OUR PICKSNo Plea Deal for Accused Sept. 11 Plotters | Future of AI and Automation in Homeland Security | Radio Traffic Shows Failed Search for Trump Rally Shooter, and more
· Defense Secretary Revokes Plea Deal for Accused Sept. 11 Plotters
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III assumed direct oversight of the case and effectively put the death penalty back on the table
· He Was an FBI Informant—and Inspired a Generation of Violent Extremists
Joshua Caleb Sutter infiltrated far-right extremist organizations as a confidential FBI informant, all while promoting hateful ideologies that influenced some of the internet’s most violent groups
· The New Nativism’s Surprising Origin Story
Anti-immigrant politics as championed by Donald Trump have their roots in California
· Sensitive Illinois Voter Data Exposed by Contractor’s Unsecured Databases
Social Security numbers, death certificates, voter applications, and other personal information were accessible on the open internet, highlighting the ongoing challenges in election security
· ‘We Lost Sight of Him’: Radio Traffic Shows Failed Search for Trump Rally Shooter
A disjointed communications system on the day of the rally hampered the Secret Service’s ability to grasp the threat in real time, a Post examination found
· A Prerequisite for the Future of AI and Automation in Homeland Security
Artificial Intelligence (AI) literacy is rapidly becoming a critical competency in government operations, particularly in homeland security
Defense Secretary Revokes Plea Deal for Accused Sept. 11 Plotters (Carol Rosenberg, New York Times)
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III on Friday overruled the overseer of the war court at Guantánamo Bay and revoked a plea agreement reached earlier this week with the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and two alleged accomplices.
The Pentagon announced the decision with a memorandum relieving the senior Defense Department official responsible for military commissions of her oversight of the capital case against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his alleged accomplices for the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York City, at the Pentagon and in a Pennsylvania field.
The overseer, retired Brig. Gen. Susan K. Escallier, signed a pretrial agreement on Wednesday with Mr. Mohammed, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi that exchanged guilty pleas for sentences of at most life in prison.
In taking away the authority, Mr. Austin assumed direct oversight of the case and canceled the agreement, effectively reinstating it as a death-penalty case. He left Ms. Escallier in the role of oversight of Guantánamo’s other cases.
Because of the stakes involved, the “responsibility for such a decision should rest with me,” Mr. Austin said in an order released Friday night by the Pentagon.
He Was an FBI Informant—and Inspired a Generation of Violent Extremists (Ali Winston and Jake Hanrahan, Wired)
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has a long and checkered history of letting confidential informants run wild. Boston mobster James “Whitey” Bulger famously used his protected status to knock off New England underworld rivals. COINTELPRO-era provocateur Gary Thomas Rowe Jr. was involved in multiple civil rights atrocities. To catch criminals and extremists, you have to play dirty.
Joshua Caleb Sutter firmly fits into this framework. A longtime occultist and neo-Nazi, Sutter became an FBI informant roughly 20 years ago after being sent to prison for trying to buy a silencer and a defaced Glock .40 pistol from an undercover fed in Philadelphia. At the time of his arrest, Sutter was living on an Aryan Nations compound in Pennsylvania. Since then, he’s earned at least $140,000 infiltrating a range of far-right organizations, most notoriously the Atomwaffen Division (AWD) starting in 2017. Details of Sutter’s involvement—which the government has yet to officially confirm—emerged in 2021 during the federal trial of AWD leader Kaleb Cole, information first revealed that August. (Cont.)
