• 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.

  • Simultaneous, Reinforcing Policy Failures Led to Flint Water Crisis

    Concurrent failures of federal drinking water standards and Michigan’s emergency manager law reinforced and magnified each other, leading to the Flint water crisis, according to a University of Michigan environmental policy expert. Flint’s experience offers lessons during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has exacerbated local financial challenges while highlighting the importance of access to clean, safe drinking water.

  • Vehicle Ramming: The Evolution of a Terrorist Tactic Inside the U.S.

    Vehicle ramming has been the weapon of choice among Palestinian terrorists in the West Bank. Mia Bloom writes that it is now a weapon used with increasing frequency by white supremacists against racial justice protesters in the United States. Both tech companies and law enforcement need to do better if this escalating tactic is to be addressed before it causes more injury and death,” she writes.

  • U.K. Bans Huawei Components from 5G, Earlier Networks

    The British government, in a reversal of a January decision, will not allow Huawei access to the U.K. nascent 5G network. The government has also imposed a “rip and replace” requirement, giving British companies until 2027 to remove all Huawei gear from their networks and replace it with components from “trusted vendors.”

  • Germany Urges EU to Impose Cyber Sanctions on Russia for Bundestag Hacking

    The German government has made an official proposal to the European Union to impose sanctions on Russian individuals behind a broad hacking of the Bundestag five years ago. If the EU accepts the German proposal, it would be the first use of an EU cyber sanctions regime which was adopted by the organization in 2017, but which is yet to be used.

  • Why We Need to Stay Alert to the Terror Threat as the U.K. Reopens

    Until recently, the coronavirus had reduced opportunities for terrorism. The lockdown had seen U.K. high streets and public spaces almost deserted, with most non-essential businesses forced to close, lowering the number of potential terrorist targets. However, lockdown and social distancing measures are now being relaxed, and the government is promoting greater use of open public spaces to try to kickstart the economy while keeping transmission of the virus low. While this response is likely to benefit businesses and the economy, there’s a real risk these new outdoor arrangements may become attractive targets for terrorists.

  • U.K. Proscribes Far-Right Terrorist Group

    The U.K. Home Secretary has the other day moved to outlaw the far-right terror group, Feuerkrieg Division. Priti Patel has asked Parliament for permission to proscribe the white supremacist group, which was founded in late 2018 and operates across North America and Europe.

  • 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.

  • 2019: Global Terrorism Overview

    The new  Global Terrorism Overview highlights trends in worldwide terrorism in 2019. In 2019, there were nearly 8,500 terrorist attacks around the world, which killed more than 20,300 people, including 5,460 perpetrators and 14,840 victims. 2019 was the fifth consecutive year of declining global terrorism since terrorist violence peaked in 2014 at nearly 17,000 attacks and more than 44,000 total deaths. The total number of terrorist attacks worldwide decreased 50 percent between 2014 and 2019, and the total number of deaths decreased 54 percent.

  • Hateful Extremists Have Been Exploiting the Current Pandemic

    The U.K. Commission for Countering Extremism (CCE) has published a report Thursday, looking at the way in which extremists have sought to exploit the current pandemic. The CCE say that the government needs to ensure that their response to dealing with COVID-19 and future crises takes into account the significant threat of hateful extremism and the dangerous narratives spread by conspiracy theories.

  • 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.

  • Eroding Private Border Wall to Get an Engineering Inspection Just Months after Completion

    Months after the “Lamborghini” of border walls was built along the Rio Grande, the builder agreed to an engineering inspection of his controversial structure. Experts say the wall is showing signs of erosion that threatens its stability.

  • 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.

  • Germany’s Domestic Intel. Agency: Right-Wing Extremists Greatest Threat to the County

    A new report by Germany’s domestic intelligence (BfV) agency says right-wing extremism now poses the greatest threat to security in the country. BfV said that the number of right-wing extremists in Germany has increased from 24,100 in 2018 to 32,000 in 2019. As worrisome, the number of extremists who are prepared to use violence to achieve their aims keeps growing, and now stands at 13,000. The number of left-wing extremists has increased from 32,000 to 33,500 but only 9,000 of them are regarded as committed to violence. Anti-Semitism continues to be central to right-wing extremist movement, and 94 percent of anti-Semitic crimes in Germany in 2019 were committed by members of these movements. Islamist terrorism is still a threat, but it is declining: 28,000 Germans are affiliated with Islamist Jihadist groups, but only 650 are regarded as potentially violent.