Counterterrorism
Khalid Turaani knows what it's like to be on a secret government watchlist. He learned about his status on it not from an official letter or communication, but when TSA officers stopped him from flying one day in 2017. “They told me that I am on the no-fly list and that I cannot…
A California man was sentenced today to 20 years in prison for attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, aka ISIS. Bernard Raymond Augustine, 25, of Keyes, was convicted by a federal…
Military & Defense
China and Russia are bent on changing the "rules-based current global order," according to America's top general. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley's prognosis, offered on Tuesday as he asked Congress for more money for the Pentagon, is for an era where…
A military partnership between the U.S., the U.K. and Australia will be expanded to focus on developing hypersonic missiles, amid concerns that the U.S. and its allies are falling behind potential rivals including China in testing such weapons. Hypersonic missiles fly at more…
Cybersecurity
Hamas-linked APT Group targeting high-ranking Israelis with new new malware APT-C-23, a Hamas-linked attack group, is said to be involved in a sophisticated catfishing campaign targeting high ranking Israeli officials. Beyond elaborate Facebook-focused social…
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has wrested control of thousands of routers and firewall appliances away from Russian military hackers by hijacking the same infrastructure Moscow's spies were using to communicate with the devices, U.S. officials said on…
Counterintelligence & Espionage
In the course of just 48 hours, 200 Russian diplomats were either expelled or declared "persona non grata" in Europe. Officially, the diplomats stand accused of being involved in espionage, but it is widely understood that these latest expulsions are a reaction to recent…
A privacy rights org this week lost an appeal [PDF] in a case about the sharing of Bulk Personal Datasets (BPDs) of UK residents by MI5, MI6, and GCHQ with foreign intelligence agencies. The British agencies have never stated, in public, whether any of them have…
Transnational Organized Crime
The scenario is common in Texas: A speeding vehicle with tinted windows is pulled over by law enforcement who notice a dozen people lying down in the back seat. The teenage driver has no explanation for where he is going or what he is doing. Illegal border smuggling has…
Waging a campaign against gangs responsible for El Salvador having one of the world's highest murder rates, Congress in the Central American republic passed a bill on Tuesday criminalizing the publication of gang messages, including by news outlets…