FederalDaily - December 15, 2005
Navy Helicopter Crashes in Ocean
A U.S. Navy SH-60B helicopter from Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron (Light)
48, homeported in Mayport, Fla., crashed in the Eastern Pacific Ocean the morning
of Dec. 13. Three crew members were onboard, and their status us unknown at
this time, according to the Navy. The helicopter was conducting scheduled flight
operations when it crashed in international waters west of Colombia. The frigate
USS De Wert (FFG 45) immediately began a search and rescue effort. Additionally,
the Colombian Navy has joined the U.S. Navy in the search and rescue operation.
The U.S. Navy will investigate the cause of the accident.
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Army Establishes New Leadership Office
The Army announced it is opening a new Senior Leader Development (SLD) Office
in January to develop and manage colonels and general officers. The mission
of SLD is to assist the chief of staff and secretary of the Army in developing,
assigning and managing Army colonels and general officers. SLD will be led
by a director and two deputies, one for the branch that will manage generals
and one for the branch that will manage colonels. The Army will not immediately
change the way it manages generals, said Col. Mike Harris, the designated director
of SLD. In addition to the more than 350 active duty generals, SLD will assume
responsibility for about 2,600 active duty lieutenant colonels and colonels
from the Army Competitive Category.
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NPS Requests Temporary Employee Waiver
Dec. 31 marks the end of the waiver period established by the Office of Personnel
Management (OPM) for the continued employment of temporary employees at the
National Park Service (NPS). With hurricane recovery work continuing, the NPS
Human Resources Office said it is making another attempt to extend the existing
waiver. To continue the waiver of the 1039 hour limit, NPS recently asked its
employees to submit the following information: number of employees to be extended
(ranger, maintenance, etc.); where the employee is needed; and why the employee
is needed. The existing OPM waiver applied to Hurricane Katrina, but the extension
will include all hurricane impacted areas, NPS said.
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Report Criticizes Federal IT Security Efforts
The Cyber Security Industry Alliance (CSIA) on Dec. 13 called on the federal
government to assert greater leadership in the protection of the country’s
information infrastructure in 2006. CSIA reported that the government made
limited progress in information security in 2005. “Over the past year,
the government has taken limited steps to improve the state of information
security in our country, such as increased congressional leadership on issues
of spyware and identity theft, and the creation of a new assistant secretary
for cyber security and telecommunications position within the Department of
Homeland Security,” said Paul Kurtz, CSIA’s executive director.
In its report, CSIA graded the progress of federal agencies on their follow-through
on 12 recommendations made one year ago. CSIA said that, overall, the administration
and Congress scored a grade of D or below on seven of the 12 recommendations.
To read the report, go to: https://www.csialliance.org/StateofCyberSecurity2006/Information_Security_
Report.PDF.
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