Our picksHow Police Became Paramilitaries | Trouble for November Election | Feds & Protests, and more

Here’s What Deployed Federal Agencies Say They Are Doing During Protests (Eric Katz, Government Executive)
Federal personnel are deployed across the country to support local police and investigate “agitators” who have “hijacked” the police brutality protests.

DOJ Accelerates Federal Crackdown on Looting and Vandalism (Betsy Woodruff and Natasha Bertrand, Politico)
Having charged more than two dozen people already, DOJ is following through on a vow to go after crimes committed amid the peaceful protests.

Lawmakers, Tech Companies Struggle to Curb Coronavirus Disinformation (Dean DeChiaro, Roll Call)
Among the wackier bits of disinformation is that new 5G technology is spreading COVID-19

U.S. Considers Adding More Chinese Media Outlets to Foreign-Mission List (Kate O’Keeffe, Wall Street Journal)
Designations would continue a dispute between Washington and Beijing that has led to reporters being expelled by both countries

Lawmakers Seek Answers From FBI, DHS on Protest Involvement (Frank Konkel, Nextgov)
The House Committee on Homeland Security also wants to know how many personnel the agencies dispatched to address the protests.

How Police Became Paramilitaries (Michael Shank, New York Review of Books)
Military might has always paraded in America’s streets. But it wasn’t until this century that it became an often daily presence. In the 2000s, local law enforcement agencies began to adopt the type of military equipment more frequently used in a war zone: everything from armored personnel carriers and tanks, with 360-degree rotating machine gun turrets, to grenade launchers, drones, assault weapons, and more. Today, billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment—most used, some new—has been transferred to civilian police departments. As the ACLU has documented, this has led to the militarization of American policing.

Top DHS Official Says to Expect “Every Intelligence Service” to Target COVID-19 Research (Maggie Miller, The Hill)
Christopher Krebs, the director of the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity agency, said in an interview released this week that he expects to see “every intelligence service” attempt to target and steal COVID-19 research and data.

Chaos in Primary Elections Offers Troubling Signs for November (Joseph Marks, Washington Post)
Sometimes-chaotic primary elections across eight states and the District of Columbia foreshadowed challenges that could undermine the security and legitimacy of the general election in November. There were signs of dangerous shortcuts and workarounds, especially in the District where officials couldn’t get mail-in ballots out to everyone who requested them and resorted to accepting emailed ballots. Security experts warn such ballots are highly vulnerable to hacking because voters can’t verify they were recorded accurately. 

Israel and Iran Just Showed Us the Future of Cyberwar with Their Unusual Attacks (Gil Baram and Kevjn Lim, Foreign Policy)
A shadow war fought largely in secret has reached a new, more open phase.