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David Glawe to Be Nominated DHS Undersecretary for Intell, Analysis
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David Glawe to Be Nominated DHS Undersecretary for Intell, Analysis


David Glawe to Be Nominated DHS Undersecretary for Intell, AnalysisPresident Donald Trump intends to nominate David Glawe, assistant commissioner of the Customs and Border Protection agency, as the next undersecretary for intelligence and analysis at the Department of Homeland Security.

Glawe is a more than 24-year law enforcement and national security veteran who previously held various positions at the FBI, Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the White House said Monday.

He started his career at the Houston Police Department as an officer.

The Senior Executive Service member received the National Intelligence Superior Service Medal for his efforts to support the intelligence community and national security programs.

He earned a bachelor’s of arts degree from the University of Northern Iowa as well as completed the Senior Managers in Government program at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

President Trump designated Rear Adm. Robert Hayes, a 29-year veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard and former assistant commandant for intelligence at the military branch, as DHS acting undersecretary for intelligence and analysis.

Profile: Dr. David Honey, ODNI Science and Technology Director
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Profile: Dr. David Honey, ODNI Science and Technology Director


honey_david_smallDr. David Honey serves as director of science and technology at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, where he works to identify strategies for the integration of scientific and technological tools into operational systems.

Honey also holds the title of assistant deputy director of national intelligence for science and technology and also focuses on policies and programs for those integration efforts.

Prior to ODNI, Honey served as deputy assistant defense secretary for research between August 2009 and November 2011 and also held leadership roles at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

At DARPA, he served as director of the agency’s strategic technology office, director of the advanced technology office and deputy director and program manager of the microsystems technology office.

He is a Air Force lieutenant colonel who flew the B-52D/H and FB-111 planes and later served in roles to manage programs related to intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

Honey holds a bachelor’s degree in photographic science from Rochester University, a master’s degree in optical science from the University of Arizona, a master’s degree in engineering physics from the Air Force Institute of Technology and a doctorate degree in solid state science from Syracuse University.

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House Lawmakers Want Info on Disruption of IRS Student Financial Aid Tool
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House Lawmakers Want Info on Disruption of IRS Student Financial Aid Tool


House Lawmakers Want Info on Disruption of IRS Student Financial Aid ToolA bipartisan group of House lawmakers have urged the Internal Revenue Service to provide information about the outage of a tool used to help students apply for federal financial aid.

Lawmakers asked IRS commissioner John Koskinen in a letter published Thursday to brief the House Committees on Oversight and Government Reform and Education and the Workforce on a recent incident that led to the unavailability of IRS’ Data Retrieval Tool on the FAFSA.gov and StudentLoans.gov sites.

The Education Department said March 9 that DRT went offline due to information security concerns.

The House members also asked Koskinen to identify the dates on which IRS learned about the vulnerability; took DRT out of service; and notified FBI, the inspector general and the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team of an information security incident related to DRT.

IRS should describe the scope of data and personally identifiable information that may have been compromised as well as the total population of known impacted individuals, the lawmakers said.

They also asked IRS to identify recommendations made to the Education Department on DRT operations in the past year.

Representatives also requested documents related to the determination that the event is a “major incident.”

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DHS S&T Seeks Academic Partners to Run Border Threat Screening, Supply Chain Defense CoE
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DHS S&T Seeks Academic Partners to Run Border Threat Screening, Supply Chain Defense CoE


DHS S&T Seeks Academic Partners to Run Border Threat Screening, Supply Chain Defense CoEThe Department of Homeland Security‘s science and technology directorate will award up to $35 million to two academic institutions to help DHS run a center of excellence for cross-border threat screening and supply chain defense.

DHS said Monday the new CoE will research and develop systems to aid the identification of biological threats that could affect the department’s operations at land borders, ports of entry and nodes within the critical infrastructure supply chain.

The department also posted the two funding opportunities on the grants.gov website and noted it will provide the funds through a 10-year cooperative agreement.

DHS will solicit proposals from research teams with expertise in scientific, engineering and math disciplines and that can support the department in efforts to develop new technology.

S&T COEs work with DHS operating components to transition and educate homeland security personnel about  mission-relevant science and technology as well as help address technical and training gaps.

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Lt. Gen. John Murray: Army to Prioritize Active Protection Systems for Aircraft Amid Sequestration
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Lt. Gen. John Murray: Army to Prioritize Active Protection Systems for Aircraft Amid Sequestration


Lt. Gen. John Murray: Army to Prioritize Active Protection Systems for Aircraft Amid SequestrationLt. Gen. John Murray, deputy chief of staff for the Army G-8, has said he would push for the service branch to make active protection systems its top priority for aircraft if sequestration continues in fiscal 2018, the Army reported Monday.

“There are threats out there right now [for which] we just need to develop some new technologies — and we are — to provide protection for our aviators,” Murray said.

Murray testified with Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson, deputy chief of staff for the Army G-3/5/7, during a Thursday hearing of the House Armed Services Committee’s tactical air and land forces subpanel on the impact of continuing resolutions and sequestration on the military branch’s readiness and modernization efforts.

Murray told lawmakers that sequestration would have an impact on the Army’s efforts to update its Abrams main battle tanks, Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and aircraft such as UH-60M Black Hawk, AH-64E Apache and CH-47 Chinook Block II helicopters.

He noted that the Army spent most of the $500 billion in modernization funds authorized from fiscal 2003 through 2011 on efforts to counter improvised explosive devices, according to a report by Matthew Cox for DoD Buzz.

“It was protection for our soldiers, it was [Mine Resistant, Ambushed Protected vehicles], it was up-armoring Humvees… it was better body armor, helmets – that is where most of that money went,” Murray said in response to a question by Rep. Niki Tsongas (D-Massachusetts).

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NIST Develops Damage Sensor to Accelerate Material Development
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NIST Develops Damage Sensor to Accelerate Material Development


NIST Develops Damage Sensor to Accelerate Material DevelopmentThe National Institute of Standards and Technology has devised a method to embed a nanoscale damage-sensing probe into a lightweight epoxy and silk-based composite in a push to speed up the development of materials.

NIST said Friday the mechanophore probe was created using a dye called rhodamine spirolactam and works to help reduce the time and materials needed to develop and test new kinds of composites.

Researchers attached mechanophore to the silk fibers of an epoxy-based composite which caused the material to glow when force is applied, NIST added.

The installation of mechanophore also helped reveal damage at the composite’s interface through optical microscopy, the agency noted.

All composites have an interface where components meet and the strength of that interface affects composites’ capacity to resist damage.

NIST researchers plan to study the application of probes in other kinds of composites and use damage sensors to boost the capacity of composites to withstand extreme temperatures.

The study was funded through collaborative research agreements between NIST, the U.S. Air Force‘s office of scientific research and the U.S. Army‘s research office.

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Terry Halvorsen: Artificial Intell Key to DoD’s Cybersecurity Efforts
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Terry Halvorsen: Artificial Intell Key to DoD’s Cybersecurity Efforts


Terry Halvorsen: Artificial Intell Key to DoD’s Cybersecurity Efforts
Terry Halvorsen

Terry Halvorsen, former chief information officer at the Defense Department, has said he believes artificial intelligence will play a role in cybersecurity efforts as security professionals and programmers work to protect DoD networks from potential cyber threats, Defense Systems reported Thursday.

“I think within the next 18-months, AI will become a key factor in helping human analysts make decisions about what to do,” Halvorsen said.

He said he thinks it would be difficult for humans to “keep pace” due to the volume of cyber threats, Kris Osborn wrote.

Halvorsen noted that AI could help security professionals alter the configuration of networks in the event of a cyber attack, the report added.

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Army Gen. Gustave Perna: ‘Unnecessary’ Bid Protests Hurt Contracting Process
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Army Gen. Gustave Perna: ‘Unnecessary’ Bid Protests Hurt Contracting Process


Army Gen. Gustave Perna: 'Unnecessary' Bid Protests Hurt Contracting ProcessGen. Gustave Perna, commander of the Army Materiel Command, has called on companies to refrain from filing “unnecessary” protests against contract awards, Defense News reported Friday.

Jen Judson writes Perna told audience at the Association of the U.S. Army-hosted Global Force Symposium that protests slow down contracting officials and affect their capacity to do other tasks.

Perna added the service branch aims to reduce requirements for protests and urged contractors to “work through the process.”

Steffanie Easter, acting Army acquisition chief, told Defense News she believes factoring acquisition into the entire life cycle of a program will help the service branch increase the credibility of its procurement decisions and address  bid protests.

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NASA Project Seeks to Demo GN&C Tech for Space Exploration
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NASA Project Seeks to Demo GN&C Tech for Space Exploration


NASA Project Seeks to Demo GN&C Tech for Space ExplorationNASA‘s human exploration and operations mission directorate will launch a flight campaign that seeks to demonstrate guidance, navigation and control technologies designed to facilitate precision landing for space exploration missions.

NASA said Saturday it will test the Navigation Doppler Lidar and the Lander Vision System through April as part of the Co-Operative Blending of Autonomous Landing Technologies project.

Both the NDL, which offers velocity and line-of-sight range measurements, and the LVS, which provides terrain relative navigation capacity, will be integrated and flight tested on a Masten Space Systems-built rocket-powered vertical take-off and landing system called Xodiac.

COBALT launches will help demonstrate combined LVS and NDL measurement capacities as part of NASA’s efforts to develop precise soft-landing technologies for future missions.

“In this first flight campaign, we plan to successfully complete the integration, flight testing and performance analysis of the COBALT payload,” said John Carson III, project manager of COBALT.

NASA also seeks to demonstrate COBALT as an active navigation system for Xodiac through a follow-up flight campaign in the summer.

NASA’s Langley Research Center developed the NDL as an updated prototype of the former Autonomous Precision Landing and Hazard Avoidance Technology used on the Morpheus vessel.

The space agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory created the LVS as a camera-based navigation system designed to capture images of the terrain beneath a spacecraft and cross-examine recorded data with maps to pinpoint the vehicle’s location.

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House Bill Seeks to Classify Election Systems as Critical Infrastructure
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House Bill Seeks to Classify Election Systems as Critical Infrastructure


House Bill Seeks to Classify Election Systems as Critical InfrastructureThree House Democratic lawmakers have introduced a bill that would classify election systems as critical infrastructure in an effort to protect U.S. elections from future international cyber attacks.

The Securing America’s Future Elections Act was introduced in response to Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential elections, Rep. Mark Pocan’s (D-Wisconsin) office said in a release published Thursday.

The SAFE Act would require the Department of Homeland Security and the National Institute for Standards and Technology to develop cybersecurity standards for private contractors that work on U.S. election systems.

The proposed legislation would reauthorize the Election Assistance Commission for a 10-year period, direct DHS to start annual assessments of election systems in 2018 and require corresponding paper ballots for all electronic voting equipment.

The bill also aims to authorize funds to update cyber standards for voting software and related systems and ensure cybersecurity for all databases used in voter registration.

Pocan proposed the SAFE Act with Reps. Keith Ellison (D-Minnesota) and Hank Johnson (D-Georgia).

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