• German police under the pall of right-wing extremists

    German security experts warn about the lax, ineffective way in which German security authorities have dealt with the growing presence of extreme far-right elements in police ranks, calling the rejectionist attitude of the police leadership dangerous. This is consistent with findings from Germany’s domestic intelligence service, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV). On 9 July, Interior Minister Seehofer presented the BfV’s 2019 annual report. He spoke of sharp rises in anti-Semitic, right-wing extremist and racist crimes in Germany, and called right-wing extremism the country’s greatest security threat.

  • The Numbers Don’t Lie: White People Are Not More Likely than Black People to Be Killed by Police

    Black people represented 12 percent of the U.S. population, but they make up 25 percent of the deaths in police shootings. White people represented 62 percent of the population — and make up 54 percent of the deaths in encounters with police. Last week President Trump, in a CBS News interview asserted that “More white people” are killed by the police every year. Matt Miller, an expert on police and policing at Northeastern University, describes Trump’s response as a “grotesque” misdirection that fails to account for the fact that Black people are killed by police at a higher rate than white people. “He is using the truth to tell a lie,” Miller said of Trump. “Or at the very least to mislead, which in either case shows an indifference to the critical question: Why are Black people still dying [at such high rate] at the hands of law enforcement?”

  • New Nontoxic Ammunition

    Every time a gun fires, lead leaches into the air. A scientific advancement could provide a comparable replacement for lead-based explosive materials found in ammunition, protecting soldiers and the environment from potential toxic effects.

  • What the Heck Are Federal Law Enforcement Officers Doing in Portland?

    With racial justice protests going on in Portland, Oregon, since 25 May, more than 100 federal law enforcement officers showed up in the city over the past few days — without being asked to do so, and with the mayor, sheriff, and governor asking them to leave because, these local officials say, the presence of these federal agents only aggravates the situation. Steve Vladeck writes that to make matters worse, “those officers (a) are not wearing identifiable uniforms or other insignia, (b) are not driving marked law enforcement vehicles, and (c) are not identifying themselves either publicly or even to those whom they have detained and arrested.” He adds: “even if the federal officers are technically complying with the relevant statutes, there’s something more than just unseemly about camouflaged officers who refuse to identify themselves or their employer purporting to conduct arrests on the streets of American cities. Whether these officers are in fact abusing their authorities or not remains to be seen, but either answer would be deeply troubling.”  

  • A Restart of Nuclear Testing Offers Little Scientific Value to the U.S. and Would Benefit Other Countries

    The U.S. tested nuclear bombs for decades. But at the end of the Cold War in 1992, the U.S. government imposed a moratorium on U.S. testing. in recent weeks, the Trump administration and Congress have begun debating whether to restart active testing of nuclear weapons on U.S. soil. We are two nuclear weapons researchers – a physicist and an arms control expert – and we believe that there is no value, from either the scientific nor diplomatic perspective, to be gained from resuming testing. In fact, all the evidence suggests that such a move would threaten U.S. national security.

  • EFF Launches Searchable Database of Police Use of Surveillance Technologies

    The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), in partnership with the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno, the other day launched what the EFF describes as “the largest-ever collection of searchable data on police use of surveillance technologies,” created as a tool for the public to learn about facial recognition, drones, license plate readers, and other devices law enforcement agencies are acquiring to spy on our communities.

  • “Gun Culture 3.0” Is Missing Link to Understand U.S. Gun Culture

    Leading firearm violence prevention researchers are first to use data to show differences in gun culture across the country, identifying gun cultures around recreation, self-defense, and politics. The new research shows that gun ownership means very different things in different parts of the United States.

  • White Supremacist Prosecutions Roundup

    Since 9/11, national counterterrorism strategies have focused largely on foreign terrorist groups—like the Islamic State and al-Qaeda—and federal prosecutors have used specifically tailored criminal statutes to prosecute individuals affiliated with these groups. Emma Broches and Julia Solomon-Strauss write that over the past few years, however, the domestic terrorism landscape has shifted as a result of a growing threat from individuals and groups with racially motivated violent extremist ideologies—including white supremacist and anti-government views. This means that law enforcement groups face a different, and potentially more challenging, set of obstacles to successfully counter this threat.

  • Large-Scale Facial Recognition Is Incompatible with a Free Society

    In the U.S., tireless opposition to state use of facial recognition algorithms has recently won some victories. Outside the U.S., however, the tide is heading in the other direction. To decide whether to expand or limit the use of facial recognition technology, nations will need to answer fundamental questions about the kind of people, and the kind of society, they want to be. Face surveillance is based on morally compromised research, violates our rights, is harmful, and exacerbates structural injustice, both when it works and when it fails. Its adoption harms individuals, and makes our society as a whole more unjust, and less free. A moratorium on its use is the least we should demand.

  • Making Bioweapons Obsolete

    The Council on Strategic Risks (CSR) and Sandia National Laboratories convened experts and thought leaders in government, academia, and the private sector to discuss the ways to make a future in which the threat of biological weapons is greatly reduced.

  • Suspicions Mount of Foreign Hand in Fire at Sensitive Iranian Nuclear Site

    There is growing support among outside security experts for the notion that an “incident” at Iran’s main nuclear-enrichment facility last week was an act of sabotage in a shadow war aimed at setting back Tehran’s nuclear activities. Many analysts believe that a foreign state, possibly Israel, was behind the 2 July fire at the Natanz facility in Iran’s central Isfahan Province.

  • Roadmap for Studying Link between Climate and Armed Conflict

    Climate change—from rising temperatures and more severe heavy rain, to drought—is increasing risks for economies, human security, and conflict globally. Scientists are offering ways better to assess the climate-conflict link to help societies manage the complex risks of increased violence from a changing climate.

  • Drivers Are Hitting Protesters as Memes of Car Attacks Spread

    Vehicles are becoming increasingly popular weapons that terrorists and other extremists around the globe use to intimidate, harm and kill. Cars and trucks are easily accessible, require little skill to operate and can facilitate unpredictable attacks with mass casualties.

  • Accurately Pinpointing Malicious Drone Operators

    Researchers have determined how to pinpoint the location of a drone operator who may be operating maliciously or harmfully near airports or protected airspace by analyzing the flight path of the drone.

  • Setback for Iran’s Nuclear Program after Mystery Fire at Centrifuge Assembly Site

    New details of an Iranian nuclear facility damaged in a mysterious fire suggest Thursday’s incident is a much greater setback to Iran’s nuclear ambitions than Tehran has publicly admitted. The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security identified the facility as a centrifuge assembly workshop at the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant in central Iran’s Isfahan province.