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Published 9 July 2020

·  FBI Opens a China-Related Counterintelligence Investigation Every 10 Hours

·  Cutting American Police Budgets Might Have Perverse Effects

·  YouTube Runs Trump, Biden Campaign Ads Alongside Videos from White Supremacists and Russian Media

·  Harvard, MIT File Suit over Trump Administration Visa Rule for International Students

·  Deutsche Telekom under Pressure after Reports on Huawei Reliance

·  Peaceful Protesters Targeted by Wave of Vehicle-Ramming Attacks

·  Islamic State terrorist propaganda is going viral on Facebook

·  Build a National Counter-Drone Network

·  Why Let’s Encrypt is a really, really, really bad idea…

·  China’s Own Documents Show Potentially Genocidal Sterilization Plans in Xinjiang

FBI Opens a China-Related Counterintelligence Investigation Every 10 Hours (Frank R. Konkel, Defense One)
FBI Director Chris Wray says China is increasing its illegal activity to subvert the U.S. during the pandemic.

Cutting American Police Budgets Might Have Perverse Effects (Economist)
Without other changes, it might even set back the effort to reform how police deal with black citizens.

YouTube Runs Trump, Biden Campaign Ads Alongside Videos from White Supremacists and Russian Media (Mark Scott, Politico)
Neither campaign actively chose to have its ads run against Russia-backed or white supremacist content.

Harvard, MIT File Suit over Trump Administration Visa Rule for International Students (Juan Perez Jr., Politico)
The suit says that “the effect — and perhaps even the goal — is to create as much chaos for universities and international students as possible.”

Deutsche Telekom under Pressure after Reports on Huawei Reliance (Laurense Cerulus, Politico)
The German operator strengthened its strategic relationship last year despite growing defiance toward the dominant Chinese 5G vendor.

Peaceful Protesters Targeted by Wave of Vehicle-Ramming Attacks (jesselyn Cook, HuffPost)
Vehicles are becoming increasingly popular weaponsthat terrorists and other extremists around the globe use to intimidate, harm and kill. Cars and trucks are easily accessible, require little skill to operate and can facilitate unpredictable attacks with mass casualties.
“This is a tactic that has been around for several years,” said Josh Lipowsky, a senior researcher at the Counter Extremism Project. “It was originally used early on by Islamist extremists — ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hamas — but in the last five years or so, we have seen this tactic being adopted by the far-right.”
There is a deluge of far-right propaganda in the form of memes and other hateful posts on social media intended to incite and normalize violence against protesters, added Lipowsky.
“One of the common themes among these memes is that the protesters are in the way and an inconvenience, and running them over with your car is going to be the best way to remove that inconvenience from your life,” Lipowsky said. “The goal is to dehumanize the protesters and make it more acceptable to strike back physically at them in retaliation to what people see as disruptions to their own lives.”

Islamic State terrorist propaganda is going viral on Facebook (Moustafa Ayad, Wired)
A small army of pro-terrorism accounts has polluted Facebook with dangerous propaganda Islamic State terrorist propaganda is going viral on Facebook A small army of pro-terrorism accounts has polluted Facebook with dangerous propaganda

Build a National Counter-Drone Network (Zak Kallenborn, Defense One)
Defensive drones stationed at airports and other likely points of attack could be teleoperated from one or more central facilities.

Why Let’s Encrypt is a really, really, really bad idea… (John Horst, Medium)
Did I mention it is a really bad idea???

China’s Own Documents Show Potentially Genocidal Sterilization Plans in Xinjiang (Adrian Zenz, Foreign Policy)
Ethnic minorities are being targeted by family planning departments as reproduction restrictions loosen on Han Chinese.