• Trump’s "America First": Echoes from 1940s

    In his June 7 primary night victory speech, Donald Trump surprised pundits by reading from a teleprompter. He also spent a good few minutes talking about his signature slogan, “America First.” In July 1940 America First was chosen as a name by leading isolationists for an organization they created to lobby against American entry into the Second World War. What are we to make of Donald Trump’s decision, seventy-five years later, to revive such a controversial slogan as “America First”? One possibility is simply that Trump doesn’t know much about the history of the phrase and doesn’t intend for it to mean anything like what it did in 1940-41. But the fact is that whatever Trump’s intentions, the phrase “America First” has connotations that cannot be ignored. As in 1940, the upcoming presidential election seems likely to decide the fate of “America First.” If Trump wins, that phrase will likely acquire a new lease on life. If Hillary Clinton prevails, Trump’s “America First 2.0” seems likely to wind up as discredited as the first version ultimately was.

  • DHS awards $3 million in Small Business Innovation Research awards

    The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) last week announced a total of $3.1 million in competitive research awards for twenty-nine small businesses located across twelve states and Washington, D.C. Each business was awarded approximately $100,000 in preliminary funding through DHS S&T’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. Thirty-one contracts were awarded in ten topic areas.

  • Euro 2016’s fan zones focus of security concerns

    Ten large fan zones in the center of ten French cities, set up to allow more fans to watch the Euro 2016 soccer games on giant outdoor screens, are the focus of security concerns. The tournament, which starts in France on Friday, is expected to draw more than ten million spectators from all over the world. “It as if we have created ten open-air Bataclans and invited the jihadists to do their worst,” one French security source said, referring to the Paris concert hall where ninety people were killed by jihadists on 13 November.

  • Turkey suspends sale of fertilizers containing nitrate in wake of car bombings

    In the wake of two car bombings which killed seventeen people, Turkey announced it was temporarily suspending the sale of fertilizers containing nitrate. The terrorists in the two bombings used fertilizers to make the explosives – as did Timothy McVeigh twenty years ago.

  • 4 killed, 6 injured in Tel Aviv terror attack (updated)

    Four people were killed and six injured yesterday in an attack by two armed terrorists near a shopping mall in the center of Tel Aviv. Of the six injured, one is in critical condition and four are in serious condition. The Sharona Mall is located within walking distance of the Kyria compound, the location of Israel’s Ministry of Defense and headquarters of the Israel Defense Force (IDF). The Israel government announced that 83,000 permits to West Bank residents to visit their relatives in Israel during the month of Ramadan have been suspended, and that permissions to residents of the Gaza Strip to pray in Al Aqsa have been revoked.

  • Infrared thermal imaging system spots menacing drones at a distance

    With the start of the UEFA Euro 2016 soccer tournament kicking off on10 June, expecting to draw a large international crowd at ten different stadiums in cities across France, security measures have been carefully considered by the organizers in light of a turbulent past couple of years in Europe and abroad. The growing popularity of the use of drones has necessitated consideration of counter-UAV technologies to thwart a terrorist attack using this method.

  • DHS announces $40 million funding opportunity for new Criminal Investigations Center of Excellence

    DHS S&T earlier this week announced a $40 million funding opportunity for an institution to lead a new DHS Center of Excellence (COE) for Criminal Investigations and Network Analysis. This new COE will conduct end user-focused research to enhance investigation strategies of transnational criminal organizations’ (TCO) activities and other homeland security-related crimes.

  • World violence reaches new all-time high

    The just-published 2016 Global Peace Index shows that the world would be growing more peaceful if it were not for the growing violence of Middle East conflicts. More than 100,000 people were killed in conflicts in 2014, up from almost 20,000 in 2008. Syria, with about 67,000 such deaths in 2014, accounted for most of that increase. The economic cost of violence in 2015 was $13.6 trillion, or 13.3 percent of global GDP — which is about 11 times the size of global foreign direct investment.

  • France unveils app to alert people to terror attacks

    Euro 2016 soccer tournament begins on Friday, and as part of the massive security operation undertaken to secure the ten millions spectators who will be watching the games from 10 June to 10 July, the French government has created a smartphone app designed to send warnings directly to people’s phones in the event of a bombing, shooting, or other disaster.

  • Bill proposes sea mammal protection zone around Plum Island

    Three Long Island lawmakers on 1 June introduced a bill which would create a marine mammal and sea turtle protection zone around Plum Island and two other environmentally sensitive eastern Islands. The bill is expected to get a full vote in the legislature next week.

  • You are not as anonymous online as you may think

    Hiding online is harder than you would have thought. You may not be anonymous as you think you are online, reveals a new study. Your browsing behavior can indicate your personality and provide a unique digital signature which can identify you, sometimes after just 30-minutes of browsing.

  • Revelations about U.K. special forces in Syria require debate on U.K. role: MPs

    British MPs say that the Ministry of Defense’s refusal to comment on ground operations by Special Forces in Syria means it is not possible to hold an informed debate about U.K. role in Syria. The Times reported that elite U.K. soldiers had crossed into southern Syria to support opposition forces fighting ISIS militants close to the border with Jordan.

  • Last surviving 9/11 search-and-rescue dog dies, receives hero's send-off

    The last surviving search and rescue dog who worked at Ground Zero following the 9/11 terrorist attacks died on Monday. Bretagne, a 16-year-old golden retriever, was put down at Fairfield Animal Hospital in Cypress, Texas. As Bretagne slowly walked into the hospital, she was saluted by representatives of state agencies who came to pay their respects.

  • Captured Hamas operative: Terror tunnel network extends across Gaza

    Hamas fighters can travel underground throughout the entirety of the Gaza Strip using the terror group’s tunnel network, according to a Hamas operative who was captured last month after he crossed illegally into Israel from Gaza. Palestinians in Gaza have recently expressed fears that Hamas tunnels built in or near civilian areas are putting non-combatants at risk of being hurt by Israeli strikes.

  • Revisiting the relationship between hate crime and terrorism

    New research from START examines the link between hate crime (bias-motivated crime) and terrorism at the county level, focusing on far-right extremism in the United States and pulling data from the U.S. Extremist Crime Database (ECDB) and the Global Terrorism Database (GTD). Among other things, the research has found that counties experiencing increases in one type of bias-motivated or extremist violence are likely to see significant increases in other types of extremist activity.