Friday—you made it!

FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM

1. Court of appeals. Contributor Sean Bigley, Esquire, offers, “For the roughly five percent of security clearance applicants who find themselves facing a denial, the idea of an appeal is, well, appealing. I receive phone calls on a weekly basis from people inquiring about just that. Technically, however, the appeal is the last step in a three stage process.  To better put the appeal stage in context, let’s take a look at the process as a whole . . . .”

2. To lie, or not to lie. Also from Barrister Bigley, “One of the more unfortunate patterns I see in my law practice is clients who are erroneously instructed on how to complete their SF-86 form by a Facility Security Officer (FSO) or a recruiter. The client has some issues in their past but is told that an issue ‘isn’t reportable’ or—in some cases—told outright to lie for expediency. Inevitably, the issue is discovered by investigators and now the client’s security clearance hangs in the balance for dishonesty.”

THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT

1. Women Rangers—she’s gonna be an Airborne Ranger! Christian Science Monitor’s Anna Mulrine reports, “For the first time, women are being invited to apply for training with the Rangers . . . . At this point, women will not be allowed to join the Rangers even if they complete the course . . . . But that ban is slated to be lifted no later than January 2016, potentially opening the Rangers—and other combat roles—to qualified women . . . . [T]he move to open Ranger School to women is another significant step toward erasing the historic discrepancies that have prevented women from moving up the chain of command and contributed to a perception that women were second-class soldiers.”

2. SOF Down Under going up and over to Iraq. Reuters’ Lincoln Feast reports from Sydney, “Australian special forces troops will be deployed in Iraq to assist in the fight against Islamic State militants, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said on Friday, and its aircraft will also join U.S.-led coalition strikes. Abbott said in a nationally televised news conference the Australian troops would be engaged in an ‘advise and assist’ capacity to support the Iraqi army in their battle against the militant Islamist group.” See related at UPI.Com, “Turkey’s Parliament votes in favor of military action to fight Islamic State.”

3. Brits’ doff the hat to President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai. AP’s Amir Shah reports from Kabul, “Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron on Friday pledged support for Afghanistan’s newly sworn-in president and the country’s new unity government, saying during a surprise visit to Kabul that Britain is committed to helping Afghans build a more secure and prosperous future. Cameron was the first of world leaders to meet Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, Afghanistan’s second elected president, since his inauguration on Monday. . . . ‘In Britain you will always have a strong partner and a friend.’” See also at DefenseNews.Com, “Gen. Campbell Will Recommend a Slower Drawdown in Afghanistan.”

CONTRACT WATCH

1. Weapons sales to Vietnam. DefenseNews.Com’s Aaron Mehta reports, “The United States will allow the sale of lethal equipment and weaponry to Vietnam for maritime defense purposes, the US State Department announced Thursday. The executive decision, which ends an overall ban on lethal weapon sales to that country and which has been in place since the end of the Vietnam War, begins immediately. It also comes at a time of growing tensions in the South China Sea, including a situation over the summer where China set up an oil rig in waters claimed by Vietnam.”

2. Grumman supports Global Hawk at $306 million. GovConWire.Com reports, “Northrop Grumman will provide logistics and sustainment support services for the U.S. Air Force‘s Global Hawk weapon system through the end of September 2015 under a $306.1 million contract. The Defense Department said Wednesday the deal includes material and services to support planning, operations and maintenance work on the Global Hawk. Northrop received an obligated amount of $73.5 million in fiscal 2014 operations and maintenance funds at the time of contract award.”

TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY

1. Waging cyber war on Russia. DefenseOne.Com’s Patrick Tucker reports, “The United States should be conducting more disruptive cyber attacks against nations like Russia, according to Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. ‘I don’t think we are using all of our cyber-capability to disrupt’ actors in Russia targeting U.S. interests . . . . , The power to wage cyber attacks is discussed under a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Directive issued on June 21, 2013. And it’s alluded to in a March 5 Air Force instruction mandate titled ‘Command and Control (C2) for Cyberspace Operations’ (10-1701), but is otherwise classified.” Read 10-1701.

2. NSA customer relations. VentureBeat.Com’s Richard Byrne Reilly reports, “The National Security Agency is working to repair its fractured relationship with major tech companies following disclosures by former agency contractor Edward Snowden that the NSA had been secretly pulling data from company servers for surveillance purposes. ‘The outreach is happening. It’s absolutely imperative. . . .’ These days, the phones over at the NSA’s Commercial Solution Center, or NCSC, at Fort Meade aren’t ringing like they used to, and many U.S. tech operators, including Google and Apple, are pushing back hard against agency data requests through the super secret FISA court.”

3. Printing a drone. Wired.Com’s Jordon Golson reports, “We have 3-D printed keys, guns and shoes—now a research team at the University of Virginia has created a 3D printed UAV drone for the Department of Defense. In the works for three years, the aircraft, no bigger than a remote-controlled plane, can carry a 1.5-pound payload. If it crashes or needs a design tweak for a new mission, another one can be printed out in a little more than a day, for just $2,500. It’s made with off-the-shelf parts and has an Android phone for a brain.”

POTOMAC TWO-STEP

1. Tough job: “Vice President Joe Biden joked that his job can be “a b—-,” he said during an event at Harvard University on Thursday. The vice president was fielding questions from members of the student body, including one who was introduced as the student council vice president. ‘Isn’t it a bitch? Excuse me… the vice president thing…’ Biden said, according to CNN. Biden quickly clarified that he was only kidding. ‘I’m joking,’ he said as students laughed. ‘Best decision I ever made. That was a joke.’ Biden’s signature forthrightness often wins him fans among voters, but can occasionally create headaches for the administration. He routinely jokes about the propensity to gaffe, quipping on multiple occasions that ‘no one ever doubts that I mean what I say—the problem is I sometimes say all that I mean.’”

2. Contempt of Congress: “A House committee is asking a federal judge to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of court for failing to comply with a deadline a judge set to turn over documents related to the Justice Department’s response to Operation Fast and Furious. . . . House lawyers even suggest it may be necessary to throw the attorney general in jail to get him to abide by the court order. . . . Justice Department spokesman Brian Fallon said Thursday evening: ‘We’re at a loss to understand this latest stunt since the committee itself did not object to November as an appropriate timeline for the production of any documents. The Department will respond to the motion in due course.’”

OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS

1. “US will ‘meet the tests of this moment,’” by President Barak Obama: “America will do what it takes to meet the tests of this moment. Because despite all the challenges of this new century, there is no nation on Earth better positioned to seize the future than ours. The people of the world still look to us to lead. And we welcome that responsibility. We are heirs to a proud legacy of freedom, and as we showed the world this week, we are prepared to do what is necessary to secure that legacy for generations to come.”

2. “Barak Obama’s Safety.” The New Yorker contributor Jelani Cobb argues, “The danger of the Secret Service’s failures is not in the narrowly averted disasters; it’s in the capacity of those failures to generate even more dangers on their own.” See (distantly) related at Stars & Stripes, “40 years ago, disgruntled private stole helo, landed at White House.”

3. “Can the White House really be protected?Reuters’ David Wise argues, “In a democratic society, citizens cannot be arrested for merely acting suspiciously or seeming eccentric. The Secret Service has sometimes hassled people at political gatherings where the president appears, but for the most part its agents do not abuse their power. They are well aware that no amount of weaponry, floodlights, alarm systems and attack dogs can really protect the White House in a world of terrorists and suicide bombers.”

THE FUNNIES

1. Contradictions.

2. Struggles.

3. Metamorphosis.

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Ed Ledford enjoys the most challenging, complex, and high stakes communications requirements. His portfolio includes everything from policy and strategy to poetry. A native of Asheville, N.C., and retired Army Aviator, Ed’s currently writing speeches in D.C. and working other writing projects from his office in Rockville, MD. He loves baseball and enjoys hiking, camping, and exploring anything. Follow Ed on Twitter @ECLedford.