Funding DHS | It’s Difficult to Get Off a Terrorist List | Technology Tackling People Smugglers, and more

Tracking smugglers’ transportation services online and the recruitment phase of smuggling, which is often via the Viber app, are now part of the landscape that officials need to address. Understanding the use of emojis in electronic messages and on web pages can provide valuable bits of information.

Don’t Buy Big Tech’s BS That Regulating Them Is a Threat to National Security  (Aidan Smith, Daily Beast)
Lobbyists for tech giants like Facebook, Google, and Amazon are playing a ridiculous, bogus “national security” card to argue against antitrust efforts.

Why Is It So Difficult to Get Off a Terrorist List?  (Aaron Y. Zelin, Lawfare)
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) set an unconventional precedent last year when it became the first jihadi group to seriously call for the United States to delist the group as a foreign terrorist organization. In an interview with Martin Smith, of PBS’s Frontline, in February 2021, HTS leader Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani objected to the organization’s designation, calling it “an unfair categorization.”
It is true that HTS has changed quite a bit since the organization was founded in January 2012; notably, it broke away from the Islamic State in April 2013 and al-Qaeda in July 2016. But there are a number of likely barriers that HTS faces with regard to getting fully delisted by the U.S. government that are beyond the organization’s control. There are three reasons it is unlikely to happen any time soon: U.S. strategic priorities, the State and Treasury departments’ political considerations, and general institutional inertia. These issues are acceptable for U.S. policy for now, even if they aren’t ideal. HTS still meets the legal threshold for designation, though the case is far weaker than it used to be—but if that were to change, it could hamstring future policy efforts to undermine adversarial states in the Syrian arena, including the Assad regime, Russia, Iran, and Iran’s proxy network.

Thinking About the Unthinkable in Ukraine  (Richard K. Betts, Foreign Policy)
What Happens If Putin Goes Nuclear?

Unpacking the Federal STEM Initiatives and Immigrants’ Role in the U.S. Workforce  (Nan Wu, Immigration Impact)
Demand for workers in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) continues to grow in the United States. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that the country will need about one million more workers for new STEM jobs between 2020 and 2030. Meanwhile, immigrants are playing an increasingly important role in filling these jobs that are critical to U.S. innovation and the American economy.

U.S. Forms ‘Friendly’ Coalition to Secure Critical Minerals  (Hellenic Shipping News)
A metallic NATO is starting to take shape, though no-one is calling it that just yet.
The Minerals Security Partnership (MSP) is in theory open to all countries that are committed to “responsible critical mineral supply chains to support economic prosperity and climate objectives”.
But the coalition assembled by the United States is one of like-minded countries such as Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Germany with an Asian axis in the form of Japan and South Korea.
It is defined as much as anything by who is not on the invite list – China and Russia.