The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly impacted the Department of Justice’s law enforcement investigations, according to a recently released employee survey of major DOJ components by the department’s Office of the Inspector General.

The General Services Administration (GSA) is no longer purchasing drones from Chinese manufacturers out of concern that they could be used to conduct espionage in the United States. All but five drone suppliers will be removed from the GSA offerings. This plan will go into effect on February 1, 2021.

On Wednesday, several thousand supporters of President Trump’s reelection campaign marched from the White House to the Capitol building, where the group breached security. The group climbed onto the Capitol by scaling vertical walls and overwhelming U.S. Capitol Police.

President Trump recently signed an executive order granting federal employees a 1 percent pay increase in 2021. The order does not affect locality pay rates.

In a press release from December 15, 2020, the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE) announced their new chairperson, Allison C. Lerner. She began her term on January 1, 2021 and has previously served as the vice-chairperson of CIGIE and as co-chair of its Suspension and Debarment and Research Misconduct Working Groups.

After several continuing resolutions to buy lawmakers additional negotiating time, Congress has passed a $2.3 trillion government funding and coronavirus relief package. As long as President Trump signs the measure by December 28, the federal government will not a shut down this year. The package allows for a 1 percent pay raise for civilian federal employees and includes $900 million in coronavirus relief, but the bill has been criticized for failing to take action on controversial federal workforce policies implemented by the Trump administration.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued an emergency directive on the evening of December 13, 2020 in response to a massive data breach due to a critical software vulnerability that impacted several federal agencies.

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY 2021, which passed through Congress this month, includes several provisions that would strengthen the cybersecurity infrastructure of the U.S. The NDAA reestablishes the position of National Cyber Director within the Executive Office of the President and allows the Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency (CISA) to conduct online threat hunting for federal agencies.

With a government shutdown looming at the end of this week, lawmakers are scrambling to fund the government and approve emergency COVID-19 aid. The omnibus government funding bill is expected to also serve as the vehicle for two COVID-19 relief packages. The $1.4 trillion spending and COVID-19 relief bill must be finalized or all non-emergency government services will be shut down and thousands of federal employees will be furloughed beginning at midnight on Friday, December 18.

The Public Servant Protection Act is a bill designed to protect government workers, officials, and appointees from being targeted at their homes. Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), along with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and five Republican colleagues, introduced the legislative proposal last week.

Senators James Lankford (R-OK) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) on Tuesday introduced the Retirement Annuity Supplement Clarity Act to address the way the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) calculates the retirement annuity supplement for federal employees who have a divorce settlement dividing their Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) annuity.

Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari plans to conduct an audit into the agency’s surveillance and data collection practices after an October 23rd letter from Senators raised questions about Customs and Border Protection (CBP)’s domestic surveillance practices. IG Cuffari’s November 25th letter responding to the Senators indicates he will he complete an audit to ensure that DHS and its components “have developed, updated, and adhered to policies related to cell-phone surveillance devices.”

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said she would be stepping down as the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. She said, “After serving as the lead Democrat on the Judiciary Committee for four years, I will not seek the chairmanship or ranking member position in the next Congress.”

This week (November 15-21) is International Fraud Awareness Week, which is dedicated to the global effort to minimize the impact of fraud by promoting anti-fraud awareness and education. This event, held by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), is a time to share information about preventing fraud, identity theft, and security with peers, coworkers, and family members.

The Department of the Interior and the Department of Veterans Affairs recently announced that veterans and Gold Star families will be receiving free lifetime access to national parks, refuges, and other public lands. These families will have free access to approximately 2,000 public locations with many activities including hiking, fishing, paddling, biking, hunting, camping, stargazing and climbing.

A memorandum for Chief Human Capital Officers (CHCOs) released Monday announced draft updates to federal hiring policy based on the Executive Order on Modernizing and Reforming the Assessment and Hiring of Federal Job Candidates that was released by the Trump Administration in June 2020. The executive order directed agencies to expand the use of competency-based assessments and rely less on educational requirements when hiring for certain positions.

Senate appropriators released all 12 of their fiscal year 2021 spending bills on the morning of November 10, 2020. Lawmakers have until December 11, 2020 to secure government spending and avoid a federal shutdown. Both Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) have called for a new omnibus spending bill, which would fund all government agencies in a single large package, rather than another continuing resolution that only funds the government temporarily at previous levels.

In an open letter to Congressional leaders, six former Secretaries of Homeland Security wrote that Congress needs a reorganization of the way it oversees the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The former secretaries and acting secretaries, stretching across Republican and Democratic administrations, are Tom Ridge, Michael Chertoff, Janet Napolitano, Jeh Johnson, Rand Beers, and Kevin McAleenan.

A Department of Justice guidance released on October 29, 2020 states that local police will now be allowed to wear body cameras when they assist federal law enforcement on task force operations. This decision comes after the success of a pilot program launched last year in Houston; Detroit; Wichita, Kansas; Salt Lake City; and Park City, Utah.

U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Representative Don Beyer (D-VA) introduced the Improvement and Modernization Act (AIM) that would modernize the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to improve gun safety. The bill itself would remove statutory restrictions that prevent ATF from protecting the public from violent criminals and combating black market weapons smuggling, according to its authors.