• Can Reforming Social Media Save American Democracy?

    When social media exploded in the mid-2000s, retweeting, sharing and liking posts appeared to give average citizens the power to share their opinions far and wide. The problem, according to social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, is that online social networks didn’t really end up giving everyone the voice that many thought it would. “It empowered four groups who take advantage of the viral dynamics of social media. That is the far right, the far left, trolls and Russian intelligence,” he says.

  • The Struggle Over AI Surveillance: From Digitalization to Dystopia?

    “From cameras that identify the faces of passersby to algorithms that keep tabs on public sentiment online, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered tools are opening new frontiers in state surveillance around the world,” states a new report. One experts says that just as with doctors’ medical practice, purveyors of new technologies should commit to a ‘do no harm’ code of ethics.

  • Man Pleads Guilty to Threatening Election Official

    A Nebraska man pleaded guilty on Thursday to making multiple threatening posts on an Instagram page associated with an election official. The case is part of the Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force, announced in June 2021, to lead the department’s efforts to address threats of violence against election workers.

  • What Can the ATF Do About Converted Machine Guns?

    Auto sears have become increasingly popular among criminals, and have been tied to dozens of shootings by extremists, mass shooters, and drug traffickers. Lawmakers are clamoring for action on auto sears, and history leaves clues about what approach the ATF might take.

  • Top DOJ Official: Easy Access to Powerful Gus Linked to Domestic Terror Attacks

    “We have to be clear about this as a nation,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen told an audience on Wednesday, “[t]he ability of violent extremists to acquire military-grade weapons in this country contributes significantly to their ability to kill and inflict harm on a massive scale.”

  • U.S. Creates ‘China House’ to Better Track Beijing’s Global Reach

    The U.S. State Department is creating a new entity known as “China House” to better track what China is doing around the world. A State Department spokesperson declined to provide details about the status of China House, describing it as “a department-wide integrated team that will coordinate and implement our policy across issues and regions.”

  • U.S. Sanctions Members of Russian Violent Extremist Group

    The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designating two key supporters of the ethnically motivated violent extremist group known as the Russian Imperial Movement (RIM). RIM was previously designated by the U.S. Department of State as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) organization on April 7, 2020 for having provided training for acts of terrorism.

  • Al-Shabaab and the Islamic State Networks on Facebook 

    Researchers found that the network of support on social media for al-Shabaab and Islamic State extended across several platforms, including decentralized messaging applications such as Element and RocketChat, and encrypted messaging platforms such as Telegram, as well as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. 

  • Global Nuclear Arsenals Are Expected to Grow

    The nine nuclear-armed states—the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea)—continue to modernize their nuclear arsenals and although the total number of nuclear weapons declined slightly between January 2021 and January 2022, the number will probably increase in the next decade.

  • Fearing Iranian Attacks, Israel Urges Israeli Travelers in Turkey to Return Home

    The stealthy war between Israel and Iran is escalating. In late May, Israeli intelligence uncovered a secret Iranian plot to kill and kidnap Israeli tourists in Turkey, a favorite tourist destination for Israelis. The Turkish authorities were alerted, and the Iranian agents were captured. A few days later, a colonel in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard was killed in broad daylight in the middle of Teheran. The colonel’s unit was responsible for planning and carrying out attacks on Israelis abroad.

  • Iran's Removal of More Cameras Could Be a “Fatal Blow” to Reviving Nuclear Deal: IAEA

    Iran has started removing 27 surveillance cameras from nuclear sites across the country, further reducing the IAEA’s ability to monitor Iran’s nuclear program, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog has said. Iran’s move “poses a serious challenge to our ability to continue working there,” Rafael Grossi, IAEA director-general, said.

  • China Looks to Africa in Race for Lithium

    Electric cars, and other green technologies, are dependent on lithium, and growing demand has caused the prices for lithium to increase by almost 500 percent in the past year. Africa has ample resources of lithium, and China is leading the race to control the continent’s lithium resources.

  • Extremist Planning Bioweapons Attacks to Start a Racial War in South Africa Convicted

    South African court convicts the leader of an extremist group planning to use bioweapons to bring about, in his words, “black genocide” as part of a broader effort to re-establish the country’s apartheid regime.

  • Migration to the U.S. Is on the Rise Again – but It’s Unlikely to Be Fully Addressed During the Summit of the Americas, or Anytime Soon

    Migration in the Americas has dramatically increased over the past decade due to deteriorating political, economic and humanitarian conditions in several countries, particularly in Venezuela, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Haiti. High rates of crime, corruption, poverty, environmental degradation and violence all influence people’s decisions to migrate. The power of drug cartels, which can be embedded in government institutions like the police, also plays a key role in prompting migration.

  • Iran Can Produce Nuclear Explosive Now, and 2 Bombs within One Month of a Breakout: IAEA

    The IAEA’s new report on Iran’s nuclear status says that Iran’s breakout timeline is now at zero. Iran has enough 60 percent enriched uranium – highly enriched uranium, or HEU — to be able to produce nuclear explosive. If it wanted to enrich the 60 percent HEU to 90 percent HEU —typically called weapon-grade uranium (WGU) — it could do so within weeks. Whether or not Iran enriches its HEU up to 90 percent, it can have enough HEU for two nuclear weapons within one month after starting breakout.