Our picksBig Future for CISA | NIH Removed Chinese Covid-19 Gene Data | NSA Collaborates with Private Sector, and more
· Chinese Covid-19 Gene Data That Could Have Aided Pandemic Research Removed from NIH Database
· DHS Is Concerned about Trump Reinstatement Conspiracy Theory, Top Official Says
· Secretive NSA Opens Doors to New “Collaboration Center” as Cyberthreats Mount
· Northeast Nigeria Insurgency Has Killed Almost 350,000
· New Zealand Plans Stronger Hate Speech Laws in Response to Christchurch Attack
· Frontline: Germany’s Neo-Nazis and the Far Right’ Review: From Whence It Came
· Biden Administration Forces Out Trump-Era Border Patrol Chief
· Chris Krebs Sees a Big Future for CISA
· There’s an app for that: Biden plans to bring tips on domestic terror to police phones
· QAnon as Neo-Noir
Chinese Covid-19 Gene Data That Could Have Aided Pandemic Research Removed from NIH Database (Amy Dockser Marcus, Betsy McKay and Drew Hinshaw, Wall Street Journal)
Researcher says he recovered gene sequences after a Chinese scientist asked that they be removed from government archive.
DHS Is Concerned about Trump Reinstatement Conspiracy Theory, Top Official Says (Bettsy Woodruff Swan, Politico)
DHS’s top counterterrorism official told members of Congress about the department’s concerns in a private briefing.
Secretive NSA Opens Doors to New “Collaboration Center” as Cyberthreats Mount (Olivia Gazis, CBS News)
One of the most notoriously secretive U.S. intelligence agencies has opened a new facility that it hopes, uncharacteristically, will welcome plenty of outside visitors.
While most of the National Security Agency’s (NSA) outposts are closed-off, highly restricted spaces, the agency’s newly launched Cybersecurity Collaboration Center, located a few miles outside its main campus in Fort Meade, Maryland, is meant to serve as a gathering point for government and private sector cybersecurity experts to exchange information about hacking threats from adversaries in real time.
Northeast Nigeria Insurgency Has Killed Almost 350,000 – UN (Reuters)
Northeast Nigeria’s conflict with Islamist insurgencies had killed nearly 350,000 people as of the end of 2020, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said on Thursday. The toll, given by the U.N. agency in a new study on the war and its impact on livelihoods, is 10 times higher than previous estimates of about 35,000 based only on those killed in fighting in Nigeria since the conflict’s start 12 years ago. “The full human cost of the war is much greater,” the UNDP said in a report, released with Nigeria’s Ministry of Finance. “Already, many more have died from the indirect effects of the conflict,” said the UNDP, citing damage to agriculture, water, trade, food and healthcare. A Nigerian presidential spokesman declined to comment on the death toll. Nigeria’s war with Islamist insurgencies Boko Haram and Islamic State’s West Africa Province has spawned one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with millions of people dependent on aid. The conflict shows little sign of ending. Children younger than five account for more than nine out of 10 of those killed, with 170 dying every day, the UNDP said. If the conflict continues to 2030, more than 1.1 million people may die, the agency said.
