When Does a ‘Cyber Attack’ Demand Retaliation? | How Hamas Is Making Rockets | FISA Process: Tweak or Overhaul?, and more

The shooter told law enforcement that he conducted the attack hoping to kill Mexicans. Before the attack, he allegedly posted a racist manifesto online that cited the Christchurch massacre — a terror attack on two mosques in New Zealand — as inspiration. In Charlottesville, Va., meanwhile, a white supremacist drove his car into a group of people protesting against racism. He killed one woman in that attack. “Additionally, Qanon conspiracy theory adherents continue to promote the idea that the former president will return to power in August,” the bulletin continues.

How Militants in Airtight Sealed Gaza Keep Making Rockets  (Hana Salah, Daily Beast)
The bloody 11-day Israel-Hamas war last month brought one stunning revelation: Despite a formidable army and an airtight blockade on Gaza, Israeli security forces had failed to completely quash Hamas’ weapon development capabilities. While the blockade—which includes restrictions that start with the Red Sea and run through Sudan and Egypt—has succeeded in hindering Gaza’s civilian economy, militant groups including Hamas and Islamic Jihad claim to have successfully relied on local experts to develop rockets using homegrown resources. One such expert was Dr. Jamal al-Zabada, an American engineer who was assassinated on May 12, when Israeli forces targeted a tunnel where al-Zabada and other first-rank militant leaders had been holed up. Al-Zabada, a former university professor, had reportedly recruited his son Osama and a number of engineers to develop Hamas’s arsenal using primitive resources readily available in the besieged enclave. This proved to be a significant development in the last bout of violence, especially in comparison to the 2014 war. That’s not to say that the capabilities of Gazan militants in any way measure up to Israel’s arsenal: Israeli airstrikes devastated Gaza in May, destroying countless buildings and killing over 200 Palestinians living in the strip.”

Priti Patel Says U.K. Faces Heightened Terrorist Threat after Lockdown  (Kitty Donaldson, Bloomberg)
Home Secretary Priti Patel warned that Britain faces a heightened threat of terrorism, with Covid restrictions contributing to a range of “triggers,” including more time online and poorer mental health. “We’ve had a year of people being locked down, we see all sorts of issues in terms of mental health, for example,” Patel told Times Radio Tuesday. “We have to look at a wide range of environmental factors that could act as triggers when it comes to terrorism-type behavior, and the threats to individuals, and also to society so there is a lot of work taking place.” Restrictions on movement led to a decline in terrorist activity — and in 2020 the Islamic State terrorist network even warned its followers to stay away from Europe to avoid Covid-19. Yet Britain’s security agencies are concerned the increased amount of time spent online during the pandemic could lead to radicalization and in turn, future attacks, according to a person familiar with the matter. The agencies have seen a spike in cases in which extreme right-wing groups were recruiting teenagers over the internet, the person said. Most casework still comes from the risk of Islamist terrorism, though, with a smaller amount of time taken up dealing with the threat of new-wave Irish republican-related terrorism.

Reforming the FISA Process: Tweak or Overhaul?  (Julian Sanchez, Just Security)
Fundamental changes to the FISA process are, needless to say, more difficult to implement and more prone to meet resistance than more incrementalist proposals. But if the problems with the current FISA process are indeed structural, as they appear to me to be, then they will only be adequately addressed by structural reform.

Assessing Parler’s Letter Documenting Warnings It Gave FBI of Jan. 6 Attack  (Justin Hendrix, Just Security)
One of the significant moments in the recent House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing on the Jan. 6 insurrection was the revelation that the social media platform Parler had sent several specific warnings to the FBI of potential violence in DC well in advance of the day. The letter that Parler provided the Committee laying out what it told the FBI is now a part of the January 6 Clearinghouse at Just Security. The letter’s details are significant. They deepen existing questions and raise new ones about the FBI’s intelligence failures before the attack.

Why Didn’t the FBI Review Social Media Posts Announcing Plans for the Capitol Riot?  (Qinta Juresic, Lawfare)
According to reporters’ accounts of what happened on Jan. 6 and congressional testimonyby high-ranking FBI officials, the FBI largely did not anticipate that the certification of the Electoral College vote that day might spark violence in Washington, D.C. The only document the FBI produced warning about Jan. 6 was a single bulletin issued by the bureau’s Norfolk, Virginia, field office. This absence of warning is particularly striking given that a significant amount of the planning for the Jan. 6 riot took place in public on social media platforms like Facebook, Gab and Parler. Anyone with a Twitter account and an hour of time to kill could have warned about the potential for violence on Jan. 6—and many did. 

When Does a ‘Cyber Attack’ Demand Retaliation? NATO Broadens Its View  (Stefan Soesanto, Defense One)
A set of “malicious cumulative cyber activities” may now amount to an armed attack.