• The Justice Department’s Unconvincing Explanation for Its Reversal on FISA

    On 26 May, on the eve of a final vote on legislation to reauthorize recently expired Patriot Act provisions and enact numerous Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) reforms, the Department of Justice issued an eleventh-hour about-face. Having previously stated its support for the bill on 11 March, just two months later the department now has announced its opposition to the legislation. Jake Laperruque writes that DOJ’s about-face – veering between supporting and opposing more FISA transparency and independent oversight – reflects the fact that it is based less a coherent legal theory and more on President Trump’s stream of tweets. The problem is, “Trump’s objections to FISA sway wildly between legitimate problems raised by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz and baseless conspiracy allegations.”

  • U.S. Ending Sanctions Waivers on Iran's Civilian Nuclear Program

    The United States has announced it will end sanctions waivers that allow Russian, Chinese, and European firms to carry out civilian nuclear cooperation with Iran, effectively scrapping the last remnants of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, a move dismissed by Tehran as “desperate.”

  • Snapback of Sanctions under the Terms of the Nuclear Deal Is Fully Justified Today

    By David Albright

    “If Iran today wants a serious discussion about sanctions relief, it should start by abandoning the key threat Tehran poses to international peace and security: its uranium enrichment program,” writes David Albright, a nuclear weapons expert and the president of the Institute for Science and International Security. “Instead, Iran holds its own people hostage over the deadly coronavirus outbreak in a cynical campaign for wholesale sanctions relief.” The willingness of Iran’s leadership to refuse epidemic aid and thus dramatically, and unnecessarily, increase the number of sick and dying Iranians; the willing of the leadership to intensify and deepen the severe economic deprivation and misery across the country – and do all that in order to grow an economically nonviable, menacing uranium enrichment program — “That alone should lead all to consider just what is the real purpose of Iran’s enrichment program,” Albright writes.

  • Canada-Detained Senior Huawei Executive a Step Closer to Being Extradited to U.S.

    A Canadian judge has rejected efforts by a senior Huawei executive to evade extradition to the United States to face a series of charges. Meng Wanzhou was arrested in December 2018 on a U.S. warrant while on a stopover at the Vancouver international airport. Meng is charged with lying to prospective investors by hiding the fact that Huawei was selling communication gear to Iran in breach of U.S. sanctions. The Canadian investors would have been legally and financially exposed to U.S. penalties because their investment in Huawei would have made them unwitting participants in breaching the sanctions.

  • U.S. Domestic Islamist Extremism 2019

    There was a 50 percent increase in arrests and plots linked to domestic Islamist extremism in 2019, according to data released last week by ADL’s Center on Extremism. There were a total of 30 arrests linked to domestic Islamist extremism, nine of which were for terror plots. Of the nine individuals arrested for plotting attacks, seven were U.S. citizens. While there were no attacks or murders linked to domestic Islamist extremism last year, the findings indicate that Islamist extremism still poses a significant threat to the United States.

  • Germany Sees Rise in Anti-Semitic, Political Crimes

    Germany saw a rise both far-right and far-left crimes in 2019, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer announced at a press conference in Berlin on Wednesday. The country’s police recorded just over 41,000 cases of politically motivated crime last year, representing a rise of 14.2 percent compared to 2018, when there were just over 36,000. “The biggest threat comes from the far-right, we have to see that clearly,” Seehofer said.

  • Rising Tide: Seeking Solutions to S.C.’s Mounting Nuisance Floods

    While a rising tide may lift all boats, it spells trouble for South Carolina coastal communities where flooding has already long been a fact of life. Low-lying areas such as the state’s more than 2,000 miles of coastline are increasingly prone to floods and storm surge as sea levels rise — driven by a more variable global climate system. Researchers are examining green solutions to help those communities fight back.

  • Mapping the China Debate

    The debate over U.S. foreign policy toward China is often reduced into the usual hawk-versus-dove metaphor. Hawks see U.S.-China great power competition as requiring a more aggressive posture, while doves worry about the downsides of an adversarial relationship. Ganesh Sitaraman writes that this dualist frame glosses over the fact that neither camp has a shared set of views. Rather, both hawks and doves contain a variety of subgroups—and some subgroups disagree with others on critical policy questions. “But without tractable categories for analysis, the debate over policy toward China is too often imprecise and confusing.”

  • IS Returnees Should Be Charged with War Crimes: EU Agency

    More than 13,000 citizens of European countries traveled to Syria and Iraq to join, fight, or work with ISIS. In addition to former fighters, this figure includes women and children. A new report from an EU-backed genocide investigation body says that adding war crimes and genocide to terrorism charges for IS fighters returning to the EU will lead to tougher sentences and “more justice” for victims.

  • How the Coronavirus Increases Terrorism Threats in the Developing World

    By Nisha Bellinger and Kyle Kattelman

    As the coronavirus reaches developing countries in Africa and Asia, the pandemic will have effects beyond public health and economic activity. As the disease wreaks its havoc in areas poorly equipped to handle its spread, terrorism likely will increase there as well.

  • A Healthy Dose of Realism: Stopping COVID-19 Doesn’t Start with the WHO

    There’s a proven approach to combating the global threat of the novel coronavirus, Frank L. Smith III writes. It was used to eradicate smallpox during the Cold War. Rather than relying on the World Health Organization (WHO), success depends on a “great-power concert.” Today, this means concerted action by the United States and China.

  • U.K. Set to Reverse Huawei Decision

    In a dramatic turnaround, the British government will in a few days announce that it was reversing its decision earlier this year to allow Huawei to provide components for Britain’s 5G communication infrastructure. In January, the government said it would push for a deal which would allow Huawei to supply up to 35 percent of the components of the new 5G network, and that these components would be allowed only on the “edge” of the networks, not the networks’ “core.” The government is now set to announce that Huawei’s components will not be allowed in the U.K. 5G networks, and that all of the Chinese company’s gear will be removed from older communication networks by the end of 1922. The government’s January deal would probably have failed to gain approval in parliament, as Conservative backbenchers who oppose the January deal now have more than enough votes to block it.

  • Terrorists could use coronavirus as example for future biological attack

    Terrorism experts are warning that the coronavirus pandemic could be used as a template for future biological attacks by either state or non-state actors. Security experts with the Council of Europe say that terrorists, assessing the impact of the coronavirus, would now recognize the fact that they can use biological weapons to inflict a major blow on Western countries (or, for that matter, on any country). According to these experts, the virus has exposed how vulnerable modern societies are.

  • Leader of British Far-Right Group Convicted under Terrorism Law

    Paul Golding, 38, the leader of the British far-right political group Britain First, has been found guilty of an offense under the Terrorism Act after refusing to give police access to his mobile phone on his return from a political trip to Russia.

  • Boogaloo Supporters Animated by Lockdown Protests, Recent Incidents

    Across the country, boogalooers are energized by resistance to lockdown restrictions, which they view as tyrannical government overreach. Boogaloo adherents have shown up at numerous lockdown protests, waving boogaloo signs, wearing Hawaiian shirts, and carrying firearms, sometimes illegally. These boogalooers are part of an embryonic, decentralized movement that organizes largely online but whose presence has increasingly been felt in the real world. While boogaloo supporters hail from a variety of movements, and include some white supremacists who advocate for race war, the lockdown protests have largely featured the anti-government version of the boogaloo favored by the militia, gun rights, and anarcho-capitalist movements. Boogaloo advocates are talking openly about providing protection for local businesses determined to reopen in violation of state mandates. The presence of these frequently armed protesters could escalate already tense situations.