Federal Agencies Embrace Zero Trust | Taking Aim at Ghost Guns | Terrorists as Wife Beaters, and more

Democratic Senators Increase Pressure to Declassify 9/11 Documents Related to Saudi Role in Attacks  (Laura Kelly, The Hill)
Democratic senators and families of victims of the 9/11 attacks called on Thursday for the Biden administration to declassify and make available key documents related to Saudi Arabia’s role in the terrorist attacks, ahead of the 20th anniversary commemorating the tragedy. Standing outside the Capitol, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) rejected reasoning that has been invoked by both Democratic and Republican White House administrations to withhold information related to Riyadh’s role in the attacks under the guise of national security. “Let’s get real here: We’re talking about the declassification of evidence relating to an attack that took place 20 years ago — and not just any attack, an attack that claimed nearly 3,000 American lives,” said Menendez, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “If the United States government is sitting on any documents that may implicate Saudi Arabia or any individual or any country in the events of Sept. 11, these families, and the American people, have a right to know.” Menendez and Blumenthal are co-sponsors of the September 11th Transparency Act of 2021. The bill, introduced Thursday, would require the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to oversee a full declassification review of the government’s investigation of the 9/11 attacks.

What Do Many Terrorists Have in Common? They Abuse Women  (Joan Smith, Guardian)
Five years ago, I began to notice that the perpetrators of some of the worst terrorist attacks had something in common. A high proportion shared a history of assaulting wives, girlfriends and other female relatives, sometimes involving a whole series of victims, long before they attacked total strangers. In the summer of 2016, for example, when just two terrorist attacks in Florida and the south of France left 135 people dead and hundreds injured, both perpetrators claimed to be Islamists. But I was struck by the fact that each had a horrific record of domestic violence. A year later, there were four fatal attacks in the UK and all six perpetrators turned out either to have abused women or, in one case, to have witnessed his father abusing his mother and sister. There were striking similarities between the histories of Darren Osborne, the rightwing extremist who drove a van into worshippers leaving a mosque in north London, and Khalid Masood, the Islamist who staged an attack on Westminster Bridge. Both men had criminal records for violent offences – and both had abused women. I thought these cases challenged conventional wisdom about terrorism, which holds that it is all about ideology. Many fatal terrorist attacks actually appeared to be an escalation of violence that had been going on, sometimes for years, against members of the perpetrator’s family.

Gardner-Webb Begins New Bachelor’s Degree in Homeland Security Administration  (The Star)
Gardner-Webb University will offer a new undergraduate degree in Homeland Security Administration this fall.
Graduates of this Bachelor of Science program will be aware of the emerging, multi-faceted role of law enforcement officers today and the daily challenges they face in society. They will learn to respond to social, political and legal problems with solutions provided through their coursework.

Consortium Proposes Homeland Security Classes in More Schools to Combat Decline  (Jonathan Bergmueller, Williamsport Sun-Gazette)
In 1970, Pennsylvanians could count on 300,000 volunteer firefighters from across the state to respond to local emergency incidents that threatened lives and livelihoods.
That number had dwindled to less than 40,000 as of 2018, according to the Pennsylvania Fire and Emergency Services Institute.

What is Zero Trust? Federal Agencies Embrace Cybersecurity Innovation  (Kate Macri, Government CIO)
From buzzword to White House imperative, zero trust can be a confusing but necessary concept for security strategies.

Apple’s New Solution to Combat Child Abuse Imagery Could Radically Shift Encryption Debate  (Tonya Riley, Cyberscoop)
Apple announced Thursday it will introduce a feature to detect child sexual abuse images being uploaded to iCloud Photos from iPhone devices in the United States. The company has framed the feature as a privacy-preserving way to combat the scourge of images of sexually explicit content involving children shared online.
It’s a radical shift in approach to device privacy by Apple, which has often found itself at the forefront of the clash between tech companies and law enforcement over encrypted technologies. Security researchers and privacy experts say that the company’s decision could lead to a slippery slope of government abuse and has radically shifted the debate over encrypted technologies.