Waiting For Those Buyouts and Bonuses

That New York Times article the other day about State Department to Offer Buyouts in Effort to Cut Staff certainly is getting a lot of attention, especially for one based entirely on what anonymous officials confirmed. So far as I can tell, no one has actually been offered a buyout yet, and those typically are offered early in October, so as to maximize the salary savings to the agency doing the buyout.

And check out the story's last paragraph. Those anonymous officials also confirmed that some classes of State employees will not be urged to retire early, but may be offered incentive bonuses to stay longer.

Some State employees will not be eligible for the buyouts, including many members of the security, information technology, medical and building staffs, areas in which the department is trying to hire more people or is offering offering bonuses for them to stay.

I haven't heard of any offers of retention incentive bonuses, either.

Assuming buyouts are actually offered, how much will they be? Office of Personnel Management rules say they can be up to $25,000:

The Voluntary Separation Incentive Payment Authority, also known as buyout authority, allows agencies that are downsizing or restructuring to offer employees lump-sum payments up to $25,000 as an incentive to voluntarily separate.

Last year, Congress boosted the buyout amount for Defense Department employees to $40,000, good through Sept. 30, 2018. The Trump administration’s budget proposal sought to increase the value of State Department buyouts $40,000 as well, but who knows whether that will happen.

It may mean nothing, but I was tipped to expect a public announcement soon, possible on November 17, about the implementation phase of the Department's reorganization plan.

Why No ARB For the Sonic Attacks in Cuba?

Five members of Congress, three of them Florida Republicans — Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Díaz-Balart and Carlos Curbelo — plus West Virginia Republican Alex X. Mooney and New Jersey Democrat Albio Sires, have sent a letter to U.S. Comptroller-General Gene Dodaro asking for a report on the sonic attacks on U.S. diplomats in Cuba. As U.S. Comptroller, Dotaro heads the Government Accountability Office.

Among other things, they asked whether an Accountability Review Board was convened to identify vulnerabilities in the State Department’s security programs, and if not, why not?

Good question. Given that employees were reportedly harmed by the mysterious attacks, an ARB could be warranted.

Most Eyebrow-Raising Headline of the Week

"Pride and prejudice: Gay lions seen in Kenya 'need counselling' and 'must have been influenced by homosexual men behaving badly in national parks' says country's 'moral policeman'" - Daily Mail  

Despite the fact that homosexuality among lions has been observed for decades, Dr Mutua is convinced that the lions would either have spotted gay men having sex in front of them, or been possessed by demons.

Back to Bollards

Photo from Conceptual Site

Here we go again. Another truck ramming attack in a city, this time New York. And again the politicians and the news media talking heads are going around and around about lone wolves, radicalization, human intelligence, and immigration. Good luck to them with getting all of that straightened out.

While they work on those big and complicated issues, the city planners and the architecturally-minded security types have a small and simple solution that would preclude such attacks on the most attractive targets, and thereby make this threat a good deal more manageable.

You know the answer - more bollards! They've already worked to prevent a mass killing in New York when a mentally disturbed person drove through Times Square. Surely this week's attack will convince the city to ramp up deployment of passive anti-ram barriers around high-traffic pedestrian venues. Well, maybe it will.

The attack could have been far worse if it had been executed just a little bit more efficiently. Sayfullo Saipov seems to have been aiming for school children, considering that his route led directly to a High School and he ended his attack by crashing into a school bus.

As a local resident told NPR:

"We have so many schools around this area," she said. "And it was shortly after 3 [p.m.]. It could have been worse if the police hadn't responded as quickly as they did."

Indeed. Or if Sayfullo Saipov, the sad sack Shahid that he was, hadn't lost his bag full of knives when he crashed the truck, leaving him with nothing but a pair of phony pistols in his hands when he jumped out of the truck searching for more victims.

At least one local politician, City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, is calling for the obvious first response to this increasingly-popular form of terrorism:

During Friday's conference, Rodriguez announced that he is planning to introduce legislation to require metal bollards along sidewalks with heavy pedestrian traffic, as well as in front of schools. He also told reporters that he envisions a Times Square entirely free of cars between 42nd and 47th Streets, and would support a DOT study to that effect. "I think we should look at the possibility," he said.

Why not? It wouldn't be the solution to everything but it would greatly reduce the opportunity for more truck ramming attacks on our most vulnerable places and people. Isn't that enough? Put another way, it would be "reasonable protection at a reasonable cost," as this astute security newsletter pointed out:

The real chance to increase public safety in this and in many similar soft-target scenarios, lies with the Security Designer and Civil Engineer: engineering and traffic controls, combined with architectural and security elements will reduce opportunity and increase means requirements. These classic Force Protection principles are neither cost-free nor 100% effective, but are wisely employed in a distributed fashion providing reasonable protection at a reasonable cost. When optimized for each municipality (or town, park, business), they will increase security and safety while limiting cost and potential liability.

Urban planning and public safety concerns are converging; hardening critical infrastructure has left smaller, softer targets (including pedestrian and bicycle paths) as low-hanging fruit for opportunistic perpetrators. Terrorist organizations have actively spread these targeting suggestions to their followers, and the threat will persist for the foreseeable future. This iteration of public security enhancement is in the hands of the planners, designers, architects, engineers, and Law Enforcement liaison personnel. Soft targets need not remain vulnerable, nor do they have to be transformed into unusable, unwelcoming space in order to provide safety.

Back to bollards, ladies and gentlemen.

Most Eyebrow-Raising Headline of the Week

???

"Feds: Long Island DA obstructed probe into ex-police chief who beat inmate for stealing sex toys from his SUV" - AP Eastern U.S.

DS Assistant Secretary Nominee Gets a Hearing

I missed this when it happened, but the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on October 18 for four State Department nominees. One of them was Michael Evanoff, the nominee for Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security. Senator Isakson (R-Georgia) presided.

You can view the hearing on the Committee's website, here.

In Evanoff's prepared remarks, which come at the 12 minute mark in the hearing video, he ended with a pitch for completion of the much-needed but long-delayed-by-shameless-Congressional-infighting-over-whose-district-will-get-it Foreign Affairs Security Training Center.

After several years of delays, the FASTC is at last under construction at Fort Pickett, Virginia. See this for some background.

"I will also put special focus on the continued overhaul and refinement of security training for Department of State employees. This includes intensive specialized training for all DS agents and the on-going expansion of the Foreign Affairs Counter Threat (FACT) course for all employees working overseas under the authority of the Chief of Mission. It also includes the completion of the Department’s Foreign Affairs Security Training Center (FASTC) at Fort Pickett, Virginia. Once fully up and running, this state-of-the-art facility will allow DS to provide more efficient and effective hard skills training – such firearms, explosives, antiterrorism driving techniques, and defensive tactics – for roughly 10,000 students annually."

Upon hearing that, Isakson at once made a weak swipe at FASTC, asking Evanoff to consider the inadequate and inappropriate law enforcement training centers that already exist in Georgia instead of a new purpose-built one in Virginia. Much later on in the hearing, at the 44 minute mark, Senator Kaine (D-VA) made an equally weak motion in support of FASTC at Fort Pickett. The long battle over which state will get FASTC is apparently over now, but some hard feelings remain.

The first question Evanoff received came from Isakson. At the 35 minute mark, Isakson asked this very broad question: does Mister Evanoff know of any effort made since the Benghazi reviews and Accountability Review Board report “to build up and beef up security diplomatically?"

Yes, Senator, he knew of several. I can think of one, too: that dedicated state-of-the-art training center will eventually be completed at Fort Pickett despite years of obstruction by you and some of your fellow Congressmen. 

Most Eyebrow-Raising Story of the Week

Yes, please do give him what's just and equitable

Newspaper stories ruined pimp's 'good reputation,' lawsuit claims - CTV News Vancouver

"Words published in the Vancouver Sun Newspaper and National Post Newspaper ruined [Moazami's] good reputation and character" ... The convict is seeking $250,000, costs and any other relief the court “may deem just and equitable.”

Reza Moazami was found guilty on dozens of charges in September 2014, including sexual assault, sexual exploitation, sexual interference and human trafficking offences. His 11 victims ranged in age from 14 to 19 years old ... Among the disturbing facts heard in the case was that the pimp would abuse the girls physically to get them to comply with his demands. In some cases he would also attack a small dog that was beloved by his victims to force their cooperation, the court heard.