DHS Hacker Threat Info Unveiled

On GovLoop Insights’ DorobekINSIDER:

• Did you ever play the game telephone as a kid? It was one of my favorite games, because no matter how hard you tried, the message always got muddled somewhere along the way. Messages from government leaders can also run the risk of a telephone esq misunderstanding. We look at some easy solutions.

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The SEVEN stories that impact your life

1. NPR: 130 U.S. Personnel Sent To Iraq, Defense Secretary Hagel Says- “Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced another 130 U.S. personnel have been sent to Iraq. Hagel said President Obama authorized the deployment of the “new assessment-team members,” who arrived in Irbil, northern Iraq, today. The region has been under threat from extremists who support the Islamic State, and members of the Yazidi religious sect there have been forced to flee their homes, without food, water or shelter.”

2. Government Executive: 300,000 People Could Lose Their Obamacare If They Don’t Prove Their Residency- “More than 300,000 Obamacare enrollees have yet to provide information on their legal residency or citizenship, according to the government. Those individuals have until September 5 to send complete information to the government before losing coverage on September 30.”

3. Federal Times: Some military bases now can run FBI checks on anyone entering gates- “Some military installations will be able to run FBI background checks on anyone trying to pass through the gates as of Aug. 8. In what is partly a response to the mass shooting in September at the Navy Yard in Washington, when a lone gunman fatally shot 12 people and injured three others, the Pentagon fast-tracked the development of a forcewide screening system known as the Identity Matching Engine for Security and Analysis, or IMESA.”

4. Nextgov: Who Receives Hacker Threat Info From DHS?- “Health care, banking and other key sectors at risk of cyberattacks have not joined a Department of Homeland Security program required to offer these industries protections against a potential catastrophic hack, according to federal inspectors. President Obama ordered in early 2013 that DHS expand an information-sharing program once restricted to Pentagon contractors to the 16 so-called critical infrastructure industries.”

5. Military Times: Hagel changes hair policy after controversy- “Dreadlocks, cornrows, twisted braids and other hairstyles popular among African American women will be more accepted across the military after a forcewide review of hairstyle policies prompted several changes, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said. The three-month review came after a spate of complaints that service-level grooming policies were racially biased against black women who choose to wear their hair naturally curly rather than use heat or chemicals to straighten it.”

6. Government Executive: Not Everyone Is Eligible for Phased Retirement- “Those covered under the Civil Service Retirement System and the Federal Employees Retirement System can apply for the new program, which allows eligible feds to work 20 hours per week, receiving half their pay as well as half their retirement annuity. Federal workers employed in the following jobs, however, are excluded from participating in what the government hopes will improve succession planning in agencies: law enforcement officers; firefighters; nuclear materials couriers; air traffic controllers; members of the Capitol Police; members of the Supreme Court Police; and some customs and border protection officers (certain customs and border protection officers hired before July 6, 2008, are eligible for phased retirement, according to the regulation). Non-CSRS and non-FERS employees eligible for retirement — for example, those enrolled in the Foreign Service retirement system — also aren’t able to apply for the perk.”

7. FCW: Analytics could drive the future of VistA- “The Veterans Administration collects a lot of patient data. The agency data mart has about 2.5 petabytes of structured information on patient interactions — about 900 billion rows of data covering 1.6 billion encounters and 1.5 billion pharmacy orders. The big question for VA’s experts in informatics and analytics is how to make that information available to improve the quality of care, without drowning providers in data.”