FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
1. Be a BIG data scientist. Contributor Tranette Ledford explains, “Data scientists are fast becoming the rulers in the kingdom of big data and analytics, with opportunities for cleared data scientists across the U.S. The demand for data scientists rose 15,000 percent between 2011 and 2012 . . . and it’s still a booming career field. As organizations continue to gather data in greater amounts, they need more than technology to handle it. . . .”
2. Jazz up your recruiting profile. Editor Lindy Kyzer offers, “Photos and video are a critical part of your recruiting strategy. Visual images play a powerful role in communicating what it’s really like at your company. The ClearanceJobs company profile series takes job seekers inside the defense industry and federal contracting space, giving the inside scoop on company culture, hot jobs, and more.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. Hitting the Khorasan Group, al Qaeda in Syria. Reuter’s Matt Spetalnick reports, “While the world has focused on a U.S.-led air assault on Islamic State strongholds in Syria, American officials said they also struck a blow there against a little-known cadre of hardened al Qaeda militants that posed a more immediate threat to the West. The strikes early on Tuesday on what Washington called the Khorasan Group, so shadowy that U.S. officials had barely uttered its name in public, were staged to disrupt a plot against U.S. or European targets that the Pentagon said was ‘nearing the execution phase.’” See also, “Fears in Jordan over attacks on ISIL” and Dan Lamothe’s “Effects of Syria strikes” and “Raptor fighter makes its debut.”
2. A U.N. meeting that will matter? AP’s Edith M. Lederer reports, “Facing a world in turmoil from multiple crises ranging from wars in the Mideast and Africa to the deadly scourge of Ebola and growing Islamic radicalism, leaders from more than 140 countries open their annual meeting at the United Nations on Wednesday with few solutions. The issue certain to top the agenda is the threat from Islamic terrorists intent on erasing borders . . . .” See also, “Obama to address UN amid new Mideast strikes,” “Building Support for Coalition,” and “US-Iran relations not as bitter at UN.”
3. Life in prison for Sulaiman Abu Ghayth. DefenseOne.Com’s Dustin Volz reports, “Federal authorities sentenced al-Qaida’s spokesman to life in prison Tuesday for conspiring to kill Americans through his work with the terrorist organization. The Justice Department announced that Sulaiman Abu Ghayth, a close affiliate and son-in-law of Osama bin Laden, had been sentenced in a Manhattan federal court to spend the rest of his life behind bars. ‘Justice has been served,” Attorney General Eric Holder said . . . . ‘This outcome ensures that Sulaiman Abu Ghayth, a senior member of al-Qaida and an associate of Osama bin Laden, will never again set foot outside a prison cell.’”
CONTRACT WATCH
1. Foreign Military Sales—a primer. DefenseMediaNetwork.Com’s J.R. Wilson explains that “many FMS cases are for new procurement, which incorporates partner requirements into ongoing DoD production and acquisition processes. . . . FMS can increase demand for the producing contractor, which may lower the acquisition costs, through economies of scale, for both DoD and the partner nation. In addition, FMS can extend a production line scheduled for closure when DoD has decided not to acquire additional items beyond those already funded for the U.S. military. . . .” See also, “Apache Sale to Iraq Thrown Into Doubt Because of Iraqi Inaction.”
2. GSA going green. FederalTimes.Com’s Andy Medici reports, “The General Services Administration is asking industry for another round of environmentally friendly building technologies, according to a request for information (RFI) released Sept. 17. The agency’s Green Proving Ground program, which began in 2012, researches cutting-edge and environmentally sustainable building technology. Those with promise might be expanded widely through GSA’s and other agencies’ building portfolios.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. Minority Report is now. Esquire.Com’s Michael Howard explains, “The past week has been a milestone in technological advancement. The FBI announced the completion of its new facial recognition technology. Arizona State University researchers developed the runner’s jetpack. And Audi unleashed driverless cars in California. Just 12 years after Minority Report, the world is closer to Steven Spielberg’s vision of 2054 now than anyone would’ve anticipated. Much of the sci-fi technology imagined in 2002 is a reality in 2014. Let’s count the ways . . . .”
2. WWI’s magical angel of mercy. Washington Post’s Michael E. Ruane tells the story: “On the day after Christmas in 1920, a French mailman and veteran of World War I wrote an American woman named Anna Coleman Ladd to thank her for what she had done for him during the war. Ladd knew the veteran, Charles Victor, who had been wounded in the face by a hand grenade in 1915. She had two photos of him. In one . . . the lower half of his face is mutilated. . . . In the second photo . . . there is no sign of injury.”
3. The Intelligence Community Information Technology Enterprise. NextGov.Com’s Frank Konkel reports, “Three years after top officials within the intelligence community first gathered to formulate a new approach to handling technology within its 17 component agencies, the resulting plan’s foundation has been laid and agencies are off and running. . . . IC-ITE (pronounced ‘eyesight’) . . . is based on moving the IC agencies toward shared services. The IC expects to save money both through consolidation and its cost-recovery model, with a net effect being improved national security through various means, including the establishment of a target architecture. Perhaps most important, the plan has the support of top spy James Clapper and the IC’s top tech official, Al Tarasiuk, the chief information officer.”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. Boehner-in-Chief: “House Speaker John Boehner said Tuesday he backs the Syrian airstrikes ordered by President Obama as ‘one step,’ in the mission to eliminate the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. The group ‘is a direct threat to the safety and security of the United States and our allies . . . . I support the airstrikes launched by the president, understanding that this is just one step in what must be a larger effort to destroy and defeat this terrorist organization.’ . . . He made no reference in his statement to what, if anything, Congress will do to address a broader authorization for the president to use military force in the region.”
2. Teaser: “Ann Romney on Tuesday did not rule out a third presidential bid for her husband, Mitt, if former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) decides not to enter the 2016 race. ‘Well, we will see, won’t we . . . . I think Jeb probably will end up running . . . . He’s probably looking at it very carefully right now.’ . . . Speculation has swirled about a third run for Romney with a wide-open field for the Republican nod in early polling, but the most recent nominee has continuously ruled it out. Ann Romney has been a driving force in her husband’s political career in the past. She was reportedly only one of two members of the Romney family to initially push to have her husband run a second time in 2012.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
“ISIL crisis: Everyone’s a winner.” Aljazeera.Com contributor James Denselow argues, “The strategy is both complex and risky. It requires multilateral cooperation, to date unseen competence on the part of the Iraqi military and politicians, and for an ISIL response to be contained. Yet, the rewards for all parties concerned could be worth the investment in this new ‘coalition of the willing’. In short, everyone could be a winner, excepting those civilians stuck in the middle.”
2. “Horror and Terror in Nigeria.” USNews.Com contributor Lawrence J. Haas explains that “with Washington understandably focused on the terrorist Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, Boko Haram is pursuing a similarly frightening horror in the heart of Africa and, like the Islamic State group, has threatened to extend it to America. It reminds us as well that, across Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere, Christians are facing an all-too-silent genocide at the hands of fundamentalist Islam.”
3. “More Troops, Not Nukes, Will Deter Russia.” DefenseOne.Com contributor Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) argues, “The nuclear weapons we deployed for the Cold War, which ended two decades ago, are simply not the same weapons we need for the ‘hot’ war threat that our eastern NATO allies, and Ukraine, face today. Spending taxpayer dollars on aging and increasingly irrelevant nuclear bombs is a bad investment, especially when it means diverting scarce dollars away from the type of defense that can truly protect our allies.”
