OUR PICKSThe Future of American Cybersecurity | Data Brokers Are a Killer's Best Friend | It’s Time to Name Heat Waves Like We Do Hurricanes, and more

The Plan to Vaccinate All Americans, Despite RFK Jr. (Lena H. Sun and Rachel Roubein, Washington Post)
An extraordinary effort is underway to outmaneuver the health secretary and create a parallel system of recommending and perhaps even providing vaccines.

Dismantling CDC’s Global Work is Dismantling Our First Line of Biodefense  (Stephanie Psaki and Nikki Romanik, Just Security)
The United States maintains more than 750 military bases around the world—not just to fight wars, but to prevent them. That same principle has guided U.S. investment in the global footprint of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—the agency tasked with protecting the health and security of Americans—to build and “forward deploy” critical defenses against biological threats worldwide.

It’s Time to Name Heat Waves Like We Do Hurricanes  (Eric Klinenberg, New York Times)
In typical years, more Americans die in heat waves than in hurricanes, tornadoes and floods combined. Historically, though, the public, the media and politicians are quick to forget heat disasters — even where they happen most. It’s as if we have a will not to know about the brutal ways that extreme heat affects us.

Denial only makes us more vulnerable to the searing summers ahead. Between 1999 and 2023, heat deaths in the United States more than doubled. As the planet warms and lethal heat events become more severe and more frequent, there’s an urgent need to make dangerous heat more recognizable.

Here Is All the Science at Risk in Trump’s Clash With Harvard  (Emily Badger, Aatish Bhatia and Ethan Singer, New York Times)
The federal government spends billions funding research at Harvard, part of a decades-old system that is little understood by the public but essential to American science.
This spring, nearly every dollar of that payment was cut off by the Trump administration, endangering much of the university’s research.

The Future of American Cybersecurity  (Paul Rosenzweig, Lawfare)
What Europe and the world can expect while Trump is in power.

Defining ‘Rebellion’ in 10 U.S.C.§ 12406 and the Insurrection Act  (Dan Maurer, Lawfare)
Congress has a duty to precisely define the conditions that trigger a president’s emergency use of the military on American soil.

Why Are Hundreds of Data Brokers Not Registering with States?  (Mario Trujillo and Hayley Tsukayama, EFF)
Hundreds of data brokers have not registered with state consumer protection agencies. These findings come as more states are passing data broker transparency laws that require brokers to provide information about their business and, in some cases, give consumers an easy way to opt out.

Data Brokers Are a Killer’s Best Friend  (Tom Uren, Lawfare)
A Minnesota man has allegedly used people search services to locate, stalk, and eventually murder political targets.

Golden Dome to Expand Army’s Homeland Defense Role  (Josh Luckenbaugh, National Defense)
The Army is expecting to take on a larger role in protecting the homeland as the Defense Department develops the Golden Dome missile defense architecture, a service official said recently.
Initiated by a Jan. 27 executive order issued by President Donald Trump, the Golden Dome program seeks to build a next-generation missile defense shield to defend the United States from advanced aerial attacks.