FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
Contracting complications. Contributor Jillian Hamilton reports, “The proposed rule from the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and the Department of Labor (DOL) regarding President Obama’s Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Order requires companies submitting proposals for federal contracts exceeding $500,000 report any past or pending labor violations that occurred within the past three years. Contracting officers, along with labor advisors, will review the violations to determine if the contractor has a pattern of willful and pervasive abuse of the labor statutes. The alleged goal is to ensure taxpayer money isn’t going towards supporting companies that have a track record of violating labor laws.”
Protecting your PII. Contributor Sean Bigley advises, “The fact that foreign governments routinely attempt to hack into U.S. government computer systems is old news. Cyber espionage has been around almost since the dawn of the internet. What is new, however, is the increasingly aggressive nature with which foreign intelligence services are targeting the personal information of security clearance holders. They’re now after not just classified information but also the people who have access to it.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
Ruck up: more troops to Iraq. Reuters’ David Alexander, Matt Spetalnick, and Phil Stewart report, “The Obama administration is preparing a plan to set up a new military base in Iraq’s Anbar province and send several hundred additional trainers and advisers to help bolster Iraqi forces that have struggled in the fight against Islamic State militants there, U.S. officials said on Tuesday. President Barack Obama could give final approval as early as Wednesday to expand the U.S. military contingent in Iraq, a source close to the discussions said, marking the first significant adjustment in his strategy since the insurgents seized Anbar’s capital Ramadi last month.” See also, “US to send more troops to Iraq for expanded training mission” and “President Seeks Advice on Improving Iraq Mission.”
Terrorist mind: not why, but how. The Atlantic’s Simon Cottee reports, “The scholarly consensus on violence has a lot going for it. It humanizes the perpetrators of violence by insisting on their ordinariness and contextualizing their actions. It obliges people to reflect on their own possible shortcomings and vulnerabilities, and how, in different circumstances, they too could do monstrous deeds. And it compels people to recognize that they do not act in a social vacuum, and that what they think, feel, and do is powerfully shaped by the broader historical circumstances in which they are compelled to live and act. Moreover, Westernized jihadists, as a recent report cogently suggested, assuredly are alienated and feel that they do not belong in a secular world that often mocks and challenges their religion and identity as Muslims.”
ISIS taking Libya’s Sirte. The Long War Journal’s Thomas Joscelyn reports, “Fighters loyal to the Islamic State continue to gain ground in the Libyan city of Sirte and its surrounding areas. Earlier today, one of the Islamic State’s official Libyan branches announced that its fighters have captured a power plant outside of the coastal city. . . . The Islamic State began targeting Sirte earlier this year, when the jihadists stormed a radio station, government buildings, a university, and a hospital. In May, the group’s fighters went on the offensive in the city again, seizing infrastructure points in the process. The jihadists took control of a military airbase and a civilian airport, as well as part of a massive Qaddafi-era water irrigation project.”
Defense meritocracy. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter explains, “The Department of Defense has made a lasting commitment to living the values we defend – to treating everyone equally – because we need to be a meritocracy. We have to focus relentlessly on our mission, which means the thing that matters most about a person is what they can contribute to national defense. This is a commitment we must continually renew. . . . And I’m very proud of the work that the military services have put into this over the last several months. Because discrimination of any kind has no place in America’s armed forces.” See also, “DoD Updates Equal Opportunity Policy to Include Sexual Orientation” and “Officer Describes Life After ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Repeal.”
Watch this: “The Guerrilla Fighters Of Kurdistan.”
CONTRACT WATCH
$5 million Calculex contract for data recorders. Military & Aerospace Electronics Editor John Keller reports, “U.S. Air Force avionics experts needed airborne data recorders for the Boeing F-15C/D jet fighter and for the F-15E fighter-bomber. They found their solution from Calculex Inc. in Las Cruces, N.M. . . . Calculex provides the CSR-2300 for the F-15C/D and F-15E fleets for recording video and MIL-STD-1553 mission data. Air Force officials say they plan to award a sole-source contract to Calculex later this year for the airborne data recorder data storage devices.”
SEALs seek new tech. Also from Military & Aerospace Electronics, “Navy leaders will brief industry later this month on an upcoming research project to develop new enabling special ops technologies for mine warfare; naval special warfare; expeditionary prepositioning and logistics; navy expeditionary combat. Officials of the Naval Special Warfare program office in Washington will conduct the industry briefings in anticipation of an upcoming broad agency announcement (BAA_15-NR-6280) for the Confronting Expeditionary and Naval Special Warfare Capability Challenges project.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
Cybersecurity and exploring the Dark Web. Defense One’s Patrick Tucker reports, “Stealing data is different from stealing a Ming vase, in that the original remains behind. If cyber detectives can find a copy of this data ‘in the wild,’ they can limit its value as a tool for fraud, help build a case attributing the hack to the Chinese government, and develop insight into how the data will be used. How would you do that?” See also, “’Dark Internet’ inhibits law enforcement’s ability to identify, track terrorists” and “OPM hackers tried to breach other fed networks.”
Cyber target: US power grid. Homeland Security News Wire reports, “It is very hard to overstate how important the U.S. power grid is to American society and its economy. Every critical infrastructure, from communications to water, is built on it and every important business function from banking to milking cows is completely dependent on it. And the dependence on the grid continues to grow as more machines, including equipment on the power grid, get connected to the Internet. A report last year prepared for the president and Congress emphasized the vulnerability of the grid to a long-term power outage, saying ‘For those who would seek to do our Nation significant physical, economic, and psychological harm, the electrical grid is an obvious target.’”
HTTPS connections coming for Feds. FierceGovernmentIT’s Dibya Sarkar reports, “The White House June 8 issued a directive instructing federal agencies with publicly accessible websites to provide service only through a secure HTTPS connection that encrypts nearly all information during communication between the website and user. The move follows the commercial sector adoption of the HTTPS standard that is intended to better protect website visitors and services as well as to limit vulnerabilities and potential exposure of sensitive data such as browser identity, website content, search terms and information submitted by users.”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
Building a better mouse trap. “Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday rejected demands by Democratic Senate leaders to hold a budget summit this month. McConnell’s dismissal creates a fiscal standoff in the Senate months earlier than expected over whether spending limits, known as the sequester, should be lifted. Failure to resolve the impasse could result in a government shutdown this fall. Democratic leaders are bringing up the issue now to put pressure on McConnell to agree to raise defense and nondefense spending levels in tandem. They hope to get a head start on the blame game both sides expect at the end of September when government funding is due to expire.”
Hostage holding. “The House on Wednesday is considering a fiscal 2016 defense appropriations bill under the threat of a White House veto and near-certain opposition from Democrats objecting to plans to shift some $37 billion in operations and maintenance spending into a war funding account. Republicans, meanwhile, are lashing out against the veto threat, saying President Obama and Democrats supporting him are holding defense spending ‘hostage’ in order to force the GOP to accept higher spending on domestic programs.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
“ISIS Is Not Just Iraq’s Problem. It’s Obama’s.” National Journal contributor Kristin Roberts argues, “Iraq’s army is a pathetic mess. Everyone inside the Pentagon knows this. The White House does too. And setting aside an official protest by Baghdad, the Iraqi government is so aware it’s trembling. But that’s not why ISIS is winning. And to be clear, ISIS is winning.”
“U.S.-funded Afghan police prey on those they’re paid to protect.” Reuters contributor Graeme Smith argues, “ALP [Afghan Local Police] units that create insecurity must be disbanded in a careful program of slow demilitarization. The remaining ALP need better oversight and a reformed system of complaints. It’s easier to raise militias than to disband them, or transform them into responsible security forces. The most difficult work on the ALP program lies ahead.”
“For Mideast’s democracy deficit, a Turkish delight.” The Christian Science Monitor Editorial Board argues, “With wars in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Libya, and with Egypt sliding back to dictatorship, the Turkish example is more necessary than ever. Turkey’s voters delivered.”
