Category Archives: Mark Esper

White House official, former Nunes aide Michael Ellis named NSA general counsel

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The Pentagon’s general counsel has selected Michael Ellis, a White House official and former Republican aide on Capitol Hill who has faced accusations of politicizing intelligence, to be the National Security Agency’s next general counsel, according to a U.S. government official familiar with the matter. In recent months the White House has been repeatedly pressuring the Department of Defense’s general counsel to slate Ellis, who served as Intelligence Committee counsel to Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., as the top attorney at the NSA, a person familiar with the matter told CyberScoop. The appointment of Ellis to a traditionally non-partisan role could raise questions about whether President Donald Trump is seeking to plant political allies throughout the U.S. government before his final 70 days as a “lame duck” president come to a close. The news comes at a turbulent time for the Trump administration. Trump has refused to concede the election, and in recent hours announced he had […]

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Air Force unveils information warfare outfit amid U.S. effort to go on offense in cyberspace

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After months of planning, the U.S. Air Force announced it is creating a new information warfare body, an official step that aims to bolster the military’s digital warfare capabilities. The Air Force announced this week it will create an information warfare command, which will combine the capabilities from the division now responsible for defending crucial networks, Air Forces Cyber, and the 25th Air Force, which oversees intelligence collection, surveillance, and reconnaissance. The new outfit will be known as the 16th Air Force, and led by Maj. Gen. Timothy Haugh, who formerly led the Cyber National Mission Force at Cyber Command, pending his confirmation. The update is one aspect in a series of efforts the Pentagon is undertaking to accelerate offensive operations after years of focusing primarily on defense. It also comes at a time when every other U.S. military service — the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard – also is considering upgrades to […]

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U.S. Secretary of Defense urges NATO allies to block Chinese-built 5G tech

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U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper is calling on allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to bar Chinese companies from developing 5G networks there, reiterating an American argument that largely has failed to convince European countries to blacklist telecommunication firms with ties to Beijing. Esper, in a speech Thursday at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency summit in Maryland, said “every Chinese company has the potential to be an accomplice in Beijing’s state-sponsored campaign to steal technology.” His remarks came amid a standoff between Washington and Beijing in which the Chinese telecom Huawei has become the subject of geopolitical scrutiny while it also lobbies nations around the world to help build 5G wireless networks. Esper in his speech warned NATO allies that using 5G networks developed by Chinese companies “jeopardizes military interoperability and intelligence sharing opportunities.” “The U.S. military does not fight alone,” he said. “Just like the other […]

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Trump’s Pentagon pick ‘confident’ in 2020 election security

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Defense secretary nominee Mark Esper told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that although there is still work to be done, he is confident in the security of the 2020 presidential elections. “We are more and more confident that the 2020 elections will be unfettered,” Esper said. “But we always will have a lot of work to do because people will always want to influence our elections.” The 2020 elections remain a target of state and non-state cyber actors, a senior intelligence official told reporters last month in a briefing. Esper, who has been serving as secretary of the U.S. Army since 2017, highlighted U.S. Cyber Command’s capabilities while discussing election security. Efforts made in the buildup to the 2018 midterm elections left the U.S. with an improved posture than years prior, he said. Some of the command’s efforts to defend the midterm elections in 2018 included deploying soldiers to […]

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