• Assad government profits from a policy of enforced disappearances – 65,000 disappeared so far

    A new report by Amnesty International reveals the vast scale and chillingly orchestrated nature of tens of thousands of enforced disappearances by the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad over the past four years. The report reveals that the state is profiting from widespread and systematic enforced disappearances amounting to crimes against humanity, through an insidious black market in which family members desperate to find out the fates of their disappeared relatives are ruthlessly exploited for cash. The scale of the disappearances is harrowing. The report documents at least 65,000 disappearances since 2011 — 58,000 of them civilians. Those taken are usually held in overcrowded detention cells in appalling conditions and cut off from the outside world. Many die as a result of rampant disease, torture, and extrajudicial execution.

  • Update issued for southeast Florida regional sea level rise projections

    The four-county Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact (Compact) has prepared an update to the regional sea level rise projections used for important planning purposes. Overall, the update includes minor changes to the short-term curves, but a more significant increase in the mid-and long-term projections. The 2015 update estimates sea level rise of 6 to 10 inches by 2030, or 3 to 5 inches above average sea level in 2015. Predictions for the mid-term are between 11 and 22 inches of additional sea level rise by 2060, and longer-term between 28 and 57 inches by 2100.

  • New York proposes new sea-level rise projection regulations

    New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) announced last week that to better prepare New York State coastal communities and business owners for extreme weather events like Superstorm Sandy three years ago, DEC is proposing new state sea-level rise projections which will help state agencies and project planners develop more resilient structures. “The sea-level rise projections DEC is proposing today reflect the best science available,” said DEC acting commissioner. “Sea level projections will help state agencies, developers, planners and engineers to reduce risks posed by rising seas and coastal storms over the next several decades.”

  • Finnish security services: Increase in number of asylum seekers raised terrorism threat

    The Finnish Security Intelligence Service (FSIS) on Tuesday said that the rise in the number of asylum seekers had increased the threat of terrorism in Finland. Finland uses a national terrorism warning system, and the FSIS yesterday raised the warning level from “very low” to “low.” Finland expects 30,000-35,000 asylum seekers to arrive this year, compared with 3,600 in 2014.

  • FBI delays release of interactive tool to identify violent extremists

    Facing criticism, the FBI has decided to delay the release of “Don’t Be a Puppet,” an interactive program aiming to help teachers and students identify young people who show signs of flirting with radicalism and violent extremism. The program was scheduled for release Monday (yesterday). Civil rights advocates and American Muslim leaders, invited by the agency to preview the program, harshly criticized it for focusing almost exclusively on Islamic extremism. They noted that practically all the mass school shootings – and most of the violence perpetrated by extremists — in the United States had nothing to do with Islamic militants.

  • West Coast lawmakers ask Obama for $16.1 million to complete earthquake early warning system

    Last Wednesday thirty-six Members of Congress from western states urged President Barack Obama and the White House’s Office of Management and Budget to increase the funding level for earthquake hazards programs in their 2017 budget request — more specifically, to provide $16.1 million dollars in funding for an on-shore Earthquake Early Warning System (EEW) being developed by scientists in Southern California and along the West Coast. The lawmakers say that such an early warning system would be helpful in providing residents and first responders with advance notice that could help save lives, avoid injuries, and avert major infrastructure damage by slowing trains to prevent derailment, stopping elevators, pausing surgeries, and taking other actions in the event of a major earthquake.

  • Leading tech companies get failing grade for their privacy policies

    The Ranking Digital Rights’ report, 2015 Corporate Accountability Index, find that the world’s leading technology companies deserve a failing grade for their privacy policies and the level of protection they offer their users. Some of the companies have also been found lacking for their freedom of expression practices. “Even the companies that ranked highest are missing the mark in some ways, and improvements are needed across the board to demonstrate a greater commitment to users’ freedom of expression and privacy,” the report says.

  • Climate change heightening the risk of conflict and war

    Thirty of Australia’s leading minds from defense, academia, policy think tanks, and other government agencies have joined together for discussions over two days last week for Australia’s first climate security summit. The summit participants agreed that increasing temperatures, rising sea levels, changing rainfall patterns, and more frequent and severe extreme weather events are heightening the risk of conflict and increasing the displacement of people. The summit organizers quote Brigadier-General Wendell Christopher King (Ret.), the Chief Academic Officer at the U.S. Army’s Command and General Staff College, who said: “[Climate change] is like getting embroiled in a war that lasts 100 years — there is no exit-strategy.”

  • Court imposes limits on detention of immigrants in deportation cases

    Last Wednesday the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit court in Manhattan ruled that some immigrants who are waiting for deportation cases to be heard, could not be held in detention longer than six months without a bail hearing. The decision by the federal appeals court followed a similar ruling last week in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in California. The two decisions thus align detention rules in the nation’s largest immigrant centers – New York and Los Angeles.

  • U.K. surveillance bill debate: Judicial warrants vs. ministerial authorization for intercepts

    Former Conservative shadow home secretary David Davis has said that the plans to grant police and intelligence agencies new powers to monitor suspects online will not get through parliament without a requirement for judges to sign off on spying warrants. A legal report written at the request of Home Secretary Theresa May recommended that judicial warrant rather than a ministerial authorization be required for intercepting individuals’ communications. Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee, however, recommended in March that ministerial authorization would be preferable. A draft of a new investigatory powers bill will be published Wednesday, and May said she would “be explaining the government’s position to parliament this week.”

  • Legislation would give U.K. police powers to access U.K. computer users’ browsing history

    The U.K. police and intelligence service, ahead of the publication this coming Wednesday of legislation on regulating surveillance powers, have urged the government to give them the power to view the Internet browsing history of British computer users. Senior officers were pressuring the government to revive measures which would require telecommunications companies to retain for twelve months data which would reveal Web sites visited by customers. The police and intelligence agencies argue that such measures are necessary because the scale of online activity has made traditional methods of surveillance and investigation less useful.

  • IRS commissioner confirms agency employs cellphone tracking devices

    IRS commissioner John Koskinen on Tuesday confirmed to lawmakers that his agency employed StingRay cellphone tracking devices. Koskinen said that the agency’s use of StingRay devices is limited to its criminal investigations division, which is responsible of investigating money laundering, terrorism, and organized crime cases. “It can only be used with a court order. It can only be used based on probable cause of criminal activity,” Koskinen said, the Hill reports. “It is not used in civil matters at all,” he continued. “It’s not used by other employees of the IRS.”

  • Centralized leadership, major reform needed to bolster U.S. biodefense

    A comprehensive report on U.S. biodefense efforts calls for major reforms to strengthen America’s ability to confront intentionally introduced, accidentally released, and naturally occurring biological threats. The report details U.S. vulnerability to bioterrorism and deadly outbreaks and emphasizes the need to transform the way the U.S. government is organized to confront these threats. Recommendations include centralizing leadership in the Office of the Vice President; establishing a White House Biodefense Coordination Council; strengthening state, local, territorial, and tribal capabilities; and promoting innovation through sustained biodefense prioritization and funding.

  • Online tool maps terrorist networks, behavior over time

    To allow a better understanding of how terrorist organizations network and function over time, the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) has launched the Big Allied and Dangerous (BAAD) online platform. The tool features updated, vetted, and sourced narratives and relationship information and social network data on fifty of the most notorious terrorist organizations in the world since 1998, with additional network information on more than 100 organizations. The research team plans to expand the database and online platform to include more than 600 terrorist organizations.

  • Carter details shift in U.S. ISIS strategy

    Speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said that the U.S. military will intensify airstrikes and may carry out unilateral ground raids as it steps up its campaign against Islamic State. The shift in U.S. policy comes after the administration had concluded that the previous approach, which was based on equipping and training carefully vetted moderate Syrian rebels, has failed. Carter said similar missions were likely as U.S. forces adapted to the fight in Syria and Iraq.