Our picksThe CDC's Crumbling Reputation | FBI’s Cyberstrategy | Is U.S. on the Path to Destruction?, and more
· Pentagon Used Taxpayer Money Meant for Masks and Swabs to Make Jet Engine Parts and Body Armor
· The U.S. Is on the Path to Destruction
· The CDC’s Crumbling Reputation
· Could Trump Assassinate A World Leader and Get Away With it?
· FBI Hopes a More Aggressive Cyber Strategy Will Disrupt Foreign Hackers
· Yes, Russia Is Interfering in the 2020 Election
· YouTube’s Plot to Silence Conspiracy Theories
· Analysis: How Trump’s TikTok Deal Helps China
· The Inside Story of the Mueller Probe’s Mistakes
· Revealed: Why Israel Gunned Down an Obscure Engineer in Malaysia
Pentagon Used Taxpayer Money Meant for Masks and Swabs to Make Jet Engine Parts and Body Armor (Aaron Gregg and Yeganeh Torbati, Washington Post)
Shortly after Congress passed the Cares Act, the Pentagon began directing pandemic-related money to defense contractors
The U.S. Is on the Path to Destruction (Annie Lowry, The Atlantic)
Climate change is killing Americans and destroying the country’s physical infrastructure.
The CDC’s Crumbling Reputation (Caitlin Ownes, Axios)
Concerns about the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) competence and politicization have only grown as the pandemic rages on, and these concerns were deepened by the CDC’s decision abruptly to remove new guidance saying that the coronavirus spreads via aerosols from its website yesterday. The decision drew a fresh barrage of criticism.
The agency only last week reversed controversial guidance that said asymptomatic people don’t need to be tested for the virus, after the New York Times reported that the guidance was not written by CDC scientists and was posted over their objections.
And on Friday, the NYT reported that two former top Health and Human Services officials “tried to browbeat career officials at the C.D.C. at the height of the pandemic, challenging the science behind their public statements and trying to silence agency staff.”
The jarring inconsistency, and frequent about-face, for an agency once globally admired and generally considered immune from political interference is always problematic. This is especially the case during a pandemic.
Could Trump Assassinate A World Leader and Get Away With it? (Katie Bo Williams, Defense One)
Maybe. Scholars explain why the answer is as murky as the law.
FBI Hopes a More Aggressive Cyber Strategy Will Disrupt Foreign Hackers (Sean Lyngaas, Cyberscoop)
Last week saw a flurry of U.S. indictments of alleged Chinese and Iranian hackers as part of a multi-agency crackdown on foreign intelligence services.
The Department of Treasury issued sanctions, the Department of Homeland Security advised companies on how to fend off hackers and U.S. intelligence agencies likely kept a close eye on possible reactions from Beijing and Tehran. At the center of the coordinated crackdowns, though, were the FBI agents who tracked the computer infrastructure used by the suspects.
The series of events was one of the first examples of the FBI’s new cybersecurity strategy in action. The goal of the effort, which officials revealed this month, is simple: impose harsher consequences on America’s digital adversaries by working more closely with intelligence agencies and data-rich private companies.
Yes, Russia Is Interfering in the 2020 Election (Jen Kirby, Vox)
It wants to cause chaos, again. But it’s also learned some lessons from 2016.
YouTube’s Plot to Silence Conspiracy Theories (Clive Thompson, Wired)
From flat-earthers to QAnon to COVID quackery, the video giant is awash in misinformation. Can AI keep the lunatic fringe from going viral?
Analysis: How Trump’s TikTok Deal Helps China (Patrick Tucker, Defense One)
The deal doesn’t really address data or privacy concerns. It does help regimes attack U.S. companies.
The Inside Story of the Mueller Probe’s Mistakes (George Packer, The Atlantic)
In a new book, Andrew Weissmann, one of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s top deputies, lays out the limits and letdowns of the years-long Russia investigation.
Revealed: Why Israel Gunned Down an Obscure Engineer in Malaysia (Anshel Pfeffer, The Times)
Intelligence dossiers point to links with Hamas that led to Fadi Mohammad al-Batsh being targeted in 2018 thousands of miles from the Middle East.