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Published 8 July 2022

·  Florida Man Sentenced to 20 Years for Creating Instructional Bomb-Making Video for ISIS

·  Georgia Prosecutor Calls Explosion at ‘America’s Stonehenge’ an Act of Domestic Terrorism

·  China’s Use of Search Engines to Spread Propaganda

·  Chinese Police Database Was Left Unsecured Long Before Hackers Seized It

·  North Korea Is Targeting Hospitals with Ransomware, U.S. Agencies Warn

·  Apple’s Lockdown Mode Aims to Counter Spyware Threats

·  Lawmakers Ask FTC Chair to Investigate TikTok’s Data Practices

·  Police Sweep Google Searches to Find Suspects. The Tactic Is Facing Its First Legal Challenge.

·  How Mercenary Hackers Sway Litigation Battles

Florida Man Sentenced to 20 Years for Creating Instructional Bomb-Making Video for ISIS  (Chloe Folmar, The Hill)
A Florida man was sentenced on Thursday to 20 years in federal prison and 15 years of supervised release after pleading guilty to attempting to provide material support to ISIS through an instructional bomb-making video. The Justice Department said in a press release, citing court documents, that Romeo Xavier Langhorne pledged his allegiance to the Islamic terrorist organization in 2014 and engaged in online activity supportive of the group — including posting support on social media, participating in ISIS chat rooms and sharing ISIS-produced videos on YouTube — in 2018 and 2019. Beginning in 2019, Langhorne began communicating with an undercover FBI agent posing as an ISIS affiliate about creating a video teaching viewers how to make an explosive known as triacetone triperoxide (TATP), telling the agent that he was making the video to arm ISIS adherents and others to use in support of the group, according to the Justice Department. The FBI made the video based on Langhorne’s instructions, but unknown to him included only an inert chemical formula for TATP that would not cause an explosion. Langhorne then uploaded it to a video-sharing platform, according to the department. Langhorne also asked the agent in 2019 to work with him to create a recording of an ISIS member saying “Allah Akbar” and of children saying “kill them all” in order, he said, “to encourage justified retaliation” against the U.S. over its role in killing Muslims, according to the Justice Department.

Georgia Prosecutor Calls Explosion at ‘America’s Stonehenge’ an Act of Domestic Terrorism  (Tim Stelloh, NBC News)
A Georgia prosecutor described the apparent targeting of a mysterious monument with an explosive device as an “act of domestic terrorism,” saying Thursday that the alleged crime was aimed at the county authorities that own the site. “The destruction of a public building by explosive is inherently intended to influence the actions of the governing authority that owns the structure,” Parks White, the Northern Judicial Circuit district attorney, said in an email about the Wednesday explosion of the Georgia Guidestones. “The use of violence to sway or alter the behavior of any government agency is terrorism,” said White, whose office would handle a potential prosecution. (Cont.)