FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
Choice Act GI Bill. Contributor Ron Kness explains, “In August 2014, President Obama signed into law the Veterans Access Choice and Accountability Act. Part of the Act mandated that public post-secondary schools must charge non-resident veterans within three years of their discharge date and family members with GI Bill benefits, the same tuition rate as residents of their state. If they didn’t, the school would no longer be approved by the VA to enroll veterans into their education programs. . . . While the broad brush stroke of the law seemed somewhat straightforward . . . one finds a number of exceptions inside of it.”
CAC denial. Contributor Sean Bigley writes, “As a recent ClearanceJobs.com article referenced, the Department of Defense is now providing Common Access Card (CAC) holders the same measure of due process afforded to security clearance applicants – namely, the right to appeal a denial in most cases. If you have applied for a CAC and received such a denial, here is what you need to know . . . .”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
Russia’s airspace problems. Homeland Security News Wire reports, “Israel defense minister, Moshe Ya’alon, on Sunday told reporters that a Russian jet recently entered Israeli airspace but was not shot down because Israel and Russia had established an effective open communication system between the two countries. Ya’alon said the plane, by mistake, entered about one mile into Israeli airspace and immediately turned around back to Syria when the Russians were notified.” See also, “Russia Slaps Economic Sanctions on Turkey” and “Russia’s official versions of jet shoot down scientifically impossible.”
Brits thwart attacks. The Long War Journal’s Thomas Joscelyn reports, “Britain’s police and security services have ‘disrupted no fewer than 7 terrorist plots to attack the UK’ in the past 12 months, all of which ‘were either linked to’ the Islamic State or ‘inspired’ by the group’s propaganda, according to British Prime Minister David Cameron. The terrorist threat has grown in recent months because the Islamic State ‘has a dedicated external operations structure in Syria, which is planning mass casualty attacks around the world.’”
Israel’s unmanned future. Defense News’ Barbara Opall-Rome reports, “Israel’s Ministry of Defense is eyeing new autonomous operating concepts and a spectrum of unmanned air, ground and sea systems, several of which could become functional within a decade. In a rare public presentation earlier this month, Brig. Gen. Nir Halamish, head of the military research and development unit of the Ministry’s MAFAT Research and Development Bureau, outlined Israel’s unmanned vehicles blueprint through 2025.”
CONTRACT WATCH
Defense contracting dip. Government Executive’s Charles S. Clark reports, “Governmentwide spending on defense and civilian contracting risks being pinched over the next five years by growing mandatory spending on entitlements, according to industry research . . . . Though the overall federal budget will rise from current $3.9 trillion to $6.2 trillion in 2025, the defense portion is projected to fall from 15 percent to 11 percent of that total . . . .”
Sundance single-board computers. Military & Aerospace Electronics Editor John Keller reports, “Sundance Multiprocessor Technology Ltd. in Chesham, England, is introducing the rugged VF360 conduction-cooled 3U OpenVPX single-board computer for military communications and similar embedded computing applications. The board combines a floating point digital signal processor (DSP) from Texas Instruments with I/O interfaces for processing real-world data.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
Encryption in context. Nextgov contributor John Breeden II writes, “The ability to encrypt and use cyphers to hide messages from unauthorized readers goes back at least as far as Roman times, when notes were written on leather strips wound around a pole of a certain diameter. To reassemble the message once the leather was unwound, the exact size pole needed to be employed on the other end. Over the years, hundreds of manual forms of encryption and an almost unlimited number of codes have been created to protect information. In fact, of the few ancient technologies still being used today, probably only encryption still carries such controversy.”
NSA bulk collection ends. NPR’s Eyder Peralta reports, “A controversial government surveillance program has come to an end. As of midnight, the United States National Security Agency has stopped the bulk collection of the metadata from Americans’ phone calls. . . . The law still gives the U.S. government access to the information. Except, the massive database of call records now remains with service providers and the government can seek court orders to access specific records.”
Hacking made in China. Reuters’ Clare Baldwin, James Pomfret, and Jeremy Wagstaff report, “Almost a year after students ended pro-democracy street protests in Hong Kong, they face an online battle against what Western security experts say are China-sponsored hackers using techniques rarely seen elsewhere. Hackers have expanded their attacks to parking malware on popular file-sharing services including Dropbox and Google Drive (GOOGL.O) to trap victims into downloading infected files and compromising sensitive information. They also use more sophisticated tactics, honing in on specific targets through so-called ‘white lists’ that only infect certain visitors to compromised websites.”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
Tick tock. “The clock is ticking for Congress to move a government spending bill by the end of next week to avoid a shutdown. A major flashpoint emerging for the catch-all spending bill, known as the omnibus, is the continuation of the Obama administration’s refugee resettlement program in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Paris.”
Cold feet. “Some Democratic strategists are starting to worry that President Obama’s opposition to a recently passed House bill regarding Syrian refugees, and his refusal to change his policy for fighting the Islamic State, could hurt Democratic lawmakers and congressional candidates in next year’s elections. ‘It’s never good for Democrats when they’re on the defensive on national security and terrorism-related issues’ . . . .”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
“The scariest thing about Islamic State? Its kinder, gentler side.” Reuters contributor Jacqueline Lopour argues, “The international coalition against Islamic State invests significant resources to counter the group’s negative propaganda, but not enough attention is paid to debunking the group’s positive messages. Now is the time to address this problem. In just a couple of years, it may be too late.”
“Syria, Yemen, Libya — one factor unites these failed states, and it isn’t religion.” Reuters contributor Jack Goldstone argues, “Terrorism thrives among weak and failed states, and among displaced people. If we are to reduce both in the future, we need to make sure that our climate does not further deteriorate. If we fail to prevent continued global warming, the rise in political temperature may far outstrip the warming of the weather outside.”
“Downing of a Russian Jet: Where do we go from here?” European Leadership Network’s Łukasz Kulesa and Thomas Frear argue, “The Russo-Turkish incident has brought into sharp focus the lack of standardised procedures for dealing with scenarios where Russian and NATO and NATO partner military units come into close contact with one another.”
