Friday Finale & This Time Last Year
FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
USIS settles. Editor Lindy Kyzer reports, “Last September the Office of Personnel Management ended its contracts with the investigation firm, following months of congressional scrutiny. The Department of Justice filed several complaints against the firm alleging the company filed incomplete investigations approximately 40 percent of the time, in at least 665,000 cases. The firm had also been found to be behind the controversial security clearance investigations conducted for Navy shooter Aaron Alexis and Edward Snowden.”
Clearance verified. Contributor Sean Bigley remembers, “In the end, the client got what he needed – which turned out to be critical since he had claimed on his resume that he had helped develop a certain program decades ago (which would have been clearly impossible without a clearance). Allegation of resume falsification averted. And I walked away with this reminder: even in today’s high tech world, federal agencies still can’t always figure out how to communicate.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
Old Glory in Cuba. Reuters’ Daniel Trotta reports, “U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry travels to Cuba [today] to raise the U.S. flag at the recently restored American embassy in Havana, another symbolic step in the thawing of relations between the two Cold War-era foes. The ceremony, raising the flag over the building for the first time in 54 years, comes nearly four weeks after the United States and Cuba formally renewed diplomatic relations and upgraded their diplomatic missions to embassies. While the Cubans celebrated with a flag-raising in Washington on July 20, the Americans waited until Kerry could travel to Havana.” See also, “Top US diplomat flies to Cuba” and “US flag to be raised in Cuba.”
Afghanistan update. Defense Media Activity’s Cheryl Pellerin reports, “U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Wilson A. Shoffner briefed the Pentagon press corps live from Kabul by telephone, discussing Afghan forces, the 2015 fighting season, Afghanistan security, and the movement of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant into Afghanistan with fighting between ISIL and the Taliban. Afghan forces, Shoffner said, have ‘definitely been tested this fighting season, but they’re holding their own and they have demonstrated their courage and resilience. Every day we see the remarkable men and women of the Afghan security forces, all of whom are volunteers, continuing to put their lives on the line to protect their people and their country.’”
Al-Zawahiri allies with Mullah Akhtar Mansour. Afghan Zariza reports, “Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has pledged the group’s allegiance to the new supreme leader of Afghan Taliban, Mullah Akhtar Mansour. In an audio statement posted online, Zawahiri said the group welcomes the appointment of Mullah Mansour as the successor of Mullah Mohammad Omar. The Al-Qaeda leader, who is wanted by the U.S. government, is believed to be hiding in the mountainous region near Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The endorsement from Zawahiri, who was considered close to the former Taliban supremo, comes amid the leadership struggle in the Taliban.” See also, “Clash among Taliban militants over Mullah Mansoor leaves 15 dead in Herat.”
CONTRACT WATCH
JSTARS Junior. Military & Aerospace Electronics Editor John Keller reports, “Three U.S. defense prime contractors are moving forward with a cost-cutting program to redesign the sophisticated ground-monitoring radar system of the U.S. Air Force Joint Surveillance and Attack Radar System (Joint STARS) for a business jet or other relatively small aircraft. The idea is to package the Joint STARS synthetic aperture radar (SAR) ground moving target indicator (GMTI) onto an aircraft smaller than the Boeing 707 jetliner aircraft on which the system is housed today.”
Insider threat monitoring. FierceGovernmentIT’s Molly Bernhart Walker reports, “The Air Force is seeking commercial information technology to help it better monitor its networks for insider threats. The product will be a key component to the development of its Insider Threat Program, according to a solicitation posted by the service Aug. 11. Air Force wants the contractor to develop a ‘hub’ that will serve as a ‘fusion’ center where IT staff will be able to view an array for threat data and differentiate possible, internal bad actors from behavioral indicators. The location, role and business rules associated with the hub must be designed with privacy, civil or medical rights of Air Force personnel in mind, says the solicitation.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
NSA startups. Financial Times’ Hannah Kuchler reports, “Skilled engineers charged with tracking weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, US government-backed cyber attackers and even the general who led the National Security Agency have all left the organisation to launch their own cyber security start-ups. Many former NSA employees are building businesses to protect the private sector from cyber attack, using their experience at probably the most sophisticated cyber organisation in the world to lure customers and investors.”
Security breach. AP’s Bradley Klapper and Ken Dilanian report, “The two emails on Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private server that an auditor deemed ‘top secret’ include a discussion of a news article detailing a U.S. drone operation and a separate conversation that could point back to highly classified material in an improper manner or merely reflect information collected independently . . . . the inspector general for the 17 spy agencies that make up what is known as the intelligence community told Congress that two of 40 emails in a random sample of the 30,000 emails Clinton gave the State Department for review contained information deemed ‘Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information,’ one of the government’s highest levels of classification. The two emails were marked classified after consultations with the CIA, which is where the material originated . . . .”
Bad browsers. Homeland Security News Wire reports, “Georgia Tech researchers developed a new cyber security analysis method which discovered eleven previously unknown Internet browser security flaws, and were honored with the Internet Defense Prize, an award offered by Facebook in partnership with USENIX, at the 24th USENIX Security Symposium. Their research explores vulnerabilities in C++ programs (such as Chrome and Firefox) which result from ‘bad casting’ or ‘type confusion.’ Bad casting enables an attacker to corrupt the memory in a browser so that it follows a malicious logic instead of proper instructions.”
Very loud things. Defense One’s Patrick Tucker reports, “Laser-Induced Plasma Effect, or LIPE, a weapon that the U.S. military hopes to begin testing in coming months . . . . is the brainchild of the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program, a group tasked with inventing better options for crowd control and checkpoint security. The noise comes from a unique manipulation of matter and energy to produce loud sounds at specific target locations, sort of like an incredibly precise missile of noise. Here’s how it works . . . .”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
Fight for the Senate. “President Obama and his allies are working overtime to kill a resolution disapproving the Iran nuclear deal in the Senate, in what would be a major victory for the White House. The measure, which is certain to be approved by the GOP-led House in September, needs 60 votes in the Senate to break a filibuster and reach Obama’s desk. If it gets to Obama, it will be vetoed . . . . But make no mistake. The White House doesn’t want the measure to get that far, and if it does, it will be a victory for Republicans.”
Tortured. “Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on Thursday declined to rule out ever returning to so-called ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ that have widely been condemned as torture. . . . ‘God knows what the next president is going to have to do,’ he added . . . .”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
“An Iraq Combat Vet Looks at the Iran Deal.” Defense One contributor Michael Breen argues, “If Congress endorses this diplomatic victory, we will have stopped Iran’s nuclear program without risking American lives, while preserving the military option if they cheat in the future. Given the sacrifice war would require, I believe we should exhaust every other option first and ensure that if war comes, it is Iran’s responsibility alone.”
“Why it’s impossible to hide nuclear work in 24 days – or 24 years.” Reuters’ contributor Yousaf Butt argues, “Twenty-nine top U.S. scientists — including Nobel Prize winners, senior experts in arms control and former White House science advisers – wrote to President Barack Obama this past weekend to praise the Iran deal. They called it ‘technically sound, stringent and innovative.’ Instead of listening to the complaints about the 24-day meme, Congress should pay heed to these experts.”
“Assistive Intelligence is the Future.” Fast Company contributor Om Malik argues, “As more and more of our existence intersects with the digital domain, humans are undoubtedly going to need even more help.”
