Cleared. Meaning? Editor Lindy Kyzer explains, “There are two types of security clearances – personnel security clearances and facility security clearances. Each requires specific steps in order to obtain access. . . .”
Sell yourself. Contributor Julie Mendez writes, “Your resume is that beautiful, glossy brochure that will make a recruiter want to pick up the phone and call you. It must convince them that they need to interview you immediately. Your resume is not the laundry list of everything you have ever done and every responsibility you have ever had. It is a marketing tool that helps your salesman (you) help sell your product –You.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
Defense Media Activity’s Terri Moon Cronk reports, “U.S. Special Forces supported an Iraqi peshmerga operation earlier today to rescue about 70 hostages from an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant prison near Hawijah, Iraq . . . . One U.S. service member and four peshmerga soldiers were wounded when ISIL extremists fired on U.S. and Iraqi forces during the rescue, he said, adding the U.S. service member was medically treated but later died.”
Defense News’ Joe Gould reports, “In a gambit to pressure Republicans into a larger budget deal, President Obama vetoed the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act on Thursday over what he called a Republican ‘gimmick’ to fund defense — the use of a wartime account known as Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO).”
Reuters’ Jessica Donati and Hamid Shalizi report, “As Afghan soldiers and police struggle to contain an escalating insurgency that has targeted several cities in recent weeks, the country’s special forces are being tested as never before. Trained in counter-insurgency tactics at the elite School of Excellence near Kabul, these soldiers led the battle to retake Kunduz, after regular forces fled their posts last month to cede the northern city to militants they easily outnumbered.”
AP’s Hamza Hendawi and Qassim Abdul-Zahra report, “The Islamic State rakes in up to $50 million a month from selling crude from oilfields under its control in Iraq and Syria, part of a well-run industry that U.S. diplomacy and airstrikes have so far failed to shut down . . . . Oil sales – the extremists’ largest single source of continual income – are a key reason they have been able to maintain their rule over their self-declared ‘caliphate’ stretching across large parts of Syria and Iraq.”
CONTRACT WATCH
Defence Talk reports, “The US government has approved an $11 billion deal to sell Saudi Arabia four advanced warships, officials said Tuesday, amid mounting regional tension. . . . The four ships, based on the US Navy’s littoral combat ship, are relatively small but designed to be fast and maneuverable in shallow water and to pack a punch.”
Military & Aerospace Electronics Editor John Keller reports, “U.S. Army surveillance experts needed directional antennas to help warfighters in the field access reconnaissance imagery and video from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and manned surveillance aircraft. . . . Officials of the Army Contracting Command at Redstone Arsenal, Ala., announced a $8.4 million contract modification to Textron on Wednesday for 37 mobile directional antenna systems for Textron’s One System Remote Video Terminal (OSRVT).”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
ars technica’s Dan Goodin reports, “In August, National Security Agency officials advised US agencies and businesses to prepare for a not-too-distant time when the cryptography protecting virtually all sensitive government and business communications is rendered obsolete by quantum computing. The advisory recommended backing away from plans to deploy elliptic curve cryptography, a form of public key cryptography that the NSA spent the previous 20 years promoting as more secure than the older RSA cryptosystem.”
The Telegraph’s Leon Watson reports, “Much of the back-stabbing skulduggery that went on between the Cambridge Spies is known about or suspected. But what comes out of the National Archives release is a depth of detail we haven’t seen before. Some of it is even quite amusing. . . .”
Politco’s Michael Crowley reports, “Brennan is CIA director, and the chief target of civil libertarians and anti-war activists. To them he is a nefarious architect of President Barack Obama’s counter-terror campaign, the voice of the ‘dark side’ that Dick Cheney famously once invoked, and the closest thing in Obama’s ranks to a Cheneyesque figure.”
Defense One’s Marcus Weisgerber reports, “About 80 people on a secretive U.S. Air Force team are overseeing the service’s most sensitive aircraft project in decades: the development of a new stealth bomber whose prime contractor could be announced as soon as [today].”
