NSA Leaker Still on the Loose – Plus the DorobekINSIDER’s 7 Stories

On GovLoop Insights’ DorobekINSIDER:

• Less than half of federal employees believe they will be rewarded or promoted for doing a good job, according to a new analysis from Deloitte and the Partnership for Public Service. That’s not good news for federal agencies hoping to retain their top talent. So what can be done? Insights from Deloitte’s David Dye.
• Only 43% of you think you will be rewarded or promoted in your job. And only 36% think creativity and innovation are rewarded. Those are some bleak statistics. So how do you stay inspired and empowered in your job? “It’s the S.O.U.L,” says Sariane Leigh. Find out what that means.

But up front: The NSA situation continues to be front and center

• This Week ABC: NSA Chief Keith Alexander: ‘System Did Not Work As It Should Have’ to Prevent Snowden Document Leaks
  
• The Atlantic: What the #NSA Does With the Data It Isn’t Allowed to Keep
  
• Is the biggest threat already within our networks: NYTimes Bits: ‘The Scariest Threat Is the Systems Administrator
  
• I Would Have Hired Edward Snowden: A former Google and Microsoft engineer explains why elitist, arrogant rebels often make the best employees.
  

Must Read!

NYTimes: Data You Can Believe In: How the precision targeting of “persuadable” voters that put President Obama over the top in 2012 could revolutionize the advertising industry.

The SEVEN stories that impact your life

1. A Republican lawmaker has proposed legislation that would require federal agencies to fire employees who refuse to answer questions from Congress. The Washington Post says the bill, sponsored by Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), would also give congressional panels the authority to terminate employment “if three-fourths of the congressional body that heard the testimony finds that a federal worker willfully or knowingly gave false testimony during a hearing.”
2. President Obama has named an experienced auditor to fill the vacant Pentagon inspector general’s position with his choice of Jon Rymer, currently the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s IG. Government Executive reports, Rymer, who has been at the FDIC for seven years, previously served as interim IG for the Securities and Exchange Commission.
3. Over the last decade, the government has fought tooth and nail — and largely succeeded —to speed up the security clearance process, eliminate a massive backlog of background checks and encourage intelligence agencies to share more information with one another. But as Washington reels from the recent bombshell revelations on the National Security Agency’s surveillance efforts — brought to light by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden — experts fear the government will overreact and reverse those hard-won victories, reports Federal Times.
4. Energy savings performance contracts (ESPCs) have been widely used across the federal government to improve energy efficiency at major facilities’ infrastructures, but a first-of-its-kind partnership between the Department of Energy and contractor Lockheed Martin aims to bring those same optimizations to data centers. Energy CIO Robert Brese earned an FCW Federal 100 award for his work in establishing such arrangements.
5. The Federal Acquisition Regulation Council has removed limits on the size of contracts agencies can award to disadvantaged women-owned businesses. The interim rule was published Friday in the Federal Register. It carries out a provision in the 2013 Defense Authorization Act. Contracts had been limited to $6.5 million for products and $4 million for services. But agencies have routinely missed the statutory goal of awarding 5 percent of contracts to women-owned small businesses. The Small Business Administration proposed the rule in May. It says removal of contract size limits should help. The rule is open to comments until Aug. 20. But because it is interim, it goes into effect immediately, reports Federal News Radio.
6. John Berry, lately the director of the Office of Personnel Management, could be heading halfway around the world. President Barack Obama has nominated Berry to be ambassador to Australia. Berry has come a long way since his early career as legislative director to Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). He was deputy assistant secretary for law enforcement at Treasury, then senior policy advisor at the Smithsonian. Berry then became assistant secretary for policy, management and budget at Interior and later, director of the National Zoo. At OPM, Berry managed to reduce the average time it takes the federal government to make a hire. But he struggled to clear OPM’s backlog of retirement claims, reports Federal News Radio.
7. And on GovLoop: Here is a staggering stat: 130 millions Americans own a smartphone, including roughly 1 out of 2 adults. That’s a technology that wasn’t even around 5 years ago. So how can government leverage this technology to connect, engage and empower government employees and the general public? Tune in to find out with the DorobekINISDER LIVE panel on June 26th at noon ET. Register for the free online webinar now.

DorobekINSIDER water-cooler fodder

• The Supreme Court remains low-tech: NYTimes: As Social Media Swirl Around It, Supreme Court Sticks to Its Analog Ways | In a city beset by leaks, the Supreme Court’s rulings remain stubbornly opaque until they are handed out (on paper, first) by the court’s public relations staff.
  
• GAO report finds thousands of contractors paid more than VP– If a government-mandated cap on contractor executive compensation was required to match the vice president’s pay, more than 3,400 employees from a sample 27 companies would have exceeded it in 2012, according to a new Government Accountability Office report. The cap, now set at $763,029 per person, represents the amount of employee pay that can be charged to government contracts. The GAO report comes as the White House and some members of Congress argue for a reduction. They have generally targeted the president’s salary of $400,000 or the vice president’s salary of $230,700 as more reasonable limits.
  
• The Atlantic Wire: Update: Rusty the red panda is safe and now in custody
  

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