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Assange’s new indictment: Espionage and the First Amendment
The Espionage Act, a sweeping federal statute enacted a century ago, imposes heavy criminal penalties for obtaining or disclosing classified information without proper authorization. Beginning under President Barack Obama, recent years saw a dramatic increase in prosecutions under the Espionage Act. But these prosecutions were directed at leakers of classified information — all government employees and government contractors — not at journalists or publishers. That makes Assange’s indictment a watershed.
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Biodefense Manhattan Project
The Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense will hold a day-long meeting to discuss a national, public-private research and development initiative to defend the United States against biological threats. The discussants will be “representatives from the same sorts of organizations that contributed to the original Manhattan Project,” the Blue Ribbon Panel says.
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Doctored video of Nancy Pelosi shows social media giants ill-prepared for 2020
Hours after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi addressed a conference Wednesday, a distorted video of the California Democrat’s conversation began spreading across the internet. The manipulated clip, slowed to make Pelosi sound as if she were slurring her words, racked up millions of views on Facebook the following day. It was posted to YouTube, and on Thursday night was given a boost on Twitter when Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s personal lawyer and former mayor of New York, shared a link with his 318,000 followers. Sam Dean and Suhauna Hussain write in the Los Angeles Times that by Friday, the three social media giants were forced to respond to this viral instance of political fakery. How they dealt with the issue, three years after being blindsided by a wave of fake news and disinformation in the 2016 election cycle, may serve as a harbinger of what’s to come in 2020.
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Responding to the rise in domestic terrorism: Don’t forget prevention
The April attack on a synagogue in Poway, California, was the latest demonstration of the rise in extremist violence in the United States committed not by “jihadists” inspired by ISIS or other international terrorists, but by white supremacists, neo-Nazis or other right-wing groups. Eric Rosand writes in Lawfare that with the Tree of Life Synagogue attacks still fresh in many Americans’ minds, post-Poway discussions further highlighted how the resources and tools available to prevent right-wing extremist violence or domestic terrorism in the United States are dwarfed by those available to deal with the jihadist-inspired violence that data shows to be a much lesser threat. Rectifying this imbalance requires urgent attention.
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The many faces of foreign interference in European elections
Citizens of the European Union’s 28 member states go to the polls this week to choose their representatives to the European Parliament. Following Russian interference in several high-profile elections over the past three years, European governments are on high alert for signs of such meddling on social media or in electoral IT systems. Recent events in Austria and Italy show that foreign authoritarian actors are finding other under-examined, but equally insidious ways to infiltrate campaigns and harm democracy in Europe.
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Can John Walker Lindh be deradicalized?
John Walker Lindh, the former jihadi dubbed the “American Taliban,” was released from prison Thursday after completing 17 years of a 20-year sentence for supporting the Afghan insurgent group. Unlike other Western nations, the U.S. has no rehabilitation programs for former jihadists, leaving them largely to their own devices.
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The 5G fight is bigger than Huawei
The latest salvos in the Trump administration’s campaign against Huawei may prove, at best, to be a Pyrrhic victory—or, at worst, directly undermine U.S. interests and objectives. At the moment, it remains unclear how the recent executive order, which creates sweeping authorities to bar and exclude companies or technologies linked to a “foreign adversary” from the United States, and the addition of Huawei to the government blacklist known as the Entity List will be implemented in practice. Elsa B. Kania writes in Foreign Policy that it is not too late for U.S. President Donald Trump to recalibrate toward the smarter approach needed for such a complex challenge. In the process, the U.S. government should also pursue more proactive policies that concentrate on ensuring future American competitiveness in 5G, the fifth generation of mobile networks.
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The Kremlin’s “tools of malign political influence” undermine democracy
Russia’s “sweeping and systematic malign influence operations” support anti-democratic and anti-Western forces in Europe and the United States, using a variety of tools, from corruption to influence operations, said Heather A. Conley, CSIS senior vice president for Europe, Eurasia, and the Arctic, and director of the Europe Program, in a testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, Energy, and the Environment, during hearings on “Undermining Democracy: Kremlin Tools of Malign Political Influence.” “The Kremlin undermines and weakens democracies, rendering them unable to respond promptly to Russian military actions or making them beholden to the Kremlin to such a point that a democratic country will support Russia’s interests over its own,” she testified. She highlighted two specific areas in which she is “particularly concerned U.S. citizens and organizations, wittingly or unwittingly, will come under increasing threat of Russian malign influence”: (1) faith-based and ultra conservative
organizations; and (2) opaque financial support for key U.S. influencers. -
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Sprawling disinformation networks discovered across Europe ahead of EU elections
Investigation uncovers flood of disinformation aiming to influence to forthcoming EU elections. The revelations led Facebook to take down pages with more than 500 million views. The mainly far-right disinformation pages which were shut down by Face book had three times the number of followers than the pages of more established right wing, populist, and anti-EU partiers such as Lega (Italy), Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) (Germany), VOX (Spain), Brexit Party (U.K.), Rassemblement National (France), and PiS (Poland).
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Tweets reveal how ISIS still inspires low-level attacks
By analyzing 26.2 million Twitter comments in the Arabic language, researchers found that despite losing territory, ISIS remains successful at inspiring low-level attacks because of its messaging for a “call for lone jihad.”
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Ghost guns are everywhere in California
Feds say nearly a third of firearms recovered in California are homemade, unserialized, and untraceable. Experts say the accessibility of ghost guns is aided by a cottage industry of retailers selling nearly completed firearms that require no screening to purchase.
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Counterintelligence responsibilities and the 2020 election: What are the rules of the road?
The attorney general has now directed John Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, to examine how the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election began, along with related investigations of Trump campaign affiliates. In an interview with Fox News, the attorney general that while it’s important to look at foreign influence, it’s also important to look at whether government agents abused their power. He further defended his use of accusations that “spying” took place. And the president has accused former officials of “treason”. Carrie Cordero writes in Lawfare that despite these comments by the president and the attorney general, there are serious reasons to conduct a review of policies and procedures governing national security investigations involving political campaigns. It is important to ensure that investigators have the proper legal guidance, policy direction and rules of the road to do their jobs as the country approaches the 2020 election. But the administration’s rhetoric diminishes the legitimate value that this review could bring.
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Cyber-enabled election interference occurs in one-fifth of democracies
Cyber-enabled election interference has already changed the course of history. Fergus Hanson and Elise Thomas write in The Strategist that whether or not the Russian interference campaign during the US 2016 federal election was enough to swing the result, the discovery and investigation of the campaign and its negative effects on public trust in the democratic process have irrevocably shaped the path of Donald Trump’s presidency.
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Hacking democracies
A new report from an Australian think tank offers an in-depth, and sobering, analysis of Russia’s campaign to undermine Western democracies by weaponizing social media, and, to a lesser extent, China’s similar, if lower-key, campaign against neighboring Asian countries. “Democracies need to look at better ways of imposing costs on adversaries,” the report’s authors say.
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Eric Oliver on the science of conspiracy theories and political polarization
The “birthers,” “Pizzagate,” anti-vaxxers. It seems that belief in conspiracy theories is on the rise. At the same time, our polarization is worse than ever. People can hardly even maintain a conversation across political or cultural lines. Could the underlying force driving conspiracy theories also be the same one that’s dividing our country?
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More headlines
The long view
Are We Ready for a ‘DeepSeek for Bioweapons’?
Anthropic’s Claude 4 is a warning sign: AI that can help build bioweapons is coming, and could be widely available soon. Steven Adler writes that we need to be prepared for the consequences: “like a freely downloadable ‘DeepSeek for bioweapons,’ available across the internet, loadable to the computer of any amateur scientist who wishes to cause mass harm. With Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4 having finally triggered this level of safety risk, the clock is now ticking.”
A Brief History of Federal Funding for Basic Science
By Jake Miller
Biomedical science in the United States is at a crossroads. For 75 years, the federal government has partnered with academic institutions, fueling discoveries that have transformed medicine and saved lives. Recent moves by the Trump administration — including funding cuts and proposed changes to how research support is allocated — now threaten this legacy.
“The Federal Government Is Gone”: Under Trump, the Fight Against Extremist Violence Is Left Up to the States
By Hannah Allam
As President Donald Trump guts the main federal office dedicated to preventing terrorism, states say they’re left to take the lead in spotlighting threats. Some state efforts are robust, others are fledgling, and yet other states are still formalizing strategies for addressing extremism. With the federal government largely retreating from focusing on extremist dangers, prevention advocates say the threat of violent extremism is likely to increase.
The “Invasion” Invention: The Far Right’s Long Legal Battle to Make Immigrants the Enemy
By Molly Redden
The Trump administration is using the claim that immigrants have “invaded” the country to justify possibly suspending habeas corpus, part of the constitutional right to due process. A faction of the far right has been building this case for years.
Luigi Mangione and the Making of a ‘Terrorist’
Discretion is crucial to the American tradition of criminal law, Jacob Ware and Ania Zolyniak write, noting that “lawmakers enact broader statutes to empower prosecutors to pursue justice while entrusting that they will stay within the confines of their authority and screen out the inevitable “absurd” cases that may arise.” Discretion is also vital to maintaining the legitimacy of the legal system. In the prosecution’s case against Luigi Mangione, they charge, “That discretion was abused.”
How DHS Laid the Groundwork for More Intelligence Abuse
I&A, the lead intelligence unit of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) —long plagued by politicized targeting, permissive rules, and a toxic culture —has undergone a transformation over the last two years. Spencer Reynolds writes that this effort falls short. “Ultimately, Congress must rein in I&A,” he adds.