SDFM The Business of Defense
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Leon Panetta is the 23rd Secretary of Defense today. The first was James Vincent Forrestal. He served from September of 1947 until March of 1949 at the pleasure of President Dwight Eisenhower. Panetta begins his tour at the Pentagon after finishing a two year stint as director of the CIA. Many experts expect that his ground work to improve relations between the intelligence community with the Congress may produce dividends for the Pentagon as well.
July 21, 2011 -
President Barack Obama is going the present the Medal of Honor to a Marine who took on enemy fire in Afghanistan to find and bring back three missing Marines and a Navy corpsman. Dakota Meyer, who left active duty in June 2010, will be the first living Marine in 41 years to receive the nation\'s highest award for valor. Only two living recipients - Army Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta and Army Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Petry - have received the award for actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
July 21, 2011 -
What\'s going to happen next in Afghanistan? After U.S. forces draw completely down, what will the services force structure look like? Where will they be deployed and how many will be on the books. These are all issues the service branches, particularly the Marine Corps are looking at. With budget cuts coming, but still faced with the need to remain nimble and effective reviews are underway in a number of disciplines to determine how they can be most effective.
July 21, 2011 -
Dwight Bowman AFGE 14th District National Vice President Bill Fletcher AFGE Field Services and Education Director John Threlkeld AFGE Legislative Representative
July 20, 2011 -
More than 20 young men left their homes in Minnesota and traveled to Somalia to fight with the terror group Al Shabab. A number of them were teenagers who slipped out of their parents homes only to realize they\'d made a mistake, but were prevented from returning home and were killing in Somalia. Now a Minnesota man has pleaded guilty to a terror-related charge for helping recruit them. Twenty-six-year-old Omer Abdi Mohamed faces up to 15 years in prison.
July 18, 2011 -
Gen. David Petraeus, the outgoing U.S. commander in Afghanistan met up with his successor Marine Lt. Gen. John Allen in Afghanistan late last week. Should we expect changes? For the time being as always after a change a change of command , I don\'t expect a change in direction. German Army Major General Richard Rossmanith, deputy chief of staff for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. But that doesn\'t mean change won\'t happen. \"Over the time with changing conditions, there may be the necessity to adapt,\" said Rossmanith.
July 18, 2011 -
The Department of Defense has released its Strategy for operating in Cyberspace. Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn said during a speech at the National Defense University, DOD recently suffered one of its worst data losses ever during a cyber attack in the spring. 24,000 files were stolen from a defense industry computer network in a single intrusion. The strategy indicates that information flow was given priority information security and close attention is being paid to that problem.
July 18, 2011 -
U.S. intelligence is looking very carefully at the Indian Mujahideen. They are the group that some say is behind yesterday\'s attacks in Mumbai. 21 people were killed and dozens injured in three separate, but synchronized blasts during rush hour there. The last time a major terror attack happened in Mumbai, there were elements in the U.S. that were connected, but there is no obvious connection to this latest attack. Global intelligence firm Stratfor wrote the attacks were relatively unsophisticated.
July 18, 2011 -
The UN is crying foul, claiming the U.S. violated international rules by refusing to let a torture investigator speak alone to Army Private Bradley Manning. He\'s the soldier accused of leaking classified information to Wikileaks. Reuters is reporting that Juan Mendez, U.N. special envoy on torture, said that \"unmonitored one-on-one meetings with detainees in custody worldwide were the only way he could conduct credible enquiries into allegations of mistreatment.\"
July 18, 2011 -
July 18th and July 20th, 2011 Deputy Mayor Goldsmith is focused on creating a City government for the 21st Century that is smaller, more efficient, and more cost effective; uses fewer vehicles; consolidates back office functions and reduces redundancies across agencies; shares data, and uses technology to better serve the public.
July 18, 2011 -
The company connects people looking for office space with those offering it.
July 18, 2011 -
Dennis Van Roekel President, National Education Association Rick Bloomingdale President, Pennsylvania AFL-CIO Bob Weiner Former Clinton White House Spokesman Bob Hill District Advisor, First Command Financial Services
July 13, 2011 -
July 11th and July 13th, 2011 As Commissioner, Mr. Lebryk provides leadership, policy direction and guidance for FMS\' financial management programs, including payments, collections, debt collection, and government-wide accounting and financial reporting.
July 12, 2011 -
At the National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute is pioneering the use of secure online transactions to speed up clinical drug trials. The traditional, manual process of getting the paperwork to begin a clinical trial completed usually takes three to five days. By using digital signatures and secure identities, NCI and the Safe Biopharma Association say they\'re aiming to cut that time down to just a few hours. Besides being faster, the digitally signed documents also make the paper trail more searchable and auditable.
July 12, 2011 -
The Department of Veterans Affairs says starting this October, its employees will be able to bring their own tablet computers and other mobile devices to work, and use them on VA networks. For now, VA isn\'t saying specifically which devices they\'ll approve, only hinting that they\'ll be \"very popular\" devices. The department says it will set up a secure system that allows those devices to view information on VA\'s electronic health record system, but not to store that data. Employees will also have to agree to let VA monitor the devices.
July 12, 2011