FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
Debt, loans, and clearances. Contributor and in-house counsel Sean Bigley advises, “No matter what the nature of your debt, the agency holding your security clearance will want to see that you have taken responsible actions to address it on your own volition – not just because your security clearance is now in jeopardy. Most importantly, the agency will want to see that you’ve learned from you mistakes and have recalibrated your life accordingly.”
Transition talk. Contributor Jennifer Cary offers, “There’s nothing I can do about promotions, moving to a new location or deployments. And from what I understand, many spouses feel the same way as their service member transitions out of the military. Whether it’s a transition because of retirement or one that occurs after a few years of service, it’s a stressful time for both parties. But while spouses are generally along for the ride, it doesn’t have to be that way when it comes to transitioning. Here are some ways to support your service member as they hang up their uniform for the last time.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
Long Fight against ISIS. The Washington Examiner’s Susan Crabtree reports, “A new claim that American-led airstrikes have killed 10,000 Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria in nine months is backfiring on the administration, as officials had said months earlier that body counts are not the way to gauge success, and because officials had few other details to back up the claim. The lack of any additional information is also making it hard for skeptics of President Obama’s war against the terrorist group to square the body count claim with the news they see every day about the Islamic State seizing control of new cities in Iraq and Syria.”
Breeding radicalism. Christian Science Monitor’s Nicholas Blanford reports, “For Aiden Dean, a young former Bahraini (and now British) citizen who runs a consulting company in Dubai, the rise of the self-described Islamic State (IS) is simply the latest iteration of a process of radicalization that breeds ever greater extremism. The emergence of a powerful and virulent IS ideology ‘was an inevitable conclusion,’ he says. ‘When you take people and put them in training camps to become fighters and jihadists and you pump into their mind the idea that they are going to fight against apostate regimes, it is a natural evolution that they will end up with higher levels of hate and anger against their own societies and against the world in general.’”
Opening Gitmo gates. Defense One’s Molly O’Toole reports, “The Obama administration intends to transfer up to 10 detainees from the Guantanamo detention center to other countries this month, a senior defense official told Defense One. These would be the first since transfers came to a pregnant pause in January. . . . Of the prison’s 122 detainees, 57 have been cleared for transfer to other countries by the Pentagon as part of an interagency review. Last year, the Obama administration sped up transfers in a race to empty the detention center before the Republican-led Congress could block attempts to close it.”
CONTRACT WATCH
Putting the brakes on accelerating acquisition. Government Executive’s Charles S. Clark reports, “In a Tuesday statement threatening a veto of the Senate Defense authorization bill, the White House objected chiefly to off-budget war funding and the continuing of sequestration. But it also took aim at lawmakers’ plans to empower the military service chiefs in weapons acquisition and at smaller provisions affecting the contractor community. . . . The bill would decentralize decision making on weapons system milestones for service-unique programs and limit documentation of approvals. The administration called that plan ‘inconsistent with the secretary of Defense’s exercise of authority, direction, and control over all of the DoD programs and activities. . . .’”
Navy’s electro-optical sight order. Military & Aerospace Electronics Editor John Keller reports, “U.S. Navy shipboard weapons experts needed a shipboard electro-optical sight to enable guided missile cruisers to hit enemy ships and aircraft with naval gun fire. They found their solution from L-3 KEO (formerly Kollmorgen Electro-Optical) in Northampton, Mass. . . . The MK 20 EOSS is employed as a check sight and targeting sensor for anti-surface and anti-air warfare and naval gun fire support missions, Navy officials say. The company has been building the system since 2005.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
Office arms. Wired’s Andy Greenberg announces, “I have virtually no technical understanding of firearms and a Cro-Magnon man’s mastery of power tools. Still, I made a fully metal, functional, and accurate AR-15. To be specific, I made the rifle’s lower receiver; that’s the body of the gun, the only part that US law defines and regulates as a ‘firearm.’ All I needed for my entirely legal DIY gunsmithing project was about six hours, a 12-year-old’s understanding of computer software, an $80 chunk of aluminum, and a nearly featureless black 1-cubic-foot desktop milling machine called the Ghost Gunner.”
Back from the brink: reviving NSA spying. National Journal’s Dustin Volz reports, “Just one day after President Obama signed a comprehensive surveillance-reform bill into law, the administration already is seeking the legal means to revive the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of U.S. phone records. An administration official confirmed Wednesday the process to renew the program—which lapsed this week after the expiration of parts of the Patriot Act—was underway, and that an application to restart it would soon be supplied to the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. ‘We are taking the appropriate steps to obtain a Court order reauthorizing the program’ . . . .”
