TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. Face-to-face with Edward Snowden: WaPo triumvirate Gellman, Bake, and Miller pull together for an in depth examination of the man out of reach in Hong Kong: “’I’m not going to hide,’ Snowden told The Post from Hong Kong, where he has been staying. ‘Allowing the U.S. government to intimidate its people with threats of retaliation for revealing wrongdoing is contrary to the public interest.’”
2. Silicon Valley learns the D.C. two step: deny, deny, deny. “The top executives of Google, Facebook and other Silicon Valley firms on Friday fiercely denied they gave intelligence officials broad access to data about their users.”
3. The new iPhone: nothing new. Which means the NSA chip is still there. “The next iteration of Apple’s smartphone, which is expected to launch in the fall, won’t be dramatically different than the current model, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal on Sunday. The report did not indicate what the new model might be called or what would be different about it.” Also see, “Apple Polishes Software for iPhones, iPads” in the WSJ
FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCE JOBS.COM
1. Jillian Hamilton reports on industry-government collaboration moves in cybersecurity: “In response to the President’s Executive Order on February 12, 2013, the General Services Administration (GSA) and the Department of Defense (DOD) have published a Request for Information (RFI) for improving cyber security. This is a key collaboration opportunity to work with the government, as well as, a marketing opportunity as a contributor for implementing an Executive Order. Input needs to be submitted no later than June 12, 2013.”
2. ClearanceJobs.com’s D. B. Grady leaks 7 secrets about Coast Guard Intelligence: yes, the Coast Guard has intelligence. Grady writes, “Coast Guard Intelligence is one of two intelligence agencies that belong to the Department of Homeland Security. (The other is the Office of Intelligence & Analysis.) Though its membership in the U.S. Intelligence Community is relatively recent, its mission reaches back to the earliest days of the Republic, when the Coast Guard’s nascent intelligence mission was the “securing of information which is essential to the Coast Guard in carrying out its duties; for the dissemination of this information to responsible officers, operating units of the Coast Guard, the Treasury Department and other collaborating agencies; and the maintenance of adequate files and records of law enforcement activities.” Today, homeland security and national defense are its prime directives. Here are a few things you might not know about Coast Guard Intelligence.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. POTUS and Xi Agree: No nuclear North Korea and joint effort in cybersecurity. National Security Advisor Tom Donilon reports that “discussions were positive and constructive, wide-ranging and quite successful in achieving the goals that we set forth for this meeting.’” A key goal, denuking North Korea: “Obama and Xi ‘agreed that North Korea has to denuclearize; that neither country will accept North Korea as a nuclear-armed state; and that we would work together to deepen U.S.-China cooperation and dialogue to achieve denuclearization . . . .” POTUS spent two days with Xi in Rancho Mirage, California.
2. Attack on Kabul airport: International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) Joint Command (IJC) headquarters suffer no losses: “Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi said two Afghan civilians were wounded, but there were no deaths among either security forces or civilians.” See also, “Four-hour insurgent raid over in Kabul,” and “Gun and rocket attack near Kabul airport.”
3. Last man standing wins, says U.S. Army Capt. Nicholas Drake in Afghanistan: Most interesting here for counterinsurgency strategists, American Soldiers understand warfare in an ancient land: “The Afghans will still be fighting insurgents long after the Americans leave, but the advisers are hopeful. ‘The kandak will be successful not if they kill all the Taliban,’ . . . . ‘It will be successful if they outlast the Taliban.’” Picked up from AP’s Kristin M. Hall by way of Clarksville’s The Leaf Chronicle.
4. “Do nothing” is still not a course of action: Major General Michael Harrison bites the dust in Japan after allegations of failing to investigate sexual assault come to the fore. “Army spokesman George Wright said there were no allegations of sexual misconduct against Harrison. While a number of officers have been suspended in recent months in sexual assault-related cases, Harrison’s was the first in which an officer was suspended for failing to properly investigate a case.”
5. China leaves; Japan invades: Troopers from the Army of Japan link with Marines for exercises on the west coast. The AP reports on what “U.S. and Japanese military officials said the unprecedented training, led by U.S. Marines and sailors, will help Japan’s Self-Defense Force operate in stronger coordination with the United States, its main ally, and better respond to crises such as natural disasters. China may see it differently, however, given the tensions between Tokyo and Beijing over a long-running dispute concerning islands claimed by both in the East China Sea.”
CONTRACT WATCH
1. $19 billion dollars go green in the Pentagon: “The agreement, with initial awards to Munich-based Siemens, Chicago-based Exelon’s Constellation Energy Group and three other companies, topped the more than 240 contracts announced by the military in May, according to federal data. Those awards have a maximum value of $19.4 billion, a 2.1 percent increase from April’s total. The five firms that received the award will be eligible to construct geothermal projects on or near military installations. The projects would generate electricity from heat produced by the Earth’s core.”
2. Contractors are the intelligence community: Has rapid expansion of the security apparatus in the post-9/11 era become too unwieldy to trust? “Since Sept. 11, more than 30 secure complexes have been constructed to accommodate top-secret intelligence work in the Washington area. They occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons, about 17 million square feet.”
3. Snowden contractor with Booz Allen Hamilton: BAH ready to help. “In a statement, Booz Allen confirmed that Snowden “has been an employee of our firm for less than 3 months, assigned to a team in Hawaii.” The statement said if the news reports of what he has leaked prove accurate, “this action represents a grave violation of the code of conduct,” and the company promised to work closely with authorities on the investigation.
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. It’s all how you spin it. Reid v. McConnell in 2014: “Friends and advisers to the two old bulls will only reluctantly admit it — God forbid they commit the mortal political sin of praising a dreaded leader of the other side — but Reid and McConnell are effectively different sides of the same coin.”
2. Well, at least we aren’t impeaching interns. Times.com dons his rose-colored glasses: But the headlines are all about supposed scandals—stupid IRS agents in Cincinnati, overzealous leak investigations at the Justice Department, a dopey dispute over Benghazi talking points. These are the kind of things that politicians can obsess about when there’s no crisis on the horizon; the last time the national outlook was this bright, Republicans impeached the president for sexing up an intern.”
3. Isn’t this more like a waltz? “In addition to this newly developed capability, the AAF is already conducting numerous air missions without assistance from NATO advisors, including ground corps support, resupply, casualty evacuation, human remains, VIP battlefield movement and, with the use of Mi-35 helicopters specifically, show of force missions.” Compare to “The Afghans Need American Air Support.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
1. Corporations, Perversion, and Voyeurism – a brief history of NSA spying: U.S. News & World Report’s Robert Schlesinger takes the red pill.
2. An inventory of NSA reactions from the Los Angeles Times: John Healey adopts a really unproductive, objective open-minded, west-coasty kind of passive aggressive perspective: “The disagreement highlights the fact that there really are pros and cons to government surveillance, and there’s no clear red line to alert the public when it’s time to worry about the liberties they may be losing.”
3. The drip. Washington Times Joe Curl explains “the drip-drip-drip of scandal is deliberate: Give the press something to chew on (and it’s just fat, so lots of chewing). It’s a long summer, in an off year — Year No. 5, scandal year.”
