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U.S. Government Agencies Using WordPress

with 84 comments

Here is a list (probably not all-inclusive) of United States government agencies or organizations using WordPress (whether privately or publicly):

  • Air Force
  • Army
  • Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
  • Coast Guard
  • Defense Intelligence Agency
  • Department of Energy
  • Department of Homeland Security
  • Department of State
  • Department of Treasury
  • Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)
  • Marine Corps
  • Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
  • National Geospatial Intelligence Agency
  • National Reconnaissance Agency
  • National Security Agency (NSA)
  • Navy

This list was revealed at WordCamp San Francisco, 2008.

Written by Mark Jaquith

August 18, 2008 at 10:59 pm

Posted in wordpress

84 Responses

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  1. That’s one heckuva list to add some bigtime cred to WordPress. Very impressive!

    SEOAdsenseThemes.com

    August 18, 2008 at 11:23 pm

  2. Dude, are you kidding me? How is “WordPress, secure enough for the NSA” not a marketing slogan? Or, maybe, “WordPress, intelligent enough for the CIA”… Really, even, “WordPress, good enough for government work” is pretty good.

    Seriously, I love that so many government agencies are using WordPress. Very cool. Thanks for sharing this!

    Network Geek

    August 18, 2008 at 11:27 pm

  3. Great news. WordPress seems to be on an all conquering spree and simply unstoppable…

    moserw

    August 19, 2008 at 12:01 am

  4. This is incredible. The WP staff have hit a big peak here, so hearty congrats to you guys for this!

    Rudy Carrera

    August 19, 2008 at 12:30 am

  5. Guys, great news, but let’s not get carried away. I doubt the CIA is using WordPress for anything “highly secure”. WordPress is a great tool to quickly and easily publish content. It’s not an enterprise level content management system, nor is it the best solution for every problem. It’s a good tool for a few people to publish content.

    Callum

    August 19, 2008 at 12:39 am

  6. I doubt the CIA is using WordPress for anything “highly secure”.

    Why not? The CIA Is using MediaWiki for top secret work.

    Somewhere I thought I had a post about the CIA’s blogs, but I can’t seem to find it right now.

    Michael Hampton

    August 19, 2008 at 1:08 am

  7. [...] either internally or publicly. Among those are the Air Force, Army, the NSA, and the DEA. Full list here, released on WordCamp San Francisco [...]

  8. Really, even, “WordPress, good enough for government work” is pretty good.

    Having done government work in the past, I’m pretty sure that’s more of an insult than anything else. “WordPress, secure enough for the NSA” sounds pretty good though.

    Emanuel Nordrum

    August 19, 2008 at 3:26 am

  9. [...] [via Mark on WordPress] [...]

  10. [...] [via Mark on WordPress] [...]

  11. [...] of companies even use is….. and it seems that some Governments are also using it….. See this list of WordPress users….. Does this mean that I am in good company….?? Or bad [...]

  12. Honestly, I don’t understand why more government agencies are on that list, just like I don’t understand why academics generally aren’t taking blogging seriously.

    The issue is whether you want to communicate on a frequent basis or not. For government agencies, communication within agencies and communication to the wider world is imperative. Especially if you’re the DHS and you have the PR problems they have: thank God they’re on the list, I hope they’re running something to communicate what they do besides annoy us.

    But you know what? For all the lamenting about gov’t not knowing anything, that’s a pretty impressive list when we compare it with the list of intellectuals willing to stick their neck out and actually talk to other people.

    The issue of using WordPress is whether or not you want to use a very powerful, customizable tool to both create, reach and constantly inform/be informed by an audience. I do not see how this is optional for anyone in a public capacity, whether their expertise is governance or knowledge.

    ashok

    August 19, 2008 at 6:06 am

  13. This is simply astonishing!

    dhruvasagar

    August 19, 2008 at 6:18 am

  14. Well it is same here in Pakistan, most parliamentarians are using WordPress on their sites. Even one has bought extension in wordpress.com blog for a better menu, and Css ..

    It is great to see them on WordPress..

    PakSpeaker

    August 19, 2008 at 8:25 am

  15. It’s not a surprise. With how much politicians are jumping on every social network known to man this election and doing everything that is a high traffic solution on the internet, it was only a matter of time before they got into blogging. And using WordPress as the platform is also not so much as a surprise. It’s more like .. about time.

    Here at work we use WordPress for just about everything. Our CMS, a knowledge base .. anything that needs a platform for content, WP is our choice. We have a slew of sites that use WordPress, both internet and intranet. It just makes sense.

    The government knows this. They have geeks on staff too. It was only a matter of time.

    lordthaddius

    August 19, 2008 at 8:26 am

  16. Really, even, “WordPress, good enough for government work” is pretty good.

    Having done government work in the past, I’m pretty sure that’s more of an insult than anything else.

    As someone who works for a government agency, though not the US government, I agree with Emanuel.

    gordon

    August 19, 2008 at 9:11 am

  17. The San Francisco Office of the Public Defender proudly joins this list also. Both our public site at http://sfpublicdefender.org (new design coming soon) and internal intranet is powered by WordPress MU.

    Richard Bui

    August 19, 2008 at 9:20 am

  18. WordPress is used in many important sites, even Yahoo loves WordPress, and although is really an excellent platform for blogging, it had several bugs and security problems in previous releases. Does WordPress 2.6 have enough security for NSA, CIA or FBI? it must running privately behind their firewalls.

    Web Marketing Blog

    August 19, 2008 at 9:22 am

  19. [...] WORST WordPress promo ever: U.S. Government Agencies Using WordPress [...]

  20. [...] nem is én reagálnék, csak idéznék, méghozzá Mark Jaquith “WordPress Ninja” [...]

  21. Yeah WordPress. I love this powerful piece of software.

    Richard Ginn

    August 19, 2008 at 11:22 am

  22. Time to change over to Drupal then.

    coyote

    August 19, 2008 at 11:40 am

  23. [...] Jaquith, one of the WordPress core developers just printed a list of government agencies that make use of WordPress in some way shape or form and of course I just had to reprint the list [...]

  24. I’m trying to convince our web committee to adopt WordPress for our newsroom website. Unfortunately this is not easy at all, since they are afraid of “open source” and “unsupported” software like WordPress, and still prefer to buy closed source proprietary solutions :( Anyway, keep up this good job!

    camu

    August 19, 2008 at 1:36 pm

  25. Thats some awesome list dude…
    Hats off to WordPress…. Rock on the world !

    dehog

    August 19, 2008 at 2:19 pm

  26. That’s a wonderful thing to happen to WordPress. A great publicity. Perhaps, some of Network Geek’s slogan recommendations might hold true.

    askars

    August 19, 2008 at 2:42 pm

  27. Okay, first, that last slogan was, of course, a joke. Where I come from, “Good enough for government work” translates to “not perfect, but good enough to get the job done”.

    But, yes, definitely meant to be funny.

    Network Geek

    August 19, 2008 at 3:00 pm

  28. [...] Read more here on Who’s using wordpress in the Gov’t….. addthis_url = ‘http%3A%2F%2Fwww.shawndrewry.com%2F%3Fp%3D616′; addthis_title = ‘Did+you+know+that%26%238230%3B%26%238230%3B..’; addthis_pub = ”; [...]

  29. I work for the Navy, and we too have used WP for several internal blogs, one used by our CO for command wide announcements.

    It makes sense that so many government and DoD agencies are using WP, as well as MySQL and other open source tools: price.

    With the WOT, it makes sense that they are doing whatever it takes to get the job done… and sometimes, free makes the case. Money is certainly tight for IT, so we have to get the job done with whatever tools we can.

    But, there is no doubt, that we choose WP due in large part to it’s maturity, it’s plugin architecture, and the easy to use interface.

    Robert

    August 19, 2008 at 8:13 pm

  30. [...] [List provided by Mark Janquith] [...]

  31. and still prefer to buy closed source proprietary solutions

    Quite understandable. When stuff breaks, they want paid support who can assure them they can fix it.

    However, just because WordPress is free doesn’t mean the same can’t be said for it — there are PLENTY of people (including me) who make a living or at least a decent side income doing WordPress support.

    Viper007Bond

    August 20, 2008 at 12:58 am

  32. [...] under: Blogging, Refresh WednesdayAug 20,2008 U.S. Government Agencies Using WordPress: Selain Kantor Perdana Menteri Inggris, ternyata banyak juga lembaga pemerintah Amerika Serikat [...]

  33. Can you provide the actual links to the wordpress sites of these agencies?

    wanderingwill

    August 20, 2008 at 7:59 am

  34. That says quite a lot about the product.

    Mike

    August 20, 2008 at 10:17 am

  35. Wow, great list…allot of surprises!

    Matt

    August 20, 2008 at 7:01 pm

  36. [...] U.S. Government Agencies Using WordPress « Mark on WordPress [...]

  37. [...] that’s what the list reported by Mark Jaquith says. Oh, and the FBI and the NSA are on there [...]

  38. [...] U.S. Government Agencies Using WordPress « Mark on WordPress. [...]

  39. [...] up a list of US Government agencies using WordPress for their blogs, CMS, and intrasite networks. Mark Jaquith has published the list which includes the US Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines, and Coast Goard, the Defense Intelligence [...]

  40. [...] Mark Jaquith has published the list which includes the US Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines, and Coast Goard, the Defense Intelligence Agency, Department of State, Department of Treasury, DEA, FBI, CIA, SNA, and more. Matt’s point was that if they are using it, WordPress must be doing something write with security – especially with these security concious agencies helping the WordPress community. [...]

  41. [...] U.S. Government Agencies Using WordPress – This post by Mark Jaquith lists 16 U.S. Government agencies which use WordPress in one way or another. It would be nice if there were links to these agencies’ WordPress sites (the public ones at least), but still an impressive list. [...]

  42. [...] *Agencies Using WordPress* – Mark Jaquith recently published a post which highlighted 16 different U.S. Government Agencies using WordPress. These agencies range from the Air Force, U.S. Army to the National Security Agency and the Navy. Once again, this showcases that even the big boys are confident to use WordPress as their publishing platform. – http://markjaquith.wordpress.com/2008/08/18/us-government-agencies-using-wordpress/ [...]

  43. [...] few US Government organizations using WordPress [...]

  44. [...] US Government Agencies Using WordPress [...]

  45. [...] 2.0 tools — WordPress! Mark Jaquith has written a list of government agencies using WordPress — a piece of blogging software that also has great [...]

  46. [...] From markjaquith.wordpress.com [...]

  47. Nice blog

    Article-Magazine.org

    August 27, 2008 at 2:06 pm

  48. [...] The government on WP? [...]

  49. The Trustworthiness of WordPress!!
    Congrants wordpress!
    I would love to see ya at my .edu Blog!

    Frank

    September 5, 2008 at 5:24 pm

  50. Frank

    September 5, 2008 at 5:27 pm

  51. Xocai is fantastic, low in sugar content and fat but still tastes awesome!! The business opportunity looks interesting.

    Join xocai

    September 8, 2008 at 7:45 am

  52. Thats pretty impressive. Looks like wordpress has broken the civilian bounderies and moved into the ranks of the government.

    The funny thing is wordpress still has very little competition.

    Alex

    September 9, 2008 at 10:32 am

  53. Power to the people!!!

    am

    September 10, 2008 at 1:10 am

  54. I’m shocked. I didn’t see the scale of wordpress community. But could you provide some urls to such sites? I wonder if it’s blogs, sites or else. We can’t of course see intranets :)

    Sławek

    September 10, 2008 at 4:29 pm

  55. We’re using both WordPress and WordPress MU at NASA GRC. Example: http://newbusiness.grc.nasa.gov/

    jglemza

    September 12, 2008 at 7:49 am

  56. No doubt, wordpress is the best easy blog content management for all, including government agencies.

    TrickSmart

    September 13, 2008 at 6:39 pm

  57. wordpress is best for blog.

    sem services

    September 25, 2008 at 2:52 am

  58. [...] The government on WP? [...]

  59. Its good to know that us government is using wordpress.

    Prasad Sistla

    September 30, 2008 at 7:45 am

  60. Nice article. Let me introduce you to the online fashion magazine that I run. Its called Fashionora.com. Would you be interested to visit and leave your valuable comments

    fashion

    October 1, 2008 at 6:01 am

  61. I’m in the UK and work in the gov sector and we’ve been slow on the uptake but now things are gathering momentum, as always we’re following you guys over the pond.

    Nappy Rash

    October 6, 2008 at 5:29 am

  62. How could we verify the effectiveness of such a possibility?

    maeva

    October 27, 2008 at 10:36 am

  63. [...] agencies appear to be using WordPress as the blogging platform of choice, as reported by several sources. Ironic, [...]

  64. Hi, I typed into Google “wordpress.com” government – and your entry is top dog. Good and very specific blog.

    Andy

    November 10, 2008 at 2:44 pm

  65. Well, I really love wordpress, but I dislike their security management. As in my eyes I am impressed that all the agencies that have a security-task decides for wordpress, that has shown a irresponsible behaviour towards its users regarding security-issues.

    Billigflug

    November 21, 2008 at 6:53 am

  66. I think it’s amazing how many industries are going the way of WordPress. Not only that, but an article I just read about hottest skills of 2008, it shows that wordpress trends have actually increased by 4 times what they were the previous year. It’s incredible to be a part of something so big, especially in this economy.

    Becca

    January 10, 2009 at 11:24 am

  67. If you are a military soldier that is need of some extra assistance , then come and check out “The David H Brooks Foundation for American Wounded Soldiers”
    http://www.davidhbrooks.com

    David H Brooks

    January 14, 2009 at 8:09 pm

  68. great post !!
    I read a few of your other entires.where can i subscribe to your blog?
    Thank you for sharing.

    scratch and dent

    January 22, 2009 at 8:52 am

  69. [...] (list from Mark) [...]

  70. I love how technology is being utilized by everyone more and more every day. For example, how cool is it to get a youtube message from the President of the United States? Very cool I say!

    VA Loan Desk

    February 18, 2009 at 4:53 pm

  71. [...] their information, and hence on the platform that manages them. The aforementioned post refers to another post, which again reveals that WordPress is used by the NSA, the CIA, the Army, the Air Forc… – that is, in terms of security, some of the most demanding places on the [...]

  72. [...] and reputable WordPress resources. WordPress is inherently secure. It should be. It is used by some of the top government agencies in the United States and around the [...]

  73. [...] new favorite one though. This link to government agencies using WordPress. And now, the tie-in to the title of this post…the National Security Agency. Yes, the NSA. [...]

  74. Do you have specific examples of these sites? Are they all internal? or are there some external facing ones…
    I want to use WP in my agency and it would be easier to justify it if I could point some of my leadership to real working scenarios…

    Thanks

    Martin

    April 1, 2009 at 3:44 pm

  75. looks pretty nice.

    Free Stuff

    April 10, 2009 at 5:48 pm

  76. [...] making blogs it can still perform well as a content management system. It is actually so good, that over 15 US government agencies has switched to it as [...]

  77. Would be interested to know the source of this list… impressive though…especially now with all the different plugins available and how easy it is to create your own, wordpress is definitely leaving a legacy.

    VA Streamline Dude

    May 22, 2009 at 11:34 pm

  78. Hello,
    thanks a lot for all the useful hints on you site,
    keep on doing,
    greetings from germany
    Tom

  79. [...] WordPress is slowly making it’s way into the corporate world as well: Yahoo, CNN, New York Times, Ford, Nike are just a few of big names that implemented it for it’s ease of use, fast development times, cost reduction and easy maintenance of the platform. Oh… and U.S. Government Agencies are also using WordPress. [...]

  80. [...] also used by pretty much everyone, from the individual publisher to the Fortune 500 and even in government (Air Force, Army, Navy, and the CIA!). Organizations like Yahoo, New York Times, CNN, Ford, Nike, [...]

  81. [...] Full article here. [...]


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