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Ensuring Our Workforce Is Cyber Ready
Remaining vigilant and prepared to protect our nation’s cybersecurity is one of DHS S&T’s highest priorities. To meet this goal, S&T is harnessing the intellectual power of America’s universities and leveraging some of the best and brightest subject matter experts and academic minds via S&T Centers of Excellence (COE).
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Better Regulating Drone Use Requires Communication, Not Surveillance
In 2018, Congress gave the DHS and DOJ sweeping new authorities to destroy or commandeer privately-owned drones which pose a “credible threat” to a “covered facility or asset” in the U.S. as well as intercept the data it sends and receives. The definition of “credible threat” was left entirely to the discretion of DOJ and DHS.
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Tracking Threats and Harassment Against Local Officials
Following the 2020 presidential election, there has been a growing wave of threats against and harassment of election officials. Nearly 60 percent these threats and acts of intimidation took place in the five states which Trump falsely claimed he had won: Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona.
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DHS to Stabilize Its Historic Lighthouse on Plum Island
DHS S&T is leading a project aiming to stabilize the historic Plum Island Light Station. The lighthouse was constructed in 1869 and put into service in 1870. Plum Island, New York, is located approximately 1.5 miles from the eastern end of Long Island’s North Fork. The island is wholly owned by the DHS and primarily serves as a secure location for DHS S&T’s Plum Island Animal Disease Center (PIADC).
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Seismic Shifts Underway in Global Semiconductor Market as U.S. Accelerates Decoupling from China
Historically, the U.S. had the lion’s share of the global semiconductor industry (37 percent in 1990), but its dominance has been eroded by North Asian markets over the past three decades. In August, the administration committed to bolstering the U.S. semiconductor manufacturing sector with $50 billion in funding under the CHIPS and Science Act, with the potential to create 40,000 new jobs.
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New Small Business Innovation Sources Tapped for Classified Efforts
DOD often seeks innovative and creative solutions to complex, classified challenges, but the DOD is currently only able to access a limited pool of companies cleared to work on them. Pilot program aims to expand pool of small companies cleared to work on classified defense projects.
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DHS Debuts First Fully Electric Law Enforcement Vehicle
DHS became the first federal agency to debut a battery electric vehicle (EV) fitted for performing law enforcement functions. The Ford Mustang Mach-E is the first of a variety of EVs DHS plans to field across its varied law enforcement missions throughout the United States.
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U.S. Plans to Boost US Biotechnology Manufacturing
The administration announced Monday steps to bolster the “bioeconomy” in the United States, a classification that covers research and development across a broad swath of products, including medical supplies, sustainable new fuels and food, as well as technologies meant to help fight climate change. The order comes barely a month after President Biden signed a major piece of legislation, the CHIPS Act, meant to supercharge U.S. manufacturing of semiconductors, an area in which the U.S. has lost its once-dominant global position.
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Reliance on Dual-Use Technology is a Trap
The current approach to promoting the use of emerging technology by the Pentagon is for emerging technology companies to work with the Department of Defense is to build commercial applications first and only then move into defense. But the notion of developing “technologies for the commercial market first and only then slap some green paint on them so that they can begin exploring the U.S. defense market” is untenable, Jake Chapman writes. “A better solution would enable entrepreneurs to focus on solving defense challenges by making the Department of Defense a better customer.”
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Critical Minerals Competition Uses AI to Accelerate Analytics
The United States depends on a variety of raw, non-fuel materials dubbed “critical minerals” to manufacture products considered essential to national security. Increasing demand, coupled with limited domestic supply and increasing reliance on foreign companies to import these critical minerals, poses significant risks to the U.S. supply chain. DARPA is offering prizes for automating aspects of USGS critical mineral assessments.
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Reviving the Petroleum Administration for War: A Case for Government-Industry Partnership
The Russo-Ukrainian War is exposing deep fissures in global energy networks and finally forcing Western capitals to address their energy security. Ryan P. Kellogg and David Brunnert write that “To confront this profound challenge, policy should consider creating a partnership between government and industry for managing energy resources.”
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Regenerate: Biotechnology and U.S. Industrial Policy
A revolution in biotechnology is dawning at the precise moment the world needs it most. Amid an ongoing climate crisis, fast-paced technological maturation, and a global pandemic, humans must find new ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve food security, develop new vaccines and therapeutics, recycle waste, synthesize new materials, and adapt to a changing world. The United States needs some form of industrial policy to promote its bioeconomy—one that is enshrined in democratic values and focused on improving access to four key drivers of bioeconomic growth: equipment, personnel, information, and capital.
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China Tried to Infiltrate Federal Reserve: Senate Report
Fed Chair Jerome Powell and a senior member of Congress are at odds over a report issued Tuesday by Senate Republicans alleging that China is trying to infiltrate the Federal Reserve and that the central bank has done too little to stop it. China’s goal, according to the report, is to “supplant the U.S. as the global economic leader and end the U.S. dollar’s status as the world’s primary reserve currency.”
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Winners Announced in DHS $195K Challenge to Counter Extreme Temperatures
DHS announced the winners of the Cooling Solutions Challenge prize competition. The winners were each awarded funding, which totaled $195,000, for their innovative and creative ideas that sought climate-friendly cooling solutions to protect people in extreme heat conditions.
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The Strategic Relevance of Cybersecurity Skills
Evidence suggests there is a global cybersecurity skills shortage affecting businesses and governments alike, which means that organizations are struggling to fill their cybersecurity vacancies. Tommaso De Zan writes that “the absence of cybersecurity experts protecting national critical infrastructures constitutes a national security threat, a loophole that may be exploited by malicious actors.”
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