FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
1. Interviewing with the CIA Editor Lindy Kyzer explains, “We often like to think that the world of the clandestine service mirrors Hollywood fiction – right down to the point where a suit and tie-clad CIA agent recruits you into service after following you for several months, interviewing all of your professors and leave several dead-drops hinting at the possibility of a career as a spy. Truth is much more boring than fiction, as a CIA hiring chief recently pointed out. . . .”
2. Resume review. Also from Editor Lindy Kyzer, “Whether it’s your traditional resume or online career profile, every word matters. Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to fall into a rut and find yourself using phrases and terms that look like they were copied and pasted from an online resume database. . . . Avoid superfluous verbs and descriptions and include details only as they relate to a specific accomplishment. Wondering what, specifically, to leave off? Here are the top ten buzzwords that are over-used on defense industry resumes. . . .”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. America’s Syrian solution puzzle. Reuters reports, “The United States does not expect Syrian rebels it plans to train to fight Islamic State militants to also take on President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, but sees them as a crucial part of a political solution to end the war . . . . Rebel fighters have voiced frustration with the U.S.-led approach to fighting Islamic State. They say Washington and its Arab allies are too focused on quashing the militant group at the expense of confronting Syrian government forces . . . .”
2. Homegrown terror threat. Christian Science Monitor’s Patrik Jonsson reports, “Along with the attack in Canada, which killed a soldier, British and Australian authorities have within the last month unraveled terror attack conspiracies, including a domestic beheading plot. . . . In its latest threat assessment, before Islamic State rose to prominence in Iraq and Syria, the FBI didn’t list homegrown jihad terror as a threat vector inside the US.”
3. ISIS’ anti-aircraft capacity. DefenseNews.Com reports, “Germany’s intelligence service believes Islamic State jihadist fighters in northern Iraq possess anti-aircraft weapons that could take down passenger jets, according to a newspaper report Sunday. . . . In the briefing, the BND reportedly warned that IS fighters possess portable rocket launchers captured from Syrian army stocks. Some dated from the 1970s, while others were modern and advanced.”
CONTRACT WATCH
1. $5 billion perpetuated failure: the Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS-A). Reuters’ Ken Dilanian reports, “The Army’s troubled $5 billion intelligence fusion network has been a source of lucrative contracts to companies whose employees once worked for the Army, while failing to deliver on its promise of making data seamlessly accessible to soldiers in the field . . . . less scrutiny has been devoted to the revolving door between defense companies that profit from the troubled intelligence system and the military commands that continue to fund it . . . .”
2. Robinson Helicopter sales to Jordan. MilitaryAerospace.Com Editor John Keller reports, “The Royal Jordanian Air Force in Amman, Jordan, needed light helicopters to replace its fleet of ageing Hughes 500D helicopters that have been in service since 1981. They found their solution from Robinson Helicopter Co. in Torrance, Calif. . . . The first four R44s are scheduled for delivery at the end of this year with the second four to follow in early 2015 . . . .”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. E-Verifying in the Cloud. NextGov.Com’s Aliya Sternstein reports, “The Department of Homeland Security plans to try a novel identity check model as part of a new immigration system . . . . With MyE-Verify, a legal employee creates an account by choosing a username and password, selecting password reset questions and taking an ID quiz generated by authentication service Equifax. The service asks for various details that only the rightful SSN-owner would know . . . .”
2. Silicon Valley—fem-friendly. Wired.Com’s Issie Lapowsky reports, “Tech firms have of late been more than transparent about their poor gender diversity, and they’ve sworn to do better. And yet, one surprising study shows that, compared to the rest of the country, Silicon Valley is pretty friendly toward female executives. In fact, there’s a higher percentage of companies in the Valley with at least one female executive than anywhere else in the United States.”
3. Active tank protection—Trophy. DoDBuzz.Com’s Kris Osborn explains, “Using a 360-degree radar, processor and on-board computer, Trophy is designed to locate, track and destroy approaching fire coming from a range of weapons such as Anti-Tank-Guided-Missiles, or ATGMs, and Rocket Propelled Grenades, or RPGs . . . . ‘Trophy will detect an inbound threat and classify that threat. It will compute an intercept point in space away from the platform and, if the threat poses a danger to the platform, it will launch a countermeasure to defeat the threat away from the vehicle’ . . . .”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. Bush in the game: “Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is ‘moving forward’ on a potential 2016 White House run and it appears more likely he will enter the Republican field, according to his son, who’s running for office in Texas. George P. Bush told ABC’s ‘This Week’ that his father is ‘still assessing’ a presidential bid, but suggested it was more likely that he would seek the White House this time. The ex-governor declined to run for president in 2012 despite encouragement from Republicans.”
1. One thing’s for sure: “President Obama greeted the Dallas nurse who contracted and then recovered from Ebola with a bear hug at the beginning of their meeting Friday in the Oval Office. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the president embraced the nurse, Nina Pham, to thank her for the selfless care of an Ebola-stricken patient in Texas that led her to contract the virus herself. ‘He was not at all concerned about any risk she would pose to him by showing his gratitude by hugging her,’ he said.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
1. GOOD READ: “Sykes-Picot drew lines in the Middle East’s sand that blood is washing away.” War is often the midwife of new states. In modern Europe Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo only became states because of the wars of the 1990s. More recently, East Timor and South Sudan are also new states that have arisen from conflicting former colonial territories. The danger is real that Syria and Iraq may yet give way to new states.”
2. “Foreign fighters: Foreign to whom?” Aljazeera.Com contributor Afzal Ashraf argues, “The reality is that the majority of those returning are likely to be disillusioned by a painful realisation that the idealistic movement they went to fight for is actually a bloodthirsty gang of thugs driven by power and sexual lust rather than spiritual and social purity.”
3. “Why walls rise—and must fall.” Christian Science Monitor’s Editor-at-Large John Yemma argues, “Fortress Israel has walled in Israelis in relative safety. After almost three decades of violence, that is somewhat understandable. But it has walled out the people they will always share that land with. Someday, hope will conquer fear. Someday—not now but eventually—that wall, too, must fall.”
THE FUNNIES
1. He’s coming!
2. Well done.
3. Office life.
