Appearing before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs on September 13th was U.S. General Services Administration Acting Administrator, Dan Tangherlini. Tangherlini testified that changes GSA made within the past five months has projected to save more than $11 million by eliminating conferences and cutting travel. These cost savings measures are the byproduct of the Las Vegas scandal in which tax payers footed the bill for an $800,000 GSA employee conference.

As the November election approaches, the Federal government sits on high pressure to cut spending to check an ever growing national deficit. The Effect: Budget cuts and fat trimming by all agencies throughout the public sector.

The technology phenomenon that is cloud computing is one that has spread like wildfire throughout the private sector. However, despite an ever-growing IT establishment, the Federal government has been much more prudent in their shift toward cloud computing. According to many Federal IT professionals, inefficiency, the need for consolidation and pending budget cuts has clearly made cloud computing a solution in dire necessity. The Department of Defense in specific is facing an estimated $178 billion budget cut over the next several years, reforming their IT system is a ploy that could potentially save them nearly $37 billion. Yet despite the potential savings for this department and many similar situations alike, a recent surveyof Federal agencies showed that over 96% of the agencies have less than 1/3 of their IT infrastructure on cloud computing. So why is this the case?

With the upcoming presidential election, the “Green Movement” is undoubtedly going to be a topic of discussion between the two candidates. Recently, the movement has made monumental steps in raising awareness all around the country. The demand for environmentally-friendly, also known as “green” products has increased so much because of a policy that requires 95% contract actions to be green. Sales of these products through GSAAdvantage! ® has increased by almost 80% from October 2011 to May 2012. With such an increase in demand, there is no better time to get involved in the movement than now. Since there is such an incredible amount of hype around this movement, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney cannot ignore this topic. With such polarizing stances on the issue, the candidates will find it hard to ignore the movement as a whole. It will be interesting to see how the different constituencies will stand on the issue of “Go Green.” This movement has even dwelled into the likes of the economy; it just brings it to the forefront for an entirely different group of people.

Federal, state, and local government agencies are embracing social media outlets, mobile apps, and real-time monitoring as new approaches for providing critical updates to citizens. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was the ultimate wake-up for FEMA, the National Guard, and federal and state executives that our country lacked a resilient communication network. The three levels of government failed to communicate and present a coordinated relief effort. On an individual level, the citizenry was also left defenseless without updates for several days in the heat of the crisis. In the years following, public and private officials have invested resources in streamlining relief efforts and exploring social media and mobile devices as communication channels during an emergency.

Recently, the New York Police Department and Microsoft teamed up to develop an all-seeing surveillance system to be implemented downtown. This offers to potentially bring in an incredible amount of revenue, as New York City stands to make 30% of all revenue that Microsoft will make from this “Domain Awareness System.” As stated by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, this technology “will fund more new crime-prevention and counter-terrorism programs.” When this surveillance system is put into effect, the NYPD will have a lot of power, that some may argue, dwells into peoples’ right to privacy. With the recent allegations of the NYPD probing terrorist activities beyond their jurisdiction in Rutgers University, Yale University, University of Pennsylvania, and many others in the Northeast, this new technology has to raise eyebrows for the general public. People have to be concerned with how the NYPD will utilize this new technology, and whether or not they will use it for justice or another violation of citizens’ civil rights.