Who Can be Fired at the VA for Cause? No One

Posted on May 11, 2017May 11, 2017 by Denise Simon

Bipartisan Senate Group Unveils New Bill to Speed Up VA Firing, Bonus Recoupment

The new bill comes just days after a federal appeals court ruled Congress’ previous attempt at hastening VA’s disciplinary process — through the 2014 Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act — was unconstitutional. The measure stripped Senior Executive Service employees of their right to a second-level appeal before the Merit Systems Protection Board’s presidentially-appointed, Senate-confirmed panel. VA had already stopped using the new authority after its constitutionality was questioned in court and the Obama administration declined to defend it.

The senators have been working on their new bill for weeks, but they said the court ruling reinforced the need for reform. “This legislation would improve on the law we enacted in 2014,” Rubio said.

The bill would allow the department’s secretary to fire, suspend or demote an employee with only 15 days notice. Affected workers would then have seven days to issue a response before a final decision is made. Any employee facing removal, suspension of at least 14 days or a demotion would have 10 days to appeal the action to the Merit Systems Protection Board. MSPB would then have 180 days to issue a decision, a much longer period than the 45-day timeline set up in the House bill. Employees would maintain the right to appeal an MSPB decision to federal court.

Employees covered by a collective bargaining agreement would also maintain the right to appeal a negative personnel action through the grievance process, though it would have to be resolved within 21 days. Read more here.

Meanwhile, there is that blasted union problem at the VA:

An estimated 346 employees in the Department of Veterans Affairs do no actual work for taxpayers. Instead, they spend all of their time doing work on behalf of their union while drawing a federal salary, a practice known as “official time.”

That’s according to a report by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office. But exactly what those VA workers are doing and why so many are doing it is not clear. The VA doesn’t track that, and the GAO report offers no clue.

Rep. Jody Arrington, R-Texas, a member of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, thinks the number on 100 percent official time may be much higher. He also notes that the 346 workers don’t include those who spend most, not all, of their time doing union work.

“The lack of accountability at the VA when it comes to monitoring official time suggests it might be worse,” said Arrington, who has introduced legislation that would require the department to track the use of official time, among other reforms.

Pointing to the waiting list scandals at the department, Arrington said the official time situation is reflective of the “broken culture at the heart of the VA” and adds, “I haven’t heard one good, acceptable reason why the practice has continued.”

The VA was not eager to discuss the matter with the Washington Examiner. After several days of inquiries, it responded with the following statement: “VA believes that the appropriate use of official time can be beneficial and in the public interest as stated in the Federal Service Labor-Relations Statute, which governs how executive branch agencies treat official time. VA takes the position that labor and management have a shared responsibility to ensure that official time is authorized and used appropriately. VA practices are in compliance with the Federal Service Labor-Relations Statute.”

Official time is allowed under the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act. The idea behind it is to ensure that a federal employee who is also a union official won’t be penalized for being away from work if he or she is negotiating a contract or addressing a worker grievance, for example. It is essentially a trade-off for the limitations put on federal unions, such as prohibitions on striking.

At least 700 federal workers do nothing but work on official time, according to the GAO and data obtained from various Freedom of Information Act requests. The VA uses official time far more than any other agency.

“Employees spent approximately 1,057,00 hours on official time for union representation activities … In addition, the data show that 346 employees spent 100 percent of their time on official time,” the GAO found in a January report.

It is possible that even those figures are conservative. The GAO said the said the VA’s poor monitoring meant the data was “inconsistent and not reliable.”

The GAO didn’t know what the employees are doing with all of that time. “We just didn’t get into that in that particular study,” said Cindy Barnes, the GAO’s director of education, workforce and income security issues and author of the report.

Part of the explanation is that the VA is one of the largest federal agencies with 373,000 workers, making it second only to the Pentagon in the sheer size of its workforce. About 250,000 VA workers are covered by collective bargaining agreements, according to the GAO, citing 2012 data. Arrington puts the covered figure at 285,000.

By comparison, the Department of Homeland Security has 240,000 workers and the Department of Commerce has just under 44,000 workers. But those departments get by with proportionately far fewer people working exclusively on official time. DHS has 39, while Commerce has just four.

Another factor is that the VA’s workforce is represented by no less than five unions: The American Federation of Government Employees, the National Association of Government Employees, National Nurses United, the National Federation of Federal Employees and the Service Employees International Union.

National Nurses United representative Irma Westmoreland was the only union official willing to talk about the practice with the Washington Examiner. She is one of five nurses union members who work exclusively on union time at the VA. The union has another nine who spent 80 percent of their time at the VA on official time, she said.

Westmoreland said her work was necessary because nurses can’t simply stop taking care of a patient to do something like address a worker grievance. People such as her do the union work and make it possible for the other nurses to focus on providing care.

“I have to travel across the country working with 23 VA facilities in four time zones,” she said. “The management teams want somebody at 100 percent official time so they don’t have to pull somebody out of care.”

But not everyone at the VA is involved in care. So what are the other 341 exclusive official time workers doing? Westmoreland had no insight.

“I don’t know how the other people do it,” she said.

American Federation of Government Employees President J. David Cox told Arrington’s subcommittee in February that official time involved activities such as “designing and delivering joint training of employees on work-related subjects and introduction of new programs and work methods that are initiated by the agency or by the union.”

He added that “in no way did the [February GAO] report suggest that the use of official time presents problems for the department.” The report sought only to quantify the amount of time used.

Arrington argues that the practice has to change if the VA is ever to be truly reformed. He has sponsored the Veterans, Employees and Taxpayer Protection Act, which would require the VA to track the use of official time. It also would prohibit employees involved with direct patient care from spending more than a quarter of their work hours on union activities and bar any VA employee from spending more than half of their time on official time.

The legislation would effectively put VA employees under right-to-work protection. The VA would be prohibited from agreeing to union contracts that force workers to join or otherwise support a union as a condition of employment.

Westmoreland said she has no trouble with better tracking the use of official time but warns against putting any limitations on its use.

“It makes it very difficult if you cannot have set official time,” she said.

No Cyber Policy, Doctrine, Protection, Result of Senate Hearing

Posted on May 11, 2017May 11, 2017 by Denise Simon

President Trump signed another executive order today. This one is on cyber security and protecting infrastructure. Read it here.

Image result for trump signs executive order BusinessInsider

No one wants to participate in the hard debate regarding cyber, where it is noted to be the highest threat for the homeland. At least the Trump White House is taking note, yet this executive order may not be enough or engage the private sector. It is gratifying however that some inside and outside experts are in fact having talks on an international basis with cyber experts. That is always a good thing.

At issue on this topic is the path forward and the estimated costs. Cyber is a battlespace where it should be noted it could cost what conventional military operations costs against adversaries and could take as long if not forever. All government infrastructure is dated, unprotected and there are no measures to correct in a priority ranking.

The other item of note, there is no legal or case law condition where the cyber attackers are prosecuted. Exactly why did Sony not sue North Korea? If there is no consequence, even ceremoniously, then expect more hacks. Of note, to sue and or sanction North Korea, China would have to be included, as the internet connectivity to North Korea is provided by China and further, China trained the hackers in North Korea….sheesh right?

Politico reports: The directive is Trump’s first major action on cyber policy and sets the stage for the administration’s efforts to secure porous federal networks that have been repeatedly infiltrated by digital pranksters, cyber thieves and government-backed hackers from China and Russia.

“The trend is going in the wrong direction in cyberspace, and it’s time to stop that trend and reverse it on behalf of the American people,” White House Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert told reporters during a Thursday afternoon briefing.

Cyber specialists say the order breaks little new ground but is vastly improved over early drafts, which omitted input from key government policy specialists. The final version, cyber watchers say, essentially reaffirms the gradually emerging cyber policy path of the past two administrations.

As part of the executive order’s IT upgrade initiative, administration officials will study the feasibility of transitioning to shared IT services and networks across the government. An estimated 80 percent of the $80 billion federal IT budget goes toward taking care of aging systems.

Senior Trump adviser Jared Kushner’s Office of American Innovation will play a significant role in the federal IT modernization effort, multiple people tracking the efforts have told POLITICO. Earlier this month, Trump signed an executive order creating the American Technology Council, with Kushner as director, to help coordinate that effort. More here.

*** Personally, it must be mentioned there is a problem with this operating out of the White House and certainly out of Jared Kushner’s office, he is way too tasked to be effective. Other professionals in the cyber realm agree, the matter of a ‘net’ command and operations that collaborate with the private sector should be it’s own command and separated from NSA.

There was a significant hearing today on The Hill while the FBI hearing was going on. Those on the witness panel included James Clapper, Jim Stavridis and Michael Hayden. The Senate Armed Services Committee hosted this session and it included high rate discussions including why there is no cyber doctrine, why there are no offensive measures and what the highest cyber threats are for the homeland.

Proposed Legislation on Citizen Feedback on Govt Services

Posted on May 11, 2017May 11, 2017 by Denise Simon

So, do you think your voice regarding the federal government goes unheard? Actually it is heard and it is scored. At issue is whether any substantial corrections are made. This proposed legislation may help and it is a step at least in the right direction.

Most of us don’t bother to even voice or register complaints. Perhaps we should rethink that. Who even knew in the first place there was a tally operation on public comments and it is referred to as ‘customer service’? Hah…

Problem is there is not an agency does not have issues….okay then, let the games begin…read on.

Primer: OMB belongs to the White House:

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) serves the President of the United States in overseeing the implementation of his vision across the Executive Branch. Specifically, OMB’s mission is to assist the President in meeting his policy, budget, management and regulatory objectives and to fulfill the agency’s statutory responsibilities.

OMB carries out its mission through five critical processes that are essential to the President’s ability to plan and implement his priorities across the Executive Branch:

Budget development and execution.

Management, including oversight of agency performance, human capital, Federal procurement, financial management, and information technology.

Regulatory policy, including coordination and review of all significant Federal regulations by executive agencies.

Legislative clearance and coordination.

Executive Orders and Presidential Memoranda.

***

Congress could be poised to take on the federal government’s customer service problems.

Sens. James Lankford, R-Okla., and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., Wednesday introduced the Federal Agency Customer Experience Act, bipartisan legislation that would simplify the process agencies go through to gather public feedback about their customer service.

The bill would roll back requirements that force agencies to go through lengthy approval processes to gather voluntary feedback from citizens and customers, and further creates both legislative and executive oversight mechanisms to oversee how agencies deliver services.

“The bill also directs agencies to post the results to their websites and requires them to use the feedback they receive to improve government services,” Lankford said in a statement. “We must do more to increase federal customer service and remove unnecessary requirements that make basic services tedious and overly bureaucratic.”

The legislation mandates agency heads—or designated officials—collect voluntary feedback from customers “with respect to services of or transactions” made by the agency.

Feedback would be gathered across all channels based on both standardized questions created in tandem by the leaders of the Office of Management and Budget director and the General Services Administration, and agency-specific questions developed by senior officials. Those questions would revolve around customer satisfaction, such as the professionalism and timeliness of federal action and potentially other metrics.

Agencies would be required to submit customer service reports based on the feedback they collect to OMB and to post it on their websites. In addition, the legislation would create a centralized website that links to all agencies’ customer service reports.

“Most people think interacting with the federal government is unpleasant—but at the same time we’re making it difficult for agencies to ask the public how they can improve—it makes no sense,” McCaskill said. “This law will allow the federal government to better identify specific customer service issues and start to implement changes to make the government work better for the American people.”

Congress, too, would get regular updates on how agencies perform with regards to customer service.

The bill would require the U.S. comptroller general to deliver scorecard reports “assessing the quality of services provided to the public” of agencies to the Senate.

Fixing the government’s customer services woes—the government routinely ranks below industry—could unite Republicans and Democrats in much the same way the government’s IT issues have. The Obama administration elevated customer service as a major issue, yet agency progress was minimal.

Max Stier, CEO of the government-focused nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, said the Federal Agency Customer Experience Act will help agencies improve their service delivery.

“The important legislation introduced today by Sens. Lankford and McCaskill will allow agencies to continue to improve by helping them better understand the concerns of the public, continue to improve in the delivery of services and increase citizen satisfaction,” he said in a statement.

NSA Chief Testimony, Cyber Security Threats and Solutions

Posted on May 9, 2017May 9, 2017 by Denise Simon

French presidential candidate Marcon was hacked on Friday before the Sunday voting. Per the NSA Chief, U.S. Tipped Off France on the Russia hacks. The U.S. tipped off France when it saw that Russians were carrying out cyberattacks targeting French President-elect Emmanuel Macron, NSA chief Adm. Mike Rogers told a Senate panel on Tuesday. Macron’s campaign revealed it was hacked just hours before a campaigning blackout in the country ahead of the presidential election on Sunday. Macron ended up handily defeating his rival, Putin-backed Marine Le Pen. “We had become aware of Russian activity. We had talked to our French counterparts and gave them a heads-up—‘Look, we’re watching the Russians. We’re seeing them penetrate some of your infrastructure. Here’s what we’ve seen. What can we do to try to assist?’” Rogers told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

*** Meanwhile….there is no strategy or policy position on U.S. cyber warfare. However…

Next Steps for U.S. Cybersecurity in the Trump Administration: Active Cyber Defense

The failure of the government to provide adequate protection has led many cybersecurity analysts, scholars, and policymakers to suggest that there is a need for private-sector self-help. If the government is unable or unwilling to take or threaten credible offensive actions to deter cyberattacks or to punish those who engage in them, it may be incumbent upon private-sector actors to take up an active defense. In other words, the private sector may wish to take actions that go beyond protective software, firewalls, and other passive screening methods—and instead actively deceive, identify, or retaliate against hackers to raise their costs for conducting cyberattacks. Taking into consideration U.S., foreign, and international law, the U.S. should expressly allow active defenses that annoy adversaries while allowing only certified actors to engage in attribution-level active defenses. More aggressive active defenses that could be considered counterattacks should be taken only by law enforcement or in close collaboration with them.

Key Takeaways

If the government is unable or unwilling to deter cyberattacks, it may be incumbent upon private-sector actors to take up an active defense.

Before the U.S. authorizes private hack back, it must consider not only U.S. laws, but also foreign and international laws governing cyberspace.

Congress should establish a new active cyber defense system that enables the private sector to identify and respond to hackers more effectively.

***

Heritage: Americans want their cyber data to be safe from prying eyes. They also want the government to be able to catch criminals. Can they have both?

It’s an especially pertinent question to ask at a time when concerns over Russian hacking are prevalent. Can we expose lawbreakers without also putting law-abiders at greater risk? After all, the same iPhone that makes life easier for ordinary Americans also makes life easier for criminals.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. has described the operating system of the iPhone as “warrant-proof,” saying criminals are using the devices – encrypted by default – to their advantage. In one instance, he quoted an inmate who, ironically, called the iPhone a “gift from God.”

Divine involvement is a matter of debate, but there’s no question that when it comes to the choice of breaking the cybersecurity of criminals without also endangering the personal data of ordinary Americans, well, the devil is in the details.

This is especially true given the evolving nature of the threat. Even if we wanted to give the government access to all the metadata it wants (when, where, and who called), technology is moving away from phone calls to text messages and other non-telephony applications. Traditional metadata will be of limited use to law enforcement in pursuit of the savvy criminal of the future. Law enforcement needs to develop new strategies and investigative techniques without making us all prey.

It’s nearly impossible to assess the total monetary value for all successfully prosecuted cybercrimes in the U.S., let alone estimate the number of criminal cases that would have fallen apart without access to a smartphone’s data. The Department of Justice doesn’t publish such data. But, according to the 2014 Center for Strategic and International Studies report “Net Losses: Estimating the Global Cost of Cybercrime,” global cybercriminal activity is valued at $400 billion a year. Cybercrime damages trade, reduces competitiveness, and limits innovation and global growth.

The fundamental problem is that no one in the government is responsible for securing the internet for all of us. The Department of Homeland Security is responsible for safeguarding our nation’s critical infrastructure, yet the insecure internet presents cyberthreats to non-enterprise users affect individual security, safety and economic prosperity. Who is responsible for their security?

Some elements of the federal government are so focused on hunting down information against a few horrendous criminals that they don’t seem to realize they’re doing it at the expense of our right to privacy and online protection. We can appreciate their dedication in these noble causes, but the fact remains that the internet has become a host to more and more personal information ever since Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone.

Since then, the smartphone has evolved to have much more control over our lives, homes and vehicles. There is no sign of less data being held in the cyberspace.

In attempting to square this cyber-circle, the government would be wise to take a cue from the medical profession, which uses the Hippocratic oath to dictate an underlying requirement to refrain from causing harm to patients.

There is no such oath for members of the Department of Justice. They simply affirm that they will faithfully execute their duties without affirming that they will do so without harming the citizenry as a whole.

DOJ lawyers focus on individual prosecutions. That is too narrow of a definition of success. It forces them to use all means they can muster to make their prosecutions successful with little or no consideration of the larger harm their efforts may cause to the population in general.

That is a problem today and will only be magnified in the coming years as technology advances and the gap between those advances and the DOJ’s understanding of them widens. Within this environment, where insecurity breed’s criminality and stopping individual high-value criminals can motivate the DOJ to undermine security, one can only wonder, who is responsible for our security?

The world has changed. A new paradigm is needed to ensure the safety and security of all American’s data predicated on applying airtight security to our data. There is no return to the past. Perhaps the Trump administration will make this need for security a priority in a manner the previous administration did not.

Mexico’s Cartel Kids and a Deadly State

Posted on May 9, 2017May 9, 2017 by Denise Simon

Reuters: The Mexican army says its fight against surging opium production that feeds U.S demand is increasingly complicated by the rise of smaller gangs disputing wild, ungoverned lands planted with ever-stronger poppy strains.

The gangs have engulfed the state of Guerrero in a war to control poppy fields, turning inaccessible mountain valleys of endemic poverty and famous beach resorts into Mexico’s bloodiest spots.

Colonel Isaac Aaron Jesus Garcia, who runs a base in one of the state’s most unruly cities, Ciudad Altamirano, told Reuters on an operation to chop down poppies high in the Guerrero mountains that violence increased two years ago when a third gang, Los Viagra, began a grab for territory.

Bodies are discovered almost daily across the state, tossed by roads, some buried in mass graves. In Ciudad Altamirano, the mayor was killed last year and a journalist gunned down in March at a car wash.

“These fractures (in the gangs) started two years ago, and that caused this violence that is all about monopolizing the production of the drug,” Jesus Garcia said.

From this frontline of the fight against heroin, Jesus Garcia sees a direct link between a record U.S. heroin epidemic that killed nearly 13,000 people in 2015 and violence on his patch.

“The increase of consumers for this type of drug in the United States has been exponential and the collateral effect is seen here,” Jesus Garcia said.

REUTERS/Henry Romero

Heroin use in the United States has risen five-fold in the past decade and addiction has more than tripled, with the biggest jumps among whites and men with low incomes.

Jesus Garcia said the task of seeking out poppy fields in one of Mexico’s poorest and least accessible regions, rising above the beach resorts of Acapulco and Ixtapa, was practically endless.

His 34th Battalion and others send platoons of troops on foot for month-long expeditions every season. They set up camps and fan through treacherous terrain, part of a campaign that destroys tens of thousands of fields a year.

One such field visited by Reuters was deep in a lawless region six hours from Ciudad Altamirano through winding dirt roads thick with dust that rose into the mountains.

It was irrigated by a lawn sprinkler mounted on a pole that spritzed water over less than a hectare of poppies and fertilizer bags were piled nearby, basic farming techniques the soldiers nevertheless said were a sign of growers’ new sophistication.

A dozen troops fanned out, chopping down the flowers with machetes.

HIGHER YIELDS

Army officials said gangs use poppy varieties that produce higher yields and more potent opium from smaller plots, and that its higher value is driving violent competition between gangs.

“Now we see more production of poppy in less terrain, and it has to do with the quantity of bulbs each plant has,” said Lieutenant Colonel Jose Urzua as he showed bulbs oozing valuable gum from slits. He explained opium is often harvested by families.

In these tiny mountain hamlets opium has grown for decades, officials said, but a coffee plague and the U.S. opiate epidemic has led farmers to plant much more.

The harvest has become central to Guerrero’s economy, also dependent on cash sent home by immigrants.

One army official said the field seen by Reuters could produce around 3 kilos (6.6 lb) of opium, fetching up to $950 per kilo from traffickers who sell it for up to $8,000.

“There aren’t many alternatives here,” said a woman selling soft drinks and snacks from a pine shack by a dirt road. Her husband grows poppies, and she said anyone who runs a business faces extortion by gangs.

*** Image result for cnn no way out cartel kids CNN

(CNN)It was the second deadliest conflict in the world last year, but it hardly registered in the international headlines.

As Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan dominated the news agenda, Mexico’s drug wars claimed 23,000 lives during 2016 — second only to Syria, where 50,000 people died as a result of the civil war.

“This is all the more surprising, considering that the conflict deaths [in Mexico] are nearly all attributable to small arms,” said John Chipman, chief executive and director-general of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), which issued its annual survey of armed conflict on Tuesday.

“The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan claimed 17,000 and 16,000 lives respectively in 2016, although in lethality they were surpassed by conflicts in Mexico and Central America, which have received much less attention from the media and the international community,” said Anastasia Voronkova, the editor of the survey.

In comparison, there were 17,000 conflict deaths in Mexico in 2015 and 15,000 in 2014 according to the IISS.

Rising death toll

Voronkova said the number of homicides rose in 22 of Mexico’s 32 states during 2016 and the rivalries between cartels increased in violence.

“It is noteworthy that the largest rises in fatalities were registered in states that were key battlegrounds for control between competing, increasingly fragmented cartels,” she said.

“The violence grew worse as the cartels expanded the territorial reach of their campaigns, seeking to ‘cleanse’ areas of rivals in their efforts to secure a monopoly on drug-trafficking routes and other criminal assets.”

Mexican drug cartels take in between $19 billion and $29 billion annually from US drug sales, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Rivalries between the cartels wreak havoc on the lives of civilians who have nothing to do with narcotics. Bystanders, people who refused to join cartels, migrants, journalists and government officials have all been killed.

Not on news agenda

Jacob Parakilas, assistant head of the US and the Americas Programme at London-based think tank Chatham House, said part of the reason for the relative lack of attention paid to Mexico in the international media is “it’s not a war in the political sense of the word. The participants largely don’t have a political objective. They’re not trying to create a breakaway state. It doesn’t come with the same visuals. There are no air strikes.

“Also this has been going on since the beginning of the modern drug trade in the Americas. It’s not news in that sense. And Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a journalist. They are intentionally targeted in Mexico, which puts a dampener on the ability to report on this.”

Drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is facing trial in New York.

There have, however, been significant arrests in relation to the Mexican drug trade in recent times.

Damaso Lopez Nunez, a high-ranking leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel, was arrested on May 2 in Mexico City and could face charges in the US, authorities said.

His arrest follows January’s extradition of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who is accused of running the Sinaloa cartel — one of the world’s largest drug-trafficking organizations.

He awaits trial in New York on 17 counts accusing him of running a criminal enterprise responsible for importing and distributing massive amounts of narcotics and conspiring to murder rivals.

World conflict deaths fall

The number of conflict fatalities globally edged down last year, from 167,000 to 157,000, according to the IISS.

This was the second successive annual drop — 180,000 people were killed in 2014.

The number of deaths in Syria fell from 55,000 in 2015. But there were 1,000 more deaths in Afghanistan last year than 2015 and 4,000 more in Iraq.

Voronkova from the IISS said: “Civilians caught amid conflict arguably suffered more than in the preceding years. Between January and August, 900,000 people were internally displaced in Syria alone.”

The internal displacement figures were 234,000 for Iraq and 260,000 for Afghanistan.