 a thing I think folks outside of government may not be aware of is that it's not a given that the federal government can develop technology services that can be provided, for fee or for free, to non-federal agencies (eg gov in states, tribes, territories, local). why? good question! it's because the US loves private industry, and has written into its guidance that the US federal government should not offer services the private sector could. links in next post - 7 comments
there's legislation coming down the line to hopefully change this. aaron snow wrote a good blog post about this more in-depth as it relates to both the US and Canada here: https://aaronsnow.net/2022/05/09/sharing-federal-digital-services-with-other-layers-of-government.html. recommend checking it out if you're interested!  @christa 1968 was a huge year for US Gov't information technology policy. Same year, President Johnson said all government computer systems must use ASCII. Also the year that BBN applied for and received the contract from ARPANET to make the first IMP routers @christa it all goes back to President Johnson's 1967 Task Force on Communication Policy, which ultimately birthed the White House Office of Telecommunications Policy. 1968 was ALSO the birth of public broadcasting in the US, I believe ALSO linked to the task force but I'm not 100% sure @christa it was part of his Great Society initiative more broadly, which was comprised of a whole bunch of "task forces" on crime, poverty, etc |
Gregory's Server
here is, I believe, the latest guidance around this:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Circular-097.pdf
and in it a quote from Section 302 of the Intergovernmental Cooperation Act of 1968, which still provides the foundation today:
"The Director's rules and regulations shall be consistent with, and in furtherance of, the Government's policy of relying on the private enterprise system to provide those services which are reasonably and expeditiously available through ordinary business channels."