A Leak of Biometric Police Data Is a Sign of Things to Come | Inside the Reluctant Fight to Ban Deepfake Ads | When Knowledge Stops at the Water’s Edge, and more

Second, the Federal Communications Commission announced this week that it’s considering new AI ad rules only a few months after it banned synthetic robocalls. (Synthetic ads are ads that are created or altered with AI.) Excuse me, but why is the FCC the only government entity that’s approved new AI and elections rules this year? The Indian election should be a warning sign for the US to get busy regulating, but the FCC is the only one picking up the phone.

GOP Challengers Make Gains but Lose Bid to Oust Hard Right in North Idaho  (Hannah Allam, Washington Post)
A rebel Republican bloc aiming to curb far-right extremism in North Idaho made significant gains Tuesday, flipping dozens of local seats, but fell short of the votes needed to change the hard-line GOP leadership in an area with historic ties to the far right. The primary-election showdown in Kootenai County, a mountainous region near the Canadian border, drew national attention as a rare example of self-described “traditional” Republicans organizing against the party’s hard-right swing of recent years. Ultimately, however, a majority of members of the county GOP committee kept their jobs. “The predictions of my demise were greatly exaggerated,” Brent Regan, chairman of the GOP committee and target No. 1 for the challengers, posted on X early Wednesday. Regan and other GOP leaders have been linked to far-right figures but have strongly rejected the extremist label.

When Knowledge Stops at the Water’s Edge  (Elizaeth Braw, Foreign Poilicy)
Understanding other countries requires more than studying them from afar. This fundamental fact is hardly news. In the 18th and 19th centuries, young people conducted a grand tour of other countries to get to know them better (and, by extension, their own countries). Over the past few decades, all manner of universities have launched semester-abroad programs that make such learning extremely easy.
But increasingly, young Americans with foreign-policy and national-security ambitions are eschewing interaction with foreign countries and even foreign individuals. They want security clearances, and they know that any foreign exposure will complicate matters. This intellectual isolationism risks severely harming U.S. foreign and security policy—just when an acceleratingly unstable world needs able U.S. officials.
A Leak of Biometric Police Data Is a Sign of Things to Come  (Matt Burgess, Wired)
Thousands of law enforcement officials and people applying to be police officers in India have had their personal information leaked online—including fingerprints, facial scan images, signatures, and details of tattoos and scars on their bodies. If that wasn’t alarming enough, at around the same time, cybercriminals have started to advertise the sale of similar biometric police data from India on messaging app Telegram.
Last month, security researcher Jeremiah Fowler spotted the sensitive files on an exposed web server linked to ThoughtGreen Technologies, an IT development and outsourcing firm with offices in India, Australia, and the US. Within a total of almost 500 gigabytes of data spanning 1.6 million documents, dated from 2021 until when Fowler discovered them in early April, was a mine of sensitive personal information about teachers, railway workers, and law enforcement officials. Birth certificates, diplomas, education certificates, and job applications were all included.
Fowler, who shared his findings exclusively with WIRED, says within the heaps of information, the most concerning were those that appeared to be verification documents linked to Indian law enforcement or military personnel. While the misconfigured server has now been closed off, the incident highlights the risks of companies collecting and storing biometric data, such as fingerprints and facial images, and how they could be misused if the data is accidentally leaked.

Special Counsel Seeks Court Order Limiting Trump’s False Claims about FBI  (Devlin Barrett, Washington Post)
Special counsel Jack Smith filed court papers Friday asking a judge to order Donald Trump not to make any further incendiary claims suggesting that FBI agents were “complicit in a plot to assassinate him.”
In the filing to U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon, Smith argues Trump’s statements earlier this week exposed FBI agents involved in the case “to the risk of threats, violence, and harassment.”
The new filing underscores the intensity of the fear inside federal law enforcement agencies that someone may take inspiration from Trump’s invective and attack FBI or Justice Department personnel.
The late Friday filing came in response to a number of statements from Trump or his campaign, including a fundraising appeal that screamed “Biden’s DOJ was authorized to shoot me!”
The claim by Trump and his supporters that FBI agents searched Trump’s home in 2022 with specific authorization to use deadly force is based on the revelation in court papers this week that the bureau used a standard FBI document during the search of Mar-a-Lago. The document explains long-standing FBI policies; much like police officers, FBI agents are essentially always authorized to use deadly force when it is necessary and legally justified, and when they are operating in the United States.
Trump and his supporters seized on some of the paperwork surrounding the August 2022 search at Mar-a-Lago for classified documents to argue that government agents were secretly trying or hoping to use lethal force against him.
In fact, people familiar with the investigation have previously told The Washington Post that the FBI deliberately chose to conduct the search at a time when Trump was not there, and some of their planning took into account a desire to avoid any confrontation or confusion with the Secret Service agents who were assigned to secure his home. These people spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations.
Trump and some of his supporters, including right-wing podcaster Stephen K. Bannon, have tried to make the search sound like some sort of aspirational assassination plot.

Why Congress Should Pay Attention to Mexico’s Presidential Election  (Duncan Wood, National Interest)
When you mention the 2024 election, most people think of the U.S. presidential election in November. Still, there is another earlier election that will have far-reaching consequences for all Americans as well. On Sunday, June 2, 2024, Mexico will go to the polls to elect a new president. According to the polls, former Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum is leading her closest rival, Xochitl Galvez, by double digits.
Sheinbaum is known as a leftist nationalist who is committed to continuing the policy platform of current president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO). Galvez has promised to reject those nationalistic attitudes and policies and adopt a more business-friendly and collaborative relationship with the United States.

Our Chemical Facilities Are Vulnerable to Attack  (Chris Jahn, Real Clear Defense)
If our nation suffers another terrorist attack, it will be hard to argue that the signs weren’t there for us to see. The federal government has expressed growing concern that AI will empower attacks on our water, transportation, and financial systems. The Department of Homeland Security has warned that bad actors are using the technology to develop weapons of mass destruction. We know foreign nationals are illegally crossing our southern border in droves. And the death of Iran’s president will likely foment international conflict that deepens concerns about attacks in the U.S.
Congress should be taking every measure to secure our nation’s critical infrastructure. Yet when it comes to chemical production facilities, they have left the door wide open.
Last summer, legislators allowed a federal security program protecting chemical plants to expire. I hope it doesn’t take an attack on these facilities to show the vital role they play in producing our energy, food, drinking water, computer chips, medicines, cars—you name it. That’s what makes them such an attractive target for terrorists—and that’s why we should do everything in our power to protect them.