Tag: WHITE HOUSE

The House of Representatives has approved the procedures for a joint resolution that would overturn the FCC's controversial Net neutrality rules. The resolution (PDF) is scheduled for a vote on Thursday in the GOP-controlled House. If it passes, it would then move on to the Democratic-controlled Senate, where its chances of survival are less certain. Even if it passes the Senate, though, the ...

Last June, the Obama administration outlined an auction plan that could help double the U.S. broadband spectrum. According to Reuters, the White House has finally revealed the specific financial details concerning that strategy. As part of the overall plan, Obama will propose an additional $5 billion investment to bring wireless Internet to rural areas of the country. But, the spectrum auction ...

As part of their tireless struggle to prevent terrorist attacks and protect U.S. citizens, federal law enforcement officials are now pushing for new legislation to enhance their online surveillance capabilities. The bill, which the Obama administration plans to submit for Congressional deliberation next year, would require communications services like Facebook, BlackBerry and Skype to be capable ...

The White House just released its National HIV/AIDS strategy yesterday, and it ambitiously aims to reduce new HIV infections by 25-percent by 2015. How will it accomplish this goal? The plan outlines the use of more social networking, but not much new funding. According to the new policy, "The United States currently provides more than $19 billion in annual funding for domestic HIV prevention, ...

Highlights from this morning's other big tech headlines.... The White House apparently harbors numerous, and already devoted, fans of the iPad, including Vice President Biden, economic adviser Larry Summers and several members of the press staff. They also all seem to be serious procrastinators, as 'Scrabble,' 'Lost' and 'Vanity Fair' rank among the assorted downloads. 'Vanity Fail?' ...

The Obama administration just keeps flexing its new media muscle and redefining what it means to speak to the people in a way that we haven't seen since the days of FDR's "fireside chats." The White House blog, its slick interactive website, weekly YouTube addresses and Twitter account are powerful, but they still feel like the tools of politics. A new White House video blog though, called 'West ...

In an effort to save money and gain support for health care reform, President Barack Obama is calling in the nerds. According to an Associated Press report, Obama said Tuesday that he's hiring a group of private "bounty hunters" to crack down on health care fraud, particularly those cases pertaining to Medicare and Medicaid. They won't be armed with mullets and pepper spray like TV badass Dog, ...

The fact that the government and most of its agencies are still stuck in the technological dark ages is no longer news. Officials in the Obama administration have been shouting it from the hilltops since they rolled into D.C. on their social networking-powered bus. But, while Obama has been pushing the government into the 21st century (though those accomplishments are often overshadowed by ...

Balancing two wars, steep unemployment rates, and an expansive healthcare overhaul doesn't leave Barack Obama a whole lot of time for anything -- including, apparently, Twitter. This may explain why the President is reportedly looking to hire an official White House twitterer, according to the Wall Street Journal. Mia Cambronero currently holds the vaunted position of social networks manager for ...

digg_url ='http://www.switched.com/2010/02/11/white-house-launches-report-card-on-government-openness/'; Yesterday, U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra and Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra unveiled what they call the Open Government Dashboard, a sort of report card for government agencies and their abilities to meet objectives set forth in the Open Government Directive. The ...

In spite of its other perceived failures, the Obama administration has actually succeeded quite admirably at one of its promises: technologically ushering the White House into the 21st century. It has embraced blogging, streaming video, Twitter, crowd-sourcing, and has even created new positions within the government and armed forces that specifically deal with the challenges of running and ...

Political blog The Hill may have called the recent announcement by Peter Orszag, the White House budget director, that the government is saddled with "outdated technology" a "startling admission," but it sounds to us like old news. As of January 2008, the Bureau of Indian Affairs still lacked Internet access, and during the transition from campaign to presidency Obama spokesman Bill Burton ...

After being rudely interrupted during a press conference earlier this year, we can't blame President Barack Obama for taking a harsh stance on cell phones. After all, there's an economy to fix and a war to win. So when it's time for a cabinet meeting, he's told his staff to leave those BlackBerrys at the door. But what has us chuckling is the method in place to ensure Secretary of State ...

Barack Obama is no stranger to spurious claims about his heritage, citizenship, and religious beliefs, but most of these claims have been met with little more than stolid dismissal by our secretly Muslim, terrorist-fist-bumping, Kenyan-born president. Start attacking the man's policies with deceptive chain e-mails and viral videos, though, and you might just find yourself on the losing side of a ...

Two months after delivering a speech that outlined sweeping cybersecurity plans, President Barack Obama and his staff are still struggling with just how to protect the country from electronic terrorists and spies. With the resignation of the woman many people thought could take the reigns, things won't get any easier, either. Melissa Hathaway, who led a cybersecurity review in April, resigned ...