A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Federal Reserve System's Federal Reserve Banks (FRB) serve as fiscal agents of the U.S. government when they are directed to do so by the Secretary of the Treasury. In this capacity, the FRBs operate and maintain several mainframe and distributed-based systems--including the systems that support the Department of the Treasury's auctions of marketable securities--on behalf of the department's Bureau of the Public Debt (BPD). Effective security controls over these systems are essential to ensure that sensitive and financial information is adequately protected from inadvertent or deliberate misuse, disclosure, or destruction. In support of its audit of BPD's fiscal year 2005 Schedule of Federal Debt, GAO assessed the effectiveness of information system controls in protecting financial and sensitive auction information on key mainframe and distributed-based systems that the FRBs maintain and operate for BPD. To do this, GAO observed and tested FRBs' security controls."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), a component within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is responsible for overseeing the Medicare and Medicaid programs--the nation's largest health insurance programs--which benefit about one in every four Americans. CMS relies on a contractor-owned and operated network to facilitate communication and data transmission among CMS business related entities. Effective information security controls are essential to protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of this sensitive information. At Congress's request, GAO assessed the effectiveness of information security controls over the communication network used by CMS by conducting a technical assessment of the information security controls that are currently in place."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) authorized about $7.9 billion in commitment authority, through fiscal year 2009, for the Federal Transit Administration's (FTA) New Starts program, which is used to select fixed guideway transit projects, such as rail and trolley projects, and to award full funding grant agreements (FFGAs). The New Starts program serves as an important source of federal funding for the design and construction of transit projects throughout the country. SAFETEA-LU requires GAO to report each year on FTA's New Starts process. As such, GAO examined (1) the number of projects that were evaluated, rated, and proposed for FFGAs for the fiscal year 2007 evaluation cycle and the proposed funding commitments for the fiscal year 2007 budget; (2) procedural changes that FTA proposed for the New Starts program beginning with the fiscal year 2008 evaluation cycle; and (3) changes SAFETEA-LU made to the New Starts program and FTA's implementation of these changes. GAO reviewed New Starts documents and interviewed FTA officials and project sponsors, among other things, as part of its review. GAO is not making recommendations …