The House Intelligence Committee on Friday approved a bill that would reauthorize for four years a provision in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that permits the collection of intelligence data on foreigners who live outside the U.S., the Washington Examiner reported Friday.

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-California), chairman of the House panel, introduced Wednesday the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act of 2017 as the Section 702 surveillance provision approaches expiration on Dec. 31.

The Washington Post reported the measure would direct government agencies to secure a court order before they can access a National Security Agency-run database to view communications that came from or sent to U.S. citizens and were gathered through Section 702.

The report noted that lawmakers are expected to add the measure on the surveillance authority’s reauthorization to a budget package for fiscal 2018 that Congress needs to pass by Dec. 8 to avoid a government shutdown.

Teams from the U.S. Marine Corps have formed a tactical air direction center located at Camp Pendleton in California.

Established Oct. 28, the center was made to carry out majority of Marine tactical air command tasks; integrate air and ground systems; and serve as a location wherein maritime command centers and ships can access the Marine air command and control system, the Marine Corps said Thursday.

The TADC was inaugurated as part of Exercise Dawn Blitz 2017 which aims to prepare Expeditionary Strike Group 3 and 1st Marine Expeditionary Brigade to engage in amphibious missions.

The USS Essex was used to integrate with the Global Command and Control System to improve connectivity in support of the center.

Aviation combat element commanders can use the TADC as a communications medium to conduct U.S. Navy and Marine joint operations with command and control assets.

During the Dawn Blitz exercise, the center was used as a communications medium between MTACS-38 Marines and the Essex’s ACE commander.

Jack Dyer Crouch, president and CEO of the United Services Organization, has been appointed as chairman of the Defense Policy Board.

Defense Secretary James Mattis also announced the addition of five new members to the board, the Defense Department said Thursday.

Crouch previously held roles of increasing responsibility at QinetiQ North America such as CEO, president of the technology solutions group and executive vice president for strategic development.

He also served as assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor during the administration of George W. Bush.

The new members of the Defense Policy Board are:

• David McCormick, co-president at Bridgewater Associates
• Eric Cantor, vice chairman and managing director at Moelis & Company
• James Talent, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute
• Kiron Skinner, an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University
• Wanda Austin, author of Making Space: Strategic Leadership for a Complex World

The U.S. Navy cleared more than 1,400 contracts for training platforms worth approximately $1 billion in fiscal year 2017 compared with approximately 1,200 contract actions executed in FY 2014, National Defense reported Thursday.

The Naval Air Warfare Center’s training systems division has begun to field more commercial-off-the-shelf training platforms, Capt. Erik Etz, division commanding officer, said at a panel discussion during the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference in Florida.

Etz noted that his division has started to develop a “baseline of systems” designed to help the service branch provide system configuration and common standards as it works with commercial partners to establish applications specific to an individual warfighter’s skills.

He also discussed the Navy’s efforts to integrate virtual, mixed and augmented reality technology platforms into its training tools as well as address interoperability issues facing its simulation systems.

Etz added that the service needs to ramp up training across maritime and aerial domains amid recent mishaps such as the collision incidents involving two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.

Defense Secretary James Mattis has called off a plan to stop the military use of certain cluster bombs by the end of 2018, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

The policy change would permit the Defense Department to resume the procurement of cluster munitions.

“The Department of Defense has determined that cluster munitions remain a vital military capability in the tougher warfighting environment ahead of us, while still a relatively safe one,” said Tom Crosson, a spokesman for DoD.

Crosson noted that senior officials at the Pentagon determined that a ban on the use of cluster bombs would weaken deterrence and result in a capability gap for U.S. warfighters.

The Hill also reported that the new policy would overturn a 2008 ruling by former President George W. Bush that seeks to ban by Jan. 1, 2019 the use of cluster bombs that failed to meet the standard detonation failure rate of 1 percent or less.

Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan issued a memo Thursday saying cluster munitions are “legitimate weapons with clear military utility.”

“Although the department seeks to field a new generation of more highly reliable munitions, we cannot risk mission failure or accept the potential of increased military and civilian casualties by forfeiting the best available capabilities,” Shanahan wrote in the memo.