Digging deeper into FITARA

This week’s guest is Clark Campbell, vice president of Public Sector at BDNA.  Clark recently wrote a piece for The Federal Times titled:  “Why FITARA can succeed where Clinger-Cohen failed.”  We brought him into the studio to share his insights on the federal IT scorecard program.

About 20 years ago a law was passed with similar goals. Technically, it was called The Information Technology Management Reform Act, also known as the Clinger-Cohen Act (1996). What happened next was one of the two proponents, Rep. William F. Clinger (R-PA) did not run for office. Sen. William Cohen (R-ME) became the Secretary of Defense.

There was no human champion for the cause of efficiency in federal information technology. Today we have well-known Gerry Connelly (D-VA) who was a primary mover behind FITARA. Time will tell if he can lead implementation of policies inherent in its goals.

In developing his argument, Clark mentions that fact that in the mid-1990’s we didn’t have a federal CIO position and we didn’t have the tools to give transparency to networks. This is where BDNA fits into the puzzle – by providing tools that empower federal information professionals to gain a better understanding of their network resources in order to be able to make decisions for compliance.

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