/
Michael Gelber: GSA to Unveil New Plan for FBI HQ Consolidation Project by Year’s End
Published on
Michael Gelber: GSA to Unveil New Plan for FBI HQ Consolidation Project by Year’s End


Michael Gelber: GSA to Unveil New Plan for FBI HQ Consolidation Project by Year’s EndThe General Services Administration plans to submit to Congress by the end of the year a “workable” plan for the FBI headquarters consolidation project, Federal News Radio reported Wednesday.

Michael Gelber, acting commissioner for GSA’s public buildings service, said he would submit within 120 days a plan for the bureau’s new headquarters in response to Sen. John Barrasso’s question (R-Wyoming) during the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing Tuesday.

Gelber also noted that the HQ consolidation project is now estimated to cost “$1.6 billion and up” and that the proposal to exchange the J. Edgar Hoover building in downtown Washington to help cover the costs for the new facility was driven by budget constraints.

“The elaborate plan to swap the Hoover building for a new headquarters facility was, in hindsight, not the best option,” Barrasso said.

“We need a new, cost effective and achievable plan to get the FBI into a new headquarters facility.”

The Senate hearing came nearly a month after GSA said it would end its bureau HQ search efforts.

/
DISA Connects Senior DoD Leaders to Classified Networks via Tablets
Published on
DISA Connects Senior DoD Leaders to Classified Networks via Tablets


DISA Connects Senior DoD Leaders to Classified Networks via TabletsThe Defense Information Systems Agency has issued tablet computers to designated senior Defense Department leaders to support the use of such platforms for classified data.

DISA said the tablets are the latest offerings under the DoD Mobility Classified Capability-Secret Program, which is designed to provide classified access to the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network through mobile devices.

“We’re bringing the mobile device from something you use mostly to consume information from to being able to actually do work on the device,” said Jake Marcellus, DOD Mobility Portfolio manager.

Leticia Parra, DMCC-S tablet pilot program manager, noted that the tablet pilot is intended to address senior leaders’ need for larger screens to view real-time missions.

The tablets include support for the Unified Video Dissemination System that shows live video feeds collected for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance purposes, DISA said.

/
George Mason University-Led Consortium to Manage DHS-Funded Criminal Network Analysis CoE
Published on
George Mason University-Led Consortium to Manage DHS-Funded Criminal Network Analysis CoE


George Mason University-Led Consortium to Manage DHS-Funded Criminal Network Analysis CoEThe Department of Homeland Security‘s science and technology directorate has selected George Mason University to lead a consortium of academic, government, laboratory and industry partners that will operate a new Criminal Investigations and Network Analysis Center of Excellence.

DHS said Wednesday the center will work alongside federal, state and local law enforcement agencies as well as other department components to develop new systems that field agents and officers can use to address, predict and prosecute crimes.

The CINA CoE will also conduct research on criminal network analysis, criminal activity patterns, criminal investigative processes and forensics.

DHS will award the consortium a $3.9 million grant to cover the first operating year of the center’s 10-year grant period.

“We need to ensure that the nation’s law enforcement entities have the most sophisticated tools to counter transnational criminal networks, cross-border criminal activities, and criminal exploitation of the cyber domain,” said William Bryan, acting undersecretary for science and technology.

“This new center’s objective is to provide law enforcement agents, officers and investigators with those tools in the form of novel technologies and strategies,” Bryan added.

/
Army Sets 18-Month Timeframe for Night Vision, Targeting System Deployment
Published on
Army Sets 18-Month Timeframe for Night Vision, Targeting System Deployment


Army Sets 18-Month Timeframe for Night Vision, Targeting System DeploymentThe U.S. Army aims to field a pair of new weapon attachments in the next 18 months in an effort to help dismounted soldiers detect and engage targets through darkness, fog and smoke.

The service branch said Tuesday it expects to deploy the Enhanced Night Vision Goggle III system in the second quarter of 2018 and the Family of Weapons Sights-Individual  technology in the first quarter of 2019.

In 2015, the Army awarded a potential $434 million contract to BAE Systems and a potential $367 million contract to Leonardo DRS for the production of integrated night vision and thermal weapon systems.

ENVG III will feature night vision image intensification tubes from Harris and L3 Technologies.

FWS-I is designed to integrate with M4 and M16 rifles and transmit sight pictures to helmet-mounted ENVG III systems wirelessly.

The Army noted the weapon sights technology can also operate with the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, M141 Bunker Defeat Munition and the M136 AT4 Light Anti-Tank Weapon.

/
DoD Unveils AT&L Reorganization Plan as Senate Confirms Ellen Lord Acquisition Chief
Published on
DoD Unveils AT&L Reorganization Plan as Senate Confirms Ellen Lord Acquisition Chief

DoD Unveils AT&L Reorganization Plan as Senate Confirms Ellen Lord Acquisition ChiefThe Defense Department has released its plan to split the undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics role into two positions in which an undersecretary will focus on acquisition and sustainment – USDA&S – and another one will handle research and engineering functions – USDR&E – as part of a reorganization effort, Defense News reported Wednesday.

DoD also proposed the creation of a chief management officer position under the new acquisition structure it submitted to Congress on Tuesday in compliance with the fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act.

The DoD report said the new USDR&E role will oversee five offices and these include the:

  • Defense Science Board
  • Missile Defense Agency
  • Strategic Intelligence Analysis Cell
  • Assistant defense secretary research and technology
  • Assistant defense secretary for advanced capabilities

Three offices will operate under the ASD for research and tech organization and these include the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency as well as the deputy assistant defense secretaries for laboratories and personnel and for research and technology investments.

The ASD for advanced capabilities organization will have four units and these include the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental; Strategic Capabilities Office; DASD for prototyping and experimentation; and DASD for mission engineering and integration.

The USDA&S position will oversee three offices: ASD for acquisition; ASD for sustainment; and ASD for nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

The ASD for acquisition office will be responsible for four sub-offices that include the DASD for defense procurement and DASD for industrial base, while the ASD for sustainment will manage three units that include the DASD for material readiness as well as the Defense Logistics Agency.

On Tuesday, the Senate approved the nomination of former Textron Systems President and CEO Ellen Lord as the department’s acquisition chief.

Lord will oversee the current AT&L office and is expected to be reconfirmed to serve as undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment once DoD implements the new organizational structure in February.

/
Charles Hooper Assigned as DSCA Director, Promoted to Lieutenant General
Published on
Charles Hooper Assigned as DSCA Director, Promoted to Lieutenant General


Charles Hooper Assigned as DSCA Director, Promoted to Lieutenant General
Charles Hooper

Army Maj. Gen. Charles Hooper, formerly chief of the military cooperation office at U.S. embassy in Cairo, has taken a new role as Defense Security Cooperation Agency director, Defense News reported Wednesday.

He has also been promoted to the rank of three-star lieutenant general and succeeded Navy Vice Adm. Joseph Rixey.

Rixey, who led DSCA from September 2013 to July 2017, retired after 39 years of military service.

Hooper joined the Army in 1979 as an infantryman and later served in various assignments that include senior country director for China, Taiwan and Mongolia at the Defense Department; chief of U.S. Army International Affairs; defense attache in U.S. embassy in Beijing; deputy director of strategy at U.S. Pacific Command; and director of strategy, plans and programs at U.S. Africa Command.

As DSCA director, he will lead DoD’s point office for foreign military sales and programs designed to help address U.S. allies’ capability requirements or gaps.

/
Trump to Nominate Melissa Sue Glynn as VA Enterprise Integration Asst Secretary
Published on
Trump to Nominate Melissa Sue Glynn as VA Enterprise Integration Asst Secretary

Trump to Nominate Melissa Sue Glynn as VA Enterprise Integration Asst SecretaryPresident Donald Trump intends to nominate Melissa Sue Glynn, former head of public sector practice at global professional services firm Alvarez and Marsal, as assistant secretary for the Department of Veterans Affairs‘ Office of Enterprise Integration.

Glynn previously served as a principal of PwC and led the company’s work with VA, the White House said Monday.

If confirmed, she will oversee the office that helps the department manage veteran and employee experience using enterprise integration strategies for people, processes, technologies and innovations.

Her industry career focused on efforts to develop and deploy collaborative decisionmaking platforms.

She also held the roles of co-director at the University of Arizona’s Center for the Management of Information and principal investigator on a National Science Foundation cooperative grant and several other defense research laboratory-funded programs.

Glynn holds a bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University and both master’s and doctorate degrees from University of Arizona.

/
NASA Seeks Official to Oversee Planetary Protection Efforts
Published on
NASA Seeks Official to Oversee Planetary Protection Efforts


NASA Seeks Official to Oversee Planetary Protection EffortsNASA looks for a planetary protection officer who will lead the agency’s efforts to prevent space flight missions from contaminating other planets and solar system bodies with Earth organisms and organic constituents.

The planetary protection officer will work within the office of safety and mission assurance for planetary protection and will serve for three years, with a possible two-year extension, NASA said July 13 in a USAJobs notice.

A selected candidate will oversee NASA’s planetary protection functions as well as advise senior agency officials on planetary protection issues and coordinate with external organizations on such matters, according to the notice.

Business Insider reported Tuesday Catharine Conley, NASA’s current planetary protection officer, said the agency posted the job opening after the position was relocated to the office of safety and mission assurance, an independent technical authority within NASA.

The role was created as part of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which mandates that space missions must have less than 0.01 percent chance of contaminating celestial bodies.

/
Heather Wilson: Air Force to Evaluate 4 Aircraft During Light Attack Experimentation Campaign
Published on
Heather Wilson: Air Force to Evaluate 4 Aircraft During Light Attack Experimentation Campaign


Heather Wilson: Air Force to Evaluate 4 Aircraft During Light Attack Experimentation Campaign
Heather Wilson

Heather Wilson, secretary of the U.S. Air Force, has said the service branch’s pilots will test-fly four aircraft in various combat mission scenarios at Holloman AF Base in New Mexico next week as part of the Light Attack Experimentation Campaign.

The Air Force said Tuesday it will evaluate an A-29 Super Tucano from the Embraer–Sierra Nevada Corp. team and an AT-802 Longsword from the Air Tractor–L3 Technologies alliance, as well as Scorpion and AT-6 Wolverine platforms from Textron.

“The light attack aircraft experiment took five months from conception to aircraft delivery,” Wilson told audience at an Air Force Association event held Tuesday in Arlington, Virginia.

Wilson added the service branch aims to establish an agile and flexible environment and accelerate analyst processing, assessment and decisionmaking in space command and control operations with the use of open architecture systems.

The service branch has begun to explore innovation ideas that involve input from academia and industry.

The Air Force also plans to create a new Deputy Chief of Staff for Space Operations directorate — or A11– to support the integration of space programs and appoint a senior civilian who will serve as the directorate’s assistant deputy chief of staff.

/
Senate Bill Would Establish Security Requirements for Internet-Connected Devices
Published on
Senate Bill Would Establish Security Requirements for Internet-Connected Devices


Senate Bill Would Establish Security Requirements for Internet-Connected DevicesFour senators have introduced a bipartisan bill that would require federal suppliers of internet-connected devices to ensure that their products are free of “hard-coded passwords” and cyber vulnerabilities, patchable and comply with industry standard protocols.

The Internet of Things Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2017 calls for the Office of Management and Budget to establish network-level security requirements for IoT devices with limited software and data processing capabilities, Sen. Mark Warner’s (D-Virginia) office said Tuesday.

The legislation would also require the national protection and programs directorate within the Department of Homeland Security to introduce guidelines on cyber vulnerability disclosure regulations and exempt researchers that conduct studies in compliance with such guidelines from liability under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Lawmakers also proposed to require an inventory of all IoT devices used by each executive agency.

The senators drafted the bill in consultation with security professionals from Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Atlantic Council and other organizations.

The measure also has endorsements from companies such as VMware, Symantec, Mozilla, Neustar and Cloudflare.

Warner proposed the bill with Sens. Cory Gardner (R-Colorado), Ron Wyden (D-Washington) and Steve Daines (R-Montana).

1 … 2,166 2,167 2,168 2,169 2,170 … 2,597