Hump Day Highlights & R.I.P. CIA’s Vint Lawrence

FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM

Cover letters. Contributor Julie Mendez: “The purpose of your resume is to get them to pick up the phone and give you a call. The purpose of the cover letter is to get them to read your resume. Your cover letter is your 30-second commercial (or elevator speech), your hard-core sales pitch. We need to get them interested and get them to flip the page and read your excellent resume.”

Career transitions. Contributor Chandler Harris: “There are numerous signs that may pop up suggesting you need to make a career change. You may simply not like your job. Or, more subtly, you are chronically worn out, exhausted and depleted; your skills, responsibilities, and tasks don’t seem to fit you anymore; your salary doesn’t compensate . . . .”

THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT

The holy warrior. The Beast’s Will Cathcart, Vazha Tavberidze, and Nino Burchuladze tell the tale: “The mother of martyrs, a woman in her fifties, is delicately beautiful and visibly in pain. . . . The mother’s story involves one of the most notorious jihadists in the world, a man who served in intelligence units trained by Americans and the British, a man who is the face of the ISIS conquests, and a man who took her late son’s wife for his own bride.” See also, “Does the removal of top jihadists weaken ISIL?” and “Survey Says Most Arab Youth Reject the Islamic State and Think It Will Fail.”

With the Peshmerga. War on the Rocks contributors Mark Cancian and Matthew Cancian report, “When ISIL first attacked in 2014, it was able to push the Peshmerga back. Some reports claimed that occurred because the commanders came from a younger generation that had not spent years fighting in the mountains. So the Kurds brought back some of the older commanders who were able to stabilize the front and then push ISIL back over time. This commander certainly looked the part . . . .”

ISIS finance factor. The New York Times’ Matthew Rosenberg, Helene Cooper and Nicholas Kulish report, “Instead of engaging a pseudo-state in the Middle East whose fighters have proved susceptible to American airpower, the United States and its European allies must now also engage in a far more complex struggle against homegrown militants who need relatively few resources to sow bloodshed in the West.”

Boko Haram’s suicide girls. The Christian Science Monitor’s Josh Kenworthy reports, “As Boko Haram sharply boosts its use of girls as suicide bombers, it may be revealing a growing vulnerability to military pressure . . . . Boko Haram may be deploying children against soft targets like local markets because the international coalition spearheaded by Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has become a harder target, and has had some success in liberating territory as well as captive women and children.”

Profile: Gen. John Hyten. Defense One’s Marcus Weisgerber reports, “Gen. John Hyten’s office is 7,000 miles from the battlefields of Iraq and Syria, but the men and women he commands help guide just about every bomb dropped on an Islamic State target. Still, it’s another theater entirely that worries the head of Air Force Space Command — and top Pentagon leaders.”

Drone base expansion. DoD Buzz’s Brendan McGarry reports, “The U.S. Air Force may add more bases in the U.S. for crews to fly the MQ-9 Reaper drone. . . . The Air Force said it plans to review sites in the continental U.S., Alaska and Hawaii that don’t already host MQ-9s . . . .”

CONTRACT WATCH

Cybersecurity vehicle. Federal Times’ Aaron Boyd reports, “There are a number of contract vehicles available to federal agencies looking for cybersecurity tools but few that offer services like penetration testing and phishing assessments. The General Services Administration wants to build just such a contract and is asking agencies and industry how such a vehicle should be structured.”

Clearances and social media. Nextgov’s Jack Moore reports, “The Office of Personnel Management is preparing for a pilot program to automatically track public social media postings of people applying for security clearances. OPM is conducting market research to find companies that can perform automated social media tracking and other types of Web crawling as part of the background investigation process, according to an April 8 request for information posted online. Responses from interested companies are due by April 15.”

Pratt & Whitney engine win. Defense News’ Aaron Mehta reports, “The Pentagon has reached an agreement with Pratt & Whitney for the ninth low rate initial production (LRIP) lot of F135 engines, which power the F-35 joint strike fighter. The agreement, worth an estimated $1.4 billion over the life of the production lot, covers 66 engines, as well as spares, extra parts, and support from the Connecticut-based engine manufacturer.”

TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY

Technology and terrorists. Homeland Security News Wire reports, “In a special issue of the Journal of Strategic Security, experts explore the threat of violent non-state actors (VNSAs) exploiting emerging technologies and executing complex engineering operations to facilitate their violent and criminal activities.” Read The Journal of Strategic Security’s “Designing Danger: Complex Engineering by Violent Non-State Actors.”

NSA Transparency Officer. The Washington Times’ Andrea Noble reports, “The National Security Agency has appointed its first transparency officer — three years after leaks made by former contractor Edward Snowden exposed the agency’s surveillance programs and led to calls for increased public disclosures. Rebecca Richards, who already serves as director of the NSA’s Civil Liberties and Privacy, will take on the dual role as the agency’s transparency officer.” See also, “FOIA Changes Could Shield Pentagon Documents on Torture, Contractor Abuse.”

Qbot spreading. FierceGovernmentIT’s Fred Donovan reports, “Cybercriminals are using a new and improved Qbot malware to infect governments and other public organizations, such as law enforcement agencies and universities, in the United States and other countries . . . . Qbot, also known as Qakbot, is able to set up backdoors in networks and steal credentials and other confidential data from organizations.”

POTOMAC TWO-STEP

Not doing it. “House Speaker Paul Ryan’s national stature is such that he had to call a news conference to deny he wants to be president. Back on Capitol Hill, he’s about to blow through a statutory deadline to pass an annual budget, a major embarrassment for him and House Republicans.”

End of something. “Once upon a time, Dennis Hastert looked forward to being the longest-serving Republican speaker of the House of Representatives. Today, he is more likely to be remembered for his reclining chair. As a document filed in federal court in Illinois recently puts it, as a high school wrestling coach, Hastert ‘put a ‘Lazyboy’-type chair in direct view of the shower stalls in the locker room where he sat while the boys showered.’”

OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS

Why China’s latest power play may roil Russia.” Reuters contributor Peter Marino argues, “Russia, China and the United States often need each other as much as they distrust each other in foreign policy. For that reason, they may choose not to square off in Central Asia — at least for now.”

How to Turn The Heat Down in the South China Sea.” Defense One contributor Michael Fuchs argues, “Washington must provide Beijing (and vice versa) with a much more frank understanding about its security posture in the South China Sea. The U.S. must make clear that it will take steps to protect its interests in the area, including by strengthening its defense posture.” See also, “China slams G7 statement on maritime disputes.”

Working On An Underperforming Team.” Fast Company contributor Art Markman writes, “In the workplace, teams that fail usually bring everyone down with them. But there are a few ways to survive that fallout, or at least minimize its impact on your own career.”

THE FUNNIES

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Ed Ledford enjoys the most challenging, complex, and high stakes communications requirements. His portfolio includes everything from policy and strategy to poetry. A native of Asheville, N.C., and retired Army Aviator, Ed’s currently writing speeches in D.C. and working other writing projects from his office in Rockville, MD. He loves baseball and enjoys hiking, camping, and exploring anything. Follow Ed on Twitter @ECLedford.