ISIS in America: From Retweets to Raqqa, by Lorenzo Vidino and Seamus Hughes, George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, December 2015. “Searching for Answers – What explains the recent surge in American jihadi recruits? Who are the Americans lured by the siren songs of ISIS’s propaganda? How do they embrace such radical ideology, turning their… Continue Reading
Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery Since 2002
Category Archives: Defense
Testimony – Federal Government’s Responsibilities and Liabilities Under Nuclear Waste Policy Act
Kim Cawley, Chief of CBO’s Natural and Physical Resources Cost Estimates Unit, testifies on the Nuclear Waste Policy Act before the Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy, Committee on Energy and Commerce, U.S. House of Representatives. December 3, 2015. “This testimony provides updated information about the federal government’s responsibilities and liabilities under the Nuclear Waste… Continue Reading
Replacing Military Personnel in Support Positions With Civilian Employees
CBO Report – “Only military personnel engage in combat operations, according to U.S. government policies. However, either military personnel, civilian employees of the Department of Defense (DoD), or contractors may carry out support functions, such as accounting services. In 2012, about 340,000 active-duty military personnel were assigned to commercial positions that perform support functions. Those… Continue Reading
The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work
The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work, Phillip Rogaway, Department of Computer Science, University of California, Davis, USA. December 1, 2015: “Cryptography rearranges power: it configures who can do what, from what. This makes cryptography an inherently political tool, and it confers on the field an intrinsically moral dimension. The Snowden revelations motivate a reassessment of… Continue Reading
Testimony on CBO’s Analysis of the Navy’s Fiscal Year 2016 Shipbuilding Plan
Testimony by Eric J. Labs, Senior Analyst for Naval Forces and Weapons, before the Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces, Committee on Armed Services, U.S. House of Representatives, December 1, 2015. The submitted statement reprises CBO’s report, An Analysis of the Navy’s Fiscal Year 2016 Shipbuilding Plan, which was released on October 29, 2015. That… Continue Reading
Final Report of the Task Force on Combatting Terrorist and Foreign Fighter Travel
Via FAS – House Committee on Homeland Security, Final Report of the Task Force on Combatting Terrorist and Foreign Fighter Travel, October 2015. “Today we are witnessing the largest global convergence of jihadists in history, as individuals from more than 100 countries have migrated to the conflict zone in Syria and Iraq since 2011. Some… Continue Reading
Global Terrorism Index 2015
Global Terrorism Index 2015 – “Produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace, the GTI is based on data from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) which is collected and collated by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. The GTD is considered to be the most comprehensive dataset on terrorist… Continue Reading
ODNI Announces Transition to New Telephone Metadata Program
News release: “Beginning Sunday, November 29, the government is prohibited from collecting telephone metadata records in bulk under Section 215, including of both U.S. and non-U.S. persons. And, while under the prior program NSA collected metadata in bulk and sought court approval for individual queries, the USA FREEDOM Act requires that the government must now… Continue Reading
Application of the Critical-Path Method to Evaluate Insider Risks
Via CIA – Application of the Critical-Path Method to Evaluate Insider Risks, Eric Shaw and Laura Sellers. Studies in Intelligence Vol 59, No. 2 (Extracts, June 2015). “Our purpose in this article is to draw on the most recent and comprehensive empirical studies of insider hostile acts—ranging from formal academic efforts to collections of in-depth… Continue Reading
Brookings Project Paper – The ISIS Twitter Census
The Brookings Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World – An Analysis Paper | No. 20, March 2015. The ISIS Twitter Census – Defining and describing the population of ISIS supporters on Twitter. J.M. Berger and Jonathon Morgan. “The Islamic State, known as ISIS or ISIL, has exploited social media, most notoriously Twitter, to… Continue Reading
GAO Reports – Electronic Monitoring, DHS Biosurveillance
Electronic Monitoring: Draft National Standard for Offender Tracking Systems Addresses Common Stakeholder Needs, GAO-16-10: Published: Oct 26, 2015. Publicly Released: Nov 25, 2015: “OTS is an electronic monitoring technology consisting of hardware, such as an ankle bracelet, used for collecting Global Positioning System (GPS) signals to determine an individual’s location, and software for analyzing data… Continue Reading
The Islamic State – Frequently Asked Questions: Threats, Global Implications, and U.S. Policy Responses
CRS – The Islamic State — Frequently Asked Questions: Threats, Global Implications, and U.S. Policy Responses, John W. Rollins, Specialist in Terrorism and National Security. Heidi M. Peters, Information Research Specialist. November 19, 2015. “When addressing threats emanating from the Islamic State (IS), numerous strategy and operational considerations arise that might be of interest to… Continue Reading
