The Foreign Service Journal, November 2021

88 NOVEMBER 2021 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL FCS VP VOICE | BY JAY CARREIRO AFSA NEWS Contact: jay.carreiro@trade.gov Turns Out, the Government Does Spy on You Back in May, The Washington Post broke a story on what it called a rogue unit within the Commerce Department. This unit, officially known as the Investigations and Threat Management Service, was alleged to have been conducting “counterintelli- gence-like” activities against Commerce employees. Upon learning of the situation, the Biden admin- istration suspended all ITMS activities and promised a full accounting. I have to admit that even after 20 years with Com- merce, I’d never heard of this unit and neither had most of my colleagues. Nevertheless, there it was, covertly looking into employees it somehow deemed disloyal or that it felt were working against the (previous) administration’s objectives. Never mind that it had no legal authority to do this. The department’s Office of Security initially created what would morph into ITMS back in 2006. The unit was mainly charged with assess- ing threats to and protect- ing Commerce Department assets including the Secre- tary of Commerce and other officials. Its actions clearly constitute a huge breach of trust, and are frankly disturb- ing and disheartening. On Sept. 3, Commerce released its long-awaited report on the matter. In short, the report recommends eliminating ITMS, and trans- ferring remaining essential functions to other units. It also includes recommen- dations to enhance oversight of security and risk manage- ment functions and, above all, to ensure that no information collected by ITMS informs future decisions without “prior legal review and independent factual corroboration.” Accordingly, ITMS will be wound down within 90 days, and the additional recom- mendations from the report will be implemented within 180 days. We’ll be watching this very carefully. The Commerce Depart- ment’s full press release can be viewed at bit.ly/afsa- commerce. In Other News Congressional Outreach: AFSA continues to press for Senate confirmation of new officers, newly tenured officers and Senior Foreign Service officers. We also con- tinue to engage our commit- tees of jurisdiction on budget recommendations to bolster our domestic and overseas fields, which continue to feel the long-term effects of attrition. Alumni Engagement: At AFSA’s urging, FCS has reached out to its alumni to explore various engage- ment initiatives. A survey was recently sent to all alumni and the feedback will be used to develop plans to utilize this untapped resource. n AFSA Supports Federal Vaccination Mandate AFSA strongly supports President Joe Biden’s executive order mandating COVID-19 vaccination for all federal employees, with exceptions for medical and religious reasons as provided for by federal law. It is now more urgent than ever for all federal employees to be vaccinated if they do not have valid reasons for an exemption. This is critical to enabling the federal workforce, including the Foreign Service, to return to the workplace as soon as circumstances permit. We are facing a real crisis in our services to the public, including visa and passport issuance as well as American citizen services, and employees rightly expect to be protected to the fullest extent from possible infection at work. AFSA will strongly support and advocate for members who have medical or religious reasons for exemption. Everyone else who is not yet vaccinated should get vaccinated now. n Foreign Service Grievance Board Appointments Congratulations to the retired Foreign Service members appointed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the Foreign Service Grievance Board for two-year terms starting Oct. 1, 2021. As required by the Foreign Service Act of 1980, the candidates were jointly nominated by AFSA and the five agencies utilizing the Foreign Service personnel system. Reappointed members: Ambassador (ret.) Bernadette M. Allen (State), Nace B. Crawford (State-Diplomatic Security), Gregory Loose (Foreign Commercial Service), Lawrence C. Mandel (State; reappointed as FSGB chair), Wendela Moore (State) and Ambassador Luis G. Moreno (State). New members: Ambassador Jess L. Baily (State) and Pat R. Shapiro (USAID). n