• Nuclear Weapon Modernization Continues but Outlook for Arms Control Is Bleak: Report

    The just-released annual report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) assesses the current state of armaments, disarmament, and international security. The report finds is that despite an overall decrease in the number of nuclear warheads in 2019, all nuclear weapon-possessing states continue to modernize their nuclear arsenals.

  • European Police Services Turn to Tasers as Weapon of Choice

    On Friday, the French government announced that French police would no longer be allowed to use chokeholds on suspects. More police officers would instead be equipped with stun guns. About 15,000 French police officers, out of a force of 240,000 officers nationwide, are already equipped with stun guns. The police in Italy, the Netherlands, England, Wales and other European countries have been increasing their use of tasers to subdue suspects instead of other methods.

  • Police Unions Are One of the Biggest Obstacles to Transforming Policing

    There’s a major, and usually insurmountable, obstacle to reform: police unions. Research suggests that these unions play a critical role in thwarting the transformation of police departments. Across the United States, police are shielded from both public and departmental accountability by multiple layers of contractual and legislative protections. Nearly all of these measures reflect the political will and political might of police unions.

  • High-Tech Surveillance Amplifies Police Bias and Overreach

    Local, state and federal law enforcement organizations use an array of surveillance technologies to identify and track protesters, from facial recognition to military-grade drones. Police use of these national security-style surveillance techniques – justified as cost-effective techniques that avoid human bias and error – has grown hand-in-hand with the increased militarization of law enforcement. Extensive research, including my own, has shown that these expansive and powerful surveillance capabilities have exacerbated rather than reduced bias, overreach and abuse in policing, and they pose a growing threat to civil liberties.

  • Closed and Open Cases: Two Untimely, and Unsolved, European Deaths

    The untimely death more than thirty years ago of two leading European politicians still haunts the continent. The killing of Sweden’s prime minister Olof Palme in February 1986, and the mysterious death of Uwe Barschel, the rising German politician, in October 1987, occurred within a year-and-half of each other. Both cases have remained unsolved to this day. On Wednesday, Swedish prosecutors announced that they were closing the Palme case. The Barschel case is still officially open.

  • Militias Evaluate Beliefs, Action as President Threatens Soldiers in the Streets

    So-called “militias” and “patriot groups” have different beliefs and viewpoints, but most of these citizen-focused organizations share a concern about government infringement on individual liberties. The protests over the killing of George Floyd saw largely peaceful demonstrations being met by well-armed police, often equipped with military gear, and National Guard troops. That puts these groups in a curious position. Their public activity has long championed the importance of individual constitutional rights, and they believe in the right to use armed resistance against government overreach. But many of these groups’ members have also been supporters of the president, who is now speaking openly of taking the sort of far-reaching government action these groups have long warned against.

  • Bill Would Prohibit Use of Nukes against Hurricanes

    Last August, President Trump repeatedly asked DHS experts and other top national security officials to consider using nuclear bombs to weaken, destroy, or change the direction of hurricanes. The idea is not new, but it has been dismissed by experts. NOAA says that the energy released by nuclear weapons pales in comparison to the energy released by a typical hurricane, which the NOAA describes as comparable to a 10-megaton nuclear bomb exploding “every 20 minutes.” While the detonation of even several nuclear bombs would not weaken a hurricane or change its direction, experts note that the radioactive fallout released downwind could have catastrophic impacts for people and the environment.

  • Calls for New Federal Authority to Regulate Facial Recognition Tech

    A group of artificial intelligence experts — citing profiling, breach of privacy and surveillance as potential societal risks — recently proposed a new model for managing facial recognition technologies at the federal level. The experts propose an FDA-inspired model that categorizes these technologies by degrees of risk and would institute corresponding controls.

  • Military Prestige during a Political Crisis: Use It and You’ll Lose It

    Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, walked himself into a civil-military problem when he walked across Pennsylvania Avenue – in his battle fatigues! – last week. Jim Golby and Peter Feaver write that Milley was literally following President Donald Trump, who was on his way for a photo-op in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church in order to counter stories about the president holed up in his basement while riots raged outside. “Presidents who are struggling politically have a powerful incentive to wrap themselves in military garb precisely because the American public holds the military in high esteem. But, when the language of national security is stretched to provide cover for what is otherwise viewed as a nakedly partisan effort, it jeopardizes the very esteem for the military on which the administration relies,” they write.

  • Slime Scene: Unusual Forensic Investigation Technique Put to the Test

    Could household slime become a tool to help solve crimes? This is the question researchers sought to answer in a recent study that tested a popular children’s “slime” recipe as a technique to enhance the appearance of hard-to-see fingerprints in forensic investigations.

  • Invoking “Terrorism” Against Police Protestors

    President Trump on Sunday tweeted that the United States should designate Antifa, a movement of leftists radicals prone to violence, as a “terrorist” organization. Shirin Sinnar writes that leaving aside the fact that current law does not grant the president the authority to designate the movement a terrorist organization, the deeper issue is this: “The sad irony in all this is that, over the past two years, some on the left have vocally supported an expansion of domestic terrorism frameworks” – calls which neglected the many concerns that civil rights groups.

  • Department of Homeland Security Law Enforcement Agencies Require Expanded Oversight

    Hundreds of Department of Homeland Security officers have been called up to serve along with other federal law enforcement officers and the National Guard to provide security within the District of Columbia. The question is whether the deployed officers are adequately trained and prepared for the current tense environment. “Repurposing law enforcement officers to work in a tense civic moment is not as easy as it might sound,” Carrie Cordero writes. If they are not well prepared, “the consequences can range from the embarrassing to the dangerous.”

  • Trump's “Antifa” Accusations Spark Debate in Germany, the Movement's Birthplace

    After Donald Trump claimed most protesters in the U.S. were “antifa,” Germany’s Social Democrats rushed to declare solidarity with the movement. But which movement? And why did other politicians object? What the word means is simple enough in German. Antifa is short for antifaschistisch, or anti-Fascist. In the most literal sense, one might hope this label could apply to almost all modern German people and politicians. But does antifa refer to all those opposed to fascism, or does it refer only to black-clad anarchists and leftists staring down German police in the streets?

  • Militarization Has Fostered a Policing Culture that Sets up Protesters as “The Enemy”

    The militarization of police departments has been a feature of U.S. domestic law enforcement since the 9/11 attacks. What is clear from the latest round of protest and response, is that despite efforts to promote de-escalation as a policy, police culture appears to be stuck in an “us vs. them” mentality.

  • Heightened Risks When Pandemic and Hurricane Season Overlap

    Researchers studying the ability of coastal communities to respond to disasters say that combined disasters may make community recovery vastly more difficult. What they have found serves as a stark warning to policymakers preparing for hurricane season during a pandemic. One of the main worries is that there will be significant delays in recovery efforts if front-line workers are not kept healthy.