Our picksICE & Face-Recognition | Conspiracy & 5G Cell Towers | Opportunists vs. Extremists, and more

U.S. Assessment Finds Opportunists Drive Protest Violence, Not Extremists (Ted Hesson, Mark Hosenball, Mica Rosenberg, and Brad Heath, Reuters)
President Donald Trump has blamed leftwing extremist groups for instigating nights of looting and violence in cities across the United States, but an intelligence assessment by DHS intelligence and analysis unit offers limited evidence that organized extremists are behind the turmoil. DHS officials said most of the violence appears to have been driven by opportunists.

As Trump Blames Antifa, Protest Records Show Scant Evidence (Michael Biesecker, Michael Kunzelman, Jake Bleiberg, and Alanna Durkin Richer,  AP / Washington Post)
President Donald Trump has characterized those clashing with law enforcement after George Floyd’s death as organized, radical-left thugs engaging in domestic terrorism, an assertion repeated by Attorney General William Barr. Some Democrats, including Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, initially sought to blame out-of-state far-right infiltrators for the unrest before walking back those statements.
There is scant evidence either is true.

The NYPD Sees Coordination in Protests. It’s Incentivized To. (Jake Bittle, Foreign Policy)
Since 9/11, federal funding for counterintelligence has shifted the way New York and other cities are policed.

Gun-Toting Members of the Boogaloo Movement Are Showing Up at Protests (Robert Kuznia, Drew Griffin, and Curt Devine, CNN)
The Boogaloos are an emerging incarnation of extremism that seems to defy easy categorization. They are yet another confounding factor in the ongoing effort among local, state and federal officials to puzzle out the political sympathies of the agitators showing up to the mostly peaceful George Floyd rallies who have destroyed property, looted businesses, or — in the case of the Boogaloos who descended on Minneapolis — walked around the streets with assault rifles.
Boogaloo members appear to hold conflicting ideological views with some identifying as anarchists and others rejecting formal titles. Some pockets of the group have espoused white supremacy while others reject it. But they have at least two things in common: an affinity for toting around guns in public and a “boogaloo” rallying cry, which is commonly viewed as code for another US civil war.
The Tech Transparency Project of a non-profit watchdog group called Campaign for Accountability released a report this spring concluding that more than 60 percent of the 125 identifiable Boogaloo groups on Facebook have sprung up since January, and picked up steam after the onset of the Covid-19 lockdowns.

Early Intervention Is Key to Diverting Young People from Violent Extremism (Peter Lowe, The Strategist)
Identifying young people who may be at risk of radicalization to violent extremism involves looking for indicators similar to those among young people who may be engaging in gang-related or substance-use behavior and includes identifying and recognizing early signs when they withdraw from usual social or familial contexts and isolate themselves from their peers or community. The digital age and the prevalence of social media in the daily lives of young people mean they’re more easily and frequently exposed to and able to access radical and extremist narratives and the messages of terrorist organizations, which have developed sophisticated online and social media recruitment campaigns.

Philippine Dissenters May Face Terrorist Designation (Jason Gutierrez and Richard C. Paddock, New York Times)
President Rodrigo Duterte is expected to sign legislation defining terrorism so broadly that critics of the government could easily be detained without charge.

From Extremism to Coronavirus: How a Nonprofit Pivoted to Confront Arabic-Language Misinformation (Raf Sanchez and Chima Elbialy, NBC News)
Even before the coronavirus hit the Arab world, rampant misinformation had begun to spread online.

ICE Details Its Outsourced Face-Recognition Efforts (Aaron Boyd, Defense One)
A new report details the workings, rules, and privacy implications of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s 3rd-party facial recognition system.

Coronavirus Conspiracy Theorists Threaten 5G Cell Towers, DHS Memo Warns (Sean Lyngaas, Cyberscoop)
Telecommunications providers should have robust security measures in place at 5G cell towers following a series of physical attacks from conspiracy theorists and other extremists, the Department of Homeland Security advised industry executives in a confidential memo last week. The advisory from DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) comes after a spate of attacks on cell towers in Europe, and as agency officials reckon with other COVID-19-related threats, ranging from data theft to fraud.