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House Democrats question DHS over using facial recognition tech on US citizens (Emily Birnbaum, The Hill)
Over 20 House Democrats in a letter on Friday pressed the Department of Homeland Security over Border Patrol’s use of facial recognition technology on U.S. citizens in airports, arguing the rapidly expanding program has not been enabled by any congressional mandate.

Making mobility a core part of federal cyber mandates (Bob Stevens, Federal News Network)
With mobile devices continuing to drive productivity and mission-focused efforts for government, the need to protect government data on mobile devices has never been greater.
Much like the enterprise arena, critical data needed for government employees to be productive has moved to the cloud, and needs to be accessible from any device, wherever employees are located.
There no longer is any “there” anymore when it comes to where government data lives, and it is now more fluid, moving and accessible. As a result, rather than stashing endpoints behind traditional perimeter security, security itself must move to the endpoint.

Future climate shifts could pose risks to the U.S. energy system (Amy M. Jaffe, CFR)
As the need for U.S. federal government engagement on climate change becomes more pressing, various leaders and agencies are stepping into the void. This week, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, a legislative branch government agency that provides evaluation and investigation services for the U.S. Congress, issued a report critical of the U.S. Department of Defense’s practice of basing responses to extreme weather events and climate change effects based on past experience and called on the Secretary of Defense to issue guidance on “incorporating climate projections into installation master planning” as well as facility project designs. The guidance should cover how to integrate multiple future scenarios, what scientific projections to use, and what future time frames to consider, the GAO suggested.

Recently, the Council on Foreign Relations program on Energy Security and Climate Change convened a workshop on related issues. The program entitled “Climate Risks to the Energy System: Examining the Financial, Security, and Technological Dimensions” concluded that U.S. energy infrastructure is increasingly at risk to climactic changes and that the United States is ill prepared to address those risks, which are a serious matter of national security. In the report from the CFR workshop it was recommended that Congress require the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to update risk assessments to include detailed analysis by geography, infrastructure type, and detail of potential specific climate hazards to better identify future climate-related vulnerabilities. This is important for the U.S. energy system generally and to energy supplies to U.S. military bases and operations specifically. Such regional and local assessments should be shared with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and FEMA as a basis for planning capital expenditures for adaptation and evacuation.

Gardner proposes enlisting hackers to help protect State Department (Ripon Advance)
U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) on June 12 sponsored bipartisan legislation that proactively pursues new and cost-effective ways to bolster national defenses and protect the U.S. State Department, its data and its employees.
Sen. Gardner introduced the Hack Your State Department Act, S. 1808, with bill cosponsor U.S. Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) to design and establish a Vulnerability Disclosure Process to improve cybersecurity and a bug bounty program to identify and report information technology weaknesses at the State Department, according to the congressional record.

House’s bill establishes cybersecurity first responder teams at DHS (D. H. Kass, MSSP Alert)
will be created under new bi-partisan legislation passed by House lawmakers in a voice vote.
The DHS Cyber Incident Response Teams Act (H.R. 1158) would establish cybersecurity crews sent out to help public and private sector asset owners and operators in the immediate wake of a cyberattack, according to Michael McCaul, the legislation’s primary sponsor and ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Teams would operate inside DHS’s National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center.