January 21, 2024 | International, Land
March 1, 2019 | International, Security, Other Defence
The Security Clearance Process Is About to Get Its Biggest Overhaul in 50 Years
By AARON BOYD
The federal intelligence and human resources communities are preparing a coming out party for the first major update to the security clearance process in some 50 years.
For the last year, the Suitability and Security Clearance Performance Accountability Council has been working on the Trusted Workforce 2.0 framework, the start of a wide-ranging effort to overhaul how background investigations are conducted. Representatives from the intelligence community, Defense Department, Office of Personnel Management, and Office of Management and Budget are leading PAC's efforts.
Over the next two weeks, the team plans to debut the finalized framework to the White House and Congress and offered a group of reporters a first look at what's to come.
This is the first time ever that the legislative and executive branches are on the same page with regard to clearance reform, according to Bill Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, who is leading the framework effort along with OPM Deputy Director Michael Rigas.
The two agencies, along with members of the Defense Department, have been working to reduce the crushing backlog of security investigations, which topped 725,000 in early 2018. That backlog has since been reduced to 551,000 as of Monday. But that number is 100 percent above what security professionals consider to be the baseline “steady state” of 220,000 to 250,000 investigations in process at any given time.
Key to continuing to decrease the backlog and get the average clearance timeline down below 80 days is a major process overhaul, Evanina and Rigas said.
“We realized this is a really big elephant, so we have to take some small bites,” beginning with reducing the backlog, Evanina said.
From there, beginning mid-summer, they began to look at the “blue sky perspective,” as Evanina put it: the high-level view of structural, procedural changes that needed to take place.
Discussions focused on removing “friction” from the process, said Matt Eanes, director of the PAC program management office, whether by removing the need to vet minor things or allowing investigators to use digital methods.
Full article: https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2019/02/security-clearance-process-about-get-its-biggest-overhaul-50-years/155229/
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June 30, 2022 | International, Land
Slovakia picks CV90 in infantry fighting vehicle tender
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September 14, 2020 | International, Aerospace, C4ISR
US Space Force developing a strategy to improve satellite communications
Nathan Strout WASHINGTON — As the U.S. Space Force builds out its fiscal 2022 budget, the nascent service is developing a new strategy to govern how it builds and leases satellite communications and services, Lt. Gen. Bill Liquori explained during the Defense News Conference Sept. 9. The strategy follows the Enterprise SATCOM Vision the Space Force released in February. That document formally laid out the military's desire to have a single satellite communication architecture capable of keeping war fighters connected even in contested, degraded and operationally-limited environments. Currently, the Department of Defense relies on a loose federation of stovepiped, government-built satellites and commercial providers to provide connectivity. But moving forward, the Space Force wants war fighters to seamlessly roam from one signal to another to maintain their connection. “At the end of the day, anyone who's using satellite communications doesn't really care where that information comes from,” explained Liquori, the Space Force's deputy chief of space operations for strategy, plans, programs, requirements and analysis. “They really want to know that when they need to use their radio they can use it, and if there's somebody trying to counter them using that radio, that there's an ability for them to pivot to an alternative communications mechanism, because what they care about is getting their message across.” While the service was able to include some aspects of that Enterprise SATCOM Vision in the fiscal 2021 budget, that budget process was already well underway when the Space Force was formally established in December. That budget request included $43 million in research, development, test & evaluation funding to develop the Fighting SATCOM Enterprise, a new designation emphasizing the ability to roam between various communications satellites, regardless of whether they are commercial or government operated. Liquori emphasized that more would be done in the fiscal 2022 budget. “The '22 budget is now the next step if you will, and we've continued to lay in both budget line items for being able to maintain a common operating picture of our SATCOM links in theater as well as continuing on prototypes,” he explained. “There are certainly inputs there for Protected Tactical Waveforms so that we can do protected communications with more than just our traditional military purpose-built systems, but ideally to use that waveform on other systems as well.” Simultaneously, the service is developing a strategy that will govern how the Enterprise SATCOM Vision is implemented. “Obviously the '22 budget submission is big for any service," Liquori said. “We're working on an Enterprise SATCOM strategy that will follow from the vision document, if you will.” Commercial providers have expressed cautious optimism with the Space Force's approach, while arguing that the effort needs more funding and more specifics. https://www.c4isrnet.com/smr/defense-news-conference/2020/09/09/space-force-developing-a-strategy-for-implementing-its-enterprise-satcom-vision/