FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
Learn more about Fulcrum jobs. Editor Lindy Kyzer reports, “Fulcrum got its start as an Information Technology company, but over the past several years its mission – and its available job opportunities – have expanded. ‘Fulcrum is an IT company – and more’ . . . . Current openings range from enterprise architect to accountant. And because Fulcrum is a mid-sized company with room to grow, new contracts frequently become available, giving both new and existing talent the opportunity to pursue emerging opportunities doing cutting-edge work.”
Investigation standards revisited. Contributor William Henderson writes, “Speculation continues as to the creation of a new agency to oversee the security clearance process. And while efforts to reform the Federal Investigative Standards have been underway for more than five years, it seems clear any changes are not meeting the intent of improving the quality or standards applied to investigations. Below are some notable anomalies in the 2012 FIS and in its implementation . . . .”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
New normal: jihad. The National Interest contributor Bruce Hoffman writes, “The threat posed by ISIS has previously been dismissed—often with dire consequences. Less than six months after President Obama denigrated ISIS as a second-rate security concern, for example, the group’s fighters stormed into Iraq, conquered half that country, resurrected the caliphate, declared a state and set about slaughtering and enslaving thousands of Christians, Shia and members of other minority sects.” See also, “Radicalization is becoming more complex.”
The grid is breached. AP’s Garance Burke and Jonathan Fahey report, “Security researcher Brian Wallace was on the trail of hackers who had snatched a California university’s housing files when he stumbled into a larger nightmare: Cyberattackers had opened a pathway into the networks running the United States’ power grid. Digital clues pointed to Iranian hackers. And Wallace found that they had already taken passwords, as well as engineering drawings of dozens of power plants . . . .”
Losing Helmand. Reuters’ Mirwais Harooni reports, “Afghanistan’s Helmand province could fall to the Taliban after months of heavy fighting, with 90 members of the security forces killed over the past two days, the deputy governor of the volatile southern province warned on Sunday. Mohammad Jan Rasulyar said unless President Ashraf Ghani took urgent action, the province, a center of opium production and a Taliban heartland that British and American troops struggled to control for years, would be lost.” See also, “Afghanistan Mission Remains a Top Priority.”
Security in 2016. The Atlantic’s Uri Friedman reports, “President Obama may believe America’s future lies in Asia, but the Middle East endures as the capital of American preoccupation. . . . ‘Of the eleven contingencies classified as Tier 1 priorities, all but three are related to events unfolding’ in the Mideast. Several stem from the Syrian Civil War. . . .” See also, “Defense News TV: What To Expect for 2016.”
CONTRACT WATCH
Spec Ops’ agile development. Nextgov’s Mohana Ravindranath reports, “The Special Operations Command is researching vendors comfortable with iterative development methodologies who can use open source software or customize commercially available software for SOCOM purposes. Ultimately, Special Ops wants companies who can visualize the data ‘so that results and tools can be quickly and intuitively understood by key frontline decision makers and analysts’ . . . .”
Seeker sans GPS. Military & Aerospace Electronics Editor John Keller reports, “Munitions experts at Lockheed Martin Corp. are developing a small, lightweight weapon seeker prototype to enable smart munitions to engage moving and relocatable targets during the day and at night in contested environments where Global Positioning system (GPS) satellite navigation may be unavailable. Officials of the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory Munitions Directorate at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., announced an $8.2 million contract Thursday to the Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control segment in Orlando, Fla., for this experimental seeker work.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
Cyber-scared. Wired’s Mike Gault writes, “If you want to keep yourself up at night, spend some time reading about the latest developments in cybersecurity. Airplanes hacked, cars hacked, vulnerabilities in a breathtaking range of sensitive equipment from TSA locks to voting booths to medical devices. The big picture is even scarier. Former NSA Director Mike McConnell suspects China has hacked ‘every major corporation’ in the US. Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks revealed the US government has its own national and international hacking to account for.”
Cyber-bill. Nextgov’s Jack Moore reports, “There are 423 references to ‘cyber’ in the 2,000 page bill. That’s largely because, subsumed in the annual funding measure is the 2015 Cybersecurity Act, a modified version of long-awaited cybersecurity information sharing legislation. The cyber provisions make it easier for companies to share cyberthreat information with the government and sets up the Department of Homeland Security as the main portal through which the tips will be processed.” See also, “Cyber Bill Boosts.”
Spy gadgets. The Intercept’s Jeremy Scahill and Margot Williams report, “The Intercept has obtained a secret, internal U.S. government catalogue of dozens of cellphone surveillance devices used by the military and by intelligence agencies. The document, thick with previously undisclosed information, also offers rare insight into the spying capabilities of federal law enforcement and local police inside the United States.” Shop the catalogue.
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
Thanks, J.B. “The catch-all spending package that President Obama signed Friday afternoon wouldn’t have been possible without former House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, Obama said. ‘John Boehner did a favor to all of us’ by negotiating the budget framework that led to the omnibus appropriations bill that Congress approved this week, Obama said at the White House. ‘He was able to do that because he was going out the door,’ Obama said about Boehner.”
Scandalous. “The revelations that a senior Sanders campaign staffer — and potentially several others — had breached Clinton’s proprietary voter files set Washington abuzz Friday, with the Democratic National Committee cutting off Sanders’ access to his entire voter database in response. The Sanders team called the move an overreaction that proved the party was favoring Clinton and took the matter to court Friday afternoon before the DNC ultimately allowed Sanders to regain access to his data.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
“Preserving American Power After Obama.” The National Interest contributor Gideon Rachman argues, “President Obama should not abandon his innate caution by plunging deeper into the Syrian morass. Over the long run, greater caution and deliberation before taking military action need not detract from American credibility. On the contrary, they may help to preserve it.”
“What Is America Fighting For?” The Atlantic’s Larry Diamond argues, “In the battle against Islamic terrorism, there is nothing that will strengthen the country more than to affirm that Americans are all in this fight together, equally, irrespective of race, religion, or class.”
“Transparent about failure.” Fast Company contributor Mark Lukens writes, “[T]here’s one dimension to transparency that makes even the most proactively open companies flinch: failure. But while it’s understandable that organizations don’t always want to publicize their screw-ups, those are often the things they should be transparent about the most.”
