Our picksU.S. Isn’t Ready for What’s About to Happen | Building a Resilient Cyber Future | Colombia’s Coca Fields, and more

Published 9 March 2020

·  The U.S. Isn’t Ready for What’s About to Happen

·  Trump’s Visit to the CDC Shows Why There’s Concern about His Coronavirus Response

·  Building a Resilient Cyber Future

·  Immigration Officers Say Asylum Deal with Guatemala Is Unlawful

·  Watchdog: Poor Communication Left HHS Ill-Equipped to Handle Family Separation Policy

·  Homeland Security Grades UM’s Cybersecurity in Confidential Assessment

·  Democrats Call on the State Department to List White Supremacist Groups As Foreign Terrorist Organizations

·  Trump Tells Colombia: Spray Coca Fields with Alleged Carcinogen—or Else

The U.S. Isn’t Ready for What’s About to Happen (Juliette Kayyem, The Atlantic)
Even with a robust government response to the novel coronavirus, many people will be in peril. And the United States is anything but prepared.

Trump’s Visit to the CDC Shows Why There’s Concern about His Coronavirus Response (Catherine Kim, Vox)
Trump spent a visit to the CDC misrepresenting the state of coronavirus testing, praising himself, and attacking his critics.

Building a Resilient Cyber Future (Mike Gallagher and Samantha Ravich, Cyberscoop)
During the early days of the Cold War, American planners wrestled with the emerging challenge of deterring a Soviet nuclear strike. Recognizing the destructive potential of nuclear weapons, the U.S. opted to focus its efforts on ensuring that adversaries clearly understood the U.S. capacity to retaliate and impose costs. Defense and resilience was a secondary priority. We did not, for example, build our subway systems hundreds of feet underground to double as fallout shelters, as the Soviets did. We relied heavily on the concept of mutually assured destruction to dissuade adversaries.
With the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, we have assessed that a strong offense does not convey the same deterrent in cyberspace as it does in nuclear or conventional war. While the ability to impose costs is important, a U.S. strategy to secure ourselves in cyberspace must prioritize defense, denying adversaries the opportunity and benefits brought by attacking us in this evolving domain. Core to that defensive effort is promoting national resilience—the capacity to withstand and quickly recover from attacks that could compel, deter, or otherwise shape U.S. behavior. In short, resilience ensures that critical functions and the full extent of U.S. economic and military power remain available in peacetime and are preserved in crisis.

Immigration Officers Say Asylum Deal with Guatemala Is Unlawful (Zolan Kanno-Youngs, New York Times)
The policy returns a vulnerable population “to countries in which their lives and freedom are directly threatened,” a union of asylum and refugee officers said in a brief.

Watchdog: Poor Communication Left HHS Ill-Equipped to Handle Family Separation Policy (Courtney Boublé, Government Executive)
Leaders ignored warnings from career staff that would have helped them better care for an influx of children, IG found. 

Homeland Security Grades UM’s Cybersecurity in Confidential Assessment (Cameron Kia Weix, Montana Kaimin)
The Department of Homeland Security recently evaluated the University of Montana on its cybersecurity, but only one person on campus can see the results.
Renae Scott, UM’s chief information officer, requested that DHS conduct a Cyber Resilience Review, a free service that evaluates an organization based on categories like incident management, training and awareness. But she had to receive clearance from DHS to see the assessment results.

Democrats Call on the State Department to List White Supremacist Groups As Foreign Terrorist Organizations (Kadia Goba, BuzzFeed News)
“We have got to start to identify those foreign terrorist organizations in the same manner that we would identify ISIS and al-Qaida,” Rep. Max Rose said of the new resolution.

Trump Tells Colombia: Spray Coca Fields with Alleged Carcinogen—or Else (Jeremy Kryt, Daily Beast)
If the U.S. president has his way, clouds of the weed killer glyphosate will descend on crops and people in Colombia. His EPA says it’s safe. Thousands of lawsuits say it’s not.