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Experts urge strategy change in Afghanistan
Security experts say U.S. and NATO forces are not likely to defeat the Taliban and other insurgent groups on their own; closer cooperation with Afghan tribes and local organizations is essential
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Iran, preparing for a nuclear break out, seeks sophisticated defensive system
Iran is about 12 months away from its first nuclear weapon; this means that there is a 12-month window for a military attack on Iran without risking a nuclear retaliation; Iran is desperate to acquire the most sophisticated defensive system in the world — Russia-made S-300 anti-aircraft missiles; the system can track up to 100 targets simultaneously while engaging up to 12; it has a range of about 200 km and can hit targets at altitudes of 27,000 meters
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Regulators cannot cope with food counterfeiting, contamination
New worry: Between the extremes of accidentally contaminated food and terrorism via intentional contamination, lies the counterfeiter, seeking not to harm but to hide the act for profit
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Arresting me softly: NYPD to use Velcro handcuffs on kids
NYPD approves Velcro handcuffs for use on unruly children; cuffs are gentler than the steel model, and safer than Taser guns
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NNSA ships more high-risk nuclear material out of Livermore
Latest shipment reduces high-security nuclear material onsite by an additional 20 percent; part of the government’s plan to consolidate nuclear materials at five sites by 2012, with significantly reduced square footage at those sites by 2017
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U.S. Army, law enforcement agencies, working on EMP grenades
Electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, has been typically associated with high-altitude nuclear explosions — explosions which disable electronic devices hundreds of miles away from the explosion; militaries and law enforcement want a hand-grenade-size EMP device for use in war and crime-fighting
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Pakistan admits Mumbai November attack was hatched in Pakistan
In the face of irrefutable evidence, Pakistan admits the 26 November attacks in Mumbai, in which more than 180 people were killed, were planned on Pakistani soil and carried out by Pakistanis
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Former top MI6 official says bird flu more of a threat than terrorism
Former assistant chief of U.K.’s MI6 says pandemics posed more of threat to the U.K. population than terrorism; he also says that privacy worries about the international counterterrorist databases are exaggerated
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Raytheon offers airborne radar for India's homeland security
India is paying more attention — much more attention — to homeland security in the wake of the November 2008 Mumbai bombing; among the first priorities is securing the very long coast lines of the country; Raytheon, already a presence in India, stands to benefit
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Stimulus package offers billions for scientific research
Both House and Senate versions of the economic stimulus package direct billion of dollars toward scientific research; biomedical research is among the big winners, while physics appears to be among the losers
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Public support for infrastructure investment grows
University of Chicago NORC survey finds growing public support for investment in mass transit and infrastructure; support remains high for expenditures on education and health care
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U.S. faces lethal combination of transnational terrorism and criminal gangs
Sometime in the near future a lethal combination of transnational terrorism and criminal gangs is going to cross the U.S. border in force
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More bad news for Taser guns: They raise deaths in custody
University of California-San Francisco study finds that sudden death of people held by California police increased sixfold in the first year after police departments there began using Taser stun guns
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House overwhelmingly approves "white list" of non-terrorists
Congress wants DHS to create a “white list” — a database of people who are not terrorists, but are routinely flagged at airports anyway
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Political wrangling over House homeland security panel's priorities
Democratic majority on panel wants DHS authorization bill completed by 1 May - but panel chairman admits schedule may “slip”; Republicans want to make sure authorization is completed before appropriations are set, arguing that the authorization bill would give direction to appropriators
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The long view
U.S. intel chief on Russia’s unrelenting cyberattacks: “The warning lights are blinking red”
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said Friday that the U.S. digital infrastructure “is literally under attack” by Russia. “These actions are persistent, they’re pervasive, and they are meant to undermine America’s democracy on a daily basis, regardless of whether it is election time or not.” Coats emphasized that Russia’s hostile cyber activities go beyond targeting elections and sowing division, to attempts to target vulnerabilities in critical U.S. infrastructure, trying to infiltrate energy, water, nuclear, and manufacturing sectors. He compared today’s warning indicators related to Russian cyberattacks to the warning indicators in the run-up to 9/11. “It was in the months prior to September 2001, when according to then-CIA director George Tenet, the system was blinking red,” he said. “And here we are nearly two decades later, and I’m here to say the warning lights are blinking red again.”
Russia’s “malign activity” aims to “degrade our democratic values and weaken our alliances”: Dan Coats
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, on 8 June 2018, spoke at the Atlantic Council’s Tocqueville Conversation. He emphasized the magnitude of the threats posed by Russia’s broad, sustained, and sophisticated campaign to undermine Western democracies, discredit open societies and liberal norms, weaken the rule of law, and destroy the rule-based international order. Coats noted that it should not be a surprise that Vladimir Putin has launched this attack on Western values ad norms. “President Putin openly acknowledges that his experience in the KGB has established his approach to politics. Perhaps that is why he thrives in an environment of cynicism, lies, and misdirection.”
“A clear preference for President-elect Trump”: Senate Intel Committee on Russia’s 2016 influence campaign
On Tuesday, the GOP-led Senate Intelligence Committee, after sixteen months of investigation, has released the second unclassified installment of its report on the Russian election activities in 2016. The report was unanimously approved by all members of the committee. The three main takeaways: First, the January 2017 ICA [the Intelligence Community Assessment of Russia active-measures campaign to compromise the 2016 presidential election] “is a sound intelligence product”; second, “Russian efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election represent the most recent expression of Moscow’s longstanding desire to undermine the U.S.-led liberal democratic order, but these activities demonstrated a significant escalation in directness, level of activity, and scope of effort compared to previous operation”; third, “We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.”
Russia’s “destructive” bugs lurking in U.K. computers waiting to strike: U.K. chief cyber spook
Russia already has “destructive” bugs hidden, lurking in British computers waiting to strike, the head of U.K. National Cyber Security Center told a parliamentary committee. Ciaran Martin said that the Kremlin’s list of targets to be disrupted has expanded beyond the U.K.’s “hard infrastructure” such as energy networks to include democratic institutions and the media. “In the last two years, we have seen a consistent rise in the appetite for attack from Russia on critical sectors, as well as diversification to other sectors they may attack. In addition to the more traditional targeting of hard infrastructure, like energy infrastructure, we have seen against the West as a whole the targeting of softer power - democratic institutions, media institutions and things relating to freedom of speech,” Martin said.
“The Russians play hard”: Inside Russia’s attempt to hack 2018 -- and 2020
So what exactly is Russia planning for the upcoming election? The correct question, a half dozen security experts and former and current government officials say, is what are they not planning? And there will be new tactics, too. Nick Bilton writes in Vanity Fair that more than one expert told him that Russia will try to go after actual voting booths in smaller, more contentious districts across the country. The world we live in so intertwined with technology that you could imagine Russian hackers disrupting how we even get to the polls on Election Day. Ride-sharing services could be hacked. We’ve already seen instances of hackers faking transit problems on mapping apps, like Waze, to send people in the wrong direction, or away from a certain street. Perhaps most terrifying of all, one former official told Bilton, are the possibilities arising from Russia’s alleged 2015 cyber-attack on Kiev’s power grid, which plunged the city into darkness.
The West is ill-prepared for the wave of “deep fakes” that artificial intelligence could unleash
Russian disinformation has become a growing problem for Western countries. European nations are finally taking action, which is an important first step, but Chris Meserole and Alina Polyakova write “to get ahead of the problem, policymakers in Europe and the United States should focus on the coming wave of disruptive technologies. Fueled by advances in artificial intelligence and decentralized computing, the next generation of disinformation promises to be even more sophisticated and difficult to detect.” Bigger data, better algorithms, and custom hardware promise to democratize the creation of fake print, audio, and video stories. “Deep fakes and the democratization of disinformation will prove challenging for governments and civil society to counter effectively,” Meserole and Alina Polyakova warn.