Page 10 - FCW, September/October 2019

Trending
Pentagon
sets up new
5G shop
The Defense Department is in the midst of adding assistant directors to lead the “strategic shaping” of each of the Pentagon’s modernization efforts, specifically 5G, Undersecretary for Research and Engineering Michael Griffin said at a Hudson Institute event in August.
“We will shortly be bringing on board an assistant director for 5G...and similarly for all our other \[areas\],” Griffin said.
He added that Deputy Under- secretary for Research and Engineering Lisa Porter is leading DOD’s 5G strategy and initiatives, and Congress and the Office of Management and Budget are expected to review the plans this year.
Griffin said he came into office expecting to make hypersonics capabilities a priority and was not convinced that DOD needed to foray into 5G. In March, he told Congress that the technology was “in its infancy everywhere in the world” and therefore too immature to be operationalized by DOD.
More recently, however, he said: “We are aware that commercial initiatives in telecommunications far outstrip anything that we can do and would want to do in DOD.”
However, he added that “everything electromagnetic now becomes a potential threat as well as a potential promise. We’re going to have to learn to have trusted communications in untrusted networks because we will never be able to certify perfect hardware.”
In other words, “the advantage of 5G, succinctly stated, is everything is part of the network,” he said. “The disadvantage of 5G is everything is part of the system — everything is part of the attack surface.”
— Lauren C. Williams
12% fewer cyber incidents were reported by agencies in fiscal 2018 compared to fiscal 2017
Sue Gordon resigns as ODNI deputy
The second highest-ranking intelligence official in the federal government has resigned, leaving the office charged with coordinating and directing the nation’s 17 intelligence agencies without permanent leadership for its top two spots.
Following news reports that Sue Gordon, principal deputy director of national intelligence, had decided to resign, President Donald Trump announced on Twitter that Gordon would be stepping down and that Joseph Maguire, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, would be named acting director of national intelligence.
Gordon was a career official who gradually worked her way up the chain of command, and she has garnered widespread respect inside and outside the intelligence and national security communities. In a statement, Coats called Gordon “a visionary leader” who made “an enormous impact on the \[intelligence community\] over the more than three decades she has served.” He also praised Maguire, saying he had a long, distinguished career and would serve with distinction.
The move to push out Gordon and Coats has rankled congressional Democrats and a number of former
intelligence officials. Many have warned that the Trump administration seems to be clearing the way to install a politically loyal ally to lead the intelligence community, which has helped fuel a counterintelligence investigation into
Trump’s campaign and often contradicted his public statements on the threats Russia poses to the U.S. election system, North Korea’s intentions to denuclearize and other issues.
“The mission of the intelligence community is to speak truth to power,” said Sen. Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence. “Yet in pushing out two dedicated public servants in as many weeks, once again the president has shown that he has no problem prioritizing his political ego even if it comes at the expense of our national security.”
Warner’s counterpart on the committee, Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.), called Gordon’s resignation a significant loss.
— Derek B. Johnson
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September/October 2019 FCW.COM
The move had been
expected for weeks,
and Gordon made it
clear in her letter of
resignation to Trump
that the choice was not
hers. “As you ask a new
leadership team to take
the helm, I will resign
my position effective
15 August 2019 and will subsequently retire from federal service,” she wrote.
In a private handwritten letter sent to White House reporters, she was even blunter, telling the president she was taking the action “as an act of respect and patriotism, not preference.”
After Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats announced his resignation in July — also at the behest of the president, according to multiple reports –— the White House and Trump repeatedly hinted that someone other than Gordon might be selected as acting director. However, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 clearly states that when a vacancy occurs in the director position, the principal deputy director “shall act for, and exercise the powers of, the director of national intelligence.”
Sue Gordon