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Reps. Jerrold Nadler, Bennie Thompson Inquire About Government Acquisition of Personal Data
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Reps. Jerrold Nadler, Bennie Thompson Inquire About Government Acquisition of Personal Data

House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and House Homeland Security Committee Chair Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., have asked several government officials through a letter to provide information on their agencies’ procurement of U.S. citizens’ personal data from companies.

The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on July 19 on the government’s purchase and use of private information of U.S. citizens and found that agencies often bypass warrant requirements by buying datasets from social media companies, app developers and data brokers, Nadler’s office said Wednesday.

“While law enforcement investigations necessitate some searches, improper government acquisition of this data can thwart statutory and constitutional protections designed to protect Americans’ due process rights,” the Aug. 16 letter reads.

The letter was addressed to Attorney General Merrick Garland of the Department of Justice; Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and a previous Wash100 Award winner; FBI Director Christopher Wray; Chris Magnus, commissioner of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection; Tae Johnson, acting director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; Anne Milgram, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration; and Steven Dettelbach, director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The chairs of the two House panels urged agency officials to submit by Aug. 30 communications and documents related to contracts with companies that provide personal data on U.S. citizens and those associated with any legal analysis of the purchase and use of brokered data in prosecutions, investigations and agency work, among others.

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Marines Expect to Receive New Targeting System in Fiscal 2023
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Marines Expect to Receive New Targeting System in Fiscal 2023

The U.S. Marine Corps expects to begin testing a new man-portable target detection and acquisition device in fiscal year 2023.

USMC awarded Northrop Grumman an eight-year, $252 million contract in February to manufacture and support the military branch’s Next-Generation Handheld Targeting System.

The service said Wednesday it intends for the NGHTS to include features of four predecessor devices, interoperate with a target handoff system and increase the ability of users to pinpoint a target farther than the distance their previous platforms could reach.

NGHTS, currently in the low-rate initial production phase, will have a lightweight design for service personnel to carry the unit in their field packs.

Maj. Patrick Heiny, lead for USMC’s fire support coordination team, said NGHTS will be the branch’s first target locator that weighs below 10 pounds and takes up 60 percent less volume than legacy platforms.

Marines aim to deploy their new targeting system sometime in fiscal 2024.

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Federal Civilian Exec Alex Forti Joins Amyx as Director of Business Development; CEO William Schaefer Quoted
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Federal Civilian Exec Alex Forti Joins Amyx as Director of Business Development; CEO William Schaefer Quoted

Experienced federal civilian executive Alex Forti has been named director of business development at management and technical services company Amyx.

In his new role, Forti will draw from his time working for federal organizations such as the U.S. Department of Treasury and the General Services Administration, as well as various notable private sector government contractors, the Reston, Virginia-headquartered company said Wednesday.

Amyx CEO and President William Schaefer attested that Forti’s career expertise are in-step with Amyx’s expansion objectives. Schaefer added that the company’s corporate processes, partner dynamics and various contract work will be boosted by the newly hired executive’s proficiency in operations, information technology management and various achievements.

Forti cut his teeth working as an IT project manager for Lockheed Martin, Calibre and Honeywell, participating in projects spanning IT, logistics and medicine. Additionally, the executive spent time in the office of the chief information officer of the Department of Defense as a contract program manager.

In his last position before joining Amyx, Forti administered enterprise IT platforms at the Department of Treasury that impacted the various departmental offices and the remaining nine bureaus. Specifically, he optimized taxpayer online portals to the Internal Revenue Service as a function of the GSA.

Forti’s work with the government extended to his time as a federal program manager facilitating a $1.2 billion logical access and CDM II portfolio. In this role, he maintained network access for around 110,000 federal personnel, as well as many corporate business entities and more than 144 million citizens.

The executive is also a veteran of the U.S. Air Force and was reportedly instrumental in executing the Child Tax Credit aspect of the American Rescue Plan Act.

The appointment of Forti comes on the heels of Amyx’s June addition of Christy Mee as vice president of federal civilian programs and Todd Reynolds as director of strategy.

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GovCon Expert Chuck Brooks: Proactive Cybersecurity Is a Must in Today’s Threat Environment
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GovCon Expert Chuck Brooks: Proactive Cybersecurity Is a Must in Today’s Threat Environment

Chuck Brooks, a highly esteemed cybersecurity leader as well as an influential member of Executive Mosaic’s GovCon Expert program, recently published a feature detailing the reactive mindset that both industry and the federal government have developed that has created even more challenges to address because cyber-defenders are always at least one step behind.

In a feature article with HS Today.us, GovCon Expert Chuck Brooks explored the current challenges of implementing emerging technologies as well as the need for continuous simulation validation testing, cyber resilience,  risk management and the impact proactive cybersecurity.

Here’s an excerpt from the feature from GovCon Expert Chuck Brooks:

“With the growing realization of just how important IT is to our business and as a result of the dramatic increase in breaches, there is a growing recognition that protection against them should be considered more than a business expense,” Chuck Brooks explained. “Proactive cybersecurity has been a posture that’s been adopted increasingly by industry and government,” he added. 

GovCon Expert Chuck Brooks also discussed the impact and role that technologies such as IoT, 5G, artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies like quantum computing, virtual and augmented realities will have in the cybersecurity space as the emphasis on threat detection and real-time analysis continues to grow and change how our industry does business.

“In today’s sophisticated threat environment, cybersecurity can no longer be viewed as an afterthought if businesses are going to survive and thrive,” Chuck Brooks emphasized. “There are a variety of established paths to follow in cyber risk management to fill gaps and bolster defenses. Complacency in the face of growing threats is not one of them.”

You can read all the content from GovCon Expert Chuck Brooks through Executive Mosaic on GovCon Wire.com. 

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Space Systems Command Posts RFI for New Ground-Based Command and Control Platform
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Space Systems Command Posts RFI for New Ground-Based Command and Control Platform

Space Systems Command’s Space Sensing Directorate is seeking information on a planned migration of existing Space-Based Infrared System assets from a legacy ground command and control system to a modern platform.

According to a request for information posted on SAM.gov, the Future Operationally Resilient Ground Evolution C2 system will store data from existing satellite assets including SBIRS Geosynchronous Equatorial Orbit space vehicles and SBIRS Highly Elliptical Orbit hosted payloads.

FORGE will also house information gathered from the Next Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared system to be deployed to geosynchronous Earth and polar orbit.

Legacy SBIRS and Next-Gen GEO transition to the new platform is expected to begin in 2026. Space Systems Command is looking for industry comments to inform the government’s acquisition approach to commence the project.

Responses are due Aug. 31st.

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DARPA Announces Teams to Develop Battlefield Obscurants for Coded Visibility Program
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DARPA Announces Teams to Develop Battlefield Obscurants for Coded Visibility Program

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has selected the research teams to work on a program aimed at developing safe military obscurants that will suppress adversary forces’ vision and detection systems to provide U.S. warfighters with an asymmetric advantage on the battlefield.

A team led by Raytheon Technologies Research Center will work on the passive asymmetry technical area of the Coded Visibility program, which involves the development of new obscurants composed of multiple particulates and demonstration of asymmetric vision capabilities in laboratory, pilot and field tests, DARPA said Tuesday.

Northeastern University, Signature Research and Georgia Tech Research Institute were selected to participate in the program’s active symmetry technical area to assess new tunable particulates and associated active modulation mechanisms.

The selected teams in both technical areas will also model and simulate the obscurants to assess performance against sensors.

“The teams we selected aim to develop new types of non-hazardous obscurant particulates that can be tailored to provide asymmetry – that is to allow U.S. and allied forces to see the enemy through the plume in one direction, while the adversary is unable to see through the plume in the opposite direction,” said Rohith Chandrasekar, CV program manager in DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office.

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NASA Set to Launch Moon Rocket for Artemis I Mission
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NASA Set to Launch Moon Rocket for Artemis I Mission

NASA is transporting its Space Launch System to its launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida following the completion of final tests of the rocket’s flight termination system, TechCrunch reported.

The SLS rocket is set to launch on Aug. 29 for its first mission to space, called Artemis I, to test the Lockheed Martin-built Orion exploration spacecraft that will carry astronauts to the moon and deep space.

Artemis I is the first in a series of planned missions that will enable human exploration in space. During the mission, the Orion capsule will orbit the moon before conducting a splashdown back on Earth.

NASA has backup launches on Sept. 2 and 5 for Artemis I.

The agency worked with defense and aerospace company Boeing on the development of the SLS rocket. The team completed the majority of outfitting efforts for the spacecraft’s core stage engine section in 2019.

Fairbanks Morse Defense, Deck Marine Systems Partner to Develop Unmanned Vehicle Launch & Recovery Tech
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Fairbanks Morse Defense, Deck Marine Systems Partner to Develop Unmanned Vehicle Launch & Recovery Tech

Fairbanks Morse Defense and Deck Marine Systems will jointly develop a system to deploy and recover unmanned marine vehicles as part of a licensing agreement.

FMD said Tuesday it will have exclusive rights to market Deck Marine’s launch and recovery technology, instrument deployment units and winches to government sectors in North America, Australia and the U.K.

In exchange, Deck can utilize six FMD-owned service centers as well as the latter’s network of field technicians and regional account managers.

The two companies partnered as part of efforts to bring technologies to the U.S. Navy programs and grow footprints in the defense market.

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ONCD Kicks Off Search for Cybersecurity Planning & Operations Director
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ONCD Kicks Off Search for Cybersecurity Planning & Operations Director

The Office of the National Cyber Director has begun its search for a new director of cybersecurity planning and operations.

The incumbent will formulate, coordinate and implement policy related to cyber resilience planning, cyber incident response planning and defensive operational planning, according to a USAJobs notice published Monday.

The selected candidate will work with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Intelligence Community and other agencies to keep abreast of malicious cybersecurity incidents, threat actors and related campaigns.

The office also expects the incumbent to oversee and evaluate the effectiveness of agency programs and defensive cyber campaigns. 

ONCD has set Aug. 29 as the deadline for submission of applications but will close the job posting once it receives 200 applications.

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ColdQuanta Aims to Productize Quantum Clock Tech With Backing of DARPA, In-Q-Tel
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ColdQuanta Aims to Productize Quantum Clock Tech With Backing of DARPA, In-Q-Tel

ColdQuanta has secured an award from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to further develop the company’s atomic clock technology for potential government and commercial applications.

DARPA is supporting the development project via the agency’s Embedded Entrepreneurship Initiative with an In-Q-Tel business venture, the quantum technology maker said Tuesday.

Scott Faris, CEO of ColdQuanta, said the company aims to help address a demand for time reference units in partnership with DARPA and IQT Emerge.

The agency’s EEI, which launched in February 2021 after a two-year pilot phase, offers technical research teams access to funding support, mentorship and opportunities to network with investors and corporations.

IQT, the intelligence community’s venture capital organization, is working with the DARPA in efforts to help developers transition government-funded projects to the national security market.

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