-
Extremist groups use social media to lure recruits, find support
In the past, extremist groups have used tools and forums which were available: Rallies, pamphleteering, and marching in parades were the primary means used for recruitment and spreading their message. Now, as is the case with many other individuals and groups, these efforts have adapted to more contemporary media to target college and university campuses, to gain new members or, at least, sympathy to their cause. They now use the Internet to conduct forums and publish newsletters, a method that exposes potentially millions to their message.
-
-
Questions raised about Kaspersky’s close ties to the Russian government
Kaspersky Lab is a Moscow-based company which sells security software, including antivirus programs. The company has 400 million customers, and it ranks sixth in revenue among security-software makers. Since 2012, the company began to replace senior managers with people with close ties to Russia’s military or intelligence services. The company is also helping the FSB, the KGB’s successor, in investigating hacks – and people in the know say the company provides the FSB with the personal data of customers. The company’s actual or perceived alliances have made it a struggle to win U.S. federal contracts.
-
-
Libyan factions, outside powers use southwest Libya tribes in proxy war
Since September last year, a bloody war has been raging between the Tuareg and Tebu, two indigenous tribes in the remote Saharan oasis town of Ubari, in Libya’s rich southern oil fields near Libya’s border with Algeria, Niger, and Chad. Each side is supported by different Libyan factions and outside forces, all vying for control of the mineral-rich and politically volatile area. As the United States and Europe grow more concerned about the growing presence of ISIS in Libya, they have begun to pay more attention to the war between the Tuareg and Tebu and the potential it offers for ISIS for more mischief.
-
-
CBP violated rules in deporting thousands of unaccompanied children
A U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) audit says U.S. Border Patrol agents were in violation of agency rules when, between 2009 and 2014, they deported thousands of unaccompanied immigrant children. The GAO said that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) repatriated 93 percent of unaccompanied children under age 14 from Mexico and Canada – and did so without documenting what procedures they followed to ascertain that the children would be safe when they return to their home countries.
-
-
Buhari replaces Nigeria’s top military leaders as fight against Boko Haram intensifies
Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Buhari, made defeating the Islamist Boko Haram insurgents his top priority, and earlier this week he took the first decisive step toward achieving this goal: He sacked the defense minister; the commanders of the army, navy, and air force; the head of the defense intelligence service, and the national security adviser. The Boko Haram insurgency, which began in 2009, has killed as many as 15,000 and displaced 1.5 million people.
-
-
The science behind the deal
The main U.S. objective of the deal with Iran is to decrease the riskiness of Iran’s civilian nuclear program to a point which (1) future nuclear weapon production would be unlikely, and (2) if Iran does cheat, it would be detected with reasonable certainty. Have the objectives been achieved in the deal signed 14 July? It is important to keep in mind that it is not reasonable for opponents of the deal to demand 100 percent certainty in verifying the agreement and it is also not necessary. A cost-benefit analysis is always done to determine what is feasible. Often this is not understood, and unreasonable demands may be placed on the verification regime.
-
-
The nuclear deal with Iran: Highlights
The details of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action signed yesterday, 14 July 2015, in Vienna are complicated and mostly of technical nature, but the agreement itself is not much more than a bargain between the world’s powers and Iran: Iran agreed to accept the imposition of exceedingly strict limits on its nuclear program in exchange for a return of its frozen assets and the lifting of the crippling sanctions the United States, the EU, and the UN had imposed on it for its refusal to live within the strictures of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), of which it is a member.
-
-
New U.K. surveillance review calls for a fresh start in the law for interception of communications
After a year of investigation and consultation, the U.K. Independent Surveillance Review has delivered its conclusions to Prime Minister David Cameron. The authors presented their report, A Democratic License to Operate, yesterday (14 July 2015). The Review shows how a democracy can combine the high level of security the public has a right to expect, and also ensure the respect for privacy and freedom of speech that are the foundations of a democracy. The panel unanimously calls on government, civil society, and industry to accept its recommendations and work together to put them into practice.
-
-
Mass. man arrested for planning ISIS-inspired attack on a college campus
Alexander Ciccolo, 23, who is also known as Ali Al Amriki, was arrested by the FBI for planning to carry out an Islamic State-inspired attack on one or two Boston college campuses, using guns and improvised explosives, including a pressure-cooker bomb like the ones used in the Boston Marathon bombing. Ciccolo was arrested after he took a delivery of four guns on 4 July. He was under surveillance by law enforcement since September, when his father, a Boston police captain, alerted federal authorities about his son’s growing infatuation with Islam and the Islamic State. Ciccolo told a cooperating witness that his attack would be concentrated on dormitories and a cafeteria, according to court documents, “and would include executions of students broadcast live via the Internet.”
-
-
Questions arise over ammunition purchases at Hoover Dam
Periodically, questions arise regarding the amount of ammunition purchased by the federal government’s non-military agencies. One must take into account the nature of an agency’s mission and the number of armed personnel included in its ranks. Factor in the number of rounds expended in training and practice, and it becomes clear that the large ammunition purchases make sense. One such instanced surfaced late last week, when it was disclosed that the federal Bureau of Reclamation has requested a purchase of 52,000 rounds of ammunition for law enforcement personnel at Hoover Dam and Lake Mead.
-
-
Assad is still using chemical weapons. What will it take to stop him?
While the Syrian conflict has been perpetually overshadowed in the headlines by recent events such as the possibility of a Grexit and the Chinese stock market crash, two recent developments regarding Syria’s use of chemical weapons have nearly managed to refocus international attention on Syria. First, on June 17th the House Committee on Foreign Affairs convened a hearing on the Assad regime’s use of chlorine barrel bombs. Second, U.S. intelligence agencies publicly reported this week that they expect another attack by the regime using chemical weapons beyond chlorine bombs. In particular, the Syrian government is suspected of maintaining stocks of sarin and VX gas.
-
-
Kosovo’s capital cuts water supplies for fear of ISIS plot to poison reservoir
Kosovo security and health authorities have cut off water supplies to tens of thousands of residents in Pristina, Kosovo’s capital, following a suspicion that ISIS followers had poisoned the city’s water supplies. The city’s water board said supply was cut early on Saturday “because of security issues” and that supplies had been tested for suspicious substances. Police sources say that security officers patrolling the Badovac reservoir saw three of the men behaving suspiciously near the reservoir, and arrested them. They were later identified as ISIS supporters. Kosovar members of ISIS recently appeared in propaganda videos, warning of attacks against targets in the Balkans, including the water supplies of major cities.
-
-
Canadian Senate panel: Imams should be vetted, certified to stamp out “extreme ideas”
A Canadian Senate committee said Canada must go much further in cracking down on radicalism and terrorism, including a process to certify, or verify, the credentials of Muslim imams as a means of stamping out “extreme ideas.” The committee’s twenty-five recommendations on how to fight radicalization in Canada more effectively follow closely on the heels of a controversial new anti-terror law, C-51, which calls for a more pervasive, and potentially more intrusive, fight against extremism and radicalization in Canada.
-
-
Giving government special access to data poses major security risks
In recent months, government officials in the United States, the United Kingdom, and other countries have made repeated calls for law-enforcement agencies to be able to access, upon due authorization, encrypted data to help them solve crimes. Beyond the ethical and political implications of such an approach, though, is a more practical question: If we want to maintain the security of user information, is this sort of access even technically possible? A report by cybersecurity and encryption experts says that whether “backdoor” or “front-door,” such mechanisms “pose far more grave security risks, imperil innovation on which the world’s economies depend, and raise more thorny policy issues than we could have imagined when the Internet was in its infancy.”
-
-
Privacy vs. security debate intensifies as more companies offer end-to-end-encryption
A long running debate has now come to the fore with greater urgency. The tension between the privacy that encryption offers, and the need for law enforcement and national security agencies to have access to secured and encrypted e-mail, has become more acute in the last two years. The revelations of Edward Snowden about the post-9/11 reach and scope of surveillance by intelligence agencies and law enforcement, have caused some tech giants to offer encrypted services to their customers – encrypted services which enhance customers’ privacy protection, but which at the same time make it impossible for law enforcement and intelligence services to track and monitor terrorists and criminals. “Our job is to find needles in a nationwide haystack, needles that are increasingly invisible to us because of end-to-end encryption,” FBI director James Comey told lawmakers in recent hearing on the Hill.
-
More headlines
The long view
Preventing Another 'Jan. 6' Starts by Changing How Elections Are Certified, Experts Say
By Sara Savat
The 2024 presidential election may be a rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, but preventing a repeat of Jan. 6, 2021 — when false claims of a stolen election promoted by Donald Trump and his allies led to an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol —will be top of mind this election year. Research finds broad support among public for nonpartisan certification commissions.
States Rush to Combat AI Threat to Elections
By Zachary Roth
This year’s presidential election will be the first since generative AI became widely available. That’s raising fears that millions of voters could be deceived by a barrage of political deepfakes. Congress has done little to address the issue, but states are moving aggressively to respond — though questions remain about how effective any new measures to combat AI-created disinformation will be.
Chinese Government Hackers Targeted Critics of China, U.S. Businesses and Politicians
An indictment was unsealed Monday charging seven nationals of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) with conspiracy to commit computer intrusions and conspiracy to commit wire fraud for their involvement in a PRC-based hacking group that spent approximately 14 years targeting U.S. and foreign critics, businesses, and political officials in furtherance of the PRC’s economic espionage and foreign intelligence objectives.
European Arms Imports Nearly Double, U.S. and French Exports Rise, and Russian Exports Fall Sharply
States in Europe almost doubled their imports of major arms (+94 per cent) between 2014–18 and 2019–23. The United States increased its arms exports by 17 per cent between 2014–18 and 2019–23, while Russia’s arms exports halved. Russia was for the first time the third largest arms exporter, falling just behind France.
LNG Exports Have Had No Impact on Domestic Energy Costs: Analysis
U.S. liquified natural gas (LNG) exports have not had any sustained and significant direct impact on U.S. natural gas prices and have, in fact, spurred production and productivity gains, which contribute to downward pressure on domestic prices.
Don’t Buy Moscow’s Shameless Campaign Tying Biden to Its Terrorist Attack
Russia has offered many different explanations to the ISIS-K’s 22 March 2024 terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall in Moscow, but the most recent explanation offered by Russia is the most audacious yet: Russia now charges that the Ukrainian energy company Burisma financed the attack. Burisma is at the center of an effort by a congressional committee to impeach President Biden, but the case has all but collapsed. Hunter Stoll writes that Russia’s disinformation and propaganda apparatus appears to be searching for ways to keep Burisma in the news ahead of the U.S. presidential election.