All non-critical and non-statutorily required work will cease at the General Services Administration’s Technology Transformation Services as part of a 50% reduction of the office, according to Director Thomas Shedd. In his prepared remarks for a Thursday afternoon town hall, which were obtained by FedScoop, Shedd said that to deliver technology at GSA in a “more focused and streamlined way,” moving forward TTS will support only work that is required by statute and policy, fits into the Trump administration’s definition of critical, and is prioritized by the leadership at GSA “in accordance with the priorities of the administration.” Everything else will be eliminated, per Shedd, who said in his remarks that TTS will be smaller in size – at least 50% smaller. Additionally, any contracts that support the work that falls outside of the established bounds “will be terminated” and any job functions that are deemed non-essential will be cut. The prioritized and remaining TTS programs include Login.gov, FedRAMP, Cloud.gov, statutorily required websites, the Integrated Award Environment, the Office of Regulatory Oversight, the Centers of Excellence, the Presidential Innovation Fellowship Program, the U.S. Digital Corps, operations and other “special projects.” Australian-based software company Atlassian has tapped Matthew Graviss to be its first public sector chief technology officer following his recent departure as the State Department’s top data and AI official. Although the role starts a new private sector chapter in Graviss’s career, being the first person to establish a newly created position is familiar ground. During his time in the federal government, Graviss was the first-ever chief data officer at both the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. In an interview with FedScoop, Graviss said his role at Atlassian is an extension of that experience in that he’ll again be codifying the responsibilities of the job, showing value and solving customer problems. Regardless of whether his role is in or out of the government, Graviss said “the delivery of better goods and services to citizens is contingent upon … an ecosystem of government employees, service providers, and solution providers.” The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

The NSA’s former top cybersecurity official told Congress on Wednesday that the Trump administration’s attempts to mass fire probationary federal employees will be “devastating” for U.S. cybersecurity operations. In testimony to the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, Rob Joyce, the former NSA cybersecurity director who retired from government service last year, warned lawmakers that countering Chinese hacking campaigns against critical infrastructure will require top-level cybersecurity talent at the NSA and other government agencies. Joyce said that part of that is having expertise and capacity in the government, raising “grave concerns that the aggressive threats to cut U.S. government probationary employees will have a devastating impact on the cybersecurity and our national security.” Joyce, who spent 34 years at the NSA, emphasized how important those employees are in sustaining an aggressive stance against China in cyberspace. A federal appeals body within the executive branch issued an order Wednesday to temporarily reinstate thousands of fired probationary workers in the U.S. Department of Agriculture in what advocates hailed as an important win for fired employees. The decision from the Merit Systems Protection Board, a quasi-judicial body within the government, grants a Friday request from the Office of Special Council, an independent government investigator, to stay the termination of an unnamed former employee and over 5,000 others who were similarly situated. The decision from MSPB also comes on the heels of another win for fired probationary workers in federal district court in San Francisco. U.S. District Judge William Alsup granted temporary, limited relief to pause and rescind those firings at several agencies, finding that OPM likely unlawfully directed the firing of those agency workers. That order has similarly prompted reinstatements. Since the court decision, the National Science Foundation moved to reinstate its fired federal probationary workers, citing the federal courts and updated guidance from the Office of Personnel Management. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Weeks after being named the chief information security officer for the Defense Department, Katie Arrington was announced Monday as the Pentagon’s official “Performing the Duties of the Department of Defense Chief Information Officer.” The DOD Office of the CIO announced the move by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to place Arrington as the acting CIO in a post on LinkedIn. The post also confirmed that Leslie Beavers, who had been acting CIO since John Sherman left the role last June, will return to her primary role as principal deputy CIO. A defense official confirmed Arrington started in the role Monday. An organization that’s filed multiple legal challenges against the Trump administration is focusing its attention on the potential use of artificial intelligence in personnel decisions. Democracy Forward, a social welfare organization, said Monday it “launched a public records investigation” into the administration’s AI use, including filing requests under the Freedom of Information Act. Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, said in a written statement that the American people deserve to know what is going on — including if and how artificial intelligence is being used to reshape the departments and agencies people rely on daily. The organization’s requests come after reporting by NBC that Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency planned to use AI to review employee responses to the Office of Personnel Management’s “five bullets” email. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Since the Trump administration took office Jan. 20, federal technology has become an essential element in the national news cycle. Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency have burrowed within agencies to gain access to key federal IT systems as part of their work to drive efficiency and cut waste and abuse. And as part of that, the Trump administration has fired huge swaths of the federal workforce. For the FedScoop news team, this has meant some major changes to the way they cover and deliver the news to the federal IT community. On this episode, the team gets together for a conversation about how they’re approaching this new normal, the stories they’re following, what’s ahead and how readers can get in touch to share their stories. The Office of Personnel Management said in a Tuesday revision to existing guidance that it’s not instructing other federal agencies to take personnel actions with respect to probationary employees. “Please note that, by this memorandum, OPM is not directing agencies to take any specific performance-based actions regarding probationary employees,” the new language in the revised memo reads. “Agencies have ultimate decisionmaking authority over, and responsibility for, such personnel actions.” The update follows a decision last week from a federal judge in San Francisco granting temporary, limited relief to pause and rescind those firings at several agencies. In making that ruling, U.S. District Judge William Alsup found that OPM’s original Jan. 20 memo on federal probationary workers and its other related efforts likely unlawfully directed the firing of those agency workers. OPM “does not have any authority whatsoever under any statute in the history of the universe to hire and fire employees within another agency,” Alsup said during a hearing Feb. 27. As Salt Typhoon and other hacking groups continue targeting U.S. telecoms, a bipartisan bill that cleared a key House panel Tuesday aims to formalize a more cyber-focused role for the federal agency focused on those wireless networks. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration Organization Act would establish an Office of Policy Development and Cybersecurity within the Commerce Department’s NTIA under legislation from Reps. Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., and Jennifer McClellan, D-Va. The bill, which advanced out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, was passed by the chamber last year but stalled out in the Senate. The NTIA advises the president on telecommunications and information policy issues, with a specific focus on the expansion of broadband internet and spectrum. Obernolte, who chairs the House Science, Space and Technology subcommittee on research and technology, said the bill “addresses a critical gap” by formalizing NTIA’s cybersecurity role to better “safeguard our communication networks.” The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

The General Services Administration has eliminated its 18F program, an internal team of tech consultants and engineers that develops open-source tools to improve digital services across the federal government. The announcement, which came over the weekend, is the latest in the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to slash the federal workforce. The move was foreshadowed weeks ago when Elon Musk, who’s become become the figurehead for the Trump administration’s slashing of government programs and the federal workforce, tweeted that the decade-old program had been “deleted.” Early Saturday morning, Thomas Shedd — a mechanical engineer and former Tesla employee recently appointed as the director of GSA’s Technology Transformation Services, which houses 18F — announced the program had been eliminated as part of the ongoing reduction-in-force effort, according to an email viewed by FedScoop. A GSA spokesperson also confirmed the terminations to FedScoop on Saturday, writing in an email that members of the 18F office were notified that they had been identified as part of GSA’s Reduction in Force and reorganization plan and were being separated from federal service. The top-10 highest-paid consulting firms contracting with the federal government are set to make “$65 billion in fees” in 2025 and beyond, the General Services Administration says. But according to the agency’s acting leader, that “needs to, and must, change.” GSA acting Administrator Stephen Ehikian issued last week a memo, obtained by FedScoop, calling for the termination of contracts with those top-contracted consultants: Deloitte Consulting LLP, Accenture Federal Services LLC, General Dynamics IT, Booz Allen Hamilton, Leidos, Guidehouse, Hill Mission Technologies Corp., Science Applications International Corp., CGI Federal and IBM. Ehikian wrote in the memo dated Feb. 26 sent to senior procurement officers: “Consistent with the goals and directives of the Trump administration to eliminate waste, reduce spending, and increase efficiency, the U.S. General Services Administration has taken the first steps in a Government-wide initiative to eliminate non-essential consulting contracts.” By March 7, agencies are asked to provide a list of contracts with the 10 firms that they intend to terminate as well as those they will maintain. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Customs and Border Protection has issued internal paperwork to authorize an evaluation of Starlink, the satellite internet service provided by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, according to documents identified by FedScoop and a spokesperson for the agency. CBP has created a privacy threshold analysis — an internal document used to analyze potential privacy risks associated with a new technology and whether a privacy impact assessment is necessary — for Starlink internet, a step from agency officials that indicates that the SpaceX service is under serious consideration. It also continues a trend of federal agencies expressing interest in working with one of Musk’s companies as the richest man in the world further embeds himself within the Trump administration and leads efforts to cut federal programs and shrink the federal workforce. Newly installed Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell on Thursday issued a memo calling for all Defense Department components to scrub any diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) content from their websites and social media platforms. By March 5 — next Wednesday — DOD components must take down all “news and feature articles, photos, and videos that promote Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)” from the web, according to the directive, calling the effort a “digital content refresh.” That media must be archived and retained following Pentagon records management policies, states the memo from Parnell, the assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Federal agencies will be required to build centralized systems to track every payment they issue for contracts, grants and other expenditures under an executive order issued Wednesday. President Donald Trump’s order calls for each agency head to team with that agency’s assigned DOGE team lead in building the new IT system. Each payment would be submitted to the system and include “a brief, written justification” from the agency staffer who signed off on the expenditure. The systems would include a built-in mechanism to allow the agency head to pause and quickly review payments that are submitted without a written justification. As part of the buildout of the new system, agency heads and DOGE team leads will be required to review “all existing covered contracts and grants,” with the option to “terminate or modify” those agreements “where appropriate and consistent with applicable law,” the order states. The Trump administration is asking federal agencies to submit reductions in force and reorganization plans by March 13, setting the stage for more workforce terminations. A memo from the Office of Personnel Management sent Wednesday tells agency heads that their plans to reduce the workforce and reorganize departments are required to comply with the executive order to implement the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency and its mission to optimize the federal workforce. Agencies have to seek reductions in non-critical agency components and enable staff to focus on “higher-value activities,” the memo states. The department heads are encouraged to collaborate with agency-assigned DOGE counterparts on the agency RIF and reorganization plans, identifying specific competitive areas where positions are not typically designated as essential during appropriation lapses. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

A group of 21 engineers, data scientists, designers, project managers and other tech experts resigned from their positions at the U.S. Digital Service on Tuesday, writing in a letter to the White House that they would not “carry out or legitimize” the actions of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. The technologists said in their letter that they all left senior tech positions in the private sector to “pursue nonpartisan public service” and “stood ready to partner with incoming officials” as the Trump transition unfolded. But over the course of the past month, the staffers said it became clear that they could “no longer honor those commitments” at USDS, rebranded in January as the United States DOGE Service. Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., a top federal IT advocate on Capitol Hill, has called for the Office of Personnel Management to rescind its recent guidance pushing for federal agencies to redesignate chief information officer roles in a way that could make them more political. In a letter sent to acting OPM Director Charles Ezell on Tuesday, Connolly requested that the federal HR agency rescind its Feb. 4 memo “Guidance Regarding Redesignating SES CIO Positions,” which recommends that federal agencies with senior executive service CIO positions designated as “career reserved” should redesignate those roles to be “general.” The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

If you missed last week’s Zero Trust Summit at the Spy Museum in downtown D.C., you’re in luck. We have a replay of what was one of the best panels of the day focused on U.S. military cybersecurity and the adoption of zero trust across the services. FedScoop's Billy Mitchell was joined by Wanda Jones-Heath of the Air Force and Ann Marie Schummann of the Navy, principal cyber advisors for their respectives services, as well as Imran Umar, Booz Allen’s vice president of zero trust, for a panel that explored the progress made in zero-trust adoption and what comes next as the Pentagon targets zero-trust readiness by the end of 2027, including embracing the framework for operational technology systems and weapons platforms. In the news: Government agencies responded with caution to the Office of Personnel Management’s request that federal workers provide five bullet points about what they accomplished last week by the end of the day Monday. The Securities and Exchange Commission gave workers a template to follow; the General Services Administration and Department of Commerce told employees not to send classified information, links or attachments; and the Department of Defense told employees to pause responses for the time being, according to emails obtained by FedScoop and agency statements. At least some agencies ultimately told employees participation wasn’t required. Technical systems housed within USAID may be transferred to the State Department, including those related to global health, a source familiar with the matter told FedScoop, with about 40 systems potentially impacted by the transition. The USAID.gov website has now been updated to note the long-anticipated reduction in force at the agency, noting that approximately 1,600 personnel are now on administrative leave. A small group within the agency seems to be involved in discussions related to transferring technical assets to the State Department, the source said. Some of those systems might end up on OpenNet, a global network State uses for data applications. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

The Pentagon is set to begin its termination of thousands of select probationary employees in the coming days as part of the Trump administration’s unfolding campaign to “maximize efficiency” by rapidly reducing the size of the federal workforce. Darin Selnick, who is performing the duties of undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, announced the plans in an email to reporters on Friday afternoon. “We expect approximately 5,400 probationary workers will be released beginning next week as part of this initial effort, after which we will implement a hiring freeze while we conduct a further analysis of our personnel needs, complying as always with all applicable laws,” Selnick wrote. He confirmed that the DOD is anticipating at this time to shrink its civilian workforce by 5% to 8% in an effort to “produce efficiencies and refocus” the department’s priorities to match those of President Donald Trump’s new administration. The United States is falling “increasingly behind” its adversaries in cyberspace, the former head of the Cyber Command and National Security Agency said Saturday. Speaking at the DistrictCon cybersecurity conference in Washington, D.C., retired Gen. Paul Nakasone said that the nation’s adversaries are continuing to be able to broaden the spectrum of what they’re able to do to us. Nakasone said incidents like Chinese government-backed breaches of U.S. telecommunications companies and other critical infrastructure — as well as a steady drumbeat of ransomware attacks against U.S. targets — illustrate “the fact that we’re unable to secure our networks, the fact that we’re unable to leverage the software that’s being provided today, the fact that we have adversaries that continue to maintain this capability.” The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.