DoD Institutes Civilian Hiring Freeze
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A civilian hiring freeze is in effect at the Pentagon, impacting vacant full-time, part-time, temporary and permanent civilian positions without a tentative offer in the DefSec Office, Defense Agencies, and Field Activities. Defense News reports the freeze a response to a congressional order to reduce the number of headquarters staff at the Pentagon.
A Chinese national pleaded guilty in US District Court in California to years of hacking two American aerospace companies, stealing data about Boeing’s C-17 transport aircraft and an unnamed military fighter jet, reports Federal Times.
The Hill calls the Obama administration’s plan to release its “drone playbook” too little, too late, saying the US’s closed policies regarding its use of unmanned aircraft has set a dangerous precedent.
Defense News reports all versions of the JSF will fight six years longer than planned, to 2070, upping the operating budgets, but JSF project officials continue to reinforce ongoing cost savings occurring as production of the F-35 accelerates.
The USS Conestoga is found, reports CNN. The tugboat disappeared in 1921 after departing from California’s Golden Gate strait (before the bridge was built) heading to American Samoa via Pearl Harbor, but never arrived in Hawaii. NOAA and the Navy hypothesize a storm forced the vessel to seek a protected cove on Southeast Farallon Island. “This would have been a desperate act, as the approach is difficult and the area was the setting for five shipwrecks between 1858 and 1907,” according to NOAA’s report.
A third span for the Chesapeake Bay Bridge gains traction this year following release of a transportation study showing peak-time back-ups 14 miles long by 2040 without the span. DelmarvaNow reports the MD Senate voted 40-4 to fund a study of a third bay bridge span. A similar bill failed to make it out of the 2014 session. The bill now goes to the MD House of Delegates.
Breaking Defense reports the sale of Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Federal Times plus Defense News to California venture capitalists Regent Equity Group.
Defense.gov reports, significant numbers of DoD and senior military leaders say closing the Naval Station Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba is the single most important action the US can take to counter terrorism.
Politico offers five ways to devastate ISIL. The first two call for an accurate definition of ISIL as a “destructive religious cult” not a “radical Islamic” group, which is both uselessly inflammatory and inaccurate; more effective special-ops deployment; much more aggressive cyber-warfare; and leadership for international collusion to send captured high-value ISIL fighters to prison ships, which immediately convene no-nonsense international war crimes trials based at sea.
The US is frustrated, again, as Belgium struggles with terror threats, reports Reuters. The UK has stopped at least seven terror plots, Germany thwarted at least one , Belgian and French authorities have foiled dozens of plots, but the efforts are inadequate to the rise of ISIS, reports NBC News.
