Friday Finale & This Time Last Year
FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
Victim of love. Contributor and barrister Sean Bigley advises, “Security clearance holders are not immune from human emotion, and the result is that the desires we all experience sometimes collide with the high standards of conduct expected of those carrying around national security secrets. One of the more common ways we see this issue is infidelity. Unless a security clearance-holder is serving in the armed forces, infidelity is not a crime . . . .”
Rounding out background checks. Contributor Andrew Levine explains, “A common concern for individuals undergoing a federal background investigation is the case of the elusive former employer. The applicant simply cannot provide substantive information about an employment during the course of an investigation, which creates a gap in the applicant’s profile. . . . If it appears as though an employment no longer exists, the applicant should take some precautionary measures to verify this is actually the case.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
Asia pivot: islands in the stream. Washington Post’s Simon Denyer reports, “The Chinese navy repeatedly warned a U.S. surveillance plane to leave airspace around disputed islands in the South China Sea, a sign that Beijing may seek to create a military exclusion zone in a move that could heighten regional tensions. . . . China claims sovereignty over more than 80 percent of the South China Sea. Rival claimants to islands and reefs — set amid fertile fishing grounds and potentially oil- and gas-rich waters — include the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei.” See also, “China says U.S. actions in South China Sea ‘irresponsible, dangerous.’”
Obama interview: on Iran. The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg reports, “The president—the self-confident, self-contained, coolly rational president—appears to have his own anxieties about the nuclear talks. Which isn’t a bad thing. . . . I started the interview by asking Obama if—despite his previous assertion that ISIS was on the defensive—the United States was, in fact, losing the fight against the Islamic State terror group. When we spoke, the Iraqi city of Ramadi, in Anbar Province, had just fallen to ISIS; Palmyra, in Syria, would fall the day after the interview . . . .” See also, “A New Turkish-Saudi Thaw is Helping Rebels in Syria and Worrying Washington,” “Iraq enlisted 100,000 militiamen to fight ISIL and now it can barely control them,” and “After capture of Palmyra, ISIS holds sway over half of Syria.”
Air Force master plan. Defense News’ Aaron Mehta reports, “The US Air Force has released the next piece of its long-term strategic planning restructure, one which begins to deliver benchmarks for how the service will grow in future decades. The Strategic Master Plan . . . builds on last summer’s ‘America’s Air Force: A Call to the Future’ document. That document was billed as a 30-year look at the future of the service, one that was purposefully broad. The Strategic Master Plan, in contrast, contains 12 strategic goals for the service, along with rough timelines for the development of those goals. See also, “Air Force Names New Chief Scientist.”
Nuclear proliferation: tension flares. The Christian Science Monitor’s Howard LaFranchi reports, “The nuclear nonproliferation order that for decades has kept the world remarkably free of the spread of nuclear weapons is at risk of breaking down. . . . a new challenge is taking shape in the growing confrontation between the world’s major nuclear-weapons powers – primarily the United States and Russia, as well as China, Britain, and France – and dozens of non-weapons states. These countries say the nuclear powers are not upholding their part of the ‘grand bargain’ that made the NPT possible.”
CONTRACT WATCH
GSA’s new head: Denise Turner Roth. Government Executive’s Charles S. Clark reports, “The White House on Thursday nominated Denise Turner Roth to lead the General Services Administration. The former city manager and legislative aide who became GSA deputy administrator a year ago, had been acting in the post since the February departure of Dan Tangherlini.”
Open season: Streamlined Technology Acquisition Resources for Services (STARS) II GWAC. Federal Times’ Aaron Boyd reports, “The General Services Administration has opened up the Streamlined Technology Acquisition Resources for Services (STARS) II GWAC to new vendors during the transition from the original five-year base to the additional five-year add-on, which goes into effect in August 2016. Technology vendors qualified for 8(a) small business status that would like to be considered during the open season process should submit through the AcquServe portal by July 2.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
Drone Sub Stations: recharging robots. Breaking Defense’s Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. reports, “Imagine you’re a robotic Navy mini-sub whose batteries are running low after a long mission monitoring, say, traffic around Chinese artificial islands in the South Pacific. Currently, you’d have to recharge at a land base or a surface ship. The former keeps you close to friendly shores while the latter gives away your presence. But if Navy program manager Mike Wardlaw makes it work, sometime in the early 2020s the Navy will start deploying unmanned, underwater pods where robots can recharge undetected — and securely upload the intelligence they’ve gathered to Navy networks.”
Patriot Act: shallow breathing. Reuter’s Patricia Zengerle and Mark Hosenball report, “The future of the U.S. government’s power to spy on Americans’ phone calls was up in the air on Thursday as Congress fought over proposed reforms, with no clear outcome in sight. Lawmakers were close to deadlock over the central question of how far citizens’ privacy rights should be infringed to protect the country from violent extremists. Experts also disagreed on how counter-terrorism might be affected if lawmakers failed to prevent the June 1 expiration of portions of the USA Patriot Act, which was approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Dustin Volz reports.”
Logjam: Transport Layer Security threat. Wired’s Kim Zetter reports, “A new and critical vulnerability uncovered by security researchers would allow an attacker to intercept and decrypt secured communications exchanged between users and thousands of web sites and mail servers worldwide. The vulnerability, dubbed ‘Logjam,’ affects what’s known as the Transport Layer Security protocol that web sites, VPN servers and mail servers use to encrypt traffic. It would allow an attacker sitting between a user and a vulnerable server to lower that encryption to a level more easily cracked.”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
In session. “Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is turning up the pressure on senators to make a deal on three important bills, vowing to keep the chamber in session until its work is done. The Senate is quickly approaching a week-long Memorial Day recess, but it still has to finish work on a ‘fast-track’ trade proposal, expiring provisions of the Patriot Act and highway legislation. ‘I want to remind everybody we’re going to finish this bill before we leave’ . . . .”
Bush fire. “Jeb Bush is trying to put out the fire over his bobbled answers on whether the United States was right to invade Iraq, but there’s a group of people fanning the flames: His brother’s top advisers. In TV appearances, magazine articles and interviews, the aides and confidants who helped steer the George W. Bush White House have criticized, tweaked and prodded Jeb Bush—some more harshly than others—over his bungled remarks, which have presented the former Florida governor with the first major PR crisis of his soon-to-be announced presidential campaign.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
“Why America’s strategy against ISIS is not working.” Rudaw contributor Amjed M. Rasheed argues, “The civil war in Syria was a big gift to Daesh. It has provided the space to this organization to operate. Therefore, even if it is defeated in Iraq, Daesh will continue to pose a threat to the country as long as the civil war continues next door in Syria. Daesh has to be attacked in Deir ez-Zur: the only way to hunt a bear is to go to after its cave.”
“Nigeria’s lesson in battling terrorists.” The Christian Science Monitor’s Editorial Board argues, “Nigeria’s progress is an important lesson about the importance of democracy for other countries coping with Islamic terrorists. If African’s most-populous nation can keep on winning against Boko Haram, perhaps someday its story can end up in a book kept on the shelf of a terrorist leader.”
“Why a forceful U.S. response to China’s artificial island-building won’t float.” Reuters contributor William Johnson argues, “China is already well-convinced that the U.S. rebalance to Asia is just a euphemism for containment. It would be unwise to take military actions that reinforce that notion.”
