Poynter – Al Tompkins: “The quick version of the story is this: A majority of Supreme Court justices ruled that if Congress wishes for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to be able to require private-sector workers to be vaccinated or undergo testing, then Congress should say so in legislation. Short of that, the court… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Defense
Five of world’s most powerful nations pledge to avoid nuclear war
The Guardian: “Five of the world’s most powerful nations have agreed that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought” in a rare joint pledge to reduce the risk of such a conflict ever starting. The pledge was signed by the US, Russia, China, the UK and France, the five nuclear weapons… Continue Reading
An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security
An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security – October 2003. By Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall. Report prepared for U.S. Dept. of Defense. Released to the public in early February 2004. See also The Pentagon’s Weather Nightmare. The climate could change radically, and fast. That would be the mother… Continue Reading
SIPRI Top 100 Arms-Producing and Military Services Companies 2020
SPIRI Fact Sheet, December 21, 2021: “The combined arms sales of the world’s largest arms-producing and military services companies (the SIPRI Top 100) were $531 billion in 2020 This represents an increase of 1.3 per cent on their arms sales in 2019. Despite this being the smallest increase in arms sales among the Top 100… Continue Reading
Bruce Mehlman’s Top 2022 Risks Deck
Bruce Mehlman of Mehlman Castagnetti – his 29 slide deck is titled Living in Limbo – Anticipating the Top 2022 Risks in Politics & Policy “Uncertainty, volatility & disruption are the new normal. 2022 will neither be the best of times nor worst of times. COVID won’t magically go away nor kill us all. The… Continue Reading
This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends
Bloomsbury – The Cyberweapons Arms Race – Nicole Perlroth (Author): “Zero day: a software bug that allows a hacker to break into your devices and move around undetected. One of the most coveted tools in a spy’s arsenal, a zero day has the power to silently spy on your iPhone, dismantle the safety controls at… Continue Reading
DoD IG Report – A Review of DoD’s Response to Jan 6 2021 Insurrection
Review of the Department of Defense’s Role, Responsibilities, and Actions to Prepare for and Respond to the Protest and Its Aftermath at the U.S. Capital Campus on January 2021 [Redacted]. November 16, 2021: “…To conduct the review, we assembled a multidisciplinary team of DoD OIG administrative and criminal investigators, evaluators, auditors, and attorneys. We examined… Continue Reading
Surveillance Technology at the Fair: Proliferation of Cyber Capabilities in International Arms Markets
The Atlantic Council: “State cyber capabilities are increasingly abiding by the “pay-to-play” model—both US/NATO allies and adversaries can purchase interception and intrusion technologies from private firms for intelligence and surveillance purposes. NSO Group has repeatedly made headlines in 2021 for targeting government entities in cyberspace, but there are many more companies selling similar products that are just… Continue Reading
Department of Defense Climate Risk Analysis October 2021
“Climate change is reshaping the geostrategic, operational, and tactical environments with significant implications for U.S. national security and defense. Increasing temperatures; changing precipitation patterns; and more frequent, intense, and unpredictable extreme weather conditions caused by climate change are exacerbating existing risks and creating new security challenges for U.S. interests. The risks of climate change to… Continue Reading
Director of National Intelligence Inaugural Estimate on Climate Change
National Intelligence Estimate – Climate Change and International Responses Increasing Challenges to US National Security Through 2040. October 21, 2021. “We assess that climate change will increasingly exacerbate risks to US national security interests as the physical impacts increase and geopolitical tensions mount about how to respond to the challenge. Global momentum is growing for more… Continue Reading
The Right to be Forgotten’ and its Unintended Consequences to Intelligence Gathering
Goldfield, Charlene, ‘The Right to be Forgotten’ and its Unintended Consequences to Intelligence Gathering (July 1, 2020). Volume 32, Issue 2, Winter 2020 , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3898887 “Social media has dramatically changed how we interact and communicate with one another. The reliance on social media has also sparked many international debates revolving around privacy.… Continue Reading
NSA, CISA publish guide for securing VPN servers
The Record: “The National Security Agency (NSA) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have published today technical guidance on properly securing VPN servers used by organizations to allow employees remote access to internal networks. The NSA said it put together the nine-page guide [PDF] after “multiple nation-state advanced persistent threat (APT) actors” weaponized… Continue Reading
