Surrendering to rising seas; prosecuting ISIS fighters; to doxx a racist, and more

3 steps for putting the DHS cybersecurity strategy to work (Mark Orlando, FCW)
A few weeks ago, the Department of Homeland Security released its cybersecurity strategy for the next five years, which lays out seven goals to help the government better defend itself against the constant onslaught of sophisticated cyber threats. These goals include assessing evolving cybersecurity risks, protecting critical infrastructure, responding effectively to cyber incidents and more. As a cybersecurity professional who has chosen to focus my career on helping protect and defend our nation, I applaud the agency for taking such a bold and aggressive stance on cybersecurity. There are three particularly important components called for in DHS’s strategy that warrant reiteration: identification of the right partners; the use of innovative and emerging technologies to supplement human-centric activities; and dedication to closing the cybersecurity skills gap.

The mystery of ‘Q’: How an anonymous conspiracy-monger launched a movement (if the person exists). (Marc Fisher and Isaac Stanley-Becker, Washington Post)
From somewhere in the vast and mysterious “deep state,” a dissident agent rises up to give the people cryptic clues about how their heroic president will push back the forces of evil and make America great again. The renegade informant is known only as “Q,” and if such a person actually exists, it’s not in a movie, but somewhere in the Washington bureaucracy.
Energized by Q’s complex web of conspiracy notions about the forces aligned against President Trump, Q’s followers have spread virally both online and now out in real life, too, forming a movement known as QAnon that is making itself visible at Trump’s rallies and other public gatherings.
QAnon is something old — the latest in a string of conspiracy ideas that take hold of the public’s imagination in times of social stress and technological change. And QAnon is something new — a leaderless popular movement made up of people who believe in no one and therefore are willing to believe almost anything.
To believers, Q is a pseudonym for a well-placed U.S. government agent who is posting online distress messages and bits of intel, known as “bread crumbs,” in an effort to save the country — and Trump — from hostile forces within the government. Q’s missives started appearing last October on 4chan, the mostly anonymous website where fringe ideas incubate and blossom.

Prosecuting the Islamic State fighters left behind (Jenna Consigli, Lawfare)
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces captured an American-Saudi dual citizen last September suspected to be a member of the Islamic State. Because of his citizenship, he was quickly transferred to Defense Department custody and is being held in Iraq. After nine months of detention and litigation over this U.S. citizen (whose name has not been made public), the government filed a motion June 6 to release “John Doe” back into Syria. The legal battle continues, however, with the ACLU, which has filed motions on his behalf since last October, now seeking to prevent his release for safety reasons.
Doe’s case may pose the biggest current legal headache for the government, but his is not the only one. The New York Times reported last week that coalition-backed forces in Syria had captured another American fighter fleeing Islamic State territory and that the U.S. government intends to bring the citizen, Ibraheem Musaibli, back to the United States for prosecution on charges of  providing material support to a terrorist organization. Unlike with Doe, U.S. officials had built an indictment against Musaibli before he was captured. In addition to Musaibli, the U.S. also returned Samantha El Hassani and her two children. El Hassani, who is charged with making false statements to the FBI, traveled to Syria in 2015 to join ISIS with her husband.
These cases highlight the lack of a coherent U.S. strategy to bring to justice American citizens who fought on behalf of the Islamic State. But the problem is larger than the absence of a U.S. strategy—the international community as a whole is in the same position. After partnering with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in that country and the government in Iraq to root out the Islamic State, international powers and local forces must decide what to do with former ISIS fighters, both foreigners and locals.

The Justice Department finds “no responsive records” to support a Trump speech (Benjamin Wittes, Lawfare)
“According to data provided by the Department of Justice, the vast majority of individuals convicted of terrorism and terrorism-related offenses since 9/11 came here from outside of our country”(Donald Trump, speech before a joint session of Congress, 28 February 2017).
“On June 12, 2018, you reached an agreement with [the Justice Department] to resolve certain issues in dispute in this litigation, whereby [Justice] would conduct a search for records containing data of (i) all individuals convicted of all terrorism-related offenses (domestic and international) between 2001 and the date of the initial search, or (ii) all individuals convicted of all domestic terrorism-related offenses between 2001 and the date of the initial search… . [N]o responsive records were located” (Justice Department letter to Benjamin Wittes, 24 July 2018).
It isn’t every day that the Department of Justice acknowledges formally that the president of the United States lied in a speech to Congress. But that’s how I read a letter I received a few days ago from the department’s Office of Information Policy in connection with one of my Freedom of Information Act suits against the department.
No, the Justice Department letter does not come out and say what it clearly means: that President Trump, early in his tenure, was untruthful both about the role of foreigners in terrorism and terrorism-related crimes and about Justice Department data on the subject. But that is what the letter says if you read between the lines.