• Senate Democrats block vote on House’s DHS budget bill

    In late 2014, Republicans decided to fund DHS only through the end of February 2015 in hopes of using further funding request conditioned on defunding the implementation of President Barack Obama’s executive order to halt deportations for many undocumented immigrants. Senate Democrats, on the other hand, are demanding a DHS funding bill which does not interfere with Obama’s immigration plans. On Thursday, for the fourth time, Senate Democrats blocked the Republican move to pass a bill which defunds Obama’s executive order.

  • Most DHS employees would go on working even if budget is not approved

    The critical responsibilities of many DHS components require approximately 200,000 of the agency’s 230,000 employees to continue working even if Congress fails to fund the agency, as most DHS employees perform work considered necessary to protect human life and property. Still, withholding funding for DHS could delay the department’s employees’ paychecks until the shutdown ends.

  • Tomsheck’s “July Amnesty”: CBP IA loses hundreds of cases alleging criminal activity by CBP Employees -- Pt. 3

    An unprecedented scandal continues to unfold within Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Fueling this scandal are allegations by James F. Tomsheck about the U.S. largest federal law enforcement agency. Further investigation suggests that the “July Amnesty,” initiated in Tomsheck’s CBP IA’s Integrity Programs Division (IPD) headed by Director Janine Corrado and Assistant Director Jeffrey Matta, casts doubt on Tomsheck’s allegations against his CBP superiors. Along with the July Amnesty in 2011 and the alleged discrimination and firing of Navy Lieutenant Commander (Ret.) J. Gregory Richardson in March 2014, there appear to be a number of other events calling Tomsheck’s leadership at CBP IA into question.

  • DHS releases the wrong FOIA-requested documents, exposing infrastructure vulnerabilities

    On 3 July 2014, DHS, responding to a Freedom of Information Act(FOIA) request on Operation Aurora, a malware attack on Google, instead released more than 800 pages of documents related to the Aurora Project, a 2007 research effort led by Idaho National Laboratoryto show the cyber vulnerabilities of U.S. power and water systems, including electrical generators and water pumps. The research project found that once these infrastructure systems are infiltrated, a cyberattack can remotely control key circuit breakers, thereby throwing a machine’s rotating parts out of synchronization and causing parts of the system to break down.

  • Expanding mission, budget cuts, retirements at root of current Secret Service problems

    A series of recent security lapses at the White House may be attributed to an expansion of U.S. Secret Service duties ordered by Congress and the White House during the George W. Bush administration, according to a new DHS review of the agency. Officials familiar with the agency’s administrative inner-workings also note that budget cuts forced the agency to ration services while simultaneously dealing with a wave of early retirements from seasoned staff members.

  • DOJ’s new cyber unit to provide legal guidance on electronic surveillance

    The Justice Department is creating a cybersecurity unit within its Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) to provide legal guidance on electronic surveillance investigations.The unit will also work with Congress on cybersecurity legislation and focus on cybercrime prevention.

  • USCIS looking to fill 1,000 positions in response to Obama’s executive order

    An internal memo from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) notes that the federal government is seeking to fill 1,000 full-time permanent and temporary positions at a new “operational center” in Crystal City, Arlington, Virginia, in response to the Obama administration’s executive actions to allow some five million undocumented immigrants have their deportation deferred, apply for driver’s licenses in most states, and apply for two-year work permits.

  • CBP IA’s Janine Corrado and Jeffrey M. Matta leave agency for new positions

    Janine Corrado and Jeffrey M. Matta are leaving CBP IA to assume other positions outside of CBP IA.Corradowill receive a promotion to the position of Chief of Staff for Gregory Marshall, Chief Security Officer at DHS. Matta will take a position in the Office of Field Operations at CBP. J. Gregory Richardson, who worked at CBP IA, complained that Corrado and Matta ignored his status as a disabled veteran despite extensive documentation of his medical condition.

  • James F. Tomscheck forced disabled veteran from CBP IA – Pt. 2

    While the details and implications of President Barack Obama’s immigration reforms continue to be closely scrutinized, an unprecedented scandal unfolds within the federal agency charged with providing security and control at our Mexican border. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), a law enforcement agency of 65,000 employees, is potentially facing alarming charges fostered by its former assistant director of Customs and Border Protection Internal Affairs (CBP IA), James F. Tomscheck. Tomscheck, who turned federal whistleblower last summer, lambasted his superiors with multiple accusations. Allegations, however, have arisen against Tomscheck that he knowingly discriminated against a disabled military veteran within CBP IA, then fired him.

  • Obama’s executive order will shield 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation

    In the face of bitter protests from Republicans in Congress, President Obama will soon announce that he will be using executive orders to launch a broad overhaul of the U.S. immigration enforcement system. One of the immediate results of the overhaul would be to shield up to five million undocumented immigrants – nearly half of the estimated 11.5 million undocumented immigrants currently in the United States — from the threat of deportation. The president’s orders will also provide many of these undocumented immigrants with work permits.

  • Government tries better to define cybersecurity needs

    In a science advisory board meeting on 23 October at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), officials attempted to glean just where the government cybersecurity workforce stood in terms of talent and hiring necessity. There is currently no government-wide federal job description in the cybersecurity field, and that has led to meetings similar to the October summit.

  • Court orders reinstatement of CBP terminated employee, saying termination was unjustified

    Customs and Border Protection(CBP) agent Thomas G. Wrocklage has triumphedin his effort to return to work following a federal appeals court’s disagreement with how the Merit Systems Protection Board(MSPB) decided his removal appeal. Wrocklage disagreed with his supervisors about a $300 fine issued to an elderly couple returning from a trip to Canada for failure to disclose to a second border officer that they had with them some fruits and vegetables.

  • Vet alleges supervisors at CBP IA ignored his disability: “He Just needed an ounce of compassion” -- Pt. 1

    J. Gregory Richardson, a Lieutenant Commander in the Navy (Retired) who injured his back on his last deployments, says that when he served a Senior Security Analyst t Customs and Border Protection Internal Affairs (CBP IA) from 2006 until 2013, supervisors there repeatedly ignored his status as a disabled veteran despite extensive documentation of his medical condition. A fellow CBP IA employee agrees: “he (Richardson) just needed an ounce of compassion” from his supervisors, she said. This veteran never received an ounce of compassion, however, or any other consideration or accommodation. He appears to have been set adrift in the complexities of the federal employment procedures and policies process.

  • U.S. should emulate allies in pushing for public-private cybersecurity collaboration

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced last month the formation of a national cyber defense authority to defend civilian networks under the leadership of the Israel National Cyber Bureau.The “U.S. government has a lot to learn from successful examples in allied nations. With more compromise and reform, there is plenty of reason for hope,” says a cybersecurity expert, adding that “a cybersecurity partnership between government, business, and individuals built on trust is possible, and would promote more resilient networks as well as creative thinking on cybersecurity.”

  • Departures, vacancies continue to hobble DHS

    The rate of senior level departures at DHS has increased in recent years, and some say that as a result, the department is unable to stay ahead of emerging threats, including potential terrorist and cyber incidents. According to the FedScope database of federal employees administered by OMB, between 2010 and 2013, departures of permanent DHS employees increased by 31 percent, compared to a 17 percent increase for the entire federal workforce.