FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
1. Taking on JPAS reports. Contributor Sean Bigley advises, “Once you know exactly what was reported about you, consider seeking expert help on steps you can take to proactively mitigate the issue before any reinvestigation is triggered and/or before the government issues a Letter of Intent to revoke your security clearance. In some cases, it may also be worth reaching out to the government to provide additional information that could help adjudicators resolve your case without the need for any new investigation.”
2. Jobs: getting back to leading. Contributor David Brown offers, “Regardless of whether you were an infantryman or a spy, a computer specialist or an accounting lead, if you have the clearance and the fire, these jobs are waiting for you. None involve carrying a gun, but all require the skills you learned in the military or intelligence community. You’re a leader, and that’s what you should be doing: leading.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. Blackhawk down in Florida. AP’s Melissa Nelson-Gabriel reports, “Seven Marines and four soldiers were missing early Wednesday after an Army helicopter crashed during a night training exercise at Eglin Air Force Base in the Florida Panhandle. . . . The helicopter was reported missing around 8:30 p.m. Tuesday and search and rescue crews found debris from the crash around 2 a.m. Wednesday . . . .”
2. Stronger diplomacy, foreign policy. Christian Science Monitor’s Howard LaFranchi reports, “After flirting with the idea of stopping the world and getting off – or at least of shutting out the world’s problems and turning inward – Americans in recent months have shifted to favor a more robust United States foreign policy and a tougher stance from President Obama toward international threats. . . . All this taken together suggests that an America increasingly confident about its economic position and gradually putting Iraq and Afghanistan in the rearview mirror wants a stronger US role in global affairs. But it’s not simply a renewed taste for intervention, some experts say. It’s a support for practical, if hard-nosed, diplomacy that can deliver results.”
3. Taking back Tikrit, yard by yard. Reuters’ Thaier Al-Sudani reports from al-Alam, Iraq, “Iraqi troops and militias drove Islamic State insurgents out of the town of al-Alam on Tuesday, clearing a final hurdle before a planned assault on Saddam Hussein’s home city of Tikrit in their biggest offensive yet against the ultra-radical group. The power base of executed former president Saddam’s clan, Tikrit is the focus of a counter-offensive against Islamic State by more than 20,000 troops and Shi’ite Muslim militias known as Hashid Shaabi, backed by local Sunni Muslim tribes.”
4. F-35 false alarms and IOC. Breaking Defense’s Colin Clark reports, “The F-35‘s highly sensitive sensors suffer a basic problem right now: They often aren’t sure what they are detecting. That results in a high rate of false alarms. The key to fixing this lies in building highly complex data files — what we can colloquially call the threat library — and integrating them with the Joint Strike Fighter‘s software.” See also, “F-35 Will Not Reach Full Close-Air-Support Potential Until 2022.”
CONTRACT WATCH
1. Boeing and Saab: new partnerships. Defense One’s Marcus Weisgerber reports, “The companies announced Tuesday that they are working to transform Boeing’s Small Diameter Bomb – a guided weapon typically launched from fighter and bomber plans thousands of feet in the air – into a ground-launched rocket artillery piece. The two firms are also quietly developing a new jet trainer aircraft in hopes of landing a multibillion-dollar deal with the U.S. Air Force. Outside of defense, Saab is a supplier on the Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner commercial airliner.”
2. Tips for DHS contracting. Federal Times’ Aaron Boyd offers, “Nearly 35 percent of contracts with the Department of Homeland Security in 2014 were held by small businesses. Of the 9,400 small businesses working with DHS, 1,800 were contracting with the agency for the first time. The lesson: ‘Newcomers are welcome’ . . . . Most of these tips came directly from conversations with small businesses that have succeeded in selling to DHS.”
3. Just $20 million in pings, Vasily. Military & Aerospace Electronics John Keller reports, “U.S. Navy anti-submarine warfare (ASW) experts are ordering as many as 5,000 specialized submarine-hunting sonobuoys designed to emit sonar pings that enable other kinds of sonobuoys to pick up echoes that help them detect, locate, and track enemy submarines. Officials of the Naval Air Systems Command at Patuxent River Naval Air Station, Md., announced a $20.4 million contract modification Monday to ERAPSCO in Columbia City, Ind., to provide as many as 5,000 AN/SSQ-125 sonobuoys, which are dropped from Navy fixed-wing ASW aircraft and helicopters.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. Wikipedia sues the NSA. The Intercept’s Cora Currier reports, “Wikipedia is suing the NSA over surveillance programs that involve tapping internet traffic en masse from communications infrastructure in the U.S. in order to search it for intelligence purposes. The lawsuit argues that this broad surveillance, revealed in documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, violates the First Amendment by chilling speech and the open exchange of information, and that it also runs up against Fourth Amendment privacy protections.” See also, “Wikipedia to file lawsuit challenging mass surveillance by NSA.”
2. CIA’s role in domestic spying. The Wall Street Journal’s Devlin Barrett reports, “The Central Intelligence Agency played a crucial role in helping the Justice Department develop technology that scans data from thousands of U.S. cellphones at a time, part of a secret high-tech alliance between the spy agency and domestic law enforcement, according to people familiar with the work. The CIA and the U.S. Marshals Service, an agency of the Justice Department, developed technology to locate specific cellphones in the U.S. through an airborne device that mimics a cellphone tower . . . .” See also, “The CIA is giving its surveillance tech to US law enforcement” and “The CIA Has Been Trying for Years To Hack Your iPhone.”
3. Hacked to death: DoS computer. Nextgov’s Aliya Sternstein reports, “The State Department says it needs to reconstruct its classified computer systems after suffering a hack the agency has said only affected its unclassified networks. This detail, buried in a 2016 funding request document, combined with State’s failing data protection grades on a recent governmentwide report card, paints a picture of an agency ripe for another attack, security experts say.”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. Arrogance: “Hillary Clinton, under attack for using a personal email address to conduct U.S. State Department business, defended the practice on Tuesday as a matter of ‘convenience,’ but her comments failed to calm critics, who accused her of secrecy. Holding her first news conference since leaving her administration post two years ago, Clinton conceded she wished she had used a government email address as secretary of state but said she violated no rules and did not send classified material through the private account.” See also, “Clinton fails to calm email storm.”
2. Litmus test: “Vowing to cancel President Obama’s budding nuclear deal with Iran is rapidly becoming a key political litmus test for the Republican 2016 contenders. Most of the likely GOP presidential candidates have expressed concern about the direction of Obama’s negotiations with Tehran, signaling opposition to any agreement that is not ratified by the Senate or approved in some fashion by the Republican-controlled Congress. Now the party’s White House hopefuls are taking their opposition further, promising to kill the proposed accord with their executive authority should they succeed Obama as president in 2017.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
1. “Iran is no partner in the fight against the Islamic State.” The Long War Journal contributors Ali Alfoneh and Michael Pregent argue, “Iran benefits from the threat of an Islamic State, and if the US continues its courtship of Tehran, it may find the Islamic State replaced by an Islamic Republic.”
2. “Military analysis of what Russia really wants reveals nuclear dangers.” Reuters contributor Commodore Philip Thicknesse argues, “It is much better to have Putin if not actually inside the Western tent then at least not outside it pulling out the guy ropes and causing chaos. . . . For all concerned, better a messy peace than a nasty descent into a wider and wholly avoidable conflict, be it long and ambiguous or short and horrific.”
3. “Why the letter to Iran won’t end well for Republicans.” Reuters contributor Elizabeth Cobbs-Hoffman argues, “What happens when senators and congressmen go around a controversial president to communicate directly with the enemy? They undermine the stability of their own party — and the integrity of the nation. That’s what happened to the Federalists, the glorious political party of George Washington, John Adams and Alexander Hamilton.”
THE FUNNIES
1. New manager.
2. Disastrous.
3. Fatigued.
