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Senator Slams Gun Industry’s “Invasive and Dangerous” Sharing of Customer Data with Political Operatives
In response to a ProPublica investigation, Sen. Richard Blumenthal demanded answers from the gun industry about its “covert program” to collect information on gun owners for political purposes.
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Guidance for Critical Minerals Policy from ASPI’s Darwin Dialogue 2024
Critical minerals are a focal point of international contention in an increasingly fracturing international system. These minerals underlie competition across civil and defense sectors and promise economic opportunity throughout their supply chain.
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U.S. Domestic Terrorism Is Increasingly Motivated by Partisan Politics
One of the most alarming trends in terrorism is the growth in anti-government extremism. “The heightened risk of terrorist attacks motivated by partisan beliefs does not just endanger individual lives but also threatens the democratic process itself, casting a shadow over open discourse and discouraging civic engagement,” Riley McCabe writes.
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The Past, Present, and Future of Homeland Defense
Homeland defense issues my be referred to as seams of ambiguity which doesn’t clearly define itself as either a defense or a law enforcement issue, and our adversaries have discovered the seam and they’re playing along that seam. And that’s what thrusts us into the gray areas that we’ve been talking about for at least two decades now.
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Failure in the Sahel
There may be an element of schadenfreude in watching Russia fail in the Sahel in a major play against Western interests and get caught in a mess, from which it can only extricate itself with a loss of face. But the problem is that the result of this failure has been to turn the Sahel into a center for extremist violence that risks spreading further.
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Stopping the Bomb
When one country learns that another country is trying to make a nuclear weapon, what options does it have to stop the other country from achieving that goal? While the query may be straightforward, answers are anything but. One scholar identifies a suite of strategies states use to prevent other nations from developing nuclear weapons.
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How the Far Right Is Evolving and Growing in Canada
Historically, Canada has always had a few active far-right groups, including the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s and Nazis and fascists before the Second World War. But that was then. Now, the far right has a different strategy.
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Hezbollah, Hamas Down but Not Out, U.S. Says
Israel’s war against Hezbollah and Hamas, while inflicting considerable damage, has yet to strike a crippling blow to either of the Iran-backed terror groups, according to a top U.S. counterterrorism official.
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Extremist Ideology Is Hard to Pin Down
When it comes to extremist motivations for political violence, their varied sources and the role of mental health make it difficult to attribute a root cause and who might have been responsible for leading them down that road. Benjamin Allison writes that thelack of ideological clarity among those who commit acts of political violence is not uncommon.
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High-Tech Methods to Stem the Flow of Fentanyl
Keeping up with illicit labs churning out new forms of fentanyl, nitazenes is the goal.
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U.S. Grounds All Flights to Haiti for a Month After Planes Hit by Gunfire
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has ordered the cancellation of all flights to Haiti for a month after two jets of U.S. airline companies were hit by gunfire while flying over Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince.
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Houthis’ Lesson for the U.S. Army: How a Land Force Can Fight a Maritime War
The US Army should consider borrowing a page from the playbook of Yemen’s Houthi militants. The character of war is always changing, and the Houthis’ ongoing attacks against shipping in the Red Sea may prove to be one of the more significant inflection points in military history.
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Trump’s Immigration Policies Made America Less Safe. Here’s the Data.
New data reveal that Trump was the one whose immigration policies damaged the country’s security. In fact, he released more convicted criminals into the United States than his successor. This is not to lend credence to Trump’s efforts to demonize immigrants as dangerous or violent. Data shows that immigrants — both legal and illegal — are at least half as likely as citizens to be incarcerated for crimes committed in the United States.
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How AI Can Enhance the Accuracy of Eyewitness Identification
AI and natural language processing can provide deeper insights into eyewitness reliability. “Just because someone says they’re confident doesn’t mean they’re right. The worst mistakes come from highly confident witnesses who are actually wrong,” one expert said.
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Against Hyping Civil War and Mass Violence
The hype across media about the prospect of another U.S. civil war needs a response. Taking steps to prevent and prepare for violence always makes sense, but it should not be viewed as a suggestion that the United States is on the brink of civil war. Don’t believe—or spread—these false narratives.
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More headlines
The long view
AI-Controlled Fighter Jets May Be Closer Than We Think — and Would Change the Face of Warfare
Could we be on the verge of an era where fighter jets take flight without pilots – and are controlled by artificial intelligence (AI)? US R Adm Michael Donnelly recently said that an upcoming combat jet could be the navy’s last one with a pilot in the cockpit.
What We’ve Learned from Survivors of the Atomic Bombs
Q&A with Dr. Preetha Rajaraman, New Vice Chair for the Radiation Effects Research Foundation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.
Need for National Information Clearinghouse for Cybercrime Data, Categorization of Cybercrimes: Report
There is an acute need for the U.S. to address its lack of overall governance and coordination of cybercrime statistics. A new report recommends that relevant federal agencies create or designate a national information clearinghouse to draw information from multiple sources of cybercrime data and establish connections to assist in criminal investigations.
Autonomous Weapon Systems: No Human-in-the-Loop Required, and Other Myths Dispelled
“The United States has a strong policy on autonomy in weapon systems that simultaneously enables their development and deployment and ensures they could be used in an effective manner, meaning the systems work as intended, with the same minimal risk of accidents or errors that all weapon systems have,” Michael Horowitz writes.
Twenty-One Things That Are True in Los Angeles
To understand the dangers inherent in deploying the California National Guard – over the strenuous objections of the California governor – and active-duty Marines to deal with anti-ICE protesters, we should remind ourselves of a few elementary truths, writes Benjamin Wittes. Among these truths: “Not all lawful exercises of authority are wise, prudent, or smart”; “Not all crimes require a federal response”; “Avoiding tragic and unnecessary confrontations is generally desirable”; and “It is thus unwise, imprudent, and stupid to take actions for performative reasons that one might reasonably anticipate would increase the risks of such confrontations.”
Luigi Mangione and the Making of a ‘Terrorist’
Discretion is crucial to the American tradition of criminal law, Jacob Ware and Ania Zolyniak write, noting that “lawmakers enact broader statutes to empower prosecutors to pursue justice while entrusting that they will stay within the confines of their authority and screen out the inevitable “absurd” cases that may arise.” Discretion is also vital to maintaining the legitimacy of the legal system. In the prosecution’s case against Luigi Mangione, they charge, “That discretion was abused.”