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Daily Archives: July 24, 2015

Staff economic projections June 16-17, 2015 FOMC meeting inadvertently included in file posted to Board’s site

Economic projections prepared by Federal Reserve Board staff as background for the June 16-17, 2015, meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) were inadvertently included in a computer file posted to the Board’s public website on June 29. Because the information has already been released, the Federal Reserve is today providing general public notification and making those projections more easily accessible on our website within the FRB/US model package (ZIP) data folder. Approximately every three months, Federal Reserve Board staff update and publish on the Board’s website a package of computer code of the Board staff’s FRB/US model of the U.S. economy, including a set of illustrative economic projections based only on publicly available information. On June 29, an updated package of code was posted that inadvertently included three files containing staff economic forecasts that are confidential FOMC information. Two files contained charts of the staff’s projections for economic variables such as the unemployment rate, the core inflation rate, and gross domestic product growth as well as the staff’s assumption for the path of the federal funds rate target selected by the FOMC. Another file contained computer code used to generate a table displaying staff economic projections. The projections that were inadvertently released are staff projections that do not incorporate policymakers’ views, including their views on monetary policy. Policymaker views were set forth in the monetary policy statement and projection materials released on June 17 and in the minutes of the June FOMC meeting and the Summary of Economic Projections published on July 8. Consistent with the procedures in the FOMC’s Program for Security of FOMC Information, this matter has been referred to the Board’s Inspector General.”

NIST – Securing Electronic Health Records on Mobile Devices

“Stolen personal information can have negative financial impacts, but stolen medical information cuts to the very core of personal privacy. Medical identity theft already costs billions of dollars each year, and altered medical information can put a person’s health at risk through misdiagnosis, delayed treatment or incorrect prescriptions. Yet, the use of mobile devices to… Continue Reading

Summary of Agency Chief FOIA Officer Reports for 2015

Summary of Agency Chief FOIA Officer Reports for 2015 and Assessment of Agency Progress in Implementing the President’s FOIA Memorandum and Attorney General Holder’s FOIA Guidelines With OIP Guidance for Further Improvement “The 2015 Chief FOIA Officer Reports address efforts in improving FOIA administrations in five key areas tied to Attorney General Holder’s 2009 FOIA… Continue Reading

GAO Report – IRS 2016 Budget Cuts Increase Risk

IRS Is Scaling Back Activities and Using Budget Flexibilities to Absorb Funding Cuts, GAO-15-624: Published: Jun 24, 2015. Publicly Released: Jul 24, 2015: “Internal Revenue Service (IRS) total appropriations declined from a high of $12.1 billion in fiscal year 2010 to $11.3 billion in fiscal year 2014, a reduction of about 7 percent. GAO selected… Continue Reading

Symphony sets out to conquer Bloomberg in financial and legal sectors

re/code: “The Bloomberg terminal makes up a significant part of the world’s financial nervous system. The machine is parked on the desks of over 325,000 financial pros who pay $24,000 a year to use it. And while it’s packed with data and news, its most popular feature by far is its instant messaging function, which traders from thousands of different banks and… Continue Reading