Hump Day Highlights

FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM

Good old fashioned espionage. “In the past year we have heard of innumerable breaches and compromises of information via technology – the OPM breach being a prime example. Yet espionage, the old fashioned form of espionage, human intelligence (HUMINT) has not gone by the wayside. Indeed, the United States remains a target of interest by both allies and potential adversaries.”

Cleared campaign season 2016. “Security clearances have played an oddly large role in the 2016 election season—perhaps because so many of our candidates would never survive a proper vetting, or manage to get through an SF-86 without lying on one block or another. . . . Moreover, candidates seeking office at all levels are using their past or present clearances as a kind of Government-certification of non-criminality.”

THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT

Quiet US Special Ops work in Paktika, Afghanistan. “US Special Operations Forces and Afghan Commandos rescued Ali Haider Gilani, the son of Pakistan’s former prime minister, in a joint raid . . . . The operation took place in Afghanistan’s eastern Paktika province, a known hotbed for the Haqqani Network and al Qaeda. Al Qaeda operated a camp in Paktika as of the summer of 2015, and one of its top leaders was killed in an airstrike there as well. . . . “ (The Long War Journal) See also, “Hostage Rescue in Afghanistan Draws Praise From Carter.”

Sinjar Resistance Units—teaming to fight ISIS in Syria. “They share little more than an enemy and struggle to communicate on the battlefield, but together two relatively obscure groups have opened up a new front against Islamic State militants in a remote corner of Iraq. The unlikely alliance between an offshoot of a leftist Kurdish organization and an Arab tribal militia in northern Iraq is a measure of the extent to which Islamic State has upended the regional order.” (Reuters)

ISIS strikes Sadr City hard. “An explosives-laden car bomb ripped through a commercial area in a predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad on Wednesday, killing at least 29 people and wounding dozens in an attack that was swiftly claimed by the extremist Islamic State group. . . . While IS has suffered a number of territorial defeats in the past year, the militants are still capable of launching significant attacks across the country, and have recently stepped-up assaults inside Baghdad . . . .” (AP)

CONTRACT WATCH

SOCOM’s SOFWERX: buy anything. “US Special Operations Command is trying to break down barriers in the acquisition process through a collaborative exchange it calls SOFWERX. The program is in its infancy, having started just six months ago, but already the collaboration between SOCOM, industry and academia is taking off running . . . . The program plays on a few of SOCOM’s strengths. One is that special operations forces by nature are ‘very networked’ and SOFWERX creates a network of collaborators. The second strength is SOCOM’s already very agile and rapid acquisition process.” (Defense News)

Raytheon selling TOW to Jordan. “Jordan’s Ministry of Defence has signed an agreement with the U.S. Department of Defense to acquire tube-launched, optically tracked, wireless-guided, or TOW, missiles made by Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN). Raytheon will begin deliveries this year. . . . TOW is in service in more than 40 international armed forces and integrated on more than 15,000 ground, vehicle and helicopter platforms worldwide.” (Defence Talk)

Boeing selling Poseidon to Brits. “The United Kingdom is poised to place an order for P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft made by Boeing Co., according to a news report. The British government is expected this summer to sign a more than $3 billion contract for nine of the submarine hunters . . . . The agreement has long been in the works. The U.S. Defense Department earlier this year notified Congress of the proposal — and company officials hinted at ongoing discussions in recent years.” (DoD Buzz)

TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY

DNI Clapper on the Middle East and the wider world. “Clapper, 75, has worked in intelligence for 53 years, starting when he joined the Air Force in 1963. He’s a crusty, sometimes cranky veteran of the ingrown spy world, and he has a perspective that’s probably unmatched in Washington. He offered some surprisingly candid comments — starting with a frank endorsement of President Obama’s view that the United States can’t unilaterally fix the Middle East.” (Washington Post)

Reauthorizing NSA’s PRISM and Upstream. “The Senate Judiciary Committee summoned a handful of cybersecurity, privacy, and national security experts on Tuesday to lay out the pros and cons of reauthorizing the law the NSA says authorizes it to collect hundreds of millions of online communications from providers like Facebook and Google as well as straight off the internet’s backbone.” (The Intercept)

Global Positioning System—vulnerabilities and protection. “The highly trained military personnel with Air Force Space Command protect the 31 satellites the US relies on to provide access to terrestrial navigation. Their office is the control center for the Global Positioning System (GPS) that some 4 billion people around the world use daily, making it possibly the largest humanitarian service provided by any one nation.” (The Christian Science Monitor)

Army’s Active Protection System project. “The Army is fast-tracking an emerging technology which gives combat vehicles an opportunity identify, track and destroy approaching enemy rocket-propelled grenades in a matter of milliseconds . . . . Called Active Protection Systems, or APS, the technology uses sensors and radar, computer processing, fire control technology and interceptors to find, target and knock down or intercept incoming enemy fire such as RPGs and Anti-Tank Guided Missiles, or ATGMs.” (The National Interest)

POTOMAC TWO-STEP

Cruz’ing back to Congress. “Cruz’s return to the Senate, where he has not cast a vote since February, came one week after he ripped Trump as an ‘utterly amoral’ pathological liar, narcissist and bully. Later that night, Trump soundly defeated the Texan in Indiana’s primary, a loss that Cruz said cut off any path he had toward the GOP nomination. Overall, however, Cruz’s fight for the GOP [not] appeared to lift his stature in the party.”

Inside the shell: incidental support. “While avoiding saying Donald Trump’s name out loud, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters Tuesday on Capitol Hill that ‘the early indications are that our nominee is likely to be very competitive.’ ‘We know that Hillary Clinton will be four more years of Barack Obama. I think that’s in the end going to be enough to unify Republicans across the country,’ McConnell said in a press conference after the GOP caucus lunch, the first official gathering of Republican senators since Trump emerged as the party’s presumptive presidential nominee.”

OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS

Madison at Fort Meade: Checks, Balances, and the NSA.” “While the intelligence community might have to make minor adjustments, a diligent public advocate would not stifle the enterprise and ingenuity that we expect these agencies to show in ‘the common defence.’ . . . [W]orking within a framework of rules to accomplish this goal is integral to the NSA’s mission.” (Lawfare)

Observations On Global Military Posture.” “The next secretary of defense would do well to see defense posture as more than an extensive map of real estate agreements and instead devote time to understanding and refining this global system. There are a few interrelated characteristics of the American way of war that help to illustrate why global posture is so important.” (War on the Rocks)

Joint Committee on Human Rights Publishes Drone Report.” “UK Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights has just published its report on the British Government’s policy on the use of drones for targeted killing. The report is the outcome of an inquiry launched by the Joint Committee in October 2015. . . . The purpose of the Joint Committee’s inquiry was to shed further light on the Government’s policy of conducting drone strikes and on the legal framework governing the use of lethal force in such circumstances.” (Lawfare)

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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.