Studies in OPSEC. Contributor William Loveridge explains, “In August 2013, the applicant’s employer submitted an incident report for a security violation. During a random security inspection when leaving a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF), the applicant was found to be in possession of a thumb drive. At the time, the applicant stated that he did not know the thumb drive was in his pocket and that he needed a document that it contained. He later admitted to placing a personal thumb drive into a classified computer system and downloading unclassified files . . . .”
Hiring practice: interviews. Contributor Jillian Hamilton advises, “Make sure your interview process is robust enough to give multiple opportunities to gauge a candidate’s personality. The interview process is obviously about verifying skills and background, but it is also about understanding the unique personality a candidate could bring to the organization. Many eyes and ears are needed at this point in the process. But make sure all the eyes and ears that are involved know what they are looking for in the candidate.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
AP’s Asim Tanveer and Munir Ahmed report, “Pakistani police gunned down one of the country’s most-feared Sunni militant leaders and 13 followers in a mysterious pre-dawn shootout Wednesday, killing a man believed to behind the slaughter of hundreds of the nation’s minority Shiites. Malik Ishaq, who directed the operations of the Taliban- and al-Qaida-linked Lashkar-e-Jhangvi group, was so feared in Pakistan that frightened judges hid their faces from him . . . . Ishaq . . . operated freely for years in Pakistan as the country’s intelligence services helped nurture Sunni militant groups in the 1980s and 1990s to counter a perceived threat from neighboring Shiite power Iran.”
Also from AP, Josh Lederman reports, “Turkey’s dramatic air campaign against the Islamic State and Kurdish forces has created a bit of a conundrum for President Barack Obama, who is leading the fight against one of Turkey’s targets while relying heavily on the other target. . . . Turkey abruptly began bombing Kurdish rebels in Iraq, where Kurds have proven unusually capable of wresting back territory from the extremist Sunni militant group known as the Islamic State, or Daesh in Arabic.”
The Long War Journal’s Bill Roggio reports, “The Taliban continues to press its offensive on multiple fronts in the Afghan north, taking control of Kohistanat district in the once calm province of Sar-i-Pul after a police commander and his officers defected to the jihadist group. According to the Taliban, its forces ‘raised the white flag of [the] Islamic Emirate’ over the district headquarters and other government buildings [Monday]. The Taliban overran Kohistanat after launching its assault on July 26. The fall of the northern district was confirmed by a member of Sar-i-Pul’s provincial council, a police spokesman, and the Taliban.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
Fast Company’s Jon Gertner reports, “For the past year, the president explains, he has personally helped Park and his team hire talent and implement their ideas across a host of government agencies. While the reasons behind this initiative and its scope have not been made clear before, in the president’s view, the idea of building a ‘pipeline’ of tech talent in Washington starts with practical appeal: Better digital tools could upgrade the websites of, say, the Veterans Administration, so users get crucial services that save time, money, and (for veterans in need of medical help) lives.”
Vice News’ Jason Leopold reports, “[M]ore than 100 pages of contracting documents . . . show it was CIA officials who insisted on outsourcing work related to the Senate’s review — and that it was the CIA that paid more than $40 million to one of its longtime contractors for administrative support and other tasks related to the Senate’s work. Those tasks included compiling, reviewing, redacting, and then posting to a server the more than 6 million pages of highly classified CIA cables and other documents about the torture program Senate Intelligence Committee staffers pored through during the course of their probe. The CIA documents were turned over in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit . . . .”
