FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
1. Marketing yourself. Editor Lindy Kyzer explains, “If you’re searching for a cleared job, companies care who the issuing agency is. While clearance reciprocity has always been a topic of reform efforts, it’s still faster for a company looking to staff a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) contract to be able to find DHS-cleared professionals. Some of the most in-demand candidates are those with a DHS clearance.”
2. Clearance inventory. Contributor Chandler Harris explains, “Security clearances are issued by numerous U.S. government agencies including the Department of Defense (DoD), the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Energy (DoE), Department of Justice, and Central Intelligence Agency. The majority of security clearances are issued by the DoD (80 percent). The DoD and most other agencies have three levels of security clearances . . . .”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. Training rebels. Christian Science Monitor’s Anna Mulrine reports, “Many of the fighters motivated to take on the Islamic State are not the most savory of characters, and the trainers must have some degree of confidence that those they arm and groom won’t turn against American troops, American allies, or civilians in their own countries. . . . As with the US-trained mujahideen who fought the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s, US-trained Syrian rebels have the chance to shift the course of the war and potentially carve out a position of future influence. The US, too, has a chance to show that it has learned lessons from foreign forays of the past and that it can think long-term about stability in the region.”
2. Pacifying Ukraine. Reuters’ Pavel Polityuk and Elizabeth Pineau report, “The leaders of Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine have agreed a deal to end fighting in eastern Ukraine, participants at the summit talks said on Thursday. The deal reached after all-night negotiations in the Belarussian capital Minsk included a ceasefire that would come into effect on Feb. 15, followed by the withdrawal of heavy weapons. The news came as Ukraine was offered a $40-billion lifeline by the International Monetary Fund to stave off financial collapse.”
3. Leaving Yemen. Washington Post’s Greg Miller and Hugh Naylor report, “The closure of the U.S. Embassy in Yemen has forced the CIA to significantly scale back its counterterrorism presence in the country . . . [T]he evacuation represents a major setback in operations against al-Qaeda’s most dangerous affiliate. The spy agency has pulled dozens of operatives, analysts and other staffers from Yemen as part of a broader extraction of roughly 200 Americans who had been based at the embassy in Sanaa . . . . Among those removed were senior officers who worked closely with Yemen’s intelligence and security services to target al-Qaeda operatives and disrupt terrorism plots often aimed at the United States.”
4. Carter’s team. Defense News’ Paul McLeary and Vago Muradian report, “As Ash Carter nears his widely anticipated confirmation to become the next US defense secretary, the team that he will bring with him to the Pentagon is already taking shape. . . .”
CONTRACT WATCH
1. Navy taps Draper for $302 million. Military & Aerospace Electronics Editor John Keller reports, “U.S. submarine-launched atomic missiles are becoming even more accurate and deadly as U.S. Navy leaders continue a program to fine-tune the accuracy of the Navy’s Trident II D5 nuclear missiles that are designed for launch from Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines. Officials of the Navy Strategic Systems Program office in Washington announced a potential $302.4 million contract Monday to the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory Inc. in Cambridge, Mass., to continue work on the Trident D5 MK 6 Guidance System Repair Program.”
2. Multispectral Targeting to Australia. Also from Military & Aerospace Electronics Editor John Keller, “Electro-optics experts at the Raytheon Co. will provide the Australian navy with airborne sensor capability that can reveal otherwise-hidden details by slicing images into several different spectral bands. Officials of the Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division in Crane, Ind., announced a $10.5 million contract Monday to the Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems segment in McKinney, Texas . . . .”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. Lie detection. Defense One contributor Bobby Azarian reports, “In a time where extremely hostile and advanced terrorist groups like the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) are actively planning widespread civilian attacks on western nations, a reliable way of knowing whether a suspect is lying or not would provide an invaluable tool for protecting national security while preserving basic human rights. One emerging technological solution to measure deception is functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), a non-invasive technique that allows researchers to track brain activity as a subject views stimuli or performs a task.”
2. Hacking ISIS. Dazed Digital’s Thomas Gorton reports, “Hacktivist collective Anonymous has dealt a blow to the recruiting efforts of ISIS by launching cyber attacks on Twitter accounts used by the terror group to mobilize fighters. In a comprehensive strike called #OpISIS, the hackers have managed to breach hundreds of ISIS Twitter accounts and email addresses. In a statement released by Anonymous, the vigilante cyber cabal said: ‘ISIS, we will hunt you, take down your sites, accounts, emails and expose you… You will be treated like a virus, and we are the cure. We own the internet.’”
3. Profiles in dictatorship. Mother Jones’ Dave Gilson reports, “The CIA has a long history of crafting psychological and political profiles of international figures, with varying degrees of depth and accuracy. A sampling of these attempts to get inside the heads of heads of state . . . .”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. Donkey metaphor. “House Speaker John Boehner called on Senate Democrats on Wednesday to ‘get off their ass’ and take up a $40 billion Homeland Security funding measure before a Feb. 27 deadline. The House-passed measure has been stalled in the Senate thanks to a Democratic filibuster. On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the gridlock means it is now ‘up to the House’ to determine what to do next. Boehner signaled Wednesday he disagrees with McConnell.”
2. Best of Boehner. “The barkeeper’s son has a fondness for profanity, whether he’s on the House floor or a stone’s throw from the Oval Office, snapping at colleagues in private or voicing outrage on TV. The Speaker has dropped the F-bomb on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), called multiple Republicans ‘assholes’ and raised ‘hell’ about countless Obama administration proposals and decisions. In public, Boehner’s obscenities tend to be in the PG-13 vein, rather than rated R. Yet while cursing plays into Boehner’s everyman image, aides privately say his sharp tongue often works to his advantage . . . .”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
1. “Islamic State preys on humanity’s ‘death instinct.’” Reuters contributor Arie W. Kruglanski argues, “The unleashing of evil mobilizes a concerted effort to defeat it on behalf of the good. It unleashes one’s own powers of destruction to eradicate the plague. The outrage and disgust that grisly cruelty evokes can create a powerful backlash; previously separate factions can unite behind a sacred purpose and feel empowered to put an end to the atrocity.”
2. “Obama’s sadder but wiser foreign policy.” LA Times’ Doyle McManus argues, “With two years to run, Obama does have a foreign policy strategy — or, at least, a compendium of threats and goals. As he enters the last chapter of his presidency, he and his aides are inevitably thinking ahead to what their legacy will be. Their message to history’s referees last week was: Lower your expectations.”
3. “Rolling back the Iranian threat.” New York Daily News’ Mortimer B. Zuckerman argues, “Iran believes time is on its side to build a nuclear bomb and the means to deliver it. Only an optimist blind to the history of Iran’s clandestine ways and the labyrinthine story of the negotiations from 2003 could think otherwise following our grant of a second extension of time.”
