Our picksWater Treatment Hack | Ties between Pandemics and Extremism | Online Propagandists, and more

History Will Find Trump Guilty  (Davoid Remnick, New Yorker)
The ex-President will be remembered for authoritarianism and lawless compulsions.
Trump avoided conviction by a vote of 57–43 on Saturday, but history—history as it is assembled through the rigorous accumulation and analysis of fact—will not be so forgiving. Throughout the trial, the Democratic impeachment managers presented overwhelming evidence of Trump’s criminal culpability, his incitement of the January 6th assault on the U.S. Capitol. Their case was clear: for months, Trump sought to undermine, then reverse, a national election, and, when he ran out of options, after he was thwarted by various state election officials and the courts, he proved willing to see the lives of his own Vice-President, the Speaker of the House, and other members of Congress endangered so that he might retain power.
There is a long history of violence against democratic processes and voters in America: in the eighteen-fifties, nativist gangs like the Plug Uglies set out to intimidate immigrant voters; in the eighteen-seventies, white Southerners formed “rifle clubs” and attacked Black voters to hasten the end of Reconstruction. But this event was unique in U.S. history. This mob was inspired by a President.

How the Christian Right Helped Foment Insurrection  (Sarah Posner, Reveal News)
Christian-right activists inside and outside of government promoted the election fraud lie and claimed God told them to “let the church roar.”

It’s Time to Talk about Violent Christian Extremism  (Zack Stanton, Politico)
There’s a “strong authoritarian streak” that runs through parts of American evangelicalism, warns Elizabeth Neumann. What should be done about it?

How Online Propagandists Targeted the 2020 Election  (Steven Rosenfeld, National Memo)
Partisan disinformation to undermine 2020’s presidential election shadowed every step of the voting process last year but took an unprecedented turn when the earliest false claims morphed into intricate conspiracies as Election Day passed and President Trump worked to subvert the results, according to two of the nation’s top experts tracking the election propaganda.

Maintaining Voluntary Measures for Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity Could be Deadly  (Robert Knake and Bryson Bort, Cipher Brief)

A Hacker Broke into a Florida Town’s Water Supply and Tried to Poison It with Lye, Police Said  (Jaclyn Peiser, Washington Post)
The near miss incident was the latest alarming sign that critical infrastructure in the United States is vulnerable to cyberattacks. In July, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency warned that infrastructure like water and power plants, emergency services and transportation systems make “attractive targets for foreign powers attempting to do harm to U.S. interests or retaliate for perceived U.S. aggression.”

CISA, FBI Share Recommendations After Water Treatment Hack  (Mariam Baksh, Nextgov)
The agencies say updating to the latest operating system is important, even if it wasn’t a factor in this particular incident.

Why 2021 Will Be the Year of Adaptive Cybersecurity  (Louis Columbus, Forbes)
96% of enterprise executives say they are adjusting their cybersecurity strategies due to Covid-19 and half are now considering cybersecurity in every business decision. 71% plan to incorporate cybersecurity, including early detection of cyber risks, more into their company-wide enterprise risk management strategies according to PwC. 55% are seeing their cybersecurity budgets increase in 2021 over 2020, with more automated, adaptive cybersecurity being the goal for this year.

Eroding Trust, Spreading Fear: The Historical Ties between Pandemics and Extremism  (Marc Fisher, Washington Post)
Since ancient times, pandemics have spurred sharp turns in political beliefs, spawning extremist movements, waves of mistrust and wholesale rejection of authorities. Nearly a year into the coronavirus crisis, Americans are falling prey to the same phenomenon, historians, theologians and other experts say, exemplified by a recent NPR-Ipsos poll in which nearly 1 in 5 said they believe Satan-worshipping, child-enslaving elites seek to control the world.
As shutdowns paralyzed the economy in the first months of the pandemic, Americans sharply increased searches for extremist and white supremacist materials online, according to Moonshot CVE, a research firm that studies extremism. The United States was not the only country affected: A British study found that the pandemic boosted radicalization globally, as people found more time to delve into extremist arguments.
New insecurities and fears loosed by the pandemic fed into an existing erosion of trust in leaders and institutions, according to those who have studied how people react to rampant, uncontrolled disease.