I don’t like Monday. Tell me why.
FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCE JOBS.COM
1. Formica and Missile Defense. Marc Selinger tracks Formica, east coast missile defense, and “no thank you” portions: “’There is no validated military requirement to deploy an East Coast missile defense site . . . . ’”
2. Crime still doesn’t pay. William Henderson’s popular “Criminal Conduct and Security Clearances” resonates as much today as it did in yesteryear.
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. Department of Defense medical research has value way beyond the trenches. “The Defense Department has established the world’s first brain tissue repository to help researchers understand the underlying mechanisms of traumatic brain injury in service members, Pentagon officials announced.”
2. First step in a long journey. Robert Menendez, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, predicts that “Obama administration’s decision to arm the rebels was just a first step toward doing more.”
3. Defense Bill passes the House. “The House overwhelmingly passed a sweeping, $638 billion defense bill on Friday that imposes new punishments on members of the armed services found guilty of rape or sexual assault as outrage over the crisis in the military has galvanized Congress. . . . The House bill would require a mandatory minimum sentence of two years in prison for a member of the armed services convicted of rape or sexual assault in a military court . . . . [and] strip military commanders of the power to overturn convictions in rape and sexual assault cases.”
4. Antiquated budget strategy. US News & World Report: “The military must move beyond preparing its entire force to address one or two particular kinds of threats, as it did in 1993.”
5. Moderation is the key in Iran. Time.com reports, “The landslide election of the only moderate candidate in the Iranian presidential contest stunned the Islamic Republic’s hard-line establishment, which had taken great pains to tilt the field of candidates toward conservatives sycophantic to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.”
6. STRATCOM partners up. Omaha World Herald’s Steve Liewer reports that “StratCom’s commander, Gen. Robert Kehler, signed ‘space situational awareness’ agreements this spring with U.S. allies Japan and Australia. The pacts will make it easier and faster for StratCom to swap information to help satellites and spacecraft avoid the orbiting detritus from 56 years of space travel. StratCom leaders hope more nations will follow suit.”
CONTRACT WATCH
1. Since there haven’t been any contractor breaches in security lately. From the ‘really bad timing’ department, funding shortfalls have caused the Department of Defense to suspend periodic reinvestigations for contractors with top secret security clearances. We can only hope professionals will self-report potential issues.
2. Old news you shouldn’t miss. When it comes to bringing your tech firm to the government’s contract trough, Forbes contributor Gene Marks explains, “There are many myths about doing business with the Government. And there’s one big secret for success.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. Tech, yes. People, yesser. In Government Technology, Vice President and General Manager, Defense Sector at ARRAY explains that “technology by itself does not contribute to bottom line and sometimes brings more baggage than it’s worth. So if it’s not about the technology, what is it about? It is about the organization and the people. If technology were really the work force multiplier claimed by sales professionals everywhere, then the CIO wouldn’t need a staff to perform his/her function. However, every successful organization starts with a strong human capital foundation.”
2. PRISM takes back seat to Father’s Day, the newest, biggest holiday. Venture Beat’s Rebecca Grant explains what exasperated Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein: “Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, head of the National Security Agency Keith Alexander and other senior officials scheduled a briefing on Thursday afternoon to brief senators on classified programs that secretly track and collect data on American’s telephone calls and Internet activity. Only 47 of 100 senators showed up.”
3. Where wide bodies are welcome. The Paris Air Show launched today: “The Paris Air Show, which opens for business on Monday, brings hundreds of aircraft to the skies around the French capital, the usual tense competition between aircraft manufacturers Boeing and Airbus, and a slew of innovations large and small.”
4. A different trinity. “To the intelligence community, the trio are villains who compromised what the government classifies as some of its most secret, crucial and successful initiatives. They have been investigated as criminals and forced to give up careers, reputations and friendships built over a lifetime. . . . On Friday, USA TODAY brought Drake, Binney and Wiebe together for the first time since the story broke to discuss the NSA revelations.”
5. You have to see this. Remote controlled cockroaches: “An innovative marriage of behavioral neuroscience and neural engineering. Cockroaches use the antennas on their head to navigate the world around them. When these antennas touch a wall, the cockroach turns away from the wall. The antenna of a cockroach contains neurons that are sensitive to touch and smell.” www.psfk.com’s Ross Brooks provides his take.
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. Dancing in Europe. Europe’s golden boy suffers some patina: “the glow surrounding his presidency in Europe has faded,” reports Scott Wilson of WaPo.
2. Infringing just a little bit. Ellen Nakashima reports that “the government last year searched for the phone records of fewer than 300 people in a database containing tens of millions of Americans’ phone records, intelligence officials said Saturday in a statement to Congress.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
1. A good and true ceasefire. Guardian’s Daniel Davis puts his foot down: “I cannot more emphatically state: the risk we took with the military surge in 2010 has operationally failed. Before we turn this operational failure into strategic defeat, we must take a risk of a new type: change the dynamics via a ceasefire.”
2. We can hear you now. Forbes.com writer and Harvard Business School Professor Tarun Khanna’s view from the corner of Entrepreneur St. and Opportunity Blvd., downtown Kabul: “leverage existing successes. Roshan, for example, is a rags-to-riches mobile phone operator and the leader among entrepreneurs responsible for the deployment of cell phones to two-thirds of Afghans.” Then, a coordinated effort.
3. Fighting the flakes. In The Weekly Standard, Reuel Marc Gerecht, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and former officer in the CIA says, “It should be obvious by now that Snowden is a serious flake. But the American government and its contractors—even the CIA and the NSA—are chock full of flakes . . . along with responsible, Constitution-loving liberals and conservatives who would be loath to allow the U.S. government to spy on their fellow citizens, let alone their own relatives and friends.”
