• Election Cyber Surge Initiative Launches

    On Friday, the University of Chicago’s Cyber Policy Initiative (CPI) announced the launch of the Election Cyber Surge initiative to help address the urgent need to connect state and local election offices with volunteer technologists. The initiative will create a database which will allow officials to search for potential volunteers in their state or city by skillset, subject matter expertise, or cybersecurity experience.

  • Research on Voting by Mail Says It’s Safe – from Fraud and Disease

    As millions of Americans prepare to vote in November – and in many cases, primaries and state and local elections through the summer as well – lots of people are talking about voting by mail. Some critics – including President Donald Trump on several occasions – have cast doubt on the integrity of mail-in voting, even though some of them have voted by mail in the past. The evidence shows that voting by mail is rarely subject to fraud, does not give an advantage to one political party over another and can in fact inspire public confidence in the voting process, if done properly.

  • Trust in Data Privacy Increases During Pandemic

    COVID-19 has seen Australians become more trusting of organizations and governments when it comes to their personal data and privacy, according to new research. “Our findings provide strong support for the notion that trust and confidence in different aspects of policy design and delivery interact with each other, creating vicious or virtuous circles,” says the study’s lead author.

  • Dismantle the Department of Homeland Security

    Richard A. Clarke, who served on the National Security Council for Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, minces no words in calling for the dismantling of DHS. “President Trump has, often intentionally, damaged essential federal departments and agencies, driving from their ranks thousands of career civil servants who are global experts and national treasures,” he writes. But “No national institution has been more damaged than the Department of Homeland Security.” He adds: “For the patriotic, underpaid Americans working hard in the agencies of the DHS, what Trump has done to their reputations is a tragedy. The department, however, was doomed from the start.”

  • U.S. Federal Agents to Begin Portland Withdrawal

    Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon said federal officers would begin leaving the city of Portland on Thursday after an agreement between local and federal officials. Brown was among the leaders who criticized the presence of the federal agents, saying Wednesday they “acted as an occupying force and brought violence.” The federal government said the deployment to Portland was necessary to restore order and faulted local leaders for allowing ongoing protests that they said endangered federal property, including a courthouse.

  • New Partnership Aims to Detect, Mitigate Attempts to Subvert, Delegitimize November Election

    Four of the U.S. leading institutions focused on analysis of mis- and disinformation in the social media landscape have created a new partnership — the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) – which aims to detect and mitigate the impact of attempts to prevent or deter people from voting or to delegitimize election results.

  • Militias’ Warning of Excessive Federal Power Comes True – but Where Are They?

    Militias and many other Second Amendment advocates have long argued that their primary desire to own firearms – often, many of them – is rooted in a need to protect themselves and their families from a tyrannical federal government, or to discourage the government from becoming tyrannical in the first place. It appears that the militias’ fears have materialized on the streets of Portland, where heavily armed and camouflaged federal officers, wearing no name tags or other insignia, have teargassed and arrested seemingly peaceful protesters with little or no provocation, throwing them into unmarked cars. President Donald Trump has said that he plans to send similar forces to cities run by Democratic mayors. In recent months a new divide has emerged in these militia groups over whether, and how, to respond to this assertion of federal power.

  • Is West Turning Away from Nixon's Approach to China?

    In 1972 US President Richard Nixon shocked the world, and many in his administration, by announcing his intention to normalize relations with Communist China. Forty-eight years on, America and China are embarking on another perilous voyage, filled possibly with even greater uncertainty than encountered in the 1970s. Western powers fear Beijing is out to re-shape the liberal world order, subscribing to a growing view that not only does the Chinese Communist Party want to ensure its continued rule at home but to make China the number one global power.  

  • Huawei and TikTok Are at the Forefront of a New Drift to Regionalism – Many Others Will Follow

    Huawei and TikTok were two of the most successful examples of globalization. Both of these Chinese companies are now at the mercy of a widening geopolitical divide. The U.S. has led an increasingly successful campaign to eliminate Huawei from the global market over alleged security fears, and is threatening to ban TikTok too. These developments are signs of attempts by the U.S. to decouple from China’s economy and concentrate on alliances within its own political and economic sphere. It chimes with the wider drift away from globalization towards a more regional approach to trade.

  • Advancing Biosecurity in the Age of COVID

    The response to COVID-19 has exposed a world that is largely unprepared to deal with emerging and novel biothreats, whether the outbreak is natural or intentional. The Global Health Security Network brought together two biosecurity experts to discuss how current projects to improve global health security can adapt during the pandemic and what changes the world needs to make to improve biosafety and biosecurity.

  • Most Gun Owners Favor Gun Violence Prevention Measures

    New survey shows that the majority of gun owners support many gun violence prevention policies, including background checks, permit requirements, and prohibitions for individuals with domestic violence restraining orders. But most of these gun owners report that they do not make their support public because they are alienated by the rhetoric of gun violence prevention advocates.

  • The Long Haul: China's Grand Strategy

    China has delineated specific objectives regarding economic growth, regional and global leadership in evolving economic and security architectures, and control over claimed territory. In several cases, these objectives bring China into competition, crisis, and even potential conflict with the United States and its allies. The authors of a new report on U.S.-China competition make the case that the kind of country China becomes, and the way that its military evolves, is neither foreordained nor completely beyond the influence of the United States or U.S. military.

  • How to Hide from a Drone – the Subtle Art of “Ghosting” in the Age of Surveillance

    Drones of all sizes are being used by environmental advocates to monitor deforestation, by conservationists to track poachers, and by journalists and activists to document large protests. But when the Department of Homeland Security redirects large, fixed-wing drones from the U.S.-Mexico border to monitor protests, and when towns experiment with using drones to test people for fevers, it’s time to think about how many eyes are in the sky and how to avoid unwanted aerial surveillance. One way that’s within reach of nearly everyone is learning how to simply disappear from view.

  • There Is Nothing Conservative About What Trump Is Doing in Portland

    Attorney General William Barr and President Donald Trump threaten to send more federal troops to cities with Democratic mayors, ignoring the adamant objections of mayors, governors, and local sheriffs. “How greatly have traditional conservative values of federalism and limited government been transformed,” Paul Rosenzweig and Arthur Rizerwent, two conservative commentators, write. Video evidence shows that these CBP “agents are not merely protecting federal property; they have detained citizens who aren’t violating any law and used the power of their presence to chill civil protests and disobedience.” The writers add: “This is a complete corruption of conservative ideals…. The consequences of this radical expansion of federal law-enforcement authority are enormous—and none of them are likely to be good.”

  • U.K. to Overhaul Treason Laws

    Britain is overhauling its treason laws, the most sweeping reform of these laws since 1695. The overhaul will see a new Treason Act and a new Espionage Act for tracking foreign agents and agents of influence, as well as a rewriting of the Official Secrets Act to make it suitable for the digital age. Government officials say the reforms are needed better to deal with the Russia’s sustained campaign to undermine Western democracies and corrupt the politics liberal societies, and the growing efforts of China to steal intellectual property and gain access to other countries’ critical infrastructures by encouraging them to buy subsidized Chinese technology.