Tunnel Rat, Defining Cyber Spying, and the Next Medal of Honor

Humph Day Highlights & Good Luck Cali-Chrome

FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM

1. Change the world: make your bed. During a commencement address last week college graduates at the University of Texas at Austin got to hear from 1977 UT grad Adm. Bill McRaven. A low-key leader from the military special operations set, he delivered a set of ten tips for changing the world that he learned in SEAL training. It’s good advice for anyone – college grad or job seeker, “If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the big things right. And, if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made—that you made—and a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better.”

2. Background Investigation Fraud. Contributor Chandler Harris reports, “A decade ago OPM struggled with processing more than 350,000 open background-investigation reports. In 2004 Congress passed a law that required the OPM to process 90 percent of cases within 60 days, which set a deadline of 40 days for investigation and 20 days closing the case. Due to improvements in background investigations over the past few years, the Government Accountability Office removed security clearances from its High Risk List in 2011.”

THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT

1. Aleppo’s tunnel rat. TheGuardian.Com’s Martin Chulov reports, “The most wanted man in Aleppo is feeling satisfied. Less than a week before, he had helped pack the last of 25 tonnes of explosives into a tunnel dug under a hotel and filled with Syrian troops. . . . Assad chose to reveal himself to the Guardian as the leader of Aleppo’s tunnellers. He claimed not to be bothered by the fact that showing his face would give an already furious military even more reason to hunt him down. ‘I want them to be scared of me . . . . They need to know I am coming for them.’”

2. Ending the endless war. HuffingtonPost.Com’s Michael McAuliff reports, “When Congress granted President George W. Bush authority to go to war against the perpetrators of 9/11 and their supporters shortly after the 2001 attacks, most lawmakers probably didn’t think that amounted to a blank check for endless war. . . . Some lawmakers tried last year to repeal or update the law, but failed, even as President Barack Obama pushed Congress to make revisions.”

3. Afghanistan’s amends with the West. Reuters’ Jessica Donati reports, “The frontrunner in Afghanistan’s presidential race, Abdullah Abdullah, has promised to rescue the ailing economy by healing a rift with the West and passing laws to tackle corruption and money laundering to reassure hesitant foreign donors. . . . the former doctor turned Soviet resistance fighter pledged to sign deals allowing U.S. and NATO forces to stay beyond 2014 within his first month in office.”

4. Next Medal of Honor. Washington Post’s Dan Lamothe reports, “Cpl. William Kyle Carpenter doesn’t remember much about the day he and a fellow Marine were caught in the blast of a hand grenade in southern Afghanistan while manning a rooftop security post. There was almost no time to react before the explosion tore into him in a searing, angry ball of white light.”

CONTRACT WATCH

1. $100 million oops. GovExec.Com’s Charles S. Clark reports, “Two major contractors working on an Army counter-narco-terrorism project used unqualified labor and overbilled the government by nearly $100 million, according to a leaked version of a Pentagon inspector general report. Prime contractor Northrop Grumman and subcontractor DynCorp overcharged the government anywhere from $91 million to $123 million from 2007 to 2013 while working for the Army’s Counter Narco-terrorism Technology Program Office.”

2. Consolidating space industries. DefenseNews.Com contributor Aaron Mehta reports, “In the defense industry’s ideal world, budget dollars would flow like Niagara Falls—quick and heavy. . . . While the budget situation has led to new opportunities for companies, it could also set up consolidation in the industry. The first domino fell in early May, when Orbital and ATK announced a merger agreement, and executives on the panel openly wondered whether more could come.”

TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY

1. Redefining Cyber-spying. NextGov.Com’s Gwynn Guilford reports, “Duncan Hollis, professor and associate dean at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law, says [DoJ’s] move [against China] highlights the question of whether some types of cyberspying are worse than others—a touchy debate for Washington in the wake of Edward Snowden’s revelations about rampant US government spying.”

2. Anybody’s battlefield. MilitaryAerospace.Com’s John Keller reports, “Since the first Gulf War in 1990, the most formidable threats that U.S. military forces have faced were of the unconventional kind — roadside bombs, hit-and-run guerilla attacks, and surprise terrorist incidents. There’s been little experience against modern military threats involving sophisticated technology. . . . military leaders are preparing for future battlefields with sophisticated threats. It’s good to see the generals and admirals might be on their toes after all.”

3. Data—cyberwarfare’s Holy Grail. FederalTimes.Com’s Aaron Mehta reports, “As the Pentagon looks toward the future of cyber warfare, it needs to ensure its data remains protected from outside sources during military operations . . . . With growing Air Force reliance on high-tech precision weaponry and automated systems, protecting the integrity of the targeting data coming into the system is vital . . . .”

POTOMAC TWO-STEP

1. Benghazi: “House Republicans on the Benghazi select committee aren’t waiting for Democrats to make up their mind about joining, moving quickly to exercise the panel’s expanded powers to review evidence. While Democrats still mull whether to fill the five slots reserved for them, the seven Republicans appointed by House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, are scheduled to convene later this week for what a House GOP aide described Monday as an ‘organizational’ meeting.”

2. Operation Moonlight: “Two Secret Service officials responsible for diverting members of a special White House unit to protect the assistant and friend of the agency’s director are still on the job and have not been placed on administrative leave while the matter is under investigation . . . . The agents were diverted to their new assignment, known internally as Operation Moonlight, because then-Director Mark Sullivan was worried that a neighbor was harassing his assistant, Lisa Chopey, and that she was in danger, the sources said. Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan would not say whether Beach and Donaldson are continuing to work while the Department for Homeland Security’s inspector general investigates the matter.”

OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS

1. “China, Iran and Russia: Restructuring the global order.” Aljazeera.Com contributor Seyed Mohammad Marandi argues, “Economic warfare against another major power will force emerging economic powerhouses to seriously think about the future of global financial and communications systems as well as the immediate need to enhance cooperation and to restructure the global political and economic order.”

2. “Daily life in North Korea.” Aljazeera.Com contributor Andrei Lankov explains, “Over the last 15-20 years, the dramatic growth of the semi-official market economy has changed North Korean life in many regards. Old regulations are no longer enforced as they once were because those who are charged with keeping people in check have little reason to be tough. . . . However, for nearly half a century the system worked with remarkable efficiency, ensuring that there was no resistance in North Korea, despite the regime’s remarkable economic and political inefficiency.”

3. “China’s progress is not in theft of trade secrets.” Christian Science Monitor’s Editorial Board argues, “The world’s second largest economy can shift away from being a copycat of technology if it sees progress as based on a constant flow of new ideas available to those able to uncover them. Innovation cannot be hacked. It requires a culture in which individual creativity and the breaking of mental bounds are nurtured through freedom and protected by rule of law.”