• Spies, Election Meddling, And Disinformation: Past and Present

    Calder Walton writes that following Russia’s “sweeping and systematic” attack on the 2016 U.S. presidential election—which was intended to support Moscow’s favored candidate, Donald J. Trump, and undermine his opponent, Hillary Clinton—the media frequently labeled the operation “unprecedented.” “The social-media technologies that Russia deployed in its cyber-attack on the United States in 2016 were certainly new,” he writes, “but Russia’s strategy was far from unusual. In fact, the Kremlin has a long history of meddling in U.S. and other Western democratic elections and manufacturing disinformation to discredit and divide the West.”

  • Iran Nuclear Accord Parties Meet to Try to Salvage Deal

    The remaining members of the floundering Iran nuclear deal are set to meet in Vienna Wednesday for the first time since Germany, France, and Britain initiated dispute procedures that could reimpose U.N. sanctions on Tehran. The talks come as the signatories try to rescue the landmark 2015 accord, which has been faltering since U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from it in 2018 and enforced crippling sanctions on Iran.

  • New Jersey: Homegrown Violent Extremists Greater Threat Than Foreign Terrorists

    New Jersey’s Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness (NJOHSP) now regards white supremacist extremists as posing a threat which is equal or greater than that posed by terrorists inspired by Islamist fundamentalism (in both cases, homegrown violent extremists [HVEs] pose a far greater threat than foreign terrorists). “Homeland security and law enforcement professionals at all levels have taken notice of the rise in activity from white supremacist extremists,” NJOHSP says in an introduction to the annual Terrorism Threat Assessment issued by the office. “New Jersey is committed to protecting the diversity of culture and faith that shapes our great State. For that reason, NJOHSP increased the threat posed by white supremacist extremists from moderate to high in 2020, joining homegrown violent extremists as the most persistent hostile actors in New Jersey.”

  • White Supremacists Embrace "Accelerationism"

    Accelerationism is a term white supremacists have assigned to their desire to hasten the collapse of society as we know it. The term is widely used by those on the fringes of the movement, who employ it openly and enthusiastically on mainstream platforms, as well as in the shadows of private, encrypted chat rooms. 

  • New Center to Lead Counterterrorism, Terrorism Prevention Research

    DHS S&T has awarded the University of Nebraska at Omaha a 10-year, $36 million grant to establish a DHS Center of Excellence (COE) for Terrorism Prevention and Counterterrorism Research (TPCR). TPCR will lead a consortium of academic, industry, government, and laboratory partners aiming to gain better understanding of terrorism and its sources, and help fashion effective counterterrorism policies.

  • Growing Tory Opposition to Boris Johnson’s Huawei Decision

    David Davis, a leading Conservative MP and a former Brexit Secretary, has warned that allowing Chinese technology giant Huawei to build some of the infrastructure for the U.K. 5G communication network could be seen as “the worst decision made by a British prime minister.” The government Huawei move represented the “worst intelligence decision since MI6’s recruitment of Kim Philby,” Davis said, adding that if the government allowed Huawei access to the U.K. 5G infrastructure, then “We are handing the keys to large parts of the country over to China.” Davis was blunt: “This is the ground on which future wars will be fought.”

  • Senior U.S. Democrats Demand Russia Sanctions Over 2020 Election Interference

    U.S. Senate Democratic leaders have urged the administration to impose sanctions on Russia after U.S. intelligence officials briefed members of Congress that Russia was again trying to interfere in a national election. “We urge you to immediately draw upon the reported conclusions of the Intelligence Community to identify and target for sanctions all those determined to be responsible for ongoing elections interference, including President Putin, the government of the Russian Federation, any Russian actors determined to be directly responsible, and those acting on their behalf or providing material or financial support for their efforts,” the senators write in their letter.

  • Far-Right Extremism "Biggest Threat in Our Country": Germany’s Interior Minister

    On Friday, Horst Seehofer, Germany’s Federal Minister of the Interior, was visibly distraught when, two days after Wednesday’s terrorist attack in Hanau, he told a hushed press conference that “The threat posed by right-wing extremism, anti-Semitism and racism is very high in Germany.” He added: “I would like to emphasize that right-wing extremism poses the greatest threat in our country.”

  • Reports: Trump Ousted Acting Intel Chief After He Warned of Russian 2020 Election Meddling

    President Donald Trump fired Director of National Security Joseph Maguire, the U.S. top intelligence official, after Maguire, in a classified briefing, told lawmakers that the U.S. intelligence community is seeing an intensification of Russia’s covert efforts to help Trump’s reelection campaign. The Kremlin’s campaign, already under way, would combine elements from the Kremlin’s successful 2016 effort to help Trump – hacking of Trump’s rivals and saturating social media with fake postings – with a new emphasis on corrupting voter rolls, hacking voting machines, and disrupting vote tallies. Trump has always rejected the U.S. intelligence community’s unanimous conclusion, based on incontrovertible facts, that Russia heavily interfered on his behalf in the 2016 election, preferring instead to accept Vladimir Putin’s denials that such interference took place.

  • Enhancing Privacy in Today's Internet of Things

    People navigating the digital landscape of today’s internet are bombarded with notices about how their data is being collected. But in the physical world — where internet of things (IoT) technologies increasingly track our activities — few, if any, notices are provided. A team of researchers has created an app and an entire infrastructure to change that.

  • Reaping What You Sow: The Case for Better Agroterrorism Preparedness

    For years, interest groups, academics, and policymakers have sounded the alarm on the vulnerability of U.S. crops to a terrorist attack. This article briefly reviews the history, risks, and consequences of agroterrorism attacks targeting crop yields and suggests how the recently established DHS Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office could play a role in countering this threat.

  • Eleven Dead in Far-Right Terror Attack in the city of Hanau

    A far-right terrorist killed nine people late Wednesday in attacks on two shisha bars in the city of Hanau, near Frankfurt. Shisha bars are popular meeting places for Germans of Kurdish origin. The killer – who killed his mother and then committed suicide after the attacks – left a letter in which he took responsibility for the killing. In the letter, and in posts on social media – in German on Facebook, and in English on YouTube – the gunman railed against the “mainstream media” and expressed his belief in several conspiracy theories popular in far-right circles around the world. Wednesday attacks continue a worrisome trend of a sharp increase in far-right terrorism in Germany, a trend which has brought about a reorientation of counterterrorism efforts in Germany; the creation of a new unit within the German domestic intelligence service – staffed with 600 counterterrorism specialists — dedicated to monitoring far-right extremism in the country, the expansion of police surveillance powers; and the tightening of gun-ownership laws.

  • What We Know about the Gunman

    Tobias R., the 43-year of gunman who killed nine people in Hanau was active online: He published a 24-page “manifesto” on his Facebook page, and posted a video on his YouTube channel (his postings have been removed from the web). His postings repeat many of the conspiracy theories popular in far-right circles, but experts say that unlike other far-right terrorists – most recently at Christchurch, Poway, El Paso, and Halle – he was probably not part of the 8chan and 4chan image board radical right scene. In the hours after the attack, many users on these boards complained that because he failed to run a live video of his attack, there would be few imitators who would follow him, and complained that the fact that he shot into two crowded restaurants but managed to kill only nine people would make white terrorists look like idiots. Tobias R. appears to be obsessed with the idea that an unknown, all-knowing secret service is not only spying on his every move: that secret service can also read his mind.

  • German Rampage Confirms Worst Fears of Security Chiefs

    Wednesday’s massacre in the German town of Hanau, 25 kilometers east of Frankfurt confirmed the worst fears of Germany’s top security officials. They have been preparing for months for more far-right violence, and the shooting by a lone wolf gunman in Hanau, leaving nine dead at two hookah bars, is the type of attack that’s been preoccupying them. From Germany to Britain, alarm has been rising across Europe about the terror threat from fringe far-right groups and their supporters. Analysts and intelligence officials say the groups have been studying the tactics of jihadist factions, such as the Islamic State terror group, and copying their bomb-making methods and social-media propaganda techniques, using YouTube and messaging platforms to radicalize others and to shape their own lone wolf killers.

  • Flood Buyouts Benefit the Whitest At-Risk Neighborhoods

    The federal flood buyout program disproportionally benefits at-risk homes in the whitest communities of America’s largest cities, according to a new study. The study provides the first nationwide, peer-reviewed analysis of racial inequalities in the implementation of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) flood buyout program. The researchers examined data in 500 municipalities across the U.S. between 1990 and 2015.