The
new chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will seek a
stay on privacy rules for broadband providers that the agency just passed in
October.
FCC
Chairman Ajit Pai will ask for either a full commission vote on the stay before
parts of the rules take effect next Thursday, or he will instruct FCC staff to
delay part of the rules pending a commission vote, a spokesman said today.
The
rules, passed when the FCC had a Democratic majority, require broadband
providers to receive opt-in customer permission to share sensitive personal
information, including web-browsing history, geolocation, and financial details,
with third parties. Without the stay, the opt-in requirements were scheduled to
take effect next week. But critics have complained that the rules only apply to
ISPs, and not to giant online companies like Google and
Facebook, that collect huge amounts of personal data. And the FCC rules
hold ISPs to a higher privacy standard than the case-by-case privacy enforcement
that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) uses when investigating other
companies, critics say.
Supporters
of the strong ISP privacy rules say broadband providers have huge opportunities
to collect customers' personal information. And U.S. law gives the FCC little
authority to regulate the privacy practices of companies that aren't network
service providers.
"Chairman
Pai believes that the best way to protect the online privacy of American
consumers is through a comprehensive and uniform regulatory framework," an FCC
spokesman said. "All actors in the online space should be subject to the same
rules, and the federal government shouldn't favor one set of companies over
another."
Republican
Pai has promised to roll back many of the regulations passed while Democrat Tom
Wheeler served as FCC chairman. This week, the FCC voted to roll back some net
neutrality regulations that require broadband providers to inform customers
about their network management practices.
Pai's
decision to stay the privacy rules goes against U.S. law requiring the agency to
protect customers of telecom networks, said Matt Wood, policy director at
digital rights group Free Press. "It's a tragedy that Chairman Pai is willing to
ignore his own statutory mandate and delay rules that protect Internet users
from cable company abuse, while pretending that he's just chasing after a more
comprehensive privacy law that's outside of his agency's congressional
jurisdiction," Wood said. "The race-to-the-bottom mentality that Pai espouses
may play well to the industries supporting him, but people will understand that
Pai's fake promise of better rules tomorrow just means stripping away all
protections today."
Pai's
decision, however, earned praise from former U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher, a Democrat
who has criticized FCC regulations in recent years. The stay is "a smart first
step toward rolling back asymmetrical regulation that is at odds with consumers'
privacy expectations, deters innovation and causes marketplace distortion," said
Boucher, now honorary chairman of the Internet Innovation Alliance, a broadband
advocacy group. "Applying different privacy rules to the same online data by
saddling only ISPs with new regulations doesn't make sense," Boucher
added.
U.S.
Army
Senegalese
and American military medical professionals have hosted a closing ceremony
on the last day of Medical Readiness Training during the 2017 MEDRETE, in
Vincenza, Italy.
A
91 year old World War II veteran is reliving his time in the air by
tandem jumps with the U.S. Army's Golden Knights at Homestead Air Reserve
Base, Fla.
The
U.S. Army offers both full-time (on active duty) and part-time (Army
Reserve and Army National Guard) positions. If qualified, you can learn
specialized training in one of over 150 different job fields.
Armored
combat vehicles experts at BAE Systems will provide the U.S. Army with 11 M88A2
Heavy Equipment Recovery Combat Utility Lift Evacuation System (HERCULES)
vehicles and related vetronics under terms of a $28.2 million contract announced
last week.
Airborne
soldiers jumped into Alaska's Arctic tundra, on Feb. 22nd, just a few miles from
the Arctic Ocean in minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit temperatures with a windchill
factor of minus 56 F.
Simulation
and training experts at the General Dynamics Corp. will enhance the capabilities
of a U.S. Army intelligence and electronic warfare (EW) electronic simulator to
improve the training of U.S. military intelligence analysts.
Col.
Nick Johnson, an Illinois Army National Guard detachment commander and civilian
clinical psychologist, supports soldiers and their families and
helps the
homeless for one reason only - duty.
U.S.
Army officials are choosing nine U.S. information technology (IT) companies to
provide the U.S. Army's computer users with a wide variety of IT equipment over
the next decade under terms of a $2.5 billion contract.
There's
a common bond of empathy and understanding between spouses who have experienced
the deployment of a loved one to combat. While service members are trained to
use their skills in war, there's no formal training for those who stay behind
and manage the home front when military members are hundreds of miles away.
Barbara Livingston, the wife of Army Maj. Gen. Robert E.
Livingston, Jr., the adjutant general for South Carolina, welcomed two spouses
of officers in the Colombian Air Force during a South Carolina
National Guard State Partnership Program
engagement held at her home in Gaston, S.C., on Feb. 21st. Yuli
Nunez de Bueno, wife of Colombian Air Force commander Gen. Carlos Eduardo Bueno
Vargas, and Monica Ochoa de Rueda, wife of Colombia Air Force Col. Juan Carlos
Rueda Cartagena, joined Livingston to share ways they managed and held their
families together when their spouses were away on missions. "One
thing my husband and I have always made a priority was to be honest with
ourselves about his deployment and how it affected us and share these
experiences with others," Livingston said. "It's important for our soldiers,
airmen, and families to understand that it is normal to have difficulty and it
takes time." Livingston's husband deployed for 18 months to
Afghanistan in 2007, leaving her with their four grown children and a business
to run. Her husband, as a National Guard soldier and now the adjutant general
for South Carolina, has also supported multiple state response missions during
their over 30-year marriage, including Hurricane Hugo, the statewide flood of
2015, and Hurricane Matthew. "During the devastating flood, I did
not want to tell him our driveway was underwater," Livingston said. "I didn't
want to add any distractions for him while he took care of the state and kept
telling him things were fine at home." Bueno and Rueda said that
their country is transitioning to peace after more than 50 years of war and many
policies and changes for service members are still being worked through. Bueno
added that in her role as a military wife, she and other wives focus on helping
others in the community. "Supporting those who work in our
hospitals is important," Bueno said. "We have functions to support our elders,
which includes veterans, as well as military supporters. We also volunteer to
help those in need with items such as clothing." Bueno said that
the Colombian military has variations to the length of time a military member
may be away or in combat, as well as the family accommodations on different
bases where they may not be able to stay. She said the military supports the
wives with special programs to enable them to meet up with their service member
for weekends on a designated base. Livingston shared with
Bueno and Rueda a handout that they give spouses that showcases the "5 F"
philosophy of a healthy marriage and lifestyle and that is to focus on faith,
family, friends, fitness, and finance. "As wives and mothers, we
stay strong for our children," Rueda said. "I found my faith in God and through
prayer has helped us get through." "Even though our countries have
experienced different types of separations from our military spouses during
combat operations, we share that commonality of needing balance in our lives to
make it work," Livingston said. "We can't lose sight of other things that are
important. Having grandbabies has really reminded us how precious family time is
and how quickly the years pass."
U.S.
Army Reserve forces, which are part of the overall AERF contingency forces, are
part of the Army's plan to provide a force that can deploy on short
notice.
The
Army Reserve's "Operation Cold Steel" exercise begins next month at Ft. McCoy,
Wis.
The
Total Army philosophy encompasses active duty Army, Army Reserve and Army
National Guard troops as a Total Army force.
And
members of the Arkansas National Guard are one step closer to attending college
for free as a bill allowing that advances through the state's
Legislature.
Homeland
insecurity
U.S.
Homeland Security chief John Kelly says there will be no use of military forces
to help with, and there will be no, "mass" deportations.
During
a visit to Guatemala, Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly contradicted
deportation plans made public by the Trump administration. President Trump
declared yesterday that his immigration clampdown was a “military
operation” - although his homeland security secretary said
it's not.
And
new Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Paul Penzone is asking for guidance
from the director of the Department of Homeland Security about "courtesy
detainers" for illegal aliens.
Another
hard-won victory for gun rights
On
Wednesday, Gov. Chris Sununu signed SB 12 into law. The governor's signature makes New Hampshire the 13th
Constitutional Carry state in the union. This means Granite Staters will no longer be forced to
seek permission to carry concealed or be registered like sex offenders before
exercising their right to protect themselves.
The battle to enter New Hampshire
into the Constitutional Carry Club was a long, hard
campaign.
Adm. Rogers discusses near future of the U.S.
Cyber Command
U,S. Navy Adm. Mike Rogers,
the chief of U.S. Cyber Command, discussed the
command’s future over the next five to 10 years yesterday at West 2017, a sea
services event in San Diego, Calif., co-sponsored by AFCEA International
and the U.S. Naval Institute.
The AFCEA is
the international information technology, communications and electronics
association for professionals in government, industry and
academia.
Rogers, also
director of the National Security Agency, fielded
questions from moderator retired Navy Adm. James G. Stavridis, who’s now dean of
the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He’s also chairman
of the board of the U.S. Naval Institute and a senior fellow at the Johns
Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory. Topics included
integrating cyber at the tactical level of warfare, modeling Cybercom after the
structure used by the Special Operations Command, the Cybercom workforce, and
the relationship between Cybercom and the private sector, all in the five-to
10-year horizon. "Here's what we need to build toward - in the
immediate near term, elevating Cyber Command to a combatant command," Rogers
said, adding, "I think the potential for that happening in the near term is
high." (Cybercom today is a component of the U.S.
Strategic Command.)
Over the next
five to 10 years, the admiral said, he would like to see cyber integrated
offensively and defensively "down to the operational tactical
level."
Offensive
cyber in some ways is treated like nuclear weapons, he added, "in the sense that
their application outside a defined area of hostilities is controlled at the
chief-executive level and is not delegated down."
Rogers said he
hopes that over the next five to 10 years Cybercom can engender enough
confidence in decision makers and policymakers that they feel comfortable
pushing offensive cyber activities to the tactical
level.
"We should be
integrating cyber into the strike group and on the amphibious expeditionary
side. We should view this as another toolkit that's available as a commander is
coming up with a broad schema of maneuver to achieve a desired outcome or end
state. That’s what I hope," the admiral said.
Rogers and
Stavridis likened the journey of cyber to that of the special forces, whose
members in earlier times were called in only for special occasions and their use
was highly controlled. Today, they said, combatant commanders have component
commands from each service and from special
operations.
"I would
create Cyber Command much in the image of the U.S. Special
Operations Command,” Rogers said. "Give it that broad set of
responsibilities where it not only is taking forces fielded by the services and
employing them; it's articulating the requirement and the vision and you're
giving it the resources to create the capacity and then employ it."
SOF also provides a theater special operations commander across all
nine combatant commands, said Rogers, adding, that’s "a model I think we should
drive to."
The cyber
force, based on Cybercom billet structure, is about 80 percent military, 20
percent civilian, Rogers said. On the NSA side, he added, it’s 60 percent
civilian, 40 percent military. Recruiting and retention, he said, is "a little
bit harder on the civilian side."
On the
military side, the Cybercom leadership is finding that what motivates a young
man or woman to be a Marine Corps rifleman, to work the flightline in the Air
Force or to be a deck seaman in the Navy also motivates cyber warriors.
They want to be part of something bigger than themselves, they like
the ethos and culture of the military, he said. "That's a real
selling point for us right now," the admiral said. "The self-image of this
workforce is that they are the digital warriors of the 21st century. The way
they look at themselves - we're in the future, we're the cutting edge, we're
doing something new, we're blazing a path." As a leader, Rogers
said, "you cannot underestimate the value of that."
Rogers says he
reminds recruits that as cyber warriors they'll be able to do things in uniform,
within the defense and Law of Armed Conflict application, that they can't do
anywhere else, and they'll gain responsibility as they show proficiency in the
job. "Everybody responds well to that," he said. "Retention is good
right now."
In its work
with the private sector over the next five to 10 years, Rogers said he would
like to see Cybercom and tech companies "get to a level of integration where we
have actual physical collocation with each other." The admiral says
that in his military experience, "when we create command-and-control]
structures, when we create analytic and command-and-control nodes, we try to
bring all together as much data, as many different perspectives and as many
different elements in the broad enterprise that are necessary to achieve the
outcome. I think we need to do the same thing" with the tech
sector.
Rogers said
he'd like to see Cybercom, for one thing, take advantage of the sector
constructs that are in place for the 16 segments in private industry that
Presidential Policy Directive 21 designates as infrastructure critical to the
nation. These sectors are chemicals, commercial facilities,
communications, critical manufacturing, dams, the defense industrial base,
emergency services, energy, financial services, food and agriculture, government
facilities, health care and public health, information technology, nuclear
reactors and materials, transportation systems and water and
wastewater.
"How do we
take advantage of that and integrate at that level? Because as an execution guy,
my experience teaches me that you want to train, you want to exercise, you want
to simulate as many conditions as you can before you actually come into contact
with an opponent," Rogers said.
On the cyber
defense side, the admiral said, he'd like help from the technology sector to get
to machine learning at speed and automation, and through this technology to help
Cybercom free-up human capital. He'd also like the sector’s help with human
capital development. "People love to talk about the technology, but
our greatest edge isn't technology; our greatest edge is that motivated man or
woman with the intellectual capacity to anticipate, to be innovative and to be
agile," Rogers said. "Because what we're dealing with is driven by a man or
woman somewhere in the world sitting at a keyboard. There's a human dimension in
all of this. It's not just about the machine."
On the
offensive side - speaking for himself rather than the department, he said -
there are things Rogers is trying to come to grips with. "In the
application of kinetic functionality - weapons - we go to the private sector and
say, 'Build this thing we call a joint directed-attack munition, a Tomahawk
land-attack munition.’ Fill in the blank," he said. "On the
offensive side, to date, we have done almost all of our weapons development
internally," Rogers said. "And part of me goes - five to 10 years from now is
that a long-term sustainable model? Does that enable you to access fully the
capabilities resident in the private sector? I'm still trying to work my way
through that, intellectually."
News from the U.S. Marshals
Service
The U.S. Marshals Service
in Omaha, Neb., is warning the public about a telephone scam involving a
man posing as a U.S. Marshal.
A 31-year-old man wanted on
a parole violation was shot during an attempted arrest by the U.S. Marshals
Fugitive Task Force in Detroit, Mich., on Tuesday. Authorities say the
fugitive is expected to survive.
The U.S. Marshals Fugitive
Task Force captured Andre Steward in Baton Rouge, La., earlier today.
Steward is a prison escapee.
Savannah, Ga., Mayor
Eddie DeLoach has presented the widow of a fallen U.S. Marshal with a
special proclamation in his honor.
Two fugitives wanted by the
police in separate Erie, Ohio, homicides were apprehended together by
the U.S. Marshals on Wednesday night at a residence in
northeast Detroit, Mich.
Kevin Glenn Carter, 52,
wanted for kidnapping and rape, was taken into custody by the U.S. Marshals
after being found hiding in a closet of a Durham, N.C., residence yesterday
afternoon.
Kelly Powell, a
man police believe is bringing drugs into Oakland County, Mich., is wanted
for murder and the U.S. Marshals are asking for your help finding
him.
And a wanted Steuben
County, Ohio, sex offender has been caught in Texas by the U.S.
Marshals.
U.S. Air
Force
This month, members
of the Iowa Air National Guard's 185th Air Refueling Wing, based in Sioux City,
Iowa, are refueling NATO Airborne Warning and Control System
(AWACS) aircraft while assigned to NATO Air Base Geilenkirchen, Germany.
Approximately 40 members from the 185th are in Germany for two
weeks supporting NATO missions. The AWACS involves multifaceted
radar equipped aircraft that provide surveillance and command and control for
NATO areas of responsibility. Onboard aircraft crews provide communications and
control for U.S. and partner nations, while also keeping a close eye on
potential adversaries. These missions require long flight times and in-flight
refueling provided by Air Guard units like the 185th. According to
Royal Netherlands Air Force Capt. André Bongers, a public affairs officer
stationed at Geilenkirchen, the long-standing partnership with the Air Guard is
important to maintaining stability in the
region.
Congressional
inaction on a permanent budget may be the top threat to the Air Force,
Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein has indicated. "There is no enemy on the
planet than can do more damage to the United States Air Force
than us not getting a budget," he said.
The Tutor Perini
Corp. (TPC) has been awarded a design-build contract by the U.S. Air Force to
design and construct facilities in support of the Royal Saudi Air
Force.
The French Air Force
is sending to the U.S. its crack flying display team, Patrouille de France, to
visit with the U.S. Air Force.
Cadets from the Air
Force Academy have attended an Air Liaison Officers Aptitude
course.
Air Force officials
released details on the fiscal year 2017 Selective Re-enlistment Bonus program,
yesterday.
The U.S. Air Force is
trying to get permission to use an area off of the north of Kauai, Hawaii, as a
test spot to drop 100 bombs each year.
The 733rd
Logistics Readiness Squadron's Vehicle Management Flight at Joint Base
Langley-Eustis, Va., was chosen to participate in a 12-month-long
experimental testing of a new bio-based grease to lessen the base's impact on
the environment. The 441st Vehicle Support Chain Operations
Squadron and representatives from the Defense Logistics
Agency (DLA) briefed the vehicle management flight about the
impact of the bio-based grease on the three vehicles chosen to test the grease
on Jan. 31st. Members of the 441st VSCOS will also partner
with the Navy, Marine Corps, NASA and the Kennedy
Space Center to test the bio-based grease in their
vehicles.
Rachel Guy and
her husband, Major Darrell Guy, hugged and kissed prior to his deployment to
Southwest Asia with the North Carolina Air National Guard
this week. With this deployment, the 145th Airlift Wing is deploying its C-130s
for the last time.
The Ohio
Air National Guard is getting 20 new Black Hawk helicopters. They're headed to
Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base between now and the end of
2018.
Astronauts
deployed to the International Space Station (ISS) received a special
package yesterday, shipped straight from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station,
Fla.
Forty-five
members of the New York Air National Guard's 106th Rescue Wing are heading to
Hawaii on Feb. 27th to participate in a joint NASA and Defense Department
mission to evaluate recovery techniques and gear that will be used to recover
NASA's Orion spacecraft, the next generation of American space
vehicles. The team of 45 airmen is made up of para-rescuemen;
combat rescue officers; survival, evasion, resistance and escape specialists;
and other support airmen assigned to the 106th Rescue Wing's 103rd Rescue
Squadron, based at Gabreski Air National Guard Base, N.Y.
Pararescuemen are trained to rescue downed aviators behind enemy
lines and from land and water environments. Each pararescue airman undergoes two
years of training that includes extensive medical training as well as training
in parachute jumping, scuba diving and survival skills. The
para-rescuemen are experienced in dropping fully stocked rescue boats to recover
personnel. The New York Air National Guard members will work
with experts from NASA, the Air Force and the Department of Defense's Human
Spaceflight Support Office in developing techniques for air-dropping gear needed
to recover the crew from an Orion screw module and fit the floating spacecraft
with special equipment. The New York airmen will conduct airdrops
and practice helping astronauts out of the spacecraft, providing medical
assistance if necessary. The jumps will help NASA and the military test a number
of systems and procedures for future
launches.
And Lt. Col.
Darin Ninness, of Concord, has assumed command of the Civil Air
Patrol's Concord Composite Squadron in Concord,
N.H.
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