OUR PICKS LAST WEEKThe Age of the Drone Police Is Here | America’s Fingers-Crossed Strategy for Hurricane Season | How Safe Is America's Drinking Water Supply? | To Win the Chip War, the U.S. Must Prioritize Revolutionary Research, and more

Published 9 June 2024

EXTREMISM

·  Belgian Election Tests Limits of Media’s Far-Right Boycott
The media in Belgium’s Francophone region tightly control coverage of the far right. Experts say it has kept extremists at bay. But is it fair? And can it last?

·  Garland Rebukes Attacks on Justice Dept.
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland warned Republicans that their attacks were feeding “heinous” threats against career agents and prosecutors

·  The MAGA Internet Calls for War
Extremist rhetoric online is often a foundation for action in the physical world—but not immediately

·  Trump’s Online MAGA Army Calls Guilty Verdict a Declaration of War
Trump supporters, fringe extremists, right-wing pundits, and politicians have all posted incendiary rhetoric, including some calls for “war,” following former president Donald Trump’s felony conviction

·  Quarter of Political Donations in EU Go to Extremist and Populist Parties, Data Reveals
Figures from 200 parties in 25 countries suggest hardline groups have had rise in donations in recent years, increasing war chests before European parliament elections

·  Germany: Far-Right AfD Stumbles Ahead of EU Election
The Alternative for Germany has seen turbulent weeks: Top candidates caused outrage by trivializing Nazi crimes and are being investigated for links to China and Russia

·  Germany’s Far-Right Party Is Running Hateful Ads on Facebook and Instagram
Published ahead of the EU elections, the ads blame immigrants for crime and sexual violence

·  Once a Sheriff’s Deputy in Florida, Now a Source of Disinformation from Russia
In 2016, Russia used an army of trolls to interfere in the U.S. presidential election. This year, an American given asylum in Moscow may be accomplishing much the same thing all by himself

THE LONG VIEW

·  The Near Future of Deepfakes Just Got Way Clearer
India’s election was ripe for a crisis of AI misinformation. It didn’t happen

·  The Age of the Drone Police Is Here
A WIRED investigation, based on more than 22 million flight coordinates, reveals the complicated truth about the first full-blown police drone program in the US—and why your city could be next

·  AI Employees Warn of Technology’s Dangers, Call for Sweeping Company Changes
A letter signed by current and former OpenAI, Anthropic and Google DeepMind employees asked firms to provide greater transparency and whistleblower protections

·  How 2024 Could Transform American Elections
A radical reform to de-radicalize politics faces its biggest test in November

·  America’s Fingers-Crossed Strategy for Hurricane Season
Grim forecasts for an active season highlight the gaps in our planning

·  You Think You Know How Misinformation Spreads? Welcome to the Hellhole of Programmatic Advertising
The internet is a cesspool of misinformation, and the biggest blue-chip brands and their ad agencies are the ones funding it—by stuffing money into a Rube Goldberg machine no one really understand

·  To Win the Chip War, the U.S. Must Prioritize Revolutionary Research
Success against China requires that America maintain a technological edge

MORE PICKS

·  It Was Legal Boilerplate. Trump Made It Sound Like a Threat to His Life.
The former president’s lies about the F.B.I. being prepared to kill him during the search of Mar-a-Lago took his attacks on the justice system and the rule of law to another level

·  A US Company Enabled a North Korean Scam That Raised Money for WMDs
Wyoming’s secretary of state has proposed ways of “preventing fraud and abuse of corporate filings by commercial registered agents” in the aftermath of the scheme’s exposure

·  Inside the Biggest FBI Sting Operation in History
When a drug kingpin named Microsoft tried to seize control of an encrypted phone company for criminals, he was playing right into its real owners’ hands

·  How Donald Trump Could Weaponize US Surveillance in a Second Term
Donald Trump has vowed to go after political enemies, undocumented immigrants, and others if he wins. Experts warn that he could easily turn the surveillance state against his targets

·  In Shift, Biden Issues Order Allowing Temporary Border Closure to Migrants
The move shows how drastically immigration politics have shifted in the United States. The American Civil Liberties Union said it planned to challenge the order in court

·  Arizona Weighs Texas-Inspired Law Allowing Cops to Enforce Immigration Law
The legislature is expected to greenlight a referendum that could have broad implications for the 2024 election

·  The Ticketmaster Data Breach May Be Just the Beginning
Data breaches at Ticketmaster and financial services company Santander have been linked to attacks against cloud provider Snowflake. Researchers fear more breaches will soon be uncovered

·  The Unusual Espionage Act Case Against a Drone Photographer
In seemingly the first case of its kind, the US Justice Department has charged a Chinese national with using a drone to photograph a Virginia shipyard where the US Navy was assembling nuclear submarines

·  Anduril Is Building Out the Pentagon’s Dream of Deadly Drone Swarms
The US military aims to maintain its dominance by building autonomous attack drones that collaborate with humans and overwhelm defenses in swarms

·  How Safe Is America’s Drinking Water Supply?
U.S. issued a stark warning this week warning that the threat to the United States’ supply of drinking water is increasing

·  Billionaire Gets 7 Months in Prison, Expulsion from U.S. After HSI New York Probe
Chinese billionaire was sentenced to seven months in prison for making political contributions in the names of other

EXTREMISM

Belgian Election Tests Limits of Media’s Far-Right Boycott  (Ella Joyner, DW)
From Austria to ItalyFrance and the Netherlands, the ascending star of the far right in swaths of Europe has been the standout political story for much of the past 12 months.
Tiny, often-overlooked Belgium is no exception, with the once-fringe Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) party set to storm national polls on June 9. Advocating, among other things, for the secession of the northern region Flanders and an “immigration stop,” VB is projected to take the most seats of any party: 26 out of 150, according to calculations by news outlet Politico, up from just three in 2014.
Except that’s only half the story, and the other half changes everything.
Belgium, established almost 200 years ago as a mishmash federal state, is a tale of two countries: French-speaking Wallonia in the south and Dutch-speaking Flanders in the north (Brussels is its own little island in Flanders). And in the Francophone south, it is not the success of the far right that is the story, but the absence of VB or a similar force.

Garland Rebukes Attacks on Justice Dept.  (Glenn Thrush and Charlie Savage, New York Times)
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, facing the prospect of a contempt vote in Congress, lashed out at House Republicans on Tuesday, accusing his critics of seeking to undermine the rule of law, peddling conspiracy theories and spreading falsehoods.
The usually mild-mannered Mr. Garland pushed back against the false accusation that the Justice Department was somehow behind the prosecution and subsequent conviction of former President Donald J. Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up a sex scandal. The case was brought by Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, who as a local prosecutor is not under the control of Mr. Biden or his administration.
“That conspiracy theory is an attack on the judicial process itself,” Mr. Garland said in an opening statement to the House Judiciary Committee. (Cont.)