OUR PICKSTech Companies’ Plans for Election Violence | The Looming Irrelevance of the U.S. Air Force | Government Was Third-Largest Ransomware Target Last Year, and more
· I Asked 13 Tech Companies About Their Plans for Election Violence
Their answers weren’t inspiring
· What the Supreme Court Got Wrong in the Trump Section 3 Case
The Court botched the legal reasoning and relied heavily on dubious policy arguments
· American Autocracy Threat Tracker
Former President Donald Trump has said he will be a dictator on “day one.” History teaches us that dictatorial powers, once assumed, are rarely relinquished.
· Drones, the Air Littoral, and the Looming Irrelevance of the U.S. Air Force
The days of the Air Force dominating the air domain are long gone, thanks to the drone revolution
· Modernizing America’s Nukes: The Stakes of the Sentinel ICBM Project
Spurred by threats from China and Russia, America keeps modernizing its nuclear deterrent—but one troublesome missile is making it hard to stay on target.
· Government Was Third-Largest Ransomware Target Last Year: FBI
And scams that feature impostors posing as government officials are on the rise
I Asked 13 Tech Companies About Their Plans for Election Violence (Caroline Mimbs Nyce, The Atlantic)
In January, Donald Trump laid out in stark terms what consequences await America if charges against him for conspiring to overturn the 2020 election wind up interfering with his presidential victory in 2024. “It’ll be bedlam in the country,” he told reporters after an appeals-court hearing. Just before a reporter began asking if he would rule out violence from his supporters, Trump walked away.
This would be a shocking display from a presidential candidate—except the presidential candidate was Donald Trump. In the three years since the January 6 insurrection, when Trump supporters went to the U.S. Capitol armed with zip ties, tasers, and guns, echoing his false claims that the 2020 election had been stolen, Trump has repeatedly hinted at the possibility of further political violence. He has also come to embrace the rioters. In tandem, there has been a rise in threats against public officials. In August, Reuters reported that political violence in the United States is seeing its biggest and most sustained rise since the 1970s. And a January report from the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice indicated that more than 40 percent of state legislators have “experienced threats or attacks within the past three years.”
What if January 6 was only the beginning? Trump has a long history of inflated language, but his threats raise the possibility of even more extreme acts should he lose the election or should he be convicted of any of the 91 criminal charges against him. As my colleague Adrienne LaFrance wrote last year, “Officials at the highest levels of the military and in the White House believe that the United States will see an increase in violent attacks as the 2024 presidential election draws nearer.” (Cont.)
