FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
1. Hidden jobs. Contributor Erika Wonn explains, “The job search is challenging enough sifting through websites searching for the perfect prospect. Add to that the fact that often employers don’t advertise many of their openings in a traditional way. This can make for an even slimmer pool of prospective career opportunities. . . . The hidden jobs aren’t so secret to those who network smartly.”
2. Clearance denied. Contributor Marko Hakamaa reports, “The Defense Office of Hearing and Appeals (DOHA) Board adjudicates industrial security clearance cases for contractor personnel doing classified work for all DoD components. . . . Analysis of the types of issues resulting in adverse determination shows that financial considerations, personal conduct, and foreign influence concerns outnumber all of the other issues combined.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. Caliphate rejected. Aljazeera.Com’s Shafik Mandhai reports, “Muslim scholars and movements from across the Sunni Islamic spectrum have rejected the caliphate declared by the Islamic State group, with the fighters receiving scathing criticism from both mainstream religious leaders, and those associated with their former allies, al-Qaeda. Assem Barqawi, also known as Abu Mohamed al-Maqdesi, who was released from a Jordanian prison in June after serving a sentence for recruiting volunteers to fight in Afghanistan, called fighters loyal to the Islamic State group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, ‘deviant’.” See also, “Iraqi officials analyzing tape said to show ISIS leader.”
2. Existential threat. DefenseOne.Com’s Molly O’Toole reports, “A top United States general in charge of protecting the southern border says he’s been unable to combat the steady flow of illegal drugs, weapons and people from Central America, and is looking to Congress for urgent help. Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly, commander of U.S. Southern Command, has asked Congress this year for more money, drones and ships for his mission – a request unlikely to be met. Since October, an influx of nearly 100,000 migrants has made the dangerous journey north from Latin America to the United States border.”
3. Elections Afghanistan. AP’s Mirwais Harooni and Maria Golovnina report from Kabul, “Rival Afghan presidential candidates Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani are holding last-minute talks to try to defuse a standoff over the outcome of a troubled election . . . . Both rounds of the vote have been plagued by accusations of mass fraud, and the refusal by either candidate to accept the outcome could plunge the country into a dangerous crisis and split it along ethnic lines.”
CONTRACT WATCH
1. Comprehensive Subcontracting Plan Test Program. GovExec.Com’s Charles S. Clark reports, “Deep in the bowels of the Pentagon is a 25-year-old research project designed to test a new way of encouraging large contractors to pass along some of their work to small businesses. . . . the program . . . has yet to release a single report or data set. And an array of small business groups have long viewed the project as a wasteful distraction that is actually costing them opportunities by allowing the major firms leeway to get around the governmentwide goal of awarding 23 percent of contract dollars to small business.”
2. Strange contracts. Also from GovExec.Com’s Charles S. Clark, “The Homeland Security Department has hired a contractor to perform immigration services at a time when the company is being sued by the Justice Department and is under attack on Capitol Hill for awarding bonuses to executives who are accused of delivering incomplete security clearance background checks to the government. U.S. Investigations Services, a Falls Church, Va.-based company that performs the largest share of contracted background investigations for the Office of Personnel Management, has also been criticized for having vetted, among thousands of contractor employees possessing security clearances, Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor . . . .”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. Spy vs. Spy. AP’s Geir Moulson reports, “German-U.S. relations are facing a new test over a German intelligence employee who reportedly spied for the U.S., with Germany’s president saying if the allegations are true, that kind of spying on allies must stop. Prosecutors say a 31-year-old German was arrested last week on suspicion of spying for foreign intelligence services, and that he allegedly handed over 218 documents between 2012 and 2014.”
2. NSA targets Tor. VentureBeat.Com’s Ruth Reader reports, “The U.S. National Security Agency’s analysis and collection program XKeyscore is targeting Tor servers, according to a report from German public broadcaster ARD. . . . The Onion Router, or Tor, is a downloadable software that conceals a computer’s location and keeps individuals anonymous on the Web. It was originally a project of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, but it has since become its own nonprofit organization. Journalists and activists around the world use it, and anyone can make use of it. But it’s not just Tor the NSA is collecting data from. The report also reveals this code . . . .”
3. SOFIA—NASA’s flying telescope. Wired.Com’s Jordan Golson reports, “If you thought Boeing 747s weren’t useful for understanding how stars are formed, you don’t know about SOFIA. Officially known as the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, SOFIA is a heavily modified Boeing 747 Special Performance jetliner, with a 17-ton, 8-foot telescope mounted behind a 16-by-23-foot sliding door that reveals the infrared telescope to the skies.”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. Why can’t we be friends? “Russian President Vladimir Putin has told Barack Obama in an Independence Day message that he hopes the countries can improve relations. In a statement published on the Kremlin website on Friday, Putin said ‘regardless of difficulties and disagreements’ he hoped that Russia and the U.S. could ‘successfully develop relations on pragmatic and equal grounds.’”
2. November dreaming: “Democrats and Republicans are returning to Congress more focused on energizing the midterm electorate than moving legislation. The GOP believes it is months away from an election that will hand it control of the Senate, giving it a check on President Obama’s final two-years in office. House Republicans plan to bring legislation to the floor authorizing a lawsuit against Obama’s use of executive action, a move they believe will underline the importance to their base voters of coming to the polls in November to elect a GOP House and Senate.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
1. “If Iraq must be divided, here’s the right way to do it.” Reuters contributors Michael O’Hanlon and Edward P. Joseph argue, “In the end, what is needed is a joint campaign plan for defeating the Islamist militants that is developed and supported by the United States and the region, but led by Iraqi Shi’ite and Sunni and Kurds. That remains the ultimate and nonnegotiable objective.”
2. “Preventing a religious war in the Mideast.” Christian Science Monitor’s Editorial Board argues, “If the Middle East now descends into a Sunni-Shiite conflagration over defining the true faith of Islam, the rest of the world can hardly remain as a bystander.”
3. “Afghanistan: Beyond ethnic politics and ‘jihad dividends.’” Aljazeera.Com contributor Davood Moradian argues, “Afghanistan’s highly centralised governance structure has made the presidential election a personality-driven winner-takes-all process.”
THE FUNNIES
1. Invest wisely.
2. R&R.
3. MAD world.
