Yesterday morning, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) held a press conference to announce the reintroduction of legislation to phase out the government's use of private security contractors in war zones. The Stop Outsourcing Security Act, which Schakowsky and Sanders originally introduced in 2007, seeks to prevent contractors in war zones from performing "mission critical or emergency essential functions," including security, military and police training, interrogation, and intelligence.

On Friday, the White House met another Open Government Directive deadline by issuing a framework for federal spending data quality.  The framework requires that agencies submit plans by April 14 for improving quality of their spending data, implementing internal controls and process changes.  

The office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) released its 24th quarterly report on Saturday. If you haven't been paying attention to what's been going on in Iraq recently, it's worth a read. Besides providing observations on what's happening in the country and detailing the sources and uses of reconstruction funds, the inspector general's report also describes their recent oversight activities and successes in rooting out corruption within government contracting overseas.

The folks over at Government Executive.com have the scoop on the Commission on Wartime Contracting's (CWC) recent move to open two field offices in Southwest Asia. The Iraq office, which is currently staffed by one expert and awaiting a second, is located in central Baghdad. Two experts staff the Afghanistan office, located at Bagram Air Field, which is roughly 25 miles outside the capital of Kabul.