more detailed than what's already public knowledge. Reading the back-and-forth about who might be responsible for the leak, however, is a non-confidence-inspiring experience.

Then, there's this:

Nearly a fifth of the equipment -- including computers -- assigned to Lawrence Livermore Laboratory workers laid off in 2008 could not be immediately accounted for after their departure, according to a report released Tuesday by a U.S. Energy Department inspection office. In addition, nine laptops were reported stolen from the lab's employees between July and January -- four of them having been left in plain view inside cars, the report noted.

Don't worry, though, it's not like LLNL is home to any incredibly sensitive technologies or anything like that. This incident, however, actually has an interesting management dimension. Ed O'Keefe, covering the latest incident, makes the point that this is in some ways a human capital and transition management issue:

Amid budget cuts, Livermore laid off more than 2,000 staffers last year, with roughly 750 receiving termination notices on the same day they were asked to leave. "All of these terminations potentially necessitated updates to the property database, but the involuntary terminations had the potential to pose particular challenges because of the immediacy of individuals' departures." (Departing workers may have been more focused on stunned good-byes than mundane paperwork related to the disposition of government computers. Shocker.)
...
The big problem here? Training. The lab didn't provide adequate guidance to employees about keeping tabs on equipment, relying instead on an informal training process. Chalk this up as another example of a government agency trimming training costs from tight budgets. But also add this to a long list of incidents involving the loss of government property at the hands of employees who fail to follow the rules.

A solid reminder that procedures are important, but they don't mean much unless you've got a workforce with the training and morale to carry them out.

From the home office in Wahoo, Nebraska:

• GSA has created an awesome combined RSS of news feeds throughout the federal government. Today, via the feed, I learned from the Census Bureau that the current U.S. population is approximately 306,569,004!


• Congressman Mike Honda (D-CA) wants you to help redesign his website. He's using a platform called crowdSPRING, which encourages users to "just post your project, watch the world submit ideas and choose the one you like." Oh, if only it were that simple.


• It looks like Recovery.gov, the site designated as a central portal for stimulus information, is getting a makeover! Key quote: "It's going to shift from an inside-the-Beltway Web site to something that people from throughout the country can use to find out what's going on in their neighborhood." The hunt is on for a vendor who is up to the task. (Full disclosure: My employer, the National Academy of Public Administration, worked with the Recovery Board earlier this year to run a national online dialogue soliciting ideas on this very topic.)


• The White House's Beth Noveck posts an update on the results of the Office of Science and Technology Policy's online open government brainstorm that went live May 21st. The main themes highlighted here will feed a "discussion phase" in which they are subject to more focused discussion and elaboration. (Full disclosure: Yup, this one, too.)


• Federal News Radio's Chris Dorobek captures a phenomenon rarer than an upside-down rainbow: All three e-gov administrators in the same photo!

And that's the news! Consider this an open thread.

Those of you who joined me the last time I guest-hosted here will remember my ongoing fascination with the reports that the Government Accountability Office releases on a regular basis. Obviously GAO studies an extraordinary range of issues, and performs a vital function as an independent investigative apparatus of government. And there is a real value to just having an established fact-of-the-matter about even the most basic issues of public service provision.

That said, I still get a kick out of their report titles, and today does not disappoint:

Hospital Emergency Departments: Crowding Continues to Occur, and Some Patients Wait Longer than Recommended Time Frames

This is obviously an important issue. But who's writing the titles to these things, Andy Rooney? I eagerly await tomorrow's report: "Airline Peanuts: Most Are Of Less-Than-Satisfactory Flavor And Quantity."

Since it was announced a few weeks ago that this New York Times op-ed by Bill Kristol would be his last, there's been considerable speculation about what the Times will do with the column space. Gawker proposed the increasingly-ubiquitous Former Bush Person; Slate's ever-curmudgeounly Jack Shafer suggested 'Nobody'. It's quite a quandary: What do you do with the print equivalent of dead air?

If I may make a modest proposal: How about someone who knows about federal government? The op-ed page has some great writers; Paul Krugman in his non-partisan mode is a genuinely lucid explainer of economics, and Nick Kristof is bravely using his column space to report on things that, frankly, no one else wants to talk about. But there's no one there who really understands how federal government works, from the inside and at a detailed level, and how to explain that in a relevant way to the average reader. Particularly given the more active role that government is likely to begin taking in our economy and our lives, at least in the short-term, I think we would all benefit from having a voice on that page that demystifies the black box here in D.C. for the 300 million citizens (and counting!) that it serves.

Okay, so who? Well, the obvious candidate would be FedBlog's own Alyssa Rosenberg! (And that's how you make sure you get invited back.) But assuming she's unavailable, I think there are a few good candidates. Paul Light, the Paulette Goddard Professor of Public Service at NYU's Wagner school, has been a visible and prolific writer about how the sausage is made. Also from NYU Wagner, Rogan Kersh, who I've had the privilege of knowing personally, is a similarly gifted writer with a true grasp of the nuance of how law becomes policy becomes reality. Don Kettl, the Director of UPenn's Fels Institute of Government, has just written a great book on how to bring government into the 21st century, and it's full of ideas that deserve a broader audience.

These are just a few good candidates; there are tons more. Who do you think belongs in the Op-Fed slot?

The SBA is warning small businesses of an ongoing scam and urging them not to respond to letters asking for bank account information in order to qualify the businesses for federal tax rebates.

The fraudulent letters were sent out with what appears to be an SBA letterhead to small businesses across the country, advising recipients that they may be eligible for a tax rebate under the Economic Stimulus Act, and that SBA is assessing their eligibility for such a rebate. The letter asks the small business to provide the name of its bank and account number.

The SBA is comparing the scheme to e-mail "phishing" schemes which seek personal data and financial account information that another party to access and individual’s bank accounts or to engage in identity theft.

SBA asks that anyone who receives the letter report it to the SBA Office of the Inspector General Fraud Line at 1 (800) 767-0385, or OIGHotline@sba.gov.

Blogger Ana Marie Cox, of Wonkette fame, has discovered the Federal Register! Cox described it as “actually pretty fascinating” on her Twitter stream this morning, which may or may not be hilarious to those of us who have to sift through it every day.

She particularly got a kick out of this notice from the SEC that “pursuant to the provisions of the
Government in the Sunshine Act … the Securities and Exchange Commission will hold a Closed Meeting on Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 2 p.m.”

Cox’s quip about the ironic notice sent off a little flurry of jokes about the Federal Register, which is not exactly inviting to the general public. I’d be curious how many of our readers check in with the Federal Register regularly and even more curious if anyone else finds it “actually pretty fascinating.”

A little reminder, courtesy of the National Institute of Standards and Technology:

Hat tip: BoingBoing

The most famous whistleblower of all time, Mark "Deep Throat" Felt, has died, the Washington Post reports.

As I wrote back in 2005, when Felt revealed he was the infamous leaker, he was, like so many whistleblowers, a complicated figure -- genuinely angry and concerned that the Nixon White House was undermining the FBI and obstructing the investigation of Watergate, but also disgruntled that he had been passed over for the top job at the agency.

And Felt was hardly a constitutional purist. As Slate's Jack Shafer has noted, "while leaking to [Bob] Woodward about Watergate in 1972 and 1973, Felt was also authorizing illegal break-ins in the search for Weather Underground bombing suspects."

By the way, here's the oddest part of the Post's obit of Felt, whose long career in government actually began at the Federal Trade Commission after he graduated from law school in 1940: "Felt was assigned to ask consumers about their impression of the Red Cross brand of toilet paper. He disliked the job, and in 1942, he joined the FBI."

Air and Space magazine, a Smithsonian publication has a great feature online: The Top NASA Photos of All Time. The photos evoke all eras of the agency's history of exploration, and it's amazing how many of them are utterly iconic.

Here's one of those stories that shows a commitment to public service sometimes transcends a commitment to government service: The Washington Post reports that after the Peace Corps evacuated all 113 of its volunteers from Bolivia last month -- fearing that they might get caught up in political unrest in the country -- several of them have returned on their own to try to complete projects they started.