FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
1. New laws on lying. Editor Lindy Kyzer reports, “In some cases, an individual may even be encouraged to lie or mislead. In all of these cases, the Security Clearance Accountability, Reform and Enhancement Act should serve as a good reminder—falsify information on your SF-86 and you might just be out a clearance, you could be denied government work for three years. It should offer a pretty strong deterrent for those made aware of the repercussions—should it be signed into law.”
2. Cyber law modernization. Contributor Marc Selinger reports, “Congress has passed four bills in recent days to shore up U.S. defenses against cyber attacks. The flurry of activity came as lawmakers rushed to complete their legislative business for the year. ‘While our work in this area is far from finished, these bills are an important step in our effort to modernize our nation’s cybersecurity programs and help the public and private sectors work together to tackle cyber threats more effectively in the future,’ said Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. Sunrise with Cuba AP’s Julie Pace and Matthew Lee report, “President Barack Obama’s decision to pursue new relations with Cuba was driven in part by a stinging realization: Longstanding U.S. policies aimed at isolating Cuba had instead put Washington at odds with the rest of the world. . . . The embargo itself will remain in place; only Congress can fully revoke it. But the president is moving on his own to expand economic ties, open an embassy in Havana, send high-ranking U.S. officials including Secretary of State John Kerry to visit and review Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism. The U.S. also is easing restrictions on travel to Cuba, including for family visits, official government business and educational activities. Tourist travel remains banned.” See also, “Secret meetings with Cuba finally pay off” and “Venezuela’s role in warming Cuba – US relations.”
2. ISIS targets thin. Reuters’ Phil Stewart and Yara Bayoumy report, “As U.S. fighter jets pound Islamic State targets in Syria, Washington’s coalition allies appear increasingly absent from the air war. Although President Barack Obama’s administration announced the Syrian air strikes three months ago as a joint campaign by Washington and its Arab allies, nearly 97 percent of the strikes in December have been carried out by the United States alone . . . . Two factors are at play: a decline in the overall pace of strikes and fewer easier-to-hit fixed Islamic State targets after nearly three months of bombings . . . .” See also, “Peshmerga, Sunni tribes in Makhmur cooperating in fight against ISIS.”
3. U.S. strikes Pakistani Taliban. LongWarJournal.Org’s Bill Roggio reports, “The US killed 11 members of the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban in an airstrike in the eastern province of Nangarhar yesterday. The strike is the fifth that has targeted Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan fighters and leaders operating inside Afghanistan since the last week of November. . . . Yesterday’s strike took place as a suicide assault team from the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan attacked a high school in Peshawar and killed everyone in their path. Officials stated that 132 students and nine teachers were killed during the rampage. The Afghan Taliban released an official statement condemning the attack while not mentioning the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan by name.”
4. A-10: back in the saddle again. Washington Post’s Dan Lamothe reports, “The A-10 Thunderbolt II attack jet has been carrying out airstrikes against the Islamic State since late November on a near-daily basis . . . It marks the first time the use of the pugnacious plane against the militant group has been confirmed, although U.S. military officials disclosed last month that they had deployed the A-10 in support of the mission in Iraq and Syria. The jet is beloved by U.S. ground troops for its ability to strikes enemy fighters from the air, but it remains in a fierce budget battle in Washington.” Also from WaPo’s Lamothe, “Silence on Bowe Bergdahl.”
CONTRACT WATCH
1. $5 billion projection for Motor Control Centers (MCCs). MilitaryAerospace.Com Editor John Keller reports, “Global demand for motor-control centers will increase from $4.06 billion in 2013 to $5.12 billion in 2018 . . . . A MCC is an assembly of motor starters or overload protection devices such as contractors and/or overload relays that are connected by a common power bus bar so as to control several motors. Intelligent MCCs (iMCCs), which offer remote diagnostic capabilities as well as features like loss detection and predictive maintenance — are gaining traction especially in the oil and gas, mining, water and wastewater, and chemicals industries because of the ability of iMCCs to minimize maintenance costs, reduce equipment downtime, and ensure operator safety . . . .”
2. Asia pivot—F-35 logistic support. DoDBuzz.Com’s Kris Osborn reports, “The Pentagon’s F-35 program announced plans for the program’s maintenance and sustainment of the aircraft in the Asia Pacific — identifying Japan and Australia as locations for aircraft and engine work. The regional alignments, which will result in billions of dollars of work over the life of the aircraft, are part of what the Defense Department’s calls regional Maintenance, Repair, Overhaul and Upgrade, or MRO&U, for F-35 aircraft and engines.” See also, “Japan, Australia Selected for Pacific F-35 Sustainment.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. North Korea hacked Sony. HomelandSecurityNewswire.Com reports, “U.S. intelligence agencies said they have concluded that the North Korean government was ‘centrally involved’ in the attacks on Sony’s computers. This conclusion, which will likely be confirmed today (Thursday) by the Justice Department, was leaked to the media only hours after Sony, on Wednesday, canceled the Christmas release of the comedy—the only known instance of a threat by a nation-state pre-empting the release of a movie. Senior administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the White House was still debating whether publicly and officially to accuse North Korea of the cyberattack.” See also, “Sony cancels North Korea movie in apparent win for Pyongyang hackers.”
2. Google pushes NSA spying reform. National Journal’s Dustin Volz reports, “Google is already beginning to lay the groundwork for another push next year to rein in government spying ahead of a crucial summer deadline to some of the National Security Agency’s surveillance authority. The search behemoth this week updated its ‘Take Action’ site with a new page that promises that 2015 ‘will be our moment’ to reform sweeping surveillance programs, exposed last year by fugitive leaker Edward Snowden. . . . Core provisions of the post-9/11 Patriot Act are due to sunset on June 1, including the contentious Section 215, which grants the intelligence community much of its authority to sweep up bulk U.S. phone records.”
3. JAWS: Navy’s robot shark: it will attack and devour anything. Wired.Com’s Jordan Golson reports, “The American military does a lot of work in the field of biomimicry, stealing designs from nature for use in new technology. After all, if you’re going to design a robot, where better to draw inspiration than from billions of years of evolution? The latest result of these efforts is the GhostSwimmer: The Navy’s underwater drone designed to look and swim like a real fish, and a liability to spook the bejeezus out of any beach goer who’s familiar with Jaws.” Just in case you didn’t see JAWS in the theaters when it came out, the original trailer.
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. Politics means saying you’re sorry: “Ted Cruz privately apologized to GOP senators Tuesday for interrupting their holiday schedules by his surprise tactics that effectively brought the Senate into session over the weekend. . . . he regretted if any of his colleagues’ schedules were ruined by his maneuvering. He didn’t say whether he would do something similar again, senators said.”
2. Cruz control: “Sen. Ted Cruz is warning against nominating Jeb Bush to the Republican ticket in 2016. ‘If we nominate another candidate in the mold of a Bob Dole or a John McCain or a Mitt Romney—and let me be clear, all three of those men, they’re good men, they’re honorable men, they’re decent men, they’re men of character, they’re war heroes — but what they did didn’t work,’ the Texas Republican said Tuesday. Cruz called the former Florida Governor, the son of former President George H.W. Bush and the brother of former President George W. Bush, ‘a good governor in Florida’—but then warned he is too moderate compared to the Republican base.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
1. Excellent read: “When Interrogations Began: A View From Inside the CIA.” DefenseOne.Com contributor and president of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA) Joe DeTrani argues, “The CIA, its officers and their colleagues in the IC deserve the nation’s support and appreciation for the work they do to protect our great country.”
2. “Why it matters that Dick Cheney still can’t define torture.” Washington Post contributor Paul Waldman argues, “Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart famously said that while he couldn’t define pornography, he knew it when he saw it. We can define torture quite easily—indeed, the definition is widely agreed upon. Dick Cheney can’t define it, though. That’s because he wants to justify what he and his colleagues did in the past, and keep the door open to doing it again in the future.” See (and listen) also, “Two Views Of The CIA’s ‘Enhanced’ Interrogations.”
1. Info read: “In the Land of the Possible.” New Yorker’s Evan Osnos explains, “Although [Samantha Power] had been a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and served on the National Security Council as the senior director for multilateral affairs and human rights, she had never been a diplomat. At forty-two, she would be the youngest-ever American Ambassador to the U.N.”
THE FUNNIES
1. On and on and on.
2. Terror cup.
