This Week in Government Tech Media – October 17, 2025 

By Brad Bass /

Here we are well into the third week of the government shutdown, and the government tech media is continuing its relentless reporting on the repercussions to the government workforce, contractors and the country as a whole. But despite the shutdown, there was a deluge of news from the annual Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA) conference here in Washington, D.C. You can find a sampling of those articles below.

The Shutdown: Week 3

There’s still no end in sight to this shutdown, so once again we remind you that the news roundup below represents a snapshot in time of a situation that remains fluid. As of right now, here’s the skinny:

  • A ruling by a federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to lay off federal employees during the government shutdown on grounds that the moves seemed a careless attempt to punish Democrats, Weslan Hansen wrote in MeriTalk.
  • In Nextgov/FCW, Eric Katz quoted the judge’s ruling, which said the administration has “taken advantage of the lapse in government spending, in government functioning, to assume that all bets are off, that the laws don’t apply to them anymore.” 
  • Further quoting the ruling, Jory Heckman of Federal News Network reported that the judge wrote that it is “far from normal for an administration to fire line-level civilian employees during a government shutdown as a way to punish the opposing political party. But this is precisely what President Trump has announced he is doing.”
  • Covering the news for FedScoop, Madison Alder noted that the ruling puts a pause, for now, on agency reductions-in-force during the shutdown. 
  • Reporting on the effects of the shutdown at individual agencies, Alder contributed an article on the chaos that shutdown layoffs are creating at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, while Heckman provided two updates on furloughs at the IRS and General Services Administration, respectively. 
  • In cyber tech trade Cybersecurity Dive, Eric Geller noted that the bulk of layoffs at the Department of Homeland Security targeted employees of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Staff within CISA’s Stakeholder Engagement Division and its Infrastructure Security Division were targeted, according to a report by David DiMolfetta in Nextgov/FCW. Greg Otto wrote in CyberScoop that this has raised concerns in Congress about staffing levels and the direction of the nation’s primary cybersecurity agency.
  • The Pentagon plans to siphon $8 billion in fiscal 2025 research and development funding to ensure troops get a paycheck during the ongoing government shutdown, Ashley Roque reported in Breaking Defense. Anastasia Obis provided an analysis of the legality of this move in Federal News Network.
  • Looking at the anxiety the ongoing shutdown is creating in the government contracting community, Jason Miller noted in Federal News Network that some contractors are implementing “austerity measures” to reduce the financial impact of the shutdown.
  • In an interview with Francis Rose for the Fed Gov Today news program, James Carroll of the Professional Services Council (PSC) said thousands of small and mid-sized companies serving the government face mounting financial strain as stop-work orders pile up and payments halt.
  • In a related piece, Terry Gerton interviewed PSC’s Stephanie Kastro on Federal News Network about a new bill that would guarantee back pay for contract workers after a shutdown.
  • In StateScoop, Sophia Fox-Sowell informed readers about the complexity the shutdown brings to state and local government disaster relief programs.

News From AUSA

Despite some concerns that the shutdown would hurt attendance at the AUSA Annual conference, it did not appear to diminish the amount of news that came out of the event. Here’s a brief overview:

  • MeriTalk’s Lisbeth Perez reported from the conference on what she described as a “fiery and unapologetic speech” [including an apparent f-bomb!] by Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, announcing sweeping reforms to the service’s tech acquisition process and vowing to cut bureaucracy.
  • Also writing about the speech, Jared Serbu of Federal News Network noted Driscoll’s announcement that the service is weeks away from unveiling changes that will “completely disrupt” Army acquisition bureaucracy, arguing that the existing system and the civilian leaders who work within it have failed for decades to deliver the capabilities soldiers need.
  • Driscoll also stated his goal for the Army to repair weapon system parts on its own as a major element of its agenda for acquisition reform, according to a piece by Jon Harper in DefenseScoop.
  • Carley Welch of Breaking Defense quoted Driscoll’s comments to reporters that “leadership has been so poor for so long that we are going to try to mimic what works really well in the private sector.”
  • Hansen covered remarks by Gen. Randy George, chief of staff of the Army, at the event on the service’s forthcoming initiative to streamline and modernize acquisitions that will focus on improved collaboration between the service, engineers and industry.
  • Reporting from the conference on the same topic, Welch interviewed Brett Ingraham, the Army’s head of acquisition and logistics, who said the service will emphasize transparency with vendors on what it is and isn’t going to purchase.
  • Evan Lynch of SIGNAL Media covered comments by Lt. Gen. Jeth Rey, calling on Army crews to start asking questions and thinking about how to apply artificial intelligence (AI) to edge capabilities.
  • In his take on those remarks, Mark Pomerleau in Breaking Defense honed in on Rey’s contention that controlling and managing the deluge of data in the modern Army could require the service to establish new formations dedicated to the task.
  • DefenseScoop’s Harper interviewed Rey at the conference, who told him he will brief the Army Chief of Staff on Oct. 30 to get final approval of the “plan of action” to set up a new command or center to oversee the service’s data environment.
  • In other AI-related news from AUSA, Meghann Myers reported in Defense One on remarks by Maj. Gen. Frank Lozano, who heads Program Executive Office Missiles and Space, noting that the service would like to use AI to help man artillery and air defense units but the technology isn’t yet up to the task.
  • There was way too much coverage of AUSA than what I can include here. For a quick overview of the event, check out Breaking Defense’s video with Welch and her editor Aaron Mehta for some of the key themes from the show.

Upcoming Industry Events

As noted above, government/industry events continue to produce interesting and provocative news. If you want to be part of the action, we’ve listed some of the upcoming events for your consideration next week:

There you have it! I’ll continue to keep my eyes on the news and come back next week with more. If you haven’t already, subscribe on LinkedIn or via the form below.