OUR PICKSAre Assassination Attempts on the Rise? | Migrants with Potential Terror Links | Man Plotted Electrical Substation Attack to Advance White Supremacist Views, and more
· Are Assassination Attempts on the Rise?
The attempt on Donald Trump’s life may be part of a broader global pattern
· US Senators Secretly Work to Block Safeguards Against Surveillance Abuse
Senator Mark Warner is trying to pass new limits on when the government can wiretap Americans. At least two senators are quietly trying to stop him
· Stackable Certificates Could Be a Lifeline for Governments Facing an IT Talent Crisis
In an era of breakneck digital transformation, this incremental and cumulative approach to upskilling could be the answer to states and localities’ hiring woes
· House Republicans Demand Info from Biden Administration on Migrants with Potential Terror Links
The subpoena follows NBC News reports about migrants on the terror watchlist found inside the U.S. and 400 migrants brought to the U.S. by an ISIS-linked smuggling ring
· Man Plotted Electrical Substation Attack to Advance White Supremacist Views, Prosecutors Say
The 18-year-old also discussed various “strategies for terrorist attacks, including rocket and explosives attacks against synagogues,” authorities said
Are Assassination Attempts on the Rise? (Christina Lu, Foreign Policy)
On Saturday, former U.S. President Donald Trump became the latest major political figure worldwide to face an assassination attempt, in an incident that experts say may reflect a broader global pattern of increasing threats and violence against politicians.
In recent years, for example, both Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico and former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan have survived being shot (Fico in May this year and Khan in November 2022), while then-Argentine Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner narrowly escaped a shooting attempt in 2022 when the gunman’s pistol jammed. South Korean opposition leader Lee Jae-myung was stabbed in January, and former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was stabbed in 2018. And assassinations claimed the lives of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (in 2022) and British politicians Jo Cox (in 2016) and David Amess (in 2021).
“We seem to be seeing that assassinations are on the rise now,” said Jacob Ware, a terrorism expert at the Council on Foreign Relations and the co-author of God, Guns, and Sedition: Far-Right Terrorism in America, although he noted that he was drawing on anecdotal evidence.
“Politicians and political figures are finding themselves in the crosshairs, and the people are determining that the ballot box and elections are no longer the best way to exercise political grievances,” Ware said.
US Senators Secretly Work to Block Safeguards Against Surveillance Abuse (Dell Cameron, Wired)
Members of the United States Senate have been working for more than a month to shore up safeguards against further misuse of the US government’s most consequential surveillance program. Those efforts have hit a snag, however, with at least two Republican senators now privately objecting to the changes—provisions that seek to impose new limits on the US government’s power to wiretap communications between Americans and foreigners overseas.
In a bipartisan move, Senate Intelligence Committee members approved two provisions last month aimed at addressing what legal experts describe as troubling inadequacies in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the key authority by which the US intelligence community can direct certain companies to secretly intercept calls, texts, and emails on the government’s behalf. The provisions were introduced last week as part of a must-pass piece of legislation authorizing various intelligence activities for the coming fiscal year.
One of the provisions seeks to clarify what types of businesses can be subjected to the wiretap orders—companies the government commonly refers to
