U.S. 2020 Murder Surge | FBI Terror Watch List | Plugging Cyber Blind Spots, and more

Supreme Court Looks at Consequences of Falsely Calling Someone a Terrorist  (Jess Bravin, Wall Street Journal)
A class-action lawsuit by some 8,000 consumers falsely labeled as potential terrorists on their credit reports appeared likely to survive following Supreme Court arguments Tuesday but several justices suggested not all of the individuals merited compensation. Following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, TransUnion LLC launched a product, OFAC Advisor, which it marketed to creditors faced with USA Patriot Act provisions prohibiting transactions with individuals listed by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. “TransUnion OFAC Advisor provides the most comprehensive international list of known terrorists and criminals using the OFAC list as well as expanded information from multiple sources. TransUnion OFAC Advisor is designed to minimize the number of ‘false positives’ using unique matching logic,” a 2002 press release announcing the product said. In February 2011, Sergio Ramirez discovered he had been identified as a potential terrorist by TransUnion when he tried to buy a Nissan Maxima from a dealer in Dublin, Calif. After settling on the price, the salesman canceled the deal after running Mr. Ramirez’s credit; he showed Mr. Ramirez the TransUnion report stating that “input name matches name on the OFAC database.

Appeals Court Upholds Constitutionality of FBI Terror Watch List  (Rachel Weiner, Washington Post)
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit has upheld the constitutionality of an FBI watch list of more than 1 million “known or suspected terrorists,” saying it falls under the government’s power to guard its borders. “The government has had authority to regulate travel and control the border since the beginning of the nation,” Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III wrote in an opinion issued Tuesday. Muslim American civil rights organizations have long challenged the Terrorist Screening Database, created in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, saying it violates the rights of U.S. citizens. A federal judge in Alexandria, Va., ruled in their favor in 2019, writing that there had to be a meaningful process for someone to challenge placement on a list that leads to screening by border agents, law enforcement and employers that work in national security. “It is a black box,” he wrote, and one where “erroneous deprivation of . . . travel-related and reputational liberty interests is high.”But Wilkinson found that most of the plaintiffs’delays were “not dissimilar from what many travelers routinely face, whether in standard or enhanced screenings, particularly at busy airports.” While a few examples might be more egregious, he said, “a few nonrepresentative encounters, plucked in isolation from millions of encounters occurring each year, are hardly a sound basis for redesigning the entire TSDB system.
Michigan Judge Drops Terrorism Charges for 3 Men Accused in Alleged Gov. Whitmer Kidnapping Plot  (Danielle Wallace, Fox News)
A judge in Michigan on Monday threw out terrorism charges against three men allegedly involved in a plot to kidnap Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Jackson County District Court Judge Michael J. Klaeren dropped the terrorism charges for Joseph Morrison, 26, and Pete Musico, 43, both of Munith, Michigan, The Detroit News reported. He also denied a request from prosecutors to add the terrorism count to charges against Paul Bellar, 22, of Milford, Michigan. The three men were ordered to stand trial on the remaining charges against them: providing material support for terrorist acts, gang membership and using a firearm during a felony. “The defendants are joined at the hip here,” Klaeren said before announcing his ruling. “The prosecution did a good job in establishing who knew what and when.” The threat of terrorism, providing material support for terrorist acts and gang membership charges each are 20-year felonies. Felony firearm charges carry two-year maximum prison sentences. According to a court affidavit, Musico and Morrison are founding members of the Wolverine Watchmen, which authorities described as “an anti-government, anti-law enforcement militia group.

Counter-Terrorism Program in France Bears Fruit with No Militants Reoffending  (Nicky Harley, National)
Dr. Marc Hecker, of the French Institute of International Relations, said the project was “bearing fruit” and called for its expansion. “There is no single case of terrorism recidivism out of 64 convicted terrorists,” he told a webinar hosted by the Counter Extremism Project. “This is really encouraging. There is actually only one terrorist back in jail but not for a terror offence – it was related to drugs. “I think we should continue this program and broaden it to other zones in France. It has been operating in four cities which had concerns with radicalization and were hotspots, but it should be opened up in cities like Nice and Strasbourg.” The project was developed after a sharp increase in convictions of extremists for terrorism offences, rising from 70 to 320 in the past four years. In October 2020 alone, teacher Samuel Paty was killed in Paris after pupils were shown cartoons from the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, and three people were killed by a Tunisian extremist in Nice’s Notre-Dame church. The French government created the project as many terrorists were being released after completing their sentences. An initial two-year trial resulted in no recidivism and led to the program being introduced in the extremism hotspots Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Lille.

Bosnian Police Hunt for Wanted U.S. Far-Right Activist  (Irvin Pekmez, Eurasia Review)
According to the Counter Extremism Project, the Rise Above Movement was founded by Rundo in 2017 as a “white supremacist gang” involving mixed martial arts fighters. The Counter Extremism Project said that Rise Above Movement members participated in a violent rally by white supremacists in Charlottesville in August 2017, during which a counter-protester was killed. “RAM [Rise Above Movement] claims it wants to revive the ‘warrior spirit’ of the white male,” the Counter Extremism Project said. After Rundo entered Bosnia, his ‘Active Club Podcast’ was broadcast at least once via the Rise Above Movement’s website, and he also made a guest appearance on the Australian far-right podcast ‘Voice of Zealandia’. BIRN was not able to confirm when he made the recordings.

What the WHO Investigation Reveals About the Origins of COVID-19  (Yanzhong Huang, Foreign Affairs)
And about the vulnerabilities of the system protecting global health.