[infowar.de] Pentagon ueberdenkt seine "keine Auslaender in IT-Jobs"-Politik

[Ralf Bendrath <bendrath -! - zedat - fu-berlin - de>]

Infowar.de, http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~bendrath/liste.html
-------------------------------------------------------------

Vgl. zur Vorgeschichte: 
"Pentagon will Ausländer aus sensitiven IT-Bereichen heraushalten"
http://archive.infopeace.de/infowar.de/msg01571.html
RB

http://www.gcn.com/21_15/dod/18957-1.html

Government Computer News
17.6.2002; Vol. 21 No. 15 

DOD fine-tunes its draft plan for foreign nationals holding IT jobs 
By Dawn S. Onley  GCN Staff

The Defense Department has rethought plans to disqualify foreign
nationals from jobs involving the use of sensitive but unclassified
information technology. 

If would-be Defense workers pass background investigations and get
letters of approval from the agency chiefs seeking to employ them, the
department will allow the hires to proceed, senior DOD managers said
last month. 

Defense agency chiefs, however, are being encouraged to hire U.S.
citizens first for sensitive IT positions, said Pete Nelson, DOD's
deputy director for personnel security. Foreign nationals can still work
on systems within DOD provided they are "properly vetted for the
material to which they have access," he said. 

Industry worries 

When DOD issued its no-foreigners proposal in March, some industry
officials expressed concern that the rule would call for foreign
nationals to be removed from positions in which they would handle
sensitive but unclassified information. 

Such data could include personnel information such as health records or
Social Security numbers or information on weapons systems. 

"There is no per-se rule to disqualify foreign nationals other than to
encourage use of U.S. citizens in [sensitive but unclassified]
positions, but that is ultimately up to the system owner or agency
head," Nelson said. 

The issue of whether foreign nationals should be permitted to work in
sensitive IT jobs at the department continues to receive a lot of
attention. 

Harris N. Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of
America in Arlington, Va., wrote a letter to Pete Aldridge,
undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, condemning the
plan. 

The proposal would make it more costly and difficult for DOD to acquire
critical IT services, Miller said. 

"The implications could be substantial," he said. "Public policy must be
based on real-world actions and tangible threats-not supposition and
innuendo. Noncitizens have repeatedly played a critical role in
developing and refining U.S. military technologies." 

Nelson says the policy is in keeping with the framework of the Insider
Threat Mitigation Report, a set of recommendations released in 2000 by
top Defense security brass to reduce potential threats posed by inside
employees. The workers could be military members, contractors, civilians
or employees of other federal agencies. 

"The threat to Defense information has never been greater," the report
said. "As an example, the environment for espionage is particularly
conducive to the collection and sale of technical weapons system
information." 

The threat within 

An Insider Threat Integrated Process Team, made up of senior Defense
officials, found that department computers were particularly vulnerable
to abuse or misuse by insiders. 

The team cited a Defense inspector general report that found that for
one set of investigations, 87 percent of identified intruders were
employees. 

Nelson insisted the department would require U.S. citizens as well as
foreign nationals to pass background investigations to gain access to
secure data. 

It is still unclear how many contractors could be affected by the
proposal. 

DOD expects to issue a final policy by September.

---------------------------------------------------------------
Liste verlassen: 
Mail an infowar -
 de-request -!
- infopeace -
 de mit "unsubscribe" im Text.