During a Wednesday Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing about AI during a time of strategic competition, lawmakers questioned the department’s efforts to defend against AI and cybersecurity threats from foreign adversaries. Nathaniel Fick, ambassador-at-large for State’s Bureau for Cyberspace and Digital Policy, and Matthew Graviss, the department’s chief data and AI officer, pointed to innovation and an internal focus as the current answer to the issue. 

“When you’re running a race, sometimes it’s important to simply run faster than your competitor, so that’s our innovation prioritization,” Fick said. “We are under no naive illusion that our adversaries are going to comply with our norms, but building a broad coalition, setting the normative example at least puts our adversaries outside of the framework. … I do come back to our greatest source of strength being maintaining our reputation.”

Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., who chairs the committee, questioned if the department is simply leading by example on the global stage or if Congress should expect State to establish international guardrails and borders regarding AI use. 

In response, Fick pointed toward the global enterprise voluntary commitments that establish guardrails but do “not constrain innovation.” He noted that the nation cannot afford to restrict its current competitive advantage. 

Graviss cited the recent release of the State Department’s first-ever enterprise AI strategy, which seeks to enhance the department’s AI capabilities, encourage a community that embraces AI usage and more. He mentioned in his testimony that there is a departmentwide, “booming demand” for AI implementation that would support initiatives such as foreign policy objectives and operational efficiencies. 

“As we promote a vision of responsible AI globally, the department must and will lead by example,” Graviss said. “Secretary [Antony] Blinken believes that our workforce is more equipped to lead globally when providing timely and relevant data. AI enhances this data’s power unlocking our workforce’s utmost potential.”

The department has appointed a responsible AI officer and initiated an AI steering committee that focuses on upholding principles and sticking to a commitment to responsible AI use for the department’s usage. 

Blinken “gave us a clear mission to shape the terms of the technology future and to extend America’s industrial and innovation strategy into the international realm,” Fick said.

On Monday, the department released a political declaration on responsible military use of artificial intelligence and autonomy, with just over 40 other countries agreeing to work toward globally guiding responsible AI usage with military applications. 

“We want businesses around the world to support the commitments and then we want the commitments to become the basis of codes and frameworks for governments,” Fick said.

With regard to nations that have a “wildly different view” of AI’s role and violate international guidelines, Fick said the department will deal with those adversaries through export controls on the nation’s most advanced semiconductors. 

Congress, meanwhile, has encouraged administrations to take “affirmative action” against international bad actors through different sanctions. 

“It may not be as easy to determine with the use of AI tools, but if an adversary is not identifying the source [of malicious acts] or using [AI] through disinformation, that undermines America’s national security,” Cardin said. “We’re going to have to have more direction on how we can assist or we may have to try and do that on our own.”

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At issue: The users and devices operating at the tactical edge of military, government and public safety networks, by their nature, change constantly.

Sharing intelligence in those situations — often when every minute counts — demands having the ability to manage information access privileges in real time at the edge, according to a new report released by GDIT.

“The reason ICAM is important to the CIOs of the world — and why it’s different from just identity and access management — is that we’re adding the vital element of other types of credentialing,” argues Dr. John Sahlin, director of cyber solutions of GDIT. That includes taking into account telemetry information. “And the only way you can do that is by establishing a dynamic security posture,” he explains.

Sahlin highlights the distinctive requirements of enterprise ICAM solutions at government agencies. That has taken on increased urgency as agencies establish broader zero-trust security architecture.

However, Sahlin also urges agency CIOs to think more tactically, to ensure that ICAM governance policies and controls agencies are appropriate for rapidly unfolding circumstances in the field where secure access to information remains critical.

“The difference between ICAM at the edge compared to enterprise ICAM is that it allows regionally specific policy decision-making, policy enforcement points, credentialing and access management decisions at a local level that may not make sense at the enterprise level,” Sahlin explained. “You don’t want to wait to have to go through all the enterprise procedures to make those things happen.”

The report recommends ways agency CIOs can establish a better balance between enterprise ICAM and ICAM-at-the-edge solutions. It also discusses ways GDIT is helping federal agencies create planning models to better “harmonize” disparate ICAM solutions.

Read more about optimizing ICAM solutions and how GDIT is supporting those efforts at defense and civilian agencies.

This article was produced for FedScoop by Scoop News Group and sponsored by GDIT.

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Judge Catherine Blake from the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland sided with Booz Allen and denied the DOJ’s request for a preliminary order to stop the deal.

A preliminary injunction to halt a transaction is often sought by the U.S. Government in antitrust cases with an appropriate likelihood of success and when the balance of equities is weighted in its favor.

It comes after the Justice Department in June filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland in a bid to halt Booz Allen’s proposed acquisition of EverWatch, a subsidiary of EC Defense Holdings. In its complaint, the U.S. government argued the deal would directly threaten competition for government contracts that provide operational modeling and simulation services to the National Security Agency.

Booz Allen pushed back strongly in the past few months on the DOJ’s claim that the merger hurt the federal government and is in support of the Maryland judge’s decision.

“At this time our statement is that we appreciate Judge Blake’s careful consideration of the evidence in this matter,” Jessica Klenk, director of media relations at Booz Allen Hamilton told FedScoop.

Booz Allen announced its plan to take over EverWatch in March, shortly before the NSA was scheduled to release the requests for their latest government contract needs. 

In court documents filed in June, the Department of Justice said that prior to the merger agreement, Booz Allen and EverWatch had competed head-to-head to win NSA contracts and then “Booz Allen decided to buy its only rival.”

The DOJ’s argument against the deal centered on the award of a $17 million NSA intelligence modeling and simulation contract known as Optimal Decision, details of which were first revealed in court documents filed as part of the antitrust case.

As the principal U.S. defense intelligence agency specializing in cryptology, signals intelligence and the interception of communications, NSA periodically issues such government contracts to support its signals intelligence data missions.

Later in August, Booz Allen in court documents argued that the DOJ’s antitrust concerns that the deal is anticompetitive were “imaginative,” “bizarre,” and not based in law or economics. 

Shortly after this the company put forward proposals intended to allay the DOJ’s concerns, which included signing a commitment that both companies would remain independent for up to a year.

The NSA has a Oct. 31 deadline for government contract bids and Judge Blake has asked the DOJ and Booz Allen to submit proposals for any further legal proceedings no later than 14 days after that deadline. 

The Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment.

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“We think that there’s room for discussion about what’s the future of cyber intelligence really is in partnership with Cyber Command, NSA and others across the community to really define where we need to go,” Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said Friday at the Billington Cybersecurity Summit.

DIA is responsible for providing intel on foreign militaries and owning all the intelligence directorates, or J2s, at the combatant commands.

Specifically, Berrier discussed the challenge cyber intelligence provides compared with other domains, especially considering the plethora of open source information that now exists, both with threat intelligence firms and things like social media.

“If you think about foundational military intelligence, it’s based on understanding what the foreign militaries have, what the capabilities are based on the physical presence of these things. It’s harder in cyber, because you may know where a cyber facility physically is located, but you really don’t know what activity is going on inside that facility. You don’t know what tools are being taken advantage of. You don’t know what networks are being operated on,” Berrier said. “When you add the layer of complexity of all the publicly available information, what’s going on in social media in that space is huge and it’s a large, large gap, I think, for the intelligence community. We definitely have to get better.”

DIA last year was charged with being the defense intelligence enterprise manager for open source intelligence for all of DOD, Berrier said, which is raising discussions about what that means from a cyber context.

Others have pointed to the fact that intelligence support to cyber is still relatively new within the department.

“When we started in intelligence, intelligence support to cyber defense just wasn’t a mission. Now, it’s something that we do every day in support of the defense of the DoD Information Network,” Dave Frederick, executive director of U.S. Cyber Command, said during the same session, adding that Cybercom is a “tough customer” when it comes to cyber intelligence.

Berrier said that when it comes to intelligence support to cyber ops, there’s a lot to peel back. There’s a defensive component and an offensive component, he said, noting he looks forward to working with Cybercom on this.

In fact, DIA will be adding a cyber component to its replacement of the Military Intelligence Integrated Database, which was built 20 years ago to house intelligence data globally for the defense intelligence enterprise.

The Machine-Assisted Analytic Rapid-Repository System (MARS), which Berrier said should completely replace the legacy system by 2024, will eventually have five modules, one of which will be cyber.

“Understanding what those cyber facilities are worldwide, who operates within those facilities and how they operate will definitely be a large component. And I think we’ll build towards our understanding and knowledge of cyber operations worldwide,” he said.

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The tech has long been confined to research and development, Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante noted at the annual Defense News Conference on Wednesday.

“Keep in mind hypersonics has been a weapon of the future for 60 years,” he said when asked by FedScoop if industry will be able to produce the air vehicles and other components in large quantities once the ongoing R&D efforts are ready to come to fruition.

Aside from some prototyping efforts, “we’ve never, ever produced and manufactured hypersonics ever in this country. It’s been entirely S&T,” he said. “So, the real question is … are these companies [that are working on the technology] ready to no-kidding go into production at some degree of rate? And I ask this question, Jon, all the time, and I get reassurance that they’re ready. But the proof will be in the pudding,” he told this FedScoop reporter.

“I wish I could tell you … that absolutely they’re ready for this. They say they are [and] they will. But if you all know anything about hypersonics … you have very difficult materials issues, thermal management issues, aerodynamics issues,” he added.

The cutting-edge weapons are expected to travel faster than Mach 5 and be highly maneuverable against enemy air defenses. The Army, Navy and Air Force are working on them, and the DOD hopes to begin fielding these types of platforms by the end of 2023

LaPlante described the technology as game-changing, noting that adversaries China and Russia are already manufacturing and deploying some of their hypersonic systems.

“If we get — when we get hypersonics into production, we should all pop champagne corks. That will be remarkable because we have never had them in production. Hypersonics has been in the S&T community in this country forever. I love S&T, folks. I am an S&T person. But at some point, you got to let the children out,” he said, urging people to focus less on “shiny” hypersonic S&T projects and focus more on supporting manufacturing.

Despite the challenges involved, LaPlante said he’s hopeful that the weapons will be ready for prime time in the not-too-distant future.

“I am actually optimistic. And without getting into specifics … when I visited some of the companies that will do it — I know people there — they know the challenges that they have,” he said. “But … knock on wood, knock on carpet, they’re about one to two years away from production for some of these hypersonic glide vehicles. And if we get there, hallelujah. That’ll be a landmark” moment.

During the same conference, Undersecretary of the Army Gabe Camarillo said he doesn’t expect any delays in the Army’s plans to equip its first unit with the Long Range Hypersonic Weapon by the end of fiscal 2023.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said his department is interested in boost glide hypersonic weapons as well as scramjet variants. However, he said the Pentagon shouldn’t “blindly” embrace the platforms without considering their cost effectiveness and their return on investment when it comes to attacking various types of targets.

“That’s something we’re still working our way through, but we are definitely interested in both concepts,” Kendall said at the conference.

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Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) is the Defense Department’s novel concept to connect sensors, shooters, and associated technologies to provide battlefield commanders with the best information to make informed decisions more rapidly as conflicts evolve to be more digital. The Air Force’s major contribution to JADC2 is its in-development Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) architecture, which will underpin DOD’s network-centric approach for future-facing fights.

“We’re going to be putting someone in charge of that overall enterprise of C3 battle management for the Air Force. We’ll be naming someone very shortly and they’ll have responsibility for pulling it all together and focusing all that work and making sure it’s truly joint and interoperable with our allies, as well as works together for the Air Force,” Kendall said Wednesday at the Defense News conference. 

The secretary and his team are in the process of determining the service’s budget request for fiscal year 2024. He further confirmed that a bit of that funding will likely be focused on getting JADC2 and ABMS “right from the Air Force.”  

Though he would not go into great detail, Kendall added the next budget will focus heavily on the relatively recently conceptualized operational imperatives the Air Force crafted to confront war-related threats of the future and modernize contemporary assets. 

​​”I just got back from the Pacific. I visited Hawaii, Guam, Australia, Japan, and Alaska — and we clearly need to take steps to make our bases more resilient, and to make agile combat employment a priority,” Kendall noted. “And those are things that we can do relatively quickly.” 

Another operational focus, and anticipated area of more fiscal support in the coming years, involves introducing unmanned collaborative combat aircraft as components of a new family of systems for its Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program.

Those priorities and the other operational imperatives were structured by Air Force officials based on existing and “very foreseeable” gaps in the branch’s capabilities, the secretary noted. From that lens, Kendall also spotlighted the United States’ long-term, high-stakes technological competition with China and how it requires further strategic investments and innovation from the branch. 

“Let’s be clear about that. The strategic competitor or the pacing challenge is China — and China has been working for about 30 years now to develop and fuel capabilities designed to keep the United States out of the region of the western Pacific,” he said.

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In a memorandum filed Sept. 6, United States District Judge Catherine C. Blake called on both parties to exchange deposition designations on or before Sept. 7 and to serve objections and counter-objections on or before Sept. 9.

The court will then discuss objections at a pre-trial conference on Sept. 13, according to the memo.

According to the ruling of Judge Blake, each side will be entitled to designate or counter-designate a total of three hours of deposition testimony during the pre-trial hearing.

Details of the timeline for the preliminary hearing are the latest step in the lawsuit filed by the DOJ after Booz Allen in March announced its plan to acquire EverWatch for an undisclosed sum.

Last month the DOJ argued in a submission to the court that the deal would negatively affect a key intelligence modeling and simulation services procurement run by the National Security Agency.

This came after Booz defended the deal in court documents, stating that the transaction would increase competition in the government services space and support the country’s national security goals. In its defense at the time, the company described the DOJ’s antitrust concerns as “imaginative” and “overreaching.”

A Booz Allen Hamilton spokesperson said: “We are pleased with and appreciative of the Court’s guidance regarding deposition testimony.”

“The factual record in this matter continues to establish that DOJ’s initial assumptions of this transaction were flawed, and that this transaction would enhance overall industry competition and deliver benefits for both the government customer and, ultimately, American taxpayers,” the spokesperson added.

The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment.

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