This Week in Government Tech Media – June 6, 2025

By Dennis McCafferty /

Happy Friday, folks! I’m stepping in for my W2 Communications colleague, Brad Bass, for this week’s roundup, in which budget cuts, artificial intelligence (AI), zero trust initiatives and drone attacks are dominating the news cycle. Brad will be back next week.

This week’s trending news includes:

CISA Faces Massive Cuts on Budget, Positions – and an Employee Exodus

  • Aiming to cut the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) budget by nearly $500 million, the Trump administration is proposing to slash more than 1,000 positions at the agency, according to a report from Justin Doubleday of Federal News Network. The total number of funded positions would fall from 3,732 today to 2,649 next year, if the FY 2026 budget request passes. Already, hundreds of CISA employees have left during the current administration, and more could depart through deferred resignations or early retirements offered to DHS staff in April. 
  • In fact, Doubleday followed up on his initial article to report that one-third of the agency’s employees  – including more than a dozen senior leaders – have left their positions in recent months. In addition, FBI background check delays are holding up the Senate’s approval of the nominee for CISA Director, Sean Plankey, who has broad support from the cyber industry.
  • In writing about the cuts, David DiMolfetta of Nextgov/FCW noted that the proposal would abolish CISA’s Election Security Program by eliminating 14 positions and $39.6 million in budgeting, “leaving thousands of state and local governments in limbo,” DiMolfetta wrote.
  • Other CISA areas facing significant cuts include the Infrastructure Security Division Program, the Mission Support Enterprise Services division (with a complete shutdown of its Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility), the critical infrastructure-focused National Risk Management Center, the Chemical Security Anti-Terrorism Standards program, Cyber Defense Education and Training functions and the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative program, which brings together public and private partners to coordinate on defenses for critical infrastructure, reported Weslan Hansen of MeriTalk.

In other CISA related news – Via LinkedIn, Jamie Holcombe, Chief Information Officer at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), announced that the USPTO became the first federal agency to achieve comprehensive reporting to the CISA’s Cloud Log Aggregation Warehouse (CLAW). “With all three of USPTO cloud environments accurately reporting cloud activity to CLAW, we strengthen cybersecurity readiness and incident response across the (federal) spectrum,” he wrote.

AI Expands Federal Footprint

  • AI, of course, continues to dominate headlines as the top emerging technology of the day: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has launched “Elsa,” its first agency-wide generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tool, in seeking to streamline processes for scientific reviewers, investigators and other employees, according to another report from Hansen of MeriTalk. Elsa’s ability to produce rapid information summaries will support safety profile assessments, clinical protocol reviews, scientific evaluations and inspection targeting.
  • Meanwhile, Madison Alder of FedScoop wrote that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection introduced “chatCBP,” an AI-powered chatbot, to assist with document summarization, compilation, information extraction and multi-file analysis.
  • Lisbeth Perez of MeriTalk reported that the Fangorn project from the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) will leverage AI-based data management and analytics tools to streamline operations and reduce dependencies on outdated legacy systems/applications used by warfighters.

DOD Moves Forward on Zero Trust Goals

  • In more security news, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) is making notable progress in implementing zero trust. At the AFCEA International’s TechNet Cyber conference, DOD officials said the new Zero Trust Portfolio Office is working toward increasing zero trust solutions and overall security by the end of FY 2027, according to coverage from Kimberly Underwood of SIGNAL Media. The Navy, for example, met advanced zero trust requirements for 151 systems under the Flank Speed initiative.
  • In a Fed Gov Today video, Randy Resnick, Director of the DOD Zero Trust Program Management Office, revealed that three independently validated zero trust solutions are now available to DOD organizations — including the Thunderdome system for DISA, which integrates more than 30 vendor tools. Such progress was “once thought impossible” in the government and industry community, according to Fed Gov Today’s summary of the video.

Ukraine Drone Operation Raises Bar for Battle Innovation

  • Ukraine’s Operation Spider Web drone strike on Russian heavy bombers and surveillance aircraft took many by surprise – including the current White House administration. Seeking to respond quickly, the Defense Innovation Unit has launched Project GI to embed troops’ feedback into a “perpetual loop” of design, testing and deployment on the part of drone makers, reported Patrick Tucker of Defense One.
  • In speaking about the operation at the Special Competitive Studies Project’s AI+ Expo, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin said Ukraine’s intensity and innovation go beyond anything “we even imagined” and it should “humble us,” according to an article from Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. of Breaking Defense. Gen. Allvin added, “We might look at that and think, ‘Wow, what would we do if we were attacked, you know, by a country that’s doing what Ukraine did, [in] what we thought was an impenetrable defense? That’s a natural reaction.”

In Other News …

  • Sandra Erwin of the industry publication SpaceNews noted that the missile defense initiative known as Golden Dome will involve “critical and hotly contested contracts” for ground infrastructure and software. Analytics software and data integration technologies will serve as the “connective tissue” of the Golden Dome, according to Erwin’s report.
  • The General Services Administration expanded its list of tech companies under review for federal contract spending and possible additional savings, bringing the total to ten value-added resellers, Ross Wilkers of Washington Technology reported.

That’s a wrap for this week. For more news and insights about technology in the public sector, listen to the Gov & Beyond podcast and subscribe to this newsletter on LinkedIn or via the form below.

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