Patrick Gallagher

"We need Congress to enact a suite of comprehensive cybersecurity legislation," said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano in testimony before Senate committees. The Government Accountability Office also suggests the White House cybersecurity coordinator develop an overarching strategy that integrates the executive order with existing cyber guidance.

The intersection of cloud computing and big data gives government agencies opportunities in areas such as DNA sequencing and national security, said speakers at a National Institute of Standards and Technology workshop. Federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel said that the federal government in only at the "tip of the iceberg" in its use of cloud and big data.

Whether or not members of Congress support the Obama administration's proposal for a $1 billion National Network for Manufacturing Innovation effort may depend on which side of a debate over the state of American manufacturing representatives fall, says the Congressional Research Service.Those of a view that U.S. manufacturing is in decline point to the decades-long overall decline of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. economy. At its peak, in June 1979, manufacturing employed 19.6 million Americans, 41 percent of the workforce.

The NNMI has not yet begun because Congress must enact legislation to fund it. In the meantime, the administration is working on the requirements and principles for the model.