Hang on baby! & Congrats California Chrome
FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
1. Hack attack launched from Truman. Contributor Charles Simmins reports, “[Nicholas] Knight, an enlisted sailor, was serving as a systems administrator in the nuclear reactor department of the USS Harry S. Truman. He [led] a hacker ring, self-styled as ‘Team Digi7al,’ according to NASDAQ. In 2012 and 2013, the group broke into at least 30 government and private computer systems, stealing data and releasing portions in Twitter and elsewhere as proof of their accomplishments.
2. Polygraphs and the Fed employee. By way of a law suit, contributor Ashley LaGanga explains, “Polygraphs are a standard part of the security clearance approval process. Federal law exempts from its ban on employment-related polygraph exams those contractors whose ‘duties involve access to information that has been classified at the level of top secret or designated as being within a special access program.’ Contractors of other national security agencies may also be lawfully subject to lie detector tests.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. The U.N.—UN-responsive. Is that news? Reuters’ Michelle Nichols reports, “United Nations peacekeeping missions routinely avoid using force to protect civilians who are under attack, intervening in only 20 percent of cases despite being authorized to do so by the U.N. Security Council, an internal U.N. study found. ‘There is a persistent pattern of peacekeeping operations not intervening with force when civilians are under attack,’ the report by the Office of Internal Oversight Services said. ‘Peacekeepers are absent from many locations when civilians come under attack, and when they are present, are unable or unwilling to prevent serious physical harm from being inflicted,’ the 26-page report said.”
2. Putin’s retrograde, perhaps. AP reports, “Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered troops deployed in regions near Ukraine to return to their home bases, the Kremlin said Monday. The move appears to indicate Putin’s intention to de-escalate the crisis over Ukraine, the worst in Russia’s relations with the West since the end of the Cold War. . . . Putin also voiced support for round tables in Ukraine, which were held last week under a peace plan brokered by Switzerland, which currently chairs the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.”
3. Syrian rebels kill chief of air forces. Aljazeera.Com reports, “The chief of Syria’s air defence forces, General Hussein Ishaq, has been killed in combat near Damascus, a security official has told news agencies. The general died on Saturday of wounds suffered when rebels attacked Syrian air defence headquarters near the town of Mleiha, a key battleground southeast of the capital. He is one of the few top-ranking officers whose deaths have been announced during Syria’s three-year war. The army’s entire arsenal and forces are deployed in Damascus’s war against rebels seeking to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, whose regime brands the uprising as a foreign-backed ‘terrorist’ plot. . . . Abdel Rahman called Ishaq’s death an ‘important psychological blow’ to the regime.”
4. Goodluck, Jonathan—war on Boko Haram. Aljazeera America reports, “Leaders from five African nations pledged Saturday to launch ‘total war’ on Boko Haram, just hours after the violent Nigerian-based rebel group underscored its widening threat to the region with a suspected attack in neighboring Cameroon. . . . A comprehensive plan to exchange information, coordinate action and protect borders needed to be put in place immediately, Hollande said during the summit. Participants agreed to improve policing of frontiers, share intelligence and trace the weapons and cash that are the group’s lifeblood. . . . Boko Haram in Nigeria has ample funds and trained with some of the world’s most experienced terrorists. . . . weapons have come from chaotic Libya and training took place in Mali before the ouster of its Al-Qaeda-linked leaders.”
5. The secret war that never ends. National Journal’s James Kitfield reports, “Indeed, even after the last U.S. combat troops leave Afghanistan this year, the shadow war against jihadi terrorists that began on Sept. 11, 2001, will rage on, executed by comingled military, intelligence, and law-enforcement capabilities using legal authorities that blur distinctions between uncommon criminals and enemy combatants. Terrorism suspects caught in the hard stare of the U.S. counterterrorism network will still be arrested by U.S. law-enforcement agents overseas; snatched off the streets of lawless cities by U.S. special operations forces; eviscerated by CIA drone strikes in remote areas far from any declared war zone; and interrogated under the rules of warfare before being read their Miranda rights and prosecuted in federal courts. And that life-and-death struggle will continue to play out largely in secret.”
CONTRACT WATCH
1. $1 billion sale to Iraq—Beechcraft wins big. DefenseMediaNetwork.Com’s Steven Hoarn reports, “The Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) has notified Congress that it has received the green light from the State Department for a package of arms sales for Iraq. The deal approves the sale of nearly $1 billion worth of light attack planes, aerostats, and up-armored High Mobility Multi- Purpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWVs). The request for military hardware was made by Iraq. The details of the sale include 24 AT-6C Texan II light attack aircraft, 200 up-armored HMMWVs, and 7 aerostats to the Iraqi military. The AT-6 Texan II deal is the largest at $790 million. If the final agreement is approved by Iraq, it would be a big win for Beechcraft. Kansas-based Beechraft previously lost out on a lucrative contract to equip the Afghan Air Force with the AT-6 Texan II. The U.S. Air Force instead choose the Embraer Super Tucano.”
2. High cost of defense scrutinized. DefenseNews.Com’s Marcus Weisgerber reports, “The high cost of the US Defense Department’s weapon programs threatens national security, the head of the Pentagon’s advanced research-and-development arm said. Arati Prabhakar, director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), said her organization is ‘fundamentally rethinking’ US military systems that have historically been extremely expensive.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. Bionics approved. DefenseOne.Com contributor Olga Khazan reports, “Enter the DEKA limb, the first FDA-approved robotic arm that’s powered by the wearer’s mind. Electrodes attached to the arm near the prosthesis detect muscle contraction, and those signals are then interpreted into specific movements by a computer . . . . A Department of Veterans Affairs study of the DEKA arm found that 90 percent of study participants were able to use locks and keys, zippers, and combs with the arm—all activities they hadn’t been able to do with their existing prosthetics.”
2. NSA’s post-Snowden future. Reuters’ Warren Strobel reports, “As U.S. National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers seeks to repair the damage to the agency caused by leaks about its electronic spying programs, the abuses of government revealed in the wake of the Watergate scandal are very much on his mind. . . . Rogers’ declaration that he wants to continue the NSA’s controversial search of phone records, known as metadata, has prompted critics to question if the new director really favors change at all. In his first interview since taking office, Rogers, a four-star Navy admiral, stressed the need for transparency and accountability.”
3. Government put US UAS in DoD hands. C4ISRNet.Com’s John T. Bennett reports, “McCain and other hawks for several years have advocated giving the military operational and budgetary control over the American armed drone program, which is the cornerstone of President Barack Obama’s targeted-killing campaign against al-Qaida and similar groups. . . . But the debate appeared to be settled—at least temporarily—when House GOP leaders quietly included language in a 2014 government-wide omnibus spending measure that blocked the White House’s plan to shift control over the drone program from CIA to the Pentagon.”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. John Kerry! C’mon down! “A House oversight panel sent a second subpoena Thursday to Secretary of State John Kerry, asking him to testify before the committee later this month regarding the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said he is accommodating Kerry by asking him to testify on May 29. Kerry will be in Mexico on May 21, the date he was summoned to appear in a previous subpoena.”
2. Hillary cleans house: “Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus on Sunday accused former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton of trying to ‘sweep’ the deadly 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, ‘under the rug. . . . If you want any evidence of that, ask the families of people who lost their sons in Benghazi. They’ve talked plenty about what happened in Benghazi,’ Priebus said on NBC News’s ‘Meet the Press.’ Responding to questions about Clinton’s health raised by Republican strategist Karl Rove, Priebus said health and age are ‘fair game’ in the context of a presidential campaign. But he said her record will define her image if she runs for president.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
1. “How Corruption Guts Militaries: The Ukraine Case Study.” DefenseOne.Com contributor Sarah Chayes argues, “Those calling for immediate, unconditional shipments of lethal weaponry and other military assistance may think they’re doing Ukraine a favor by rushing in aid at its hour of need. But in the armed forces as in the political arena, most of the Yanukovich-era corrupt networks remain in place. And helping them entrench their positions and tighten their stranglehold over the new Ukraine would jeopardize the country’s future.”
2. “Afghanistan: Time for new blood.” Aljazeera.Com contributor Massoumeh Torfeh argues, “There is a younger generation of political activists, cutting across the ethnic and gender lines, that is keen to play a direct role in the affairs of Afghanistan. The advantage of this generation is that although it has experienced the pain of the civil war years, it has not been directly involved. Their attitude to politics and society is diametrically opposed to that of so-called warlords. They are determined to change the tired face of Afghan politics often associated with corruption and patriarchal leadership.”
3. “An India ready to dream big.” Christian Science Monitor’s Editorial Board argues, “Modi must not forget he is riding an awakening of Indian expectations as much as leading them. His checkered past as a Hindu nationalist, and in sometimes treating India’s Muslims as less than citizens, cannot color his leadership in a constitutional democracy. Religion, including Hinduism and Islam, can help Indians define their individual identity. But in a country of such size and diversity, one that is home to a third of the world’s poor, only secular rule can ensure the unity needed to fulfill people’s collective hopes.”
THE FUNNIES
1. Muscle man.
3. Dream weaver.
