I Spy a Smart Contractor Securing Data After Reading This Post

A Chinese-born scientist steals the secrets of the American chemical company that employs him, smuggles chemicals out of the U.S. and delivers them to the Chinese government.

It sounds like the dream of a Hollywood scriptwriter, but it is just one of a growing number of real industrial espionage cases the U.S. Justice Department is investigating and prosecuting, according to an Oct. 17 New York Times article. The Times dubbed these cases of U.S. employees gone rogue to help rival nations make technological leaps the “new front in the battle for a global economic edge.”

PSC’s Soloway Testifies on “Defense Department Budget Initiatives”

Congress is probing the Defense Department’s plans to shutter commands and cut service contracts spending by 10 percent a year for the next three years, seeking the hitherto elusive strategic analysis proving those cuts are necessary because the work is unnecessary or better achieved through other means. PSC President and CEO Stan Soloway testified at a House Budget Committee hearing on Sept. 30 to shed light on the industry and economic impacts of what has so far been an opaque DoD budget exercise, particularly with regards to insourcing.

Redirecting Development Assistance Not Smart (and Certainly Not Smart Contracting)

President Obama unveiled key changes in how the U.S would distribute foreign assistance last week. Not least among the changes will be providing U.S. assistance directly to recipient-nation governments under the presumption such “direct assistance” will build that nation’s economic capabilities faster and better than the use of grants or contracts to development firms and non-profit organizations does today.

However well intentioned this effort may be, it does not account for some of the avoidable risks and obvious dangers attached with making cash transfers to nations that are receiving assistance precisely because they lack the governance structures required to effectively grow their economies, educate their populace and otherwise provide for the poorest of the poor in their nations. Nor is the presumption behind shifting toward direct assistance grounded in fact, as there is no evidence that implementing partners are not effective in achieving U.S. development goals through grants or contracts.

But, as they say on Reading Rainbow, “you don’t have to take my word for it.” Just pick up September’s edition of Service Contractor and you’ll find an in-depth explanation on the risks of direct assistance written by development professional Tonya Giannoni, chief operating officer of DevTech Systems and a tri-chair of PSC’s International Development Task Force.

Guest Blog: PDD on Global Development “Step in the Right Direction;” Sustained Leadership Needed to Ensure Success

By Stan Soloway

Professional Services Council President and CEO

Yesterday, President Obama signed a Presidential Decision Directive on Global Development (PDD) and described a new, unified policy approach to international development in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly High Level Summit on the Millennium Development Goals. PSC and its international development firm members support the elevation of development as a co-equal third pillar of national power, alongside diplomacy and defense. We believe the articulation of a U.S. Global Development Strategy will bring needed coherence and momentum to aid programs that are fragmented and duplicative. In discussions with Obama administration officials, we have supported plans to rebuild USAID as the nation’s leading voice in development issues and as the clear leader of a coordinated “whole of government” approach to foreign assistance.

PSC welcomes the president’s focus on economic growth as the fundamental force that will eventually transform the developing world and we support the president’s call to “use all the tools at our disposal” to achieve complex and difficult development goals. However, U.S. government support for greater “country ownership” should not be read as a code phrase for a wholesale shift away from the use of U.S development firms to direct assistance to foreign governments and organizations. Design and delivery modes for development projects must still be strategically tied to program goals and must reflect the political, social, economic and governance capabilities of the recipient nations and organizations.

Contractors who make the ultimate sacrifice go unnoticed, until now

Congressional overseers have long lamented that the Defense Department had no accurate accounting for the number of contractors on the battlefield. Unlamented, however, is the fact that the department fails to accurately account for the number of contractors killed or injured in the line of duty supporting those who are protecting our nation.

But perhaps that is because the facts represent an inconvenient truth, as procurement law expert Steven Schooner and Collin Swan report in this quarter’s edition of Service Contractor. In the first two quarters of 2010 alone, contractors accounted for 53 percent of all fatalities in both Iraq and Afghanistan, they found.

Guest Blog: Reaching the Millennium Development Goals: Use All the Tools of International Development

By Stan Soloway
Professional Services Council President and CEO

As the U.N. General Assembly gathers to measure progress toward the 2015 Millennium Development Goals, they can take pride in celebrating important accomplishments, but should also begin to consider what happens when many of those ambitious plans are not met. The global needle has moved in a positive direction to address global poverty, universal education, gender equality, child health, maternal health, HIV/AIDs, environmental sustainability and development partnerships, but U.N. officials have admitted that some goals in many places are already beyond reach. A weak global economy will get most of the blame, but how much money is spent does not alone account for the failure to meet key development targets. Policies on how international aid is delivered also need to be examined in light of new global realities.

One key policy debate deals with the role of the private sector in funding and delivering development assistance. Some decry the “privatization” of aid projects funded by foundations and corporations while others denounce the use of contractors from donor nations as high-cost colonialism. MDG gaps and failures will be offered as proof of insufficient “ownership” of aid projects and that only local buy-in, purchased through direct transfer of funds to recipient-nation governments and non-profits, guarantees development success.

These arguments overlook the vital role private sector donors and implementers already play in advancing developing nations from unproductive dependence to self-sustaining economic and governance capabilities. The Obama administration’s MDG strategy prudently looks to leverage innovation, deploy new technologies and introduce “new business models to make aid agencies and the international development architecture more effective.” That recognition that development is about doing business is a good first step toward a balanced, effective assistance strategy for the MDGs and beyond.

SmartContracting Blog Meets Smart Contracting Caucus, Learns about Cybersecurity Challenges

Speakers from two PSC member companies, SRA and Mircosoft, were on Capitol Hill Sept. 16 to explain the challenges facing the public-private partnership fighting cyber threats. They participated in a special meeting of the House Smart Contracting Caucus (LOVE the name!) hosted by caucus member Rep. Gerry Connolly, VA-11.

 

According to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, cybersecurity is one of the top threats to our national security. Connolly and the panelists—Patrick Burke, senior vice president for offerings and products with SRA; Jerry Cochran, chief cybersecurity architect for Microsoft Public Sector Services; and Jessica Herrera-Flanigan, partner at Monument Policy Group and member of the CSIS Commission on Cyber Security for the 44th Presidency—were in general agreement that among the top hurdles facing both government and industry in tackling this threat are:

 

• Inadequate information sharing between the sectors to ensure threats are addressed in a timely manner;
• A shortage of public and private sector employees with the skills necessary to stay abreast of the ever-evolving, global threat;
• Undefined leadership roles and responsibilities among agencies and contractors; 
• A lack of a common lexicon regarding cybersecurity terminology and threats; and
• No broad policy for assessing and managing the risk to government and private sector systems.

All agreed that these challenges have long faced both the public and private sector. This Congress has attempted to address these matters through legislation, but none has passed to date. Some of the bills would take important steps to clarify leadership in the executive branch, define the roles and responsibilities of the public and private sectors, and establish compliance reporting structures. According to Connolly, it is unlikely that any of the bills will pass Congress before or after the election.

 

That means the government and private sector will have to start the entire process from scratch in the new Congress. Meanwhile, the cyber threat continues to evolve and the government and private sector continue to fight it as best they can.