• Intelligence Agencies Have Used AI Since the Cold War – but Now Face New Security Challenges

    Intelligence agencies, including the CIA and the NSA, have been using earlier forms of AI since the start of the cold war. Today, budgetary constraints, human limitations and increasing levels of information were making it impossible for intelligence agencies to produce analysis fast enough for policy makers. The increasing use of AI aims to help intelligence agencies cope with such challenges, but AI creates both opportunities and challenges for these agencies.

  • Focus of 9/11 Families’ Lawsuit Against Saudi Arabia Turns to a Saudi Student Who May Have Been a Spy

    Twenty years after the Sept. 11 attacks, declassified FBI documents have changed a big piece of the story about possible Saudi government help to the hijackers. Families of the victims want more information.

  • CCP’s Increasingly Sophisticated Cyber-enabled Influence Operation

    Last week DOJ announced police officers from China’s Ministry of Public Security (MPS) created thousands of fake online personas on social media sites to target Chinese dissidents through online harassment and threats. The announcement marked the first definitive public attribution to a specific Chinese government agency of covert malign activities on social media. The MPS, however, is one of many party-controlled organizations that analysts have long suspected of conducting covert and coercive operations to influence users on social media.

  • To Restrict, or Not to Restrict, That Is the Quantum Question

    Innovation power—the ability to invent, scale, and adapt emerging technologies—will determine which country prevails in the great power competition of the 21st century. Export controls thus assume a central position in the U.S. foreign policy toolkit, carrying the ability to significantly impact an adversary’s innovation potential. “U.S. policymakers are right to identify quantum information science as a critical technology area ripe for restriction, but introducing export controls now is likely to cause more harm than good.,” Sam Howell writes.

  • Colorado River Water Plan Could Trigger Unprecedented Supply Cuts, Ripple Effects on Key Industries

    Decades of drought and overuse have brought the river’s water levels to historic lows. States in the Lower Colorado River Basin — Arizona, California and Nevada — now must choose between one of three options proposed by the federal government. The economic impact of the river’s dwindling water supplies is could be disastrous.

  • Following Yoon-Biden Summit, South Korean Conservatives Criticize “Nuclear Shackles”

    The United States’ pledge to reinforce its nuclear umbrella protecting South Korea has failed to quiet some South Korean conservatives who want their country to develop nuclear weapons. In meetings between President Joe Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, the United States vowed to deploy more “strategic assets,” such as nuclear-capable submarines, long-range bombers and aircraft carriers, to South Korea. In return, South Korea stated its “full confidence” in the U.S. defense commitment and reaffirmed it would not pursue nuclear weapons.

  • Stopping Illegal Gun Trafficking Through South Florida

    American-made guns trafficked through Florida ports are destabilizing the Caribbean and Central America and fueling domestic crime. It’s time for the United States to get serious about stopping the flow.

  • “Smart” Tech Coming to a City Near You

    The data-driven smart tech trend extends far beyond our kitchens and living rooms. Will real-time sensors and data offer new solutions to the challenges cities face, or just exacerbate existing inequalities?

  • Texas Senate Passes Bill Limiting Farmland Sales to China, Other Countries

    The Texas Senate on Wednesday gave final approval to a bill that limits the sale of Texas farmland to citizens and entities associated with China and several other countries. The amended bill is a dramatically watered-down version of an earlier proposal that sought to ban land and home purchases by citizens of China and three other countries.

  • Forced Water-Use Cuts Made California More Waterwise

    After a drought-stricken California lifted a year of mandatory water-use cuts that were effective in 2015 and 2016, urban water use crept back up somewhat, but the overall lasting effect was a more waterwise Golden State.

  • Most Existing Methods to Tackle Conspiracy Beliefs Are Ineffective

    New study finds that traditional fact-based counterarguments to conspiracy beliefs don’t work. Approaches to fostering critical thinking and an analytical mindset are more promising.

  • SPFPA Disney Local under DOL Investigation

    Three officers of a Walt Disney Land local police security union allegedly received payoffs to affiliate with a national union, according to sources, and the U.S. Department of Labor is now investigating.

  • Two Men Sentenced in Plot to Attack Power Grids in the United States

    Two men were sentenced in federal court Friday, 21 April, for crimes related to a scheme to attack power grids in the United States in furtherance of racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism. DHS and the FBI have warned that domestic terrorists were increasingly focused on disrupting the U.S. power grid.

  • U.S.-China Tech Competition Expands to AI Regulations

    Competition between the U.S. and China in artificial intelligence has expanded into a race to design and implement comprehensive AI regulations. The efforts to come up with rules to ensure AI’s trustworthiness, safety, and transparency come at a time when governments around the world are exploring the impact of the technology on national security and education.

  • The Liberal Cyber Order

    Grand strategy is a theory of security, a logical narrative about how states employ the instruments of national power to make themselves safe. States may choose from a variety of grand strategies. Joshua Rovner writes that two grand strategies are particularly important to the current U.S. debate: restraint and liberal internationalism. Last month the Biden administration released its National Cybersecurity Strategy, which offers a full display of the foundations of liberal internationalism. This is surprising, since Joe Biden’s approach to national security has always blended liberal ideals with realist restraint.