Security draws extra millions

[William Knowles <wk () C4I ORG>]

http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2000/0515/web-senate-05-15-00.asp

BY Dan Verton
05/15/2000

The Senate last week responded to the growing menace of cyberattacks
by adding $76.8 million to the fiscal 2001 Defense authorization bill
to kick-start a new information security scholarship program and a
security institute.

The Information Security Scholarship Program will be designed to
recruit and retain Defense Department personnel who have computer and
network security skills.

The Institute for Defense Computer Security and Information Protection
would conduct research and development on critical security
technologies and act as an information-sharing hub on cybersecurity
between agencies and companies.

The Armed Services Committee, which completed markup of the bill May
10, also took aim at the departments overall management of information
technology programs and acquisition work force issues. The committee
called for enhanced planning and tracking of IT programs throughout
the department as a means to obtain a "better return on investment" on
the more than $20 billion DOD spends on IT each year, according to a
committee statement.

The Senate must still meet with the House in conference to iron out
differences between the two versions of the bill.

In addition, the committee called for a three-year moratorium on
further reductions in the Pentagons acquisition work force to address
what it termed "problems" that have resulted from past reductions.

The committee recommended a total of $309.8 billion in budget
authority for the Defense Department, which is $4.5 billion more than
the Clinton administration asked for in its budget request for fiscal
2001. The Senate included in that amount more than $63 billion in
procurement funding and more than $39 billion for research,
development, testing and evaluation.


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