Steve Peacock's U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor

Drudge Report Features “Feds Want to Track Your DNA Like a License Plate”

Many thanks to Drudge Report for spreading the word about my latest article “Feds want to track your DNA like a license plate.”

My discovery of this government plan to develop technology to track -- indeed, detect - individuals and groups based on DNA and other human "biosignatures" is a significant one.

To read more, go to WND.com...

Feds Want to Track Your DNA Like a License Plate (WND)

Though this article deviates from U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor's typical topic focus, the potential implications on a global scale make it worthy of a link -- S.P.

Feds Want to Track Your DNA Like a License Plate

Just as details are emerging about a controversial, nationwide vehicle-surveillance database, WND has learned the federal government is planning an even more invasive spy program using “physiological signatures” to track down individuals.

The goal of this research is to detect – as well as analyze and categorize – unique traits the government can exploit to “identify, locate and track specific individuals or groups of people.”

According to the program’s statement of objectives, “The scope of human-centered [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, or ISR] research spans the complete range of human performance starting at the individual molecular, cellular, genomic level.”

Read more at WND.com...

 

Obama Hiring Contractor for African Bombs (WND)

My latest from WND. -- S.P.

The Obama administration continues to ramp up its military-response capabilities in Africa, where it is now looking for contractor support to transport U.S. Africa Command troops, weaponry and explosives.

The U.S. Transportation Command on behalf of AFRICOM is soliciting help from private aircraft providers who can move U.S. troops and supplies in the Central African nations of Uganda, Central Africa Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan.

The development comes at a time when the Department of Defense simultaneously is strengthening its ability – also with contractor assistance – to retrieve soldiers trapped and injured in hot spots ranging from Cameroon to Kenya.

Read more at WND.com...

 

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Indonesian Air Force Getting Dozens of USAF F-16 Jet Engines

The Obama Administration is providing twenty-eight jet engines to the Indonesian Air Force, which will use the remanufactured Pratt & Whitney F100-PW-220E engines to equip its F-16 fighters.

The transfer of this technology is taking place under an Excess Defense Article, or EDA, arrangement, according to a Performance Work Statement that the U.S. Air Force posted to the FedBizOpps database on July 30.

According to the EDA page of the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency:

Working under authorities established in the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Arms Export Control Act, defense articles declared as excess by the Military Departments can be offered to foreign governments or international organizations in support of U. S. national security and foreign policy objectives. Typically, EDA is transferred to support U. S. allies in their modernization efforts and to assist Latin American and Caribbean nations in their counter-narcotics programs.

Several contracts are expected to be awarded to bring this endeavor to fruition, the document said. In addition to remanufacturing and delivering the engines, separate awards will be made to contractors over a three-year period for logistics and technical support inside Indonesia.

Source document: Solicitation #FA8124-12-R-0019.

Related regional coverage:

Indonesians to Receive Master's Degrees Courtesy U.S. Taxpayers

Obama Administration Pours Millions into Indonesian Education -- Support for Islamic, Public Schools Begun by Bush Continues

 

Feds Recruit Private Sector to Expand Drone Use

The federal government’s expanded use of drones over U.S. airspace for “humanitarian assistance and homeland security” purposes soon will receive a boost of assistance from the private sector.

A cadre of contracted “subject-matter experts” will help devise national policies and procedures governing unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs.

In order to “facilitate the safe expansion” of the Obama administration’s domestic drone deployment, the U.S. Air Force Safety Center, or AFSC, will outsource to industry the assembling of this expert crew, according to a Sources Sought document that U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor discovered via routine database research.

The release of a formal Request for Proposals to provide those services is imminent.

A recent amendment to the procurement – known as the RPA Advisory & Assistance Services initiative – indicates that the bid request will be made public this week.

The AFSC’s Remote Piloted Aircraft, or RPA, Safety Branch, which oversees “safety policy, global mishap prevention strategies and processes,” said the outsourcing of this “safety expertise” will play a critical role in integrating drones into the National Airspace System.

The endeavor also will enable the Department of Defense to execute its plan to establish 65 regional drone Combat Air Patrols, while additionally providing “functional safety capabilities in support” of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom missions, the solicitation said.

Helping to clear a backlog of RPA cases under investigation at the Air Force Central Command and the Air Combat Command also falls within the purview of this procurement.

The department intends to hire a single prime contractor – which must be a U.S. firm –responsible for filling several subject-matter expert positions. According to a Summary of Required Services document, approximately seven analysts and engineers will comprise the RPA safety crew.

Positions slated to be created for the expert drone cadre include an “operations research analyst” and an “airspace/air traffic control expert.” Those contractors will interact with representative of the major military commands and the Federal Aviation Agency generally to help safely expand drone operations in U.S. airspace.

A pair of “systems safety engineers” and a “human factors expert” specifically will be tasked with analyzing “aviation safety trends,” involving evaluations of existing “mishap reports and data.” The document did not include statistics revealing the extent of such drone “mishaps.” Those experts also will coordinate safety efforts with other unmanned aerial system – or UAS– users, both governmental and non-governmental, “to identify common problem areas and share potential technical solutions.”

Among those other entities is the Electronic Systems Center, or ESC, a key Air Force unit responsible for many Defense-wide military command and control projects around the globe. ESC, headquartered at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts, oversees “some of America’s most valuable defense assets.”

Those assets include the E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System, or Joint STARS, whose primary mission “is to provide theater ground and air commanders with ground surveillance to support attack operations and targeting that contributes to the delay, disruption and destruction of enemy forces.”

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Research and Engineering, known as MITRE Corp., was identified in the document as a non-governmental partner with whom the engineers would work. MITRE, for example, later this year will host a panel meeting on behalf of the Office of the Secretary of Defense to explore UAS “sense and avoid, or SAA, science and research.”

The defense secretary’s office, in a Request for Information on SAA data, acknowledged that “a key challenge to integrating UAS into the National Airspace System is a means for UAS to sense and avoid other aircraft.” The meeting will take place Nov. 14-15 at MITRE’s McLean, Va., facility, where the Office of the Secretary of Defense will lead an assessment of “ongoing science and research initiatives.”

The gathering also will seek to identify “areas where industry and the research community desires government guidance.”

This article originally was published via WND.com on July 8, 2012. Under agreement with WND, rights have reverted back to the author, Steve Peacock.

WND: Feds Recruit Private Sector to Expand Drone Use

See my latest article contribution to WND: “Feds recruit private sector to expand drone use;  Seek traffic control experts to launch more spy planes over U.S. airspace.”

 

Air Force Fuel Supply and Storage to be Outsourced Around Globe

The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) plans to outsource a chunk of its global fuel supply and storage services to industry, though the agency has not disclosed the exact magnitude of those future contracts,  U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor has discovered. According to several presolicitation notices dated Dec. 5 and discovered though a routine search of the FedBizOpps database, the Monitor has learned that significant opportunities to take over such DLA operations on behalf of the U.S. Air Force are on the horizon.

DLA-Energy anticipates releasing a Request for Proposals (RFP) in about 30-60 days for "Government-Owned, Contractor-Operated (GOCO) Aviation and Ground Fuel Bulk Storage Services" in the following global facilities:

Osan Air Base, Korea (Solicitation #SP0600-12-R-0501);

Andersen Air Force Base, Guam (Solicitation #SP0600-12-R-0505);

Kadena Air Base, Japan (Solicitation #SP0600-12-R-0504);

Incirlik Air Base, Turkey (Solicitation Number #SP0600-12-R-0502);

Ramstein Air Base, Germany (Solicitation#SP0600-12-R-0509);

Lajes Field, Azores (Portugal) (Solicitation #SP0600-12-R-0510);

Misawa Air Base, Japan (Solicitation #SP0600-12-R-0503);

Domestic U.S.  sites include:

Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska (Solicitation #SP0600-12-R-0511);

Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska (Solicitation #SP0600-12-R-0500); and:

Defense Fuel Support Point (DFSP), San Pedro, CA.  (Solicitation #SP060012R0517)

The solicitations stated little else other than declaring that:

The Contractor's responsibility under the resulting contract will be to operate and maintain bulk storage facility to ensure safe and accurate receipt, storage, transfer, and issue of petroleum products under their control.  The contractor will not be required to perform alongside aircraft refueling, truck deliveries, handling cryogenics, operating automated service stations, or other unrelated tasks not specified in the Performance Work Statement.

Most of the above documents indicated that DLA anticipates awarding five-year contracts beginning 2012-2013, depending on location. Additionally, the agency will hold preproposal conferences and site visits for interested contractors at the respective sites.

U.S. Air Force Releases Little About Pakistani F-16 Upgrades, Other Than Cost

The U.S. Air Force awarded a $42.3 million contract to Lockheed Martin Corp. in order to upgrade U.S.-provided F-16 fighter jets of the Pakistani Air Force. The Air Force Material Command via the FedBizOpps database on Aug. 1 made known the contract, which it awarded to the company July 29.  Though a separate solicitatation or special notice typically precedes such awards, the Air Force in this case did not make one publicly available; contrary to standard practice, it instead posted an identical number for the award announcement and solicitation: #FA861507C6032P00038. Little else was made available about the project .

Lockheed Martin has been providing Pakistan with F-16s since 1982, when the company delivered the first shipment of jets in what is known as the Block 15 F-16A/B configuration. The label of the award notice,"CCP 3098C1 Additional Kits for the Pakistan Block 15 F-16 A/B Enhanced Modernization Program, allude to those particular aircraft. Lockheed Martin in October 2008 additionally unveiled the first of eighteen new F-16s for Pakistan.

Defense Firm Gets No-Bid Bomb Support Contract Amidst Conflict of Interest Claims

Defense manufacturer EDO Corp. is getting a sole-source contract to provide conventional- and nuclear-bomb ejectors to the U.S. Air Force, in spite of revelations that one of its board members simultaneously led a Pentagon-supported think-tank which consulted the Dept. of Defense on the procurement of the F-22 Raptor program -- a multibillion-dollar aerospace project for which EDO is a subcontractor. While the Washington Post today reported the imminent resignation of Retired Admiral Dennis C. Blair -- who is both EDO Corp. president and board member of the DoD-funded Institue for Defense Analysis -- The Peacock Report has discovered that the Air Force Material Command plans to award the noncompetitive contract to EDO for the bomb-ejector racks. The potential value of the contract was not disclosed.

While the conflict of interest allegations have begun to draw media and congressional attention in the U.S., an EDO affiliate in the U.K. separately has come under fire from pro-Palestinian British activists for providing the Israeli Defense Forces with technologies that they claim are "likely" being used to cause the death of civilians in Gaza, the BBC reported.