FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
Open source harvest. Contributor Christopher Burgess explains, “We should all remember, the US is not the only entity with the ability to harvest open source data. Information has value, whether provided officially or unofficially for sharing, social networks are available to all, and for some websites, the employees of the networks will be able to step over your personal privacy settings and view your content. . . . Individually, these pieces of information are no doubt viewed as benign. Collectively they fill the mosaic with individual pieces. When you post keep this in mind – you may be providing the missing piece to an adversary’s mosaic.”
Career killers. Editor Lindy Kyzer reports, “You’ve heard of failure to launch – it applies to your career as well. It’s not uncommon to find your career at a standstill. What you do while you’re waiting makes a critical difference in whether your career takes off, or stays put. . . . It’s often soft skills and extra effort that launch a career to new heights.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
Ash Carter on Middle East policy. Secretary of Defense Carter’s statement to the HASC: “The Middle East . . . is undergoing a period of great social and political turmoil with a number and variety of cross-cutting geopolitical developments. Our strategy in the region, America’s strategy, is grounded in America’s core national interests – that’s the foundation – tailored to address specific circumstances in specific and various places – Iraq, Syria, Iran, and so forth. And it leverages American leadership with the efforts of coalition – of a coalition of allies and partners. . . .”
ISIS’ fear nation. AP’s Zeina Karam, Vivian Salama, Bram Janssen, and Lee Keath report, “The Islamic State is a place where men douse themselves with cologne to hide the odor of forbidden cigarettes; where taxi drivers or motorists usually play the IS radio station, since music can get a driver 10 lashes; where women must be entirely covered, in black, and in flat-soled shoes; where shops must close during Muslim prayers, and everyone found outdoors must attend. There is no safe way out.”
A word from Taliban’s Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour. Long War Journal’s Bill Roggio reports, “Mansour’s argument for jihadist unity in Afghanistan is simple: he states that ‘division and differences among jihadist ranks’ after the withdrawal of Soviet forces in 1989 led to major problems that were only resolved once the ‘Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’ was able to reunite Afghans and establish an Islamic state. He argues that the Koran calls for unity amongst Muslims and that the Islamic Emirate was endorsed by Afghanistan’s Muslim leaders as well as al Qaeda’s founder, Osama bin Laden.”
Conflicted world. Homeland Security News Wire reports, “Forty armed conflicts were active in 2014, the highest number of conflicts since 1999 — and an increase of 18 percent when compared to the thirty-four conflicts active in 2013. New data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) shows an increase in both the number of active conflicts but also in the number of battle-related deaths in these conflicts.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
Intel on the intel. Defense One contributor Micah Zenko reports, “Last week, in response to long-standing FOIA requests, the CIA declassified—with significant redactions—five documents related to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. . . . Beyond this brief declassified portion of the OIG report, there were many fascinating findings and insights, which are useful to understand the IC’s approach to terrorism before 9/11, as well as the type of constraints and organizational biases that make intelligence analysis so inherently difficult.”
Google’s secret gear. Wired’s Cade Metz reports, “Google started designing its own gear in 2004, under the aegis of a project called Firehose, and by 2005 or 2006, it had deployed a version of this hardware in at least a handful of data centers. The company not only designed ‘top-of-rack switches’ along the lines of the Pluto Switch that turned up in Iowa. It created massive ‘cluster switches’ that tied the wider network together. . . . one of the company’s ‘Jupiter’ cluster switches provides about 40 terabits of bandwidth per second—or the equivalent of 40 million home Internet connections.”
Robot ethics. Christian Science Monitor’s Pete Spotts reports, “Within a few decades, perhaps sooner, robotic weapons will likely be able to pick and attack targets – including humans – with no human controller needed. . . . But critics worry that taking humans out of the loop for life-or-death combat decisions is unethical and would lead to violations of human-rights laws as well as international laws governing combat. They are pushing for an outright ban on the development, deployment, and use of such weapons.”
Recruiting Valley nerds. Defense One’s Patrick Tucker reports, “Even as the Pentagon buys fewer ships and aircraft, it’s buying far more code, and that code can be produced by far more companies and at far lower risk than jets or warships. ‘The trick is creating a system that is flexible enough to adjust the level of oversight to the nature and risk of the acquisition,’ said Jason Tama, author of a upcoming policy paper from the Brookings Institution on defense acquisition reform. ‘Not all acquisitions are created equal in this respect, and the current system doesn’t necessarily do a good job recognizing this.’”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
Are you ready for the summer? “The bill for the summer-work vacation of first lady Michelle Obama, accompanied to England and Italy by her daughters, mom, and staff, should easily top her entourage’s 2010 trip to Spain that cost an eye-popping $467,000. While the White House didn’t provide cost estimates for the week-long visit to London, Milan, Venice, and Vincenza, Italy, the State Department put lodging costs for just a couple nights in Venice at $128,781, according to Free Beacon, and Air Force charges based on a 2012 document for flying her group on past overseas trips indicate that this one will hit $243,000.”
Nice suit! “A top federal court on Wednesday ruled that people held for months on end for immigration violations following Sept. 11, 2001, can sue top government officials for racial profiling and other abuses. The split decision from a three-judge panel on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals comes after more than a decade of litigation, and could lead to increased scrutiny on the government’s behavior following the 2001 terror attack. ‘We simply cannot conclude at this stage that concern for the safety of our nation justified the violation of the constitutional rights on which this nation was built,’ Judges Rosemary Pooler and Richard Wesley wrote in their 109-page decision.”
