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Threats of Political Violence Are Distorting Reality
Mobilizations by extremist groups in 2024 are on track to be at their lowest level since 2020, according to a new report, but public officials — particularly those who work on elections — continue to face hostile threats.
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Don’t Panic Reading ‘Electoral Process Porn’: There Are Plenty of Safeguards to Make Sure Voters’ Wishes Are Respected
Because of all the fail-safes built into the system, even very close is something the election process can handle, sys one expert. “I’m very confident that the voters are going to decide this election, not the lawyers or the courts.”
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Model Reveals Why Debunking Election Misinformation Often Doesn’t Work
When an election result is disputed, people who are skeptical about the outcome may be swayed to accept the fairness and integrity of the election. A new study identifies factors that can make these efforts more successful.
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Right-Wing Activists Pushed False Claims About Election Fraud. Now They’re Recruiting Poll Workers in Swing States.
Elections officials say they welcome skeptics. As the system is secure, they anticipate problems from spreading misinformation rather than interfering with the process.
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Leveraging AI to Enhance U.S. Cybersecurity
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can potentially provide the homeland unprecedented opportunity to enhance its cybersecurity posture. DHS S&T is exploring the possibilities of using new advances in this technology to detect threats, increase resilience and provide more supply chain oversight.
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The Middle Road: Why the United States Needs a Dynamic Approach to Its Foreign Policy
The world finds itself in a precarious calm before a potential storm of great power rivalry. The United States is in yet another crucial presidential election cycle. Both tickets offer largely contrasting stances for America’s position on the international stage. However, must America’s approach to its role on the international stage be one of two extremes, or can it be more nuanced?
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Is the American Empire collapsing?
The United States remains a global power unparalleled in history. So what would it take for this situation to change? Four possible developments or events seem to be plausible candidates.
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U. of California Faces Lawsuit for Not Hiring Illegal Aliens
UC’s Board of Regents decided by a vote in January to suspend for one year the implementation of its policy that allowed the hiring of illegal aliens. Now, the university faces a lawsuit for not offering jobs to illegal aliens.
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Public Trust in U.S. Elections Is Decreasing. But Should It Be?
Recent polls show public trust in the integrity of U.S. elections is decreasing, largely among Republicans. But this doesn’t signal that our elections are getting less reliable, scholars said.
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Salt Typhoon Hack Shows There's No Security Backdoor That's Only for The "Good Guys"
If U.S. policymakers care about China and other foreign countries engaging in espionage on U.S. citizens, it’s time to speak up in favor of encryption by default. If these policymakers don’t want to see bad actors take advantage of their constituents, domestic companies, or security agencies, again—they should speak up for encryption by default.
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Ohio Is Home to About 50 White Extremist Groups, but the State’s Social and Political Landscape Is Undergoing Rapid Racial Change
Rapidly changing social conditions in Ohio have played a significant role in the growth of extremism. Between 1990 and 2019, manufacturing jobs shrank from 21.7% of all employment in the state to 12.5%, mostly affecting white men. For many of these alienated men, extremist ideologies offer easy answers to complex questions that involve their sense of disenfranchisement.
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Reducing Vulnerability to Sea-Level Rise in Virginia
As the climate changes and sea levels rise, there is concern that sinking coastlines could exacerbate risks to infrastructure, as well as human and environmental health in coastal communities. The Virginia Coastal Plain is one of the fastest-sinking regions on the East Coast.
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2025 Homeland Threat Assessment
DHS has issued its 2025 threat assessment, focusing on the most direct, pressing threats to the U.S. homeland during the next year. The assessment is organized around DHS missions that most closely align or apply to these threats—public safety, border and immigration, critical infrastructure, and economic security.
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Amid Multiple Disasters, FEMA Faces Funding Challenges, Misinformation, and Politicization
Congress gave the agency enough money to last the year. But back-to-back hurricanes are stretching resources thin. Moreover, in the wake of Helene and Milton, FEMA has faced a barrage of brazen lies and distortions concocted by Donald Trump and amplified by his supporters about disaster relief dollars being misused and redirected toward housing migrants.
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Sahel’s Terrorism Problem(s)
Al-Qaeda has begun increasingly replicating the tactics employed by its Salafi-jihadi rival, Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIS), in Africa’s Sahel region by relying on powerful affiliates like Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM). It has done so to revitalize its ideological appeal and rejuvenate its primacy in the global jihadi fold, even as ISIS has remained the deadliest terror group for the ninth consecutive year.
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The long view
Kinetic Operations Bring Authoritarian Violence to Democratic Streets
Foreign interference in democracies has a multifaceted toolkit. In addition to information manipulation, the tactical tools authoritarian actors use to undermine democracy include cyber operations, economic coercion, malign finance, and civil society subversion.
Patriots’ Day: How Far-Right Groups Hijack History and Patriotic Symbols to Advance Their Cause, According to an Expert on Extremism
Extremist groups have attempted to change the meaning of freedom and liberty embedded in Patriots’ Day — a commemoration of the battles of Lexington and Concord – to serve their far-right rhetoric, recruitment, and radicalization. Understanding how patriotic symbols can be exploited offers important insights into how historical narratives may be manipulated, potentially leading to harmful consequences in American society.
Trump Aims to Shut Down State Climate Policies
President Donald Trump has launched an all-out legal attack on states’ authority to set climate change policy. Climate-focused state leaders say his administration has no legal basis to unravel their efforts.
Vaccine Integrity Project Says New FDA Rules on COVID-19 Vaccines Show Lack of Consensus, Clarity
Sidestepping both the FDA’s own Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee and the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), two Trump-appointed FDA leaders penned an opinion piece in the New England Journal of Medicine to announce new, more restrictive, COVID-19 vaccine recommendations. Critics say that not seeking broad input into the new policy, which would help FDA to understand its implications, feasibility, and the potential for unintended consequences, amounts to policy by proclamation.
Twenty-One Things That Are True in Los Angeles
To understand the dangers inherent in deploying the California National Guard – over the strenuous objections of the California governor – and active-duty Marines to deal with anti-ICE protesters, we should remind ourselves of a few elementary truths, writes Benjamin Wittes. Among these truths: “Not all lawful exercises of authority are wise, prudent, or smart”; “Not all crimes require a federal response”; “Avoiding tragic and unnecessary confrontations is generally desirable”; and “It is thus unwise, imprudent, and stupid to take actions for performative reasons that one might reasonably anticipate would increase the risks of such confrontations.”
Luigi Mangione and the Making of a ‘Terrorist’
Discretion is crucial to the American tradition of criminal law, Jacob Ware and Ania Zolyniak write, noting that “lawmakers enact broader statutes to empower prosecutors to pursue justice while entrusting that they will stay within the confines of their authority and screen out the inevitable “absurd” cases that may arise.” Discretion is also vital to maintaining the legitimacy of the legal system. In the prosecution’s case against Luigi Mangione, they charge, “That discretion was abused.”