Page 3 - FCW, June 15, 2016

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White House, Congress gird for another NDAA showdown
The tug-of-war comes as Cyber Command takes on its most high-profile mission yet: hacking the Islamic State terrorist group.
The House bill would also pump the brakes on one of Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s signature ini- tiatives: the Pentagon’s office in Silicon Valley for scouting emerging technologies.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s plan for the Pentagon’s Silicon Valley office faces scrutiny under the House’s defense authorization act.
platform with a history of delays and technical problems.
In the past, command- ers have favored DCGS- A’s government-built system over commercial software that is more popular with special operations units, accord- ing to an Associated Press report. The House bill implicitly addresses that tension by ceasing the in- house development of any
25%of federal cyber executives surveyed
2
by(ISC) saidtheir
agency made no changes in response to the OPM breach
The Obama administration has threat- ened to veto the House version of a defense policy bill over a number of concerns. Among the provisions the White House opposes is a measure that would make U.S. Cyber Command its own unified command and another that would restrict funding for the Defense Department’s outreach office in Silicon Valley.
The House Armed Services Com- mittee passed the fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act in April, and the full House passed it in May. The legislation would make key policy changes that would affect how DOD approaches cyberspace and how it works with the private sector.
Making Cyber Command its own combatant command rather than the subset of U.S. Strategic Command it is now would further prioritize cyber- space as a warring domain for the military.
However, the White House objects to making that change a statutory requirement. The Defense secretary and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff “should retain the flexibility to recommend to the president changes to the unified command plan that they
believe would most effectively organize the military to address an ever-evolv- ing threat environment,” according to an Office of Management and Budget policy statement.
A third sticking point between the administration and lawmakers is the bill’s restructuring of the Dis- tributed Common Ground System- Army, a controversial intelligence
Lawmakers have
expressed enthusiasm for the general concept but have been skeptical about doling out funding for the nascent office, which is dubbed the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental.
The legislation stipulates that no more than 80 percent of DIUx’s bud- get be obligated until Carter’s office submits a report clarifying the unit’s mission and outlining metrics for mea- suring its success.
DCGS-A component for which there is commercial software capable of meet- ing 80 percent of its requirements.
However, OMB called the measure “duplicative and unnecessary,” adding that it “mandates a commercial solu- tion without regard for price, ability to support a modular open system architecture, or cost associated with proprietary software maintenance.”
— Sean Lyngaas
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