“President Donald Trump on Monday called for a ‘sweeping transformation of the federal government’s technology,’ beginning his push to update the dated inner workings of Washington that drew some praise — and then some public requests — from the top tech executives at Apple, Amazon, Google and Microsoft,” Tony Romm reports for Recode.
“After a day of meetings at the White House with those and other tech leaders — some of whom have been his fiercest corporate critics in the past — Trump admitted that the feds had to ‘catch up’ with the private sector,” Romm reports. “He said federal agencies had to deliver ‘dramatically better services to citizens,’ for example, while buying cheaper, more efficient technology and adopting ‘stronger protections from cyber attacks.'”
“The comments officially concluded the inaugural meeting of the White House’s American Technology Council, a new effort chartered by Trump in May to bring the lumbering federal bureaucracy into the digital age. The group has a broad mandate — converting paper-based forms into easy-to-use websites, for example, while helping the government buy better technology and take advantage of new tools like artificial intelligence,” Romm reports. “Apple CEO Tim Cook — who also acknowledged that the U.S. had much work to do to modernize — said Washington should make coding a requirement in schools.”
“Among the invitees Monday were the leaders of Adobe, Akamai, Amazon, Apple, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Oracle and Qualcomm, as well as some of Silicon Valley’s leading investors, like Peter Thiel, who previously advised Trump during his presidential transition,” Romm reports. “Opening the day’s events, Jared Kushner — one of Trump’s top advisers — emphasized that the government’s tech troubles are legion.”
Much more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The rampant inefficiency of the U.S. federal government is staggering.
The full text of the Presidential Executive Order on the Establishment of the American Technology Council, verbatim:
EXECUTIVE ORDER
– – – – – – –
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE AMERICAN TECHNOLOGY COUNCIL
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Policy. It is the policy of the United States to promote the secure, efficient, and economical use of information technology to achieve its missions. Americans deserve better digital services from their Government. To effectuate this policy, the Federal Government must transform and modernize its information technology and how it uses and delivers digital services.
Sec. 2. Purpose. To promote the policy set forth in section 1 of this order, this order establishes the American Technology Council (ATC).
Sec. 3. ATC Establishment and Membership. The ATC is hereby established, with the following members:
(a) The President, who shall serve as Chairman;
(b) The Vice President;
(c) The Secretary of Defense;
(d) The Secretary of Commerce;
(e) The Secretary of Homeland Security;
(f) The Director of National Intelligence;
(g) The Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB);
(h) The Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy;
(i) The U.S. Chief Technology Officer;
(j) The Administrator of General Services;
(k) The Senior Advisor to the President;
(l) The Assistant to the President for Intragovernmental and Technology Initiatives;
(m) The Assistant to the President for Strategic Initiatives;
(n) The Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs;
(o) The Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism;
(p) The Administrator of the U.S. Digital Service;
(q) The Administrator of the Office of Electronic Government (Federal Chief Information Officer);
(r) The Commissioner of the Technology Transformation Service; and
(s) The Director of the American Technology Council (Director).
Sec. 4. Additional Invitees. The Director may invite the heads of agencies with key service delivery programs to attend meetings of the ATC on a rotating basis and may also invite the heads of those service delivery programs to attend. The President, or upon his direction, the Director, may also invite other officials of executive departments, agencies, and offices to attend meetings of the ATC from time to time.
Sec. 5. ATC Meetings. The President, or upon his direction, the Director, may convene meetings of the ATC. The President shall preside over the meetings. In the President’s absence the Vice President shall preside, and in the Vice President’s absence the Director shall preside.
Sec. 6. ATC Functions. (a) The principal functions of the ATC shall be to:
(i) coordinate the vision, strategy, and direction for the Federal Government’s use of information technology and the delivery of services through information technology;
(ii) coordinate advice to the President related to policy decisions and processes regarding the Federal Government’s use of information technology and the delivery of services through information technology; and
(iii) work to ensure that these decisions and processes are consistent with the policy set forth in section 1 of this order and that the policy is being effectively implemented.
(b) The functions of the ATC, as specified in subsection (a) of this section, shall not extend to any national security system, as defined in section 3552(b)(6) of title 44, United States Code.
(c) Nothing in this section shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect the authority of any agency or of OMB, including the authority of OMB to monitor implementation of Administration policies and programs and to develop and implement management policies for all agencies.
Sec. 7. ATC Administration. (a) The ATC may function through ad hoc committees, task forces, or interagency groups, each to be chaired by the Director or such official as the Director may, from time to time, designate. Such groups shall include a senior interagency forum for considering policy issues related to information technology, and a deputies committee to review and monitor the work of the ATC interagency forum and to ensure that issues brought before the ATC have been properly analyzed and prepared for decision.
(b) The ATC shall have a Director, who shall be an employee of the Executive Office of the President designated by the President.
(c) All agencies are encouraged to cooperate with the ATC and to provide such assistance, information, and advice to the ATC as the ATC may request, to the extent permitted by law.
(d) Consistent with the protection of sources and methods, the Director of National Intelligence is encouraged to provide access to classified information on cybersecurity threats, vulnerabilities, and mitigation procedures to the ATC in order to facilitate the ATC’s activities.
Sec. 8. Termination. This order, and the ATC established hereunder, shall terminate on January 20, 2021.
Sec. 9. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof;
(ii) the functions of the Director of OMB relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals; or
(iii) the provisions of the Presidential Memorandum of March 19, 2015, entitled “Establishing the Director of White House Information Technology and the Executive Committee for Presidential Information Technology.”
(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
DONALD J. TRUMP
THE WHITE HOUSE,
April 28, 2017.
SEE ALSO:
Apple CEO Cook to President Trump: The U.S. should have the most modern government in the world; coding should be a requirement in every public school – June 20, 2017
President Trump tells Apple CEO Cook that U.S. needs comprehensive immigration reform – June 20, 2017
President Trump advisor Kushner: Government must move past floppies, Y2K and ‘unleash the creativity of the private sector’ – June 19, 2017
President Trump to meet with Apple CEO Cook, other tech execs on cutting government waste, improving services – June 19, 2017
Apple CEO Cook, other tech CEOs to attend President Trump’s Jared Kushner-led summit – June 9, 2017
Apple CEO Tim Cook pressured to follow Elon Musk and leave President’s Council over Paris Agreement kerfuffle – June 2, 2017
“The rampant inefficiency of the U.S. federal government is staggering,” but let’s put them in charge of “healthcare.” That’s the Dem/Lib/Prog mindset in a nutshell (there’s tons of extra room in that nutshell, as the Lib “mindset” is microscopic).
Feckless Liar:
Just.shut.up.
you mad, bro?
Actually no. Just tired of juvenile misdirection. As if 1014 has never made a statement and fate and circumstances dictated a different outcome.
Come bot, to say that is a lie is disingenuous at the least and partisan racism at the most.
RAAAAAY-CHISSS! U IZ RAAAAAAAAY-CHISS!
shut the fück up, punk.
the jig is up.
you mad, bro?
bot is jealous of Obama. Jealous of me too as I have actually accomplished something.
An ex-con who blames his girlfriend for his arrest and a chronic abuser of hallucinogens doesn’t generate jealousy, it generates repulsion.
you lose.
again.
LOL,.. oh bot. get your info stratight.
Your very words, XCon….unless, you were lying.
Hey bot
Want some more stories? All of them true.
Me at CES, probably 82′
big deal.
you’re just simply a liar, you said, “if my girlfriend hadn’t given me the key to the high school….” Probably best for you to just STFU, CitizenXCon.
Well bot, just like all simple minded tRumpanzees, you get confused with facts.
I never blamed anything on my girlfriend and never said I abused anything… well speed for a few years but that was long ago.
Here is something to chap your hide.
Ahhhhhh, NO!
CITIZEN ZERO is mad because he has nothing to offer beyond stalking and insulting politics he does not agree with.
And CITIZEN X-CON does not have the intellect to offer anything remotely constructive to advance ANY discussion on MDN.
His classic and most overused favorite response: SHUT UP.
Case closed …
LOL… geo, hanging on to every spasm of bots tiny member. Anonymous scum at that.
don’t delude yourself. I’m not mad. I just don’t understand how seemingly good people could support a lying, racist, misogynistic, failed businessman, traitor and sexual predator. You geo.. are just a pile of by the side of the road.
You may think you are important but you are not. I scrape more off my feet each day than you are worth.
So again. Shut up.
is geo short for goober.
The leftist, corrupt lamestream media exposed for what they are once again:
https://twitter.com/Pamela_Moore13/status/877343178537353217
We’ll be stuck cleaning up Obama’s messes for many years (healthcare, Syria, North Korea, Iran, race relations, bipartisanship, etc.) all because a relative handful of the most uneducated urban government assistance recipients thought it was “time for the 1st black president” regardless of the fact that he was a spendaholic statist control freak who fecklessly broke pretty much everything he monkeyed around with, so they turned out (were bussed) in one-time-only numbers.
It’s a flaw in the system that the most uneducated, those most dependent on government, were able to be herded together in enough numbers to fsck the country hard for eight years plus many more years of cleanup required afterwards.
The repubs started the mess that Mr. O could have/should have/would have been able to clean up, but he was too concerned about his Noble Prize image and, as a result dropped the ball. Please add Iraq to the “messes” list.
No you stupid pile of scat. I guess you missed the 1 term president comment or all the obstructionism from the idiot republican party.
🇺🇸 🇺🇸 🇺🇸 🇺🇸 🇺🇸 TRUMP-PENCE 2O20 🇺🇸 🇺🇸 🇺🇸 🇺🇸 🇺🇸
Didn’t Crooked Hillary’s demolishment teach you not to count your chickens before they hatch, pajama-boy?
Good God in heaven, I can never get enough of that damaged snowflake losing it as the realization hits home at the 0:50 mark!
What demolishment, whatever that is. Another tRumpanzee crawls out of the cesspool with more stupid scat.
The demise of The Plantation Party is imminent.
No last, you just hate the fact that a successful Black Man dared be President and do a good job. Oh and by the way. Thank him for saving us from the last idiot republican president.
Oh and by the way. Your cesspool standard for who your support is telling. Your man/boy love affair with a lying, incompetent, failed businessman, racist, misogynistic, creep and sexual predator show just how hateful and racist you are. You will make a deal with the devil and suck him off before you detach yourself from tRumps Rump.
Where is this successful, weirdly capitalized “Black Man” of which you speak and what so-called “good job” did he do (unless you’re referring to greatly weakening America at home and abroad)? His only success was in hoodwinking the likes of you and continuing his free ride for life.
You’re not too bright. From day one, the rest of us could see that Obama was an obvious, manufactured fraud – a fake – and you still can’t see it. And, I quote: “While the crucible of self-creation had produced an ironclad will, the vessel was hollow at its core.”
Go ahead. Act stupid. It fits with your support for tRump.
If you think that our current president has the mental capacity or wherewithal to be effective, you’re completely delusional. Talk about messes to be cleaned up, we will be cleaning up Drumpf’s for years after he is gone. All because a bunch of scared white people thought it was “time for the first really stupid businessman president.” I realize you’re not that smart, but even the most idiotic should be able to see that Drumpf is an idiot and not equipped to hold the highest office.
You Lose. Again.
#MAGA #TrumpPence2020
CitX: I’d rather hear your response to his post vs a child-like command.
What is there to respond to?
No! Let them talk, and to continue to show their colors. Why would you want to hide the contempt inducing rhetoric of these clowns!?
Everybody says government inefficiency is rampant, but nobody actually has any proof of that.
As a matter of fact, the federal government IS in charge of one aspect of health care—the Medicare program for older Americans. Every study ever done shows that the program is more efficient (less overhead, meaning more money for patient care) than any private company in the medical insurance industry. The user experience isn’t great, but no worse than the experience of trying to deal with an individual insurer (group members usually have advocates to help them).
That is one of the few examples out there where a head-to-head apples-to-oranges comparison between the public and private sectors is really possible. In most cases, the government is prohibited from competing in a market where private companies can make any money. So, the efforts to prove government inefficiencies usually involve services that nobody could provide efficiently, or a private vendor would be making money providing it.
Add to that the reality that any private company that cannot commit adequate resources to a particular project can cut its losses by walking away. Public agencies are mandated to provide the service (police protection, judicial decisions, public health services, highway repairs, etc.), so they cannot suspend operations even when they are inadequately funded. Unlike in private enterprise, the agencies that provide public services have little to no control over their budgets. They have to keep trying, no matter how ineffectively, with whatever resources they are given.
We wouldn’t have to worry about government IT guys having to comply with Y2K regulations if they weren’t legally required to provide services with computers and software designed or even built last century.
Unfortunately, the public does not understand any of that. Some years back, I had spent a Saturday morning — uncompensated overtime — trying to find a doctor who would treat a four-year-old’s sexually transmitted infection without getting paid, because the county had run out of money for that. (Her parents couldn’t pay because they were in jail for sexually exploiting her. The infection had gone on long enough that it was chronic, rather than something a private hospital emergency room would accept. Our county has no public hospitals.)
When I stopped for groceries on the way home, a lady asked me to sign a petition for a referendum to cut local taxes even more. I explained what I had been doing and pointed out that there would be even more four-year-olds in that situation if the vote passed. Her response? “Well, everybody needs to make sacrifices!” The referendum passed, of course.
First and foremost, I would take Google off the list as they can’t bring any tech to the table that a government would be interested in…unless they need to spy on all its citizens. Zero worth to have a company that specializes in being an advertising company.
Government and efficiency should NEVER be used in the same sentence. I defy any business to run themselves like a government body and continue to exist (without corporate welfare schemes).
If you’re very, very quiet, you can actually hear the death rattle of The Plantation Party.
MAGA
Candidate Trump was wrong about one thing: We’ll never tire of winning!!!
Thank you, sir, I’ll have another!
Handel was quite gracious in thanking the President. It was another great chapter in MAGA.
Hahaha…She was so gracious that she couldn’t even utter Drumpf’s name.
We all know who the President is, snowflake.
(Hint: It’s not Cankles the Clot.)
I hope you enjoyed your party. This was a red district that had always been expected to elect a Republican, so hardly a big deal. Ms. Handel won by a 300% higher percentage margin than The Messiah did in the same district, so I don’t think you can give him the credit.
I bet you had plenty of French champagne left over from your last party, celebrating how your heroine Marine LePen and her National Front won 8 seats out of 577 in the National Assembly.
…there was no champagne, all the Chardonnay is stored in Chappaqua.
I was wondering where you got that pablum about the whatever party. Can’t even think for yourself.
“you best get on back to da’ plantation, Massa’ is a heppin’ you stay po’ and stupid. Now go fetch da’ Missus and Colonel Cornpone a nice, cool mint julep out on da’ veranda. chop-chop!”
you goddamned idiot…you’ve sold-out your own liberty and honor for a marxist chimera.
oh poor bot still waiting for that coal mine job. trailer starting to leak.
I’ve never even seen a plantation but I know an idiot sycophant when I see one.
I’ve never even heard anyone talk like that. Must be natural for a cockholster like you.
Botty,
A Mexican wall is no return to the moon. Your boy is the Vince McMahon of politics. I don’t care that we differ, but bring some A-game. Please!
Tim – if you crack a smile it won’t hurt anything.
– America
I think it’s telling that he’s the only one who isn’t smiling.
I think we’d better be prepared for more of the old the State vs Apple shenanigans we’e had for the past decade. I’d bet anything Trump told Tim he’s “concerned” about Apple’s fixation on user privacy, et al.
Every photo Tim Cook is in with the President, he never smiles. Tim Cook looks absolutely miserable. Every single time. If he doesn’t like meeting with the President, then he shouldn’t be meeting with the President.
Hey is Tim able to crack a smile for this one? I mean, what does he have to lose?
Everyone smiling, even Bezos slightly, but one: Mr. Sanctimonious, the H1-B visa addict who can see his supply of American citizen-hurting, cheap foreign slave labor drying up before his eyes.
There is little Trump can do to improve IT within the government unless Congress gets involved. That means chancing procurement rules and loosening up restrictions on IT appropriations. I’d say the chances of Congress being able to address such a complex issue successfully are next to none, because the solutions aren’t to be found in partisan political belief systems..
…another “yes, we can’t’er.”
Have you ever worked as a federal employee and tried to order computer equipment or software? In many cases, it’s just not allowed. Plus, the structure of big systems, such as the VA healthcare software, is overseen (some would say dictated) by Congress. Modernizing it will take legislation, not just an executive order.
That’s precisely what the President is trying to fix.
I get that. I’m just indicating some pessimism that Congress is up to the task.
It’s not pessimism… a reality check. Something that some people don’t understand… probably because they have a simplistic view of how the government works and delusional believes some self-appointed (or otherwise) political messiah is going to save them.
Yeah… history shows us that’s always worked.
Not a government employee, but someone who has worked with government agencies during my career.
Besides government addicted to lowest bidder, Dells.
After they spend those 10’s of billions trying to accomplish this, they will end up with the answer… 42.
Government computer users aren’t addicted to anything; they just use what they are provided. Government purchasing agents aren’t “addicted” to the lowest bidder. In most cases, they are bound by state or federal purchasing laws that require them to use competitive bidding and to award the contract to the lowest bidder who meets the advertised specifications.
Those laws exist for two reasons: one is to save money, of course, but that is the less important of the two. The other is to insure that taxpayer money is not spent except through an open process. By requiring that purchasing decisions involve a purely mechanical assessment of public bids, rather than any element of discretion, they minimize the possibility of corruption that exists in any subjective process.
The system was evolved to deal with things like bulk purchases of cheese or cement, where the bidders are differentiated mostly by price. It obviously does not work as well for computers and fighter jets, where the low bidder that meets the specs (e.g. Dell or Lockheed Martin) may be far from the best value for taxpayer money.
Legislatures have been struggling for decades to find a solution that both gets the best value and protects the process from corruption. In the meantime, purchasing agents have to buy what the law requires and employees have to use what the government provides.
Since Steve Jobs’s OS X is the most efficient, secure and intuitive operating system ever created, Pipeline T should be ecstatic regarding Our Beloved President’s new tech plan for government efficiency…if he would pull his head out of his virtue-signaling ass, this is not only a great opportunity for Apple to expand even further, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance to help our government properly serve her citizens.
but he won’t.
…and why won’t he?
because he’s a globalist dick, that’s why.
Pipeline doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the country and the people who enriched him…Donald Trump does.
The globalist toady is no better than Angela Merkel..a traitor to her own people.
Uh, good luck with that, just like all your other useless signing photo ops.
I know huh? Speaking of feckless. What has the incompetent boob accomplished. Signed a few childish tantrum executive orders to get back at that Black Man That Dared Be President.
sweeping transformation of the federal government’s technology
Required:
• New mindset of reaching and remaining on the cutting edge every day forever. That’s currently nowhere in sight except perhaps the NSA.
• Investment of $Billions now and a steady stream onward.
• Total divorce from Android and Windows, except for research purposes.
• Direct collaboration with the computer security community, lunatic thought it is. It has got to become an actual science (versus a competition or clown show).
• An offensive approach of finding security holes versus merely defensively responding to each crisis.
• A collaboration with universities and developers to create a seriously secure as well as effective method of coding. No more buffer overruns, for example. It could happen!
Please add more ideas. Clearly, #MyStupidGovernment needs all the help it can get when it comes to technology.
Absolutely, Derek! However, my prediction is that instead of committing the resources necessary to do all this, the current Administration will follow the example of all the governments before it — of either party — by focusing on “inefficiency.”
In other words, they want to spend even less money on technology while demanding better results. When the effort collapses under its own weight, who will get blamed? My guess is that it will be the government employees handed an impossible task, rather than the politicians who made it impossible.
Yeah, I saw the word ‘economical’ in their manifesto, which typically is used to justify being cheapass.
“Do Less With Less”. That of course makes matters even worse while further wrecking morale. Of course that’s going to be what happens, but I remain optimistic because optimism at least has an element of fun, joy, hope, prospect, endurance, future, progress…, as opposed to the usual ‘Starve The Beast’ demolition from the current clowns-in-power.
A voice of reason in a morass of hate. Thanks Derek.
“…shall not extend to any national security system”
Then why are there so many of the Security and Intelligence Agencies on the Council?
I seem to recall, a very long time ago, that a number of the upper echelons of those services (the most security-conscious and secret) use Macs.
I’ve long waited for the day that all governments would junk legacy crap operating systems and make the decision to solely buy Apple.
Over the long term, it’s a decision which would save an awful lot of problems and expense (for multiple reasons).
Surely that’s a sensible starting point?
Only if they get Mac savvy people to run the show, and just reassign a WindBlows weenie who will purposely foul things up.