National Security Risks of the U.S. Drought | Not Ready for Another Pandemic | 50,000 Security Disasters Waiting to Happen, and more

U.S. Supreme Court Curbs Transunion ‘Terrorist List’ Lawsuit  (Reuters)
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday narrowed the scope of a class action lawsuit against TransUnion (TRU.N) in which thousands of people sought damages after the credit reporting company flagged their names as matching some on a government list of suspected terrorists and drug traffickers. The justices ruled in TransUnion’s appeal of a lower court decision that had upheld a jury verdict against the Chicago-based company in the lawsuit and had ordered it to pay $40 million in damages. The 5-4 decision, authored by conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh, stopped short of tossing out the jury verdict, but found there was insufficient evidence to show that all of the plaintiffs had been harmed by TransUnion’s conduct, meaning the amount of damages will be reduced. There were 8,185 class members in the litigation whose names matched ones on the government list. At trial it was established only that TransUnion had revealed that information publicly on 1,853 of them. The other 6,332 did not experience a “concrete injury,” thus lacked the necessary legal standing to sue, Kavanaugh wrote. “No concrete harm, no standing,” Kavanaugh wrote. On two other claims in the lawsuit, the court found, none of the plaintiffs aside from the lead plaintiff, a California man named Sergio Ramirez, could show they had suffered any harm.

Rome Meeting of Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS to Address Growing Extremist Threat in Africa  (Thomas Harding, The National)
Senior officials from more than 60 countries are to gather in Rome on Monday where security analysts hope they will agree a “co-ordinated and coherent” plan to tackle the ISIS threat in Africa. Developed countries also should be prepared to spend at least a decade working to dismantle the terrorist group by adequately training security forces, counter-terrorism experts have said. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will co-host a meeting of the foreign ministers of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS at a time when the extremist threat is growing in Africa, with ISIS-affiliated groups making ground in Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and in particular in the West Africa region of the Sahel. But it is also a moment in world politics when America is seeking to withdraw from its “endless wars” in the Middle East and Afghanistan, potentially leaving a power vacuum behind. However, the US and other western powers including Britain and France understand that they cannot let things slide and have therefore expanded the anti-ISIS coalition by inviting a further 25 countries, mainly from Africa, to attend. “They want a concerted effort to try to deal with these issues in a coherent and strategic way,” said Raffaello Pantucci of the Royal United Services Institute think tank.

Trump’s Election Fraud Claims Were ‘All Bullshit’ Former AG Barr Says  (Peter Wade, Rolling Stone)
“We realized from the beginning it was just bullshit,” former attorney general Bill Barr said.

The National Security Risks of the U.S. Drought  (Erin Sikorski, The Hill)
Each new report about this year’s western drought reveals another record-breaking development: Hoover Dam’s Lake Mead is at its lowest level ever. More acres have already burned across California compared to this time last year. Extraordinary electricity demand is straining the Texas electric grid to its limit.
As a former member of the US intelligence community, I have no doubt that intelligence analysts in foreign capitals are watching the reports come in with one purpose in mind — analyzing the impact of these unprecedented developments on security in the United States.