FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
1. Security clearance ethics. Contributor Christopher Burgess reports, “If you have a security clearance, you enjoy the trust and confidence of the U.S. government. . . . there is firm expectation that you will exercise discretion and fully engage in the need-to-know principle when it comes to your classified work. There is also the expectation you will self-report any anomalous event, breach of security protocol or miscue which may in any way deleteriously affect the classified activity. The concept of self-reporting is based on the expectation that one who has been adjudicated as trustworthy will embody the ethos required to do what is right.” See also, “Is My Security Clearance a Secret?”
2. Taxes and clearances. Also from Christopher Burgess, “An individual who is in financial crisis is perceived to be more vulnerable to breaking trust than an individual not in crisis. This vulnerability, coupled with a plethora of active hostile foreign intelligence organizations targeting the United States DOD and intelligence communities, one immediately recognizes the value of being able to identify individuals at risk and providing to them the resources to ameliorate those risks.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. ONI on China’s navy. The Diplomat’s Andrew S. Erickson reports, “To its first unclassified report on China’s navy in six years, the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) has just added sophisticated posters detailing Chinese ships and aircraft, equipment, and leadership structure. . . . ONI makes it clear that China’s maritime forces are progressing steadily across the board, although they remain limited in important respects.” Dive deeper: “The PLA Navy: New Capabilities and Missions for the 21st Century.”
2. Space defense: Work’s on it. Breaking Defense’s Colin Clark reports, “Citing ‘increasing threats’ against America’s satellites, Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work said here today that the US military ‘must be able to respond in an integrated, coordinated fashion’ to attacks on US space assets and he used the charged term ‘space control’ in making his argument. . . . ‘To maintain our military dominance we must consider all space assets, both classified and unclassified, as part of a single constellation. And if an adversary tries to deny us the capability, we must be able to respond in an integrated, coordinated fashion.’”
3. ISIS after Anbar. Christian Science Monitor’s Dan Murphy reports, “The so-called Islamic State attacked villages on the outskirts of Ramadi in apparent preparation for an attempt to take full control of the last population center outside its hands in Iraq’s westernmost province. The provincial government has been under siege in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province, since the start of 2014, and most of the province is now outside of government hands. . . . the central government’s grip is slipping, with an IS (also known as ISIS) effort to cut off the city from Baghdad to the east underway.”
4. ISIS in Afghanistan. Afghanistan Zariza reports, “While the recent activities of Islamic State (IS) militants in Afghanistan have sent shock waves across the country, there are some who believe that IS will not be able to gain foothold in the country. Amrullah Saleh, the former chief of National Directorate of Security (NDS), believes the presence of Islamic State in Afghanistan currently amounts to ‘psychological warfare’, and not a reality. . . . Mr. Saleh said the Islamic State will not be able to gain influence in Afghanistan primarily because whatever they have been doing in Iraq and Syria, Taliban has been doing exactly same in Afghanistan for the past 20 years.”
CONTRACT WATCH
1. Harrier, Boeing, and three decades of success. Military & Aerospace Electronics Editor John Keller reports, “The U.S. Marine Corps AV-8B Harrier II jump jet is one of the most upgraded military combat aircraft 30 years after its first deployments, and even longer than that since its initial design back in the 1970s. . . . It’s been a long road over the past three decades, but continuing work has kept the AV-8B Harrier II on the forefront of technology. The effort hasn’t been wasted, either, because Navy leaders say they expect to keep the Harrier II in operation at least until 2020.”
2. Communications: Navy looking on-the-shelf. Also from Military & Aerospace Electronics, “U.S. Navy aircraft experts are surveying the military radio communications industry for companies able to provide off-the-shelf vehicle-mount radios with two-channel operation and Link 16 capabilities. Officials of the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division in Lakehurst, N.J., issued a sources-sought notice Friday (N00019-15-P2-PMA-209-0557) looking for non-developmental radios with simultaneous two-channel operation that fit aircraft, ground vehicles, boats, and ships.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. Our aging, underfunded arsenal. Government Executive’s Marcus Weisgerber reports, “The Defense Department cannot afford to replace its aging nuclear-missile submarines, ICBMs, and long-range strategic bombers unless it gets a funding boost or radical policy changes are made, according to a top Pentagon official. Even if Congress approves the White House’s 2016 budget for the Pentagon, the Pentagon will find itself $10 billion to $12 short beginning in 2021, Frank Kendall, undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, said Tuesday at the Navy League’s Sea Air Space conference.”
2. Swarm bots: fire! Defense One’s Patrick Tucker reports, “The U.S. Navy will launch up to 30 synchronized drones within one minute, possibly from a single cannon-like device, in what marks a significant advance in robot autonomy. The drones, when airborne, will then unfold their wings and conduct a series of maneuvers and simulated missions with very little human guidance over the course of 90 minutes.”
3. Hacking airliners. Wired’s Kim Zetter reports, “Seven years after the Federal Aviation Administration first warned Boeing that its new Dreamliner aircraft had a Wi-Fi design that made it vulnerable to hacking, a new government report suggests the passenger jets might still be vulnerable. Boeing 787 Dreamliner jets, as well as Airbus A350 and A380 aircraft, have Wi-Fi passenger networks that use the same network as the avionics systems of the planes, raising the possibility that a hacker could hijack the navigation system or commandeer the plane through the in-plane network, according to the US Government Accountability Office, which released a report about the planes . . . .”
4. Israel’s nuclear shell game. Politico’s Avner Cohen and William Burr report, “For decades, the world has known that the massive Israeli facility near Dimona, in the Negev Desert, was the key to its secret nuclear project. Yet, for decades, the world—and Israel—knew that Israel had once misleadingly referred to it as a ‘textile factory.’ Until now, though, we’ve never known how that myth began—and how quickly the United States saw through it. The answers, as it turns out, is part of a fascinating tale that played out in the closing weeks of the Eisenhower administration—a story that begins with the father of Secretary of State John Kerry and a familiar charge that the U.S. intelligence community failed to ‘connect the dots.’”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. Smart move. “Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday dismissed a bipartisan vote advancing legislation giving Congress a say in any nuclear deal, warning that ongoing talks with international negotiators could not advance without a guarantee that sanctions against his country will end. ‘It is none of our business to heed to the current disputes at the U.S. Senate and their mercenaries, as Iran expects goodwill and respect in return,’ Rouhani said in a speech, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency. ‘We explicitly declare that we are not dealing with the U.S. Senate and Congress.’”
2. Capitol chaos. “A tiny aircraft piloted by a Florida mail carrier protesting campaign finance laws landed on the Capitol grounds Wednesday afternoon, scrambling a bomb squad, closing streets and raising questions about security on Capitol Hill. The gyrocopter — a one-man craft with an open cockpit — set down shortly after 1 p.m. on the Capitol’s expansive West Lawn, where the pilot, 61-year-old Doug Hughes, was confronted by members of the Capitol Police and promptly detained pending charges yet unnamed.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
1. Interview: “Hank Paulson on the Chinese economy, Xi Jinping, and what Americans don’t get about China.” Quartz offers, “China’s handling of these new complexities bears huge consequences for the rest of the world—a point that former US treasury secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. drives home in his new book, Dealing with China: An Insider Unmasks the New Economic Superpower.”
THE FUNNIES
3. iPhone hell.
