• Pegasus Spyware Maker NSO Is Conducting a Lobbying Campaign to Get Off U.S. Blacklist

    The cybersecurity firm has invested heavily in top lobbyists and law firms in an effort to lift restrictions on doing business in America. NSO is hoping the Israeli prime minister will raise the issue with Joe Biden when the two meet this week.

  • Global Summit on the Use of Drones

    Over 300 participants from more than 50 countries have converged in the Norwegian capital to attend INTERPOL’s fourth expert conference on the use of drones, representing a multitude of law enforcement agencies as well as attendees with security and emergency preparedness functions.

  • 3D X-Ray Makes it Easier to Detect Hidden Explosive Weapons

    As travelers pass through border crossings, ports of call, airport checkpoints, and various precautionary measures in both federal and private venues, their safety and wellbeing are constantly ensured through various forms of screening technologies that have one critical goal: to identify and alert the proper authorities to potential threats. These technologies do their jobs very effectively, but it is important to ask the question: Can they be improved?

  • Computer Code to Speed Up Airport Security

    Imagine moving through airport security without having to take off your shoes or belt or getting pulled aside. Researchers are working on the Open Threat Assessment Platform, which allows the Transportation Security Administration to respond more quickly and easily to threats to air travel safety.

  • SWAT Team Members as Amateur Inventors Who Make a Difference

    SWAT teams routinely enter dangerous situations where they need to make difficult, potentially life-and-death decisions. Such challenging circumstances present opportunities for innovation, and these first responders are often amateur inventors as well.

  • AI and Policing: What a Queensland Case Study Tells Us

    Law enforcement agencies consider artificial intelligence a force multiplier because it can rapidly process more data than human brains and yield insights to help solve complex analytical problems. Our limited understanding of how AI algorithms make decisions and produce their insights, however, presents a significant challenge to ethically and safely implementing AI policing solutions.

  • Spain Sacks Intelligence Chief in Wake of Pegasus Scandal

    Paz Esteban was replaced after a controversy over the use of the Pegasus spyware to hack top Spanish officials’ cellphones, as well as spying on Catalan separatists.

  • The Movement to Ban Government Use of Face Recognition

    Our faces are unique identifiers that can’t be left at home, or replaced like a stolen ID or compromised password. Facial recognition technology facilitates covert mass surveillance of the places we frequent, people we associate with, and, purportedly, our emotional state. Communities across the country are fighting back.

  • Geoelectrical Methods in Search for Hidden Graves

    Rather than digging to identify unmarked mass grave sites or evidence to locate missing persons, cutting-edge technologies are helping law enforcement agents, forensic scientists and historians uncover attempts to hide victims.

  • Google Fights Dragnet Warrant for Users’ Search Histories Overseas, but It Is Continuing to Give Data to Police in the U.S.

    Google is fighting back against a Brazilian court order to turn over data on all users who searched for specific terms, including the name of a well-known elected official and a busy downtown thoroughfare. Google should be applauded for challenging this digital dragnet search in Brazil, but the company must also stand up for the rights of its users against similar searches in the U.S. and elsewhere.

  • DIY Innovations for Bomb Squads

    Bomb-squad members must effectively employ critical thinking and problem-solving skills while working in stressful, potentially life-threatening situations. DHS S&T notes that bomb technicians’ ability to expect the unexpected and adjust accordingly has created a consistent pipeline of do-it-yourself (DIY) inventions to solve everyday issues they face, and the S&T works to validate these innovations.

  • We Need Answers about the CIA’s Mass Surveillance

    The Central Intelligence Agency has been collecting American’s private data without any oversight or even the minimal legal safeguards that apply to the NSA and FBI, an unconstitutional affront to our civil liberties. The whos, whats, whys, and hows of this semi-disclosed CIA program are still unknown, and the public deserves the right to know exactly what damage has been done.

  • Broad, and Likely Unauthorized, Use of Pegasus Spyware by Israel's Police Shocks Israel

    Since 2015, Israel’s police has employed the intrusive Pegasus spyware to spy on businesspeople, journalists and editors, senior managers of government ministries and agencies, leaders of protest movements, and more – and it appears that in many, if not most, of these cases, the spying was done without judicial approval or after judges were misled by the police about the nature of the monitoring technology. The Pegasus software has been used by authoritarian governments around the world to spy on political opponents, human rights activist, journalists – and in at least one case, to spy on U.S. diplomats. The U.S. has blacklisted the Israeli company NSO, Pegasus maker, and American companies are not allowed to sell their technology to NSO or do business with it

  • Robot Dogs Soon to Be Deployed at the Border

    DHS ST is offering a helping hand (or “paw”) with new robotic dog technology that can assist with enhancing the capabilities of CBP personnel, while simultaneously increasing their safety downrange.

  • Israeli Police: From Warrantless Cellphone Searches to Controversial Misuse of Spyware

    Israel’s rules governing privacy and related laws have experienced a dramatic past few weeks, capped by an explosive journalistic expose revealing that Israeli police have been using NSO Group spyware allegedly without warrants or explicit statutory authorization.