Prediction

Trump is headed for a win, says professor who has predicted 30 years of presidential outcomes correctly

Nobody knows for certain who will win on Nov. 8 — but one man is pretty sure: Professor Allan Lichtman, who has correctly predicted the winner of the popular vote in every presidential election since 1984.
When we sat down in May, he explained how he comes to a decision. Lichtman's prediction isn't based on horse-race polls, shifting demographics or his own political opinions. Rather, he uses a system of true/false statements he calls the "Keys to the White House" to determine his predicted winner.
And this year, he says, Donald Trump is the favorite to win.
The keys, which are explained in depth in Lichtman’s book “Predicting the Next President: The Keys to the White House 2016” are:
Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections...

War on terror

ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is seriously ill after assassin POISONS his food 

ISIS ringleader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is reportedly seriously ill after having his food poisoned by an assassin. 

Meals prepared for the ISIS leader and three other commanders of the terrorist organisation were allegedly poisoned in the Be'aaj district, southwest of Nineveh.

A source told Iraqi news agency WAA the four are suffering from 'severe poisoning' and 'have been transferred to an unknown location under strict measures.'

The terror group have reportedly launched a campaign of arrests to track down those responsible. 

Baghdadi is credited with transforming the breakaway al-Qaeda group turning it into the independent ISIS group that is arguably the most powerful and wealthiest jihadist organisation in the world.

Under his leadership, the group spearheaded a militant offensive that expanded into Syria in 2013 and which later overran much of Iraq's Sunni Arab heartland.

Immigration security

Majority of Paris & Brussels attackers infiltrated EU posing as refugees – Hungarian intelligence

The majority of Islamic State militants directly involved in carrying out the Paris and Brussels terrorist attacks used the Balkan route to enter Europe under the guise of being refugees, the Hungarian intelligence chief stated.

TrendsEU refugee & migrant influx, France terror attacks, Global terrorism, Islamic State

Analysis of phone call intercepts established that seven of the nine attackers involved in the November Paris onslaught, which killed 130 and injured 368 people, entered the EU through Hungary last year, the Hungarian Counter Terrorism Center (TEK) chief, General Zsolt Bodnar, revealed. The seven were allegedly part of a larger 14-member terrorist cell that used Hungary as the springboard for their bloody actions in Europe. 

Communications security

The Clearest (No Spin) Summary of FBI Report on Hillary Clinton Email

The FBI could not review all of the Hillary Clinton emails under investigation because:

• The Clintons’ Apple personal server used for Hillary Clinton work email could not be located for the FBI to examine.
• An Apple MacBook laptop and thumb drive that contained Hillary Clinton email archives were lost, and the FBI couldn’t examine them.
• 2 BlackBerry devices provided to FBI didn’t have their SIM or SD data cards.
• 13 Hillary Clinton personal mobile devices were lost, discarded or destroyed. Therefore, the FBI couldn’t examine them.
• Various server backups were deleted over time, so the FBI couldn’t examine them.
• After State Dept. notified Hillary Clinton her records would be sought by House Benghazi Committee, copies of her email on the laptops of her attorneys Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson were wiped with BleachBit, and the FBI couldn’t review them.
• After her emails were subpoenaed, Hillary Clinton’s email archive was also permanently deleted from her then-server “PRN” with BleachBit, and the FBI couldn’t review it.
• Also after the subpoena, backups of the PRN server were manually deleted.

Election security

Russian server co. head on DNC hack: ‘No idea’ why FBI still has not contacted us

Blaming Russia because servers are from here is “absurd,” Vladimir Fomenko, owner of the Russian server company implicated in the DNC hack, told RT adding that they are ready to help any special service in investigating the attack.

Fomenko’s web hosting service, King Servers, was identified by American cybersecurity company ThreatConnect as the platform for the attack on emails of the Democratic National Committee. Six out of the eight IP addresses used by the hackers were hosted on King Servers, ThreatConnect claimed in September.But the 26-year-old from Biysk, in western Siberia, is far from being scared or unwilling to cooperate. In fact, he recently told the New York Times that “If the FBI asks, we are ready to supply the IP addresses, the logs.” However, he says, “Nobody is asking… It’s like nobody wants to sort this out.”

Fomenko tells RT he was as surprised to learn from US media that his company was somehow implicated. He also believes that the only connection to Russia the Americans really have is the servers being from there.

Nuclear security

North Korea Building Massive New Ballistic Missile Submarine For Nuclear Strikes

Satellite footage reveals that North Korea is building a new massive submarine for the purpose of deploying ballistic nuclear missiles as the regime continues its march towards full nuclear strike capability against the growing concern of the international community.
"Commercial satellite imagery strongly suggests that a naval construction program is underway at North Korea’s Sinpo South Shipyard, possibly to build a new submarine," the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University said on its website 38 North.

"If this activity is indeed to build a new submarine, it would appear to be larger than North Korea’s GORAE-class experimental ballistic missile submarine, which has a beam of approximately 7 meters," said the analysts with the US-Korea Institute.

Personal security

Inside Donald Trump’s Surveillance Operations

The suburban house on Water Mark Place in Sterling, Virginia, doesn’t look like a Donald Trump residence: no classical columns, no gold accents. But sources say it has one feature, common to many Trump properties, which opens a window onto the candidate’s worldview: an extensive and closely-monitored surveillance system.

The interior is monitored by multiple surveillance cameras, according to three former Trump employees familiar with the house. The video is watched remotely by Trump’s security team 250 miles away in New York City, the sources said.

Trump’s adjacent golf club, the Trump National Golf Club, also has an extensive web of surveillance cameras, these former employees said. The technology includes a license plate reader to record who comes and goes from the club, two of the sources said.

Cybersecurity

THE SPY WHO LIKED ME 

Real-life James Bonds struggling to become MI6 spies because their fake Facebook profiles aren’t good enough to fool villains

RECRUITS hoping to join the ranks of Britain’s top spooks are being turned away because they’re too trigger happy — on FACEBOOK.

Real-life James Bonds are leaving too obvious an online trail of activity — making them easier targets for enemy agents.

It has left MI6 chiefs hitting out at the rise of social media because it is now more difficult for potential spies to remain in the shadows.

That’s according to Nigel Inkster, former director of operations at the foreign intelligence agency.

He said the tool that was indispensable to spies just a few years ago — the ability to adopt different personas — is today nearly impossible because of the likes of Facebook and Twitter.

“The days in which intelligence officers could plausibly adopt different identities and personas are pretty much coming to an end”, he told the Financial Times.

Electoral battles

Bill Clinton accuser Kathleen Willey: Hillary was complicit in his sexual misconduct

Kathleen Willey — a former volunteer White House aide who accused Bill Clinton of making aggressive, unwanted advances during a private meeting in 1993 — said she holds Hillary Clinton responsible for smearing her and the many other women who have come forward with stories about their treatment at the hands of her husband.

"This no longer about Bill Clinton's transgressions or his infidelities or girlfriends or sex ... it's not about that anymore," Willey told theWashington Examiner. "What it's about is the actions that his wife has taken against the women that he has raped and assaulted."

Corruption

Report: FBI Turns Against Director Comey

FBI Director James Comey was on the Hill again, digging himself a deeper hole of bottomless federal corruption as he faced an oversight hearing held by the House Judiciary Committee.

His prepared statements served to block any chance of reopening the case surrounding Hillary’s blatant illegal email debacle regardless of the mounting evidence that was raised after Comey shut the case back in July of 2016.

Breitbart reported “ When President Obama nominated Comey to become FBI director in 2013, Comey promised the United States Senate that he would recuse himself on all cases involving former employers.

But Comey earned $6 million in one year alone from Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin became a Clinton Foundation donor that very year.

Comey served as deputy attorney general under John Ashcroft for two years of the Bush administration. When he left the Bush administration, he went directly to Lockheed Martin and became vice president, acting as a general counsel.

Corruption

Tracing the Corruption in 5 Institutions That Produced Hillary Clinton as Democratic Nominee

Unless the nation lapses into lunacy on November 8, Hillary Clinton will be our next president. The prospect raises an alarming question we've never before confronted. How can a thriving democracy conceivably elect a president who is dishonest and untrustworthy in the minds of 59% of the people? A woman shown to be a felon but not prosecuted for want of precedent? A woman who lies and contradicts herself, documented in video clips? A bold hypocrite who solicits and accepts hundreds of millions in campaign contributions from Wall Street banks, the armaments industry, and Big Pharma, and claims to abhor Citizens United which enables her to do so?

The answer: we live in a moribund democracy, not a thriving one. A conjunction of corporate political power and immense wealth is forcibly installing a president. We haven't confronted this before, either. We will cast our ritual ballots in November, but not in a free election: the Democratic nominee was imposed upon us by the corporate and the wealthy.
No, we have not been finessed by a patrician coup d'etat nor a secret cabal in sinister conspiracy. Instead we are victimized by systemic corruption in five institutions of public practice, and it is subverting our democracy.
Of immediate concern is the corruption in the Democratic Party. Directly violating the requirement for strict neutrality throughout the primaries, the Democratic National Committee intervened in the process at every opportunity, handicapping the Sanders campaign to assure Hillary Clinton's nomination. The effort was covert, but it was suspected, finally exposed, and ultimately successful.

Election security

FBI Investigating After Dead People Registered To Vote In Swing State

One case came to light after relatives of a deceased man received a note congratulating him for registering, Rockingham County Commonwealth’s Attorney Marsha Garst said Thursday.

“His family members were very distraught,” said Garst, who confirmed the existence of the FBI and police investigation but said she could provide few details because the case is ongoing.

All 19 were initially registered as voters in the Shenandoah Valley city of Harrisonburg, Virginia, which is roughly 130 miles from Washington, D.C., although a clerk double-checking the entries later raised questions about one. She recognized the name of Richard Allen Claybrook Sr., who died in 2014 at age 87, because his son is a well-known local judge. She happened to recall that the judge’s father had died.

Defense

Sweden strengthens "psychological defence"

Sweden has previously expressed interest in joining Stratcom, the Nato strategic communications centre of excellence, and on Thursday the government formally decided to do so.

Minister for Home Affairs Anders Ygeman said he wants to cooperate with countries in the neighbouring region in combating disinformation.

“We will not be part of anyone’s propaganda. What we will do, however, is to increase our own knowledge and capacity and we will contribute to increasing the knowledge and capacity of other countries in the world,” Ygeman said.

On a national level, the Swedish Agency for Public Management has been given the task of investigating what can be done by Swedish authorities in order to strengthen the country’s defence.

Intel history

Effort to recognize World War II spies hung up in Congress

Spies don't work for fame or acclaim. But after 75 years, the men and women who served behind the enemy lines in Nazi Germany and the Pacific theater during World War II wouldn't mind some recognition.

Legislation to award the spies the Congressional Gold Medal has passed the Senate and has more than 300 sponsors in the House, yet the bill is being held up by House Republicans, who recently enacted rules that require a special waiver to grant the medal to groups of people.

"I would be extremely proud to get a gold medal for what we did for our country," said Frank Gleason, 96, one of the few remaining veterans of the Office of Strategic Services, the World War II-era forerunner to the CIA. "What we did was a little exciting."

International security

How Arms Sales Distort US Foreign Policy

Forget oil. In the Middle East, the profits and jobs reaped from tens of billions of dollars in arms sales are becoming the key drivers of U.S. and British policy. Oil still matters, of course. So do geopolitical interests, including military bases, and powerful political lobbies funded by Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the other Gulf states.

But you can’t explain Washington’s deference to Saudi Arabia, despite its criminal war in Yemen and its admitted support for Islamist extremism, without acknowledging the political pull generated by more than $115 billion in U.S. military deals with Saudi Arabia authorized since President Obama took office.

Health security

Russia’s Abortion Debate Is Back

Abortion rights are on the minds of citizens and officials across Europe this week.

In Ireland, protesters marched through the streets of Dublin in the thousands demanding their government hold a referendum to repeal restrictive abortion laws. The same week, the Polish parliament shocked Europe by voting through a draft law on a total abortion ban in its first reading, spurring protests across the country and even a scheduled national women’s strike next week. On Tuesday, Russia also reopened its own abortion debate.

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, endorsed an anti-abortion petition earlier this week. The document, drafted by the religious groups “For Life” and “Orthodox Volunteers,” had been approved by a patriarchal commission on family, motherhood, and children, the church said in a statement.

Cybersecurity

Cyber Threats on Israel’s Air Traffic Control

The National Cyber Defence Authority (NCDA) unit, which is responsible for protecting Israel’s national infrastructures against cyber attacks, assumes the coordination of protecting certain infrastructure, banks and mobile carriers.

Sources told i-HLS that the air traffic control is also included in the list and in a very high place.

Israeli officials consider the cyber attacks as an act of war and some were quoted saying that “This threat is real like rockets that hit our cities”.

This means that the proper Israeli organizations will try and locate the source of the attacks and make an effort to neutralize it .

As it looks now, this is an all-out war, and the concerns are high as signs prove that vital national installations are targeted almost daily.

Human trafficking

Prosecutors want worldwide crackdown on online sex trafficking

Prosecutors from around the world say the fight against sex trafficking is moving online as traffickers use popular websites to advertise sexual services.

They talked Friday about how they can crack down on the problem at an international sex trafficking summit in Waikiki that drew prosecutors from Asia, the US and Canada.

The challenges each nation faces are similar, and victims are often unwilling to cooperate with investigators because they have endured a history of abuse, said Jackie Lacey, Los Angeles County’s district attorney.

People smuggling

CHANGE OF STRATEGY

Sullivan City Police Department also has taken custody of nine suspected human smugglers so far this year. Three of those arrests happened in August including Roque’s. Criminal complaints show Roque, the only women of the three, was also the highest paid. After the traffic stop, she confessed she was promised $250 per person compared to the two male suspects, who said they were getting $100 or $150.

“We are in a corridor,” Ozuna said. “We have to be vigilant for anything and everything – and human smugglers are here. Our residents know it and our officers are always looking out for suspicious activity. Maybe there is a vehicle that maybe has defective equipment, maybe it’s riding all the way down, a defective shock or something, so we conduct a stop and it can lead to just about anything and everything.”

Ozuna said as long as there is probable cause to conduct a traffic stop and the evidence meets the Texas penal code for human smuggling, which includes the use of a motor vehicle and committing the offense for monetary value, they will continue to take on these cases and look for ways to stop these smugglers from exploiting his community and using their roads.

Immigration security

Central Europe's Hard Turn to the Right

The anti-Muslim mood, anchored to recent terrorist activities in France, Germany and Belgium, is part of a call for change across the region. Right-wing leaders are capitalizing on fear and xenophobia to flatly reject incoming Muslim refugees primarily fleeing Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

"What you have here is a perfect storm resulting from the financial crisis in the West, the security crisis and the refugee crisis," says Mabel Berezin, an expert in nationalism in Europe and a sociologist at the department of sociology at Cornell University.

According to a study by the Pew Research Center published in July, 43 percent of the surveyed populations of 10 countries had an unfavorable view of Muslims. Another 59 percent said they believe accepting refugees increases the likelihood of terrorism. The 10 countries included France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland,Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Electoral battles

The surprisingly logical reason Donald Trump is bringing up Bill Clinton's sex scandals

A president sleeping with a White House intern, by contrast, is clear cut-and-dried sexual harassment. It’s absolutely unacceptable behavior toward a subordinate. In a private company, it’s a fireable offense. It might have been accepted as normal in the '90s, but sexual harassment has slowly come to be recognized as a serious offense in workplaces, and exploiting the power of a senior office to get a lower-ranked employee to consent to sex is a particularly egregious manifestation of it.

More to the point, we now have 20 years of hindsight, and it’s clear that the real victim of the imbroglio was Lewinsky herself, who has been denied the ability to live a normal life with relative anonymity and has become an activist against online abuse after enduring loads of it herself.

The even clearer examples of this are cases where Clinton was accused not of consensual sex but of sexual assault. Lewinsky and Clinton’s previous paramour Gennifer Flowers tend to get placed in the same bucket as Juanita Broaddrick, Paula Jones, and Kathleen Willey, but all three of the latter women accused him of sexual assault. Broaddrick claims that Clinton raped her; Jones alleged that he exposed himself to her; Willey accused him of grabbing her breasts and forcing her to touch his genitals.

Navy

BAE to begin work on UK’s multi-billion pound nuclear fleet

Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has revealed details of a £1.3 billion deal with BAE systems to start work on the UK's new nuclear submarine fleet under the Successor program.

Successor is the replacement submarine to the Vanguard Class and was given the green light in July when parliamentvoted to renew the controversial Trident weapons system.

The vote, which ratified plans underlined in the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review, authorises the construction of four submarines to replace the ageing fleet at an estimated cost of £31 billion.

READ MORE: British lawmakers vote to renew Trident nuclear program

Fallon revealed that this BAE deal will allow the project to move into ‘Delivery Phase 1’, meaning work can start on the“auxiliary machine space” of the first submarine; consisting of switchboards and control panels for the reactor.

The budget also allocates funds for the continued design of the submarine, associated purchases and infrastructural investments at the BAE Systems yard in Barrow-in-Furness where the submarines will be built.

Fallon will visit the yard next week for the ceremonial, ‘steel cut’, to mark the start of work.

Weapons

Javelin: The American Military's Ultimate Tank Killer

The U.S.-made FGM-148 Javelin is one of the premier portable anti-tank missile systems in the world. It’s also an expensive piece of kit, with each missile typically costing more than the targets it eliminates.

Still, the infrared guided Javelin has proven itself in combat in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria and has reliable shtick that should work on virtually any tank out there—it hits them on the weak top armor. It’s also exposes its crew to less danger than the typical guided missile system. Because it’s such a lightweight system, it may end up being a first responder on the ground to emergencies that could be described as “massive, unexpected tank invasions”—a scenario the U.S. military could have faced during Operation Desert Shield, when it deployed light infantry to defend Saudi Arabia, and currently fears in the Baltics.

International security

No Bigger Question: How Should the U.S. Handle the Rise of China?

For over a decade, American policymakers have worried that China might be a potential rival to the United States. However, the U.S. government has not implemented a clear plan for how to address and react to changes in the U.S.-China relationship. Columbia University’s Richard K. Betts sees this sort of intellectual paralysis as a pressing problem. He argues that “the longer that there’s no choice … the more dangerous the possibilities of unanticipated confrontation and escalation become.”

The issue evinces a sharp division between national security experts, who, according to Betts, fall into one of two categories. Either they believe the United States should “accommodate the rise of China [and] recognize it as a potential superpower with the natural aspirations and same prerogatives as we have” or they hope to “contain China and forthrightly set out a strategy and set of alliance relationships to prevent China’s rise from going in directions we don’t like.” These two strategies are mutually exclusive.

Information security

FSB urges tighter punishment for using WhatsApp in state agencies

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) is set to prepare a bill that would allow civil servants to be fired for using non-certified internet messengers such as Viber or WhatsApp at work, saying the apps potentially threaten the information security of state agencies.

The decision to charge the security service with the task was taken earlier this week at a working meeting in the presidential administration, attended by representatives of the FSB, the Communications Ministry, the Ministry of Economic Development and other state agencies, Izvestia daily reported on Friday.

READ MORE: Putin bans Russian civil servants from using foreign airlines for business travel

The head of the working group, Ilya Massukh, told reporters that he and his colleagues had agreed that Russian law should be amended to rule out the use of non-certified programs and applications that use encoding for working purposes in state agencies. He named WhatsApp, Viber and Telegram as examples of such software. Massukh also said that the future FSB bill would punish any violation of the ban with disciplinary measures, including dismissal from state service.

Middle East

Report: Iranian spy masters 'running covert war' in Syria

The NCRI claims that the Iranian headquarters play a vital role alongside Russia in supporting Assad's regime. The Iranian HQ holds intelligence, counter intelligence operations and has millions of dollars that are flown from Tehran, according to NCRI claims.

The documents could not be verified independently but were describes as "credible" by "intelligence experts," making the claim that Iran is in control of the largest fighting force in Syria. The documents also point to military bases spread throughout the war-plagued state, with cash reserves far greater than previously thought to support the Syrian regime.

If the claims are correct, the fundamentalist regime and its proxies, mainly Shi'ite paramilitary groups, are much more powerful than previously estimated, with western analysts approximating a fighting force of 16,000.

Intel gathering

The spy who liked me: Britain’s changing secret service

Behind the closed doors of British intelligence, the era of Smiley’s People is giving way to a future of Smiley’s Facebook friends.

Digital disruption is sweeping through the world’s second-oldest profession — spying — and the UK is repurposing its intelligence services with a £1.5bn annual top-up for security available for the first time this year.

For the Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6, which supplies foreign intelligence, this translates into its biggest ever recruitment drive, with as many as 1,000 new staff over the next four years, a 40 per cent rise.

The increase is partly driven by the more threatening geopolitical environment, with a growing challenge from Russia and China and the metastatic resurgence of global jihadism.

But broader, social and technological changes are having a lasting impact — and demanding more fulsome changes to the very nature of spycraft itself.

War on terror

Russia Asked to Intervene in Libya: Gaining Clout in Middle East

Libya's military leader Khalifa Haftar, the commander of the Libyan National Army loyal to the Tobruk-based House of Representatives (HoR), has requested Russia to end its arms embargo on Libya and begin supplying weapons and military equipment to eastern Libyan forces.

According to Russian newspaper Izvestia, Abdel Basset Badri, Haftar’s special representative who also serves as Libya's ambassador to Saudi Arabia, visited Moscow on September 27 to deliver the request addressed to both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

Mr. Badri held talks with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, Russian newspaper Izvestia reported, citing a diplomatic source familiar with the situation.

Fire security

Recent forest fires 'destroyed' 2 million hectares - 'an unprecedented catastrophe in Siberia'

A peak of two million hectares were on fire around 22 September in eastern Siberia, with 'around 900,000 hectares are still on fire today', said Greenpeace, amid concern for children breathing fumes for weeks on end. Students have been sent home from 18 schools in Irkutsk region.

Global warming and 'the ineffectiveness of the authorities' was to blame for the 'unprecedented catastrophe in Siberia', said  spokesman Alexey Yaroshenko.

Yet again there is a gulf in estimates of the burning forests between the authorities and environmentalists, with the Russian federal forestry agency suggesting the much lower figure of 125,000 hectares had been hit. 

The Siberian Times recently highlighted the claims of 'hidden wildfires' not included on official statistics. 

Radiation safety

Your Radiation This Week No 73 and 74

Listed in Counts per Minute, a Count is one Radioactive Decay Registered by the Instrument. The Top Reporting Radioactive Cities are listed. The highest radiation reporting city is listed first, the least radioactive city reporting is listed last.

Still, all reporting cities are above normal. These are a portion of the American cities that exceeded 1,000 CPM these past 2 weeks. 40 Cities are Reporting Radiation Above 1,000 CPM. Take all necessary precautions.

Normal Radiation is 5 to 20 CPM [4]

Rad			TIMES NORMAL	CITY, STATE	TYPE OF RAD	Corrupted
1,700	CPM,	340	Times Normal,	Portland, ME.	Beta, Gamma.	Yes
1,567	CPM,	313.4	Times Normal,	Colorado Sprgs,CO.	Beta, Gamma.	Yes
1,507	CPM,	301.4	Times Normal,	San Diego, CA.	Beta, Gamma.	Yes
1,498	CPM,	299.6	Times Normal,	Navajo Lake, NM.	Beta, Gamma.
1,462	CPM,	292.4	Times Normal,	Little Rock, AR.	Beta, Gamma.	Yes...

Drug smuggling

200 pounds of cocaine, an aristocrat and a worldwide smuggling practice

The MSC Letizia, a container ship, set sail from Santos Port bearing familiar bounties of Brazil such as sugar and coffee.

But nesting amidships on that Friday in June was one container, MEDU3333950, that would carry a different kind of cargo all the way to East Africa.

Its secret load: 200 pounds of cocaine.

The story of MEDU3333950 might have ended there, with a quick seizure by local authorities or an unremarkable arrest, except for this: It has entangled a young Brit of noble birth and a storied London commodities house in a web of global trade and illicit drugs.

And the roundabout journey those drugs apparently took has trained a harsh spotlight on an open secret in the commodities game: Increasingly, smugglers are using industry shipping networks to spirit contraband around the world.

People smuggling

Further Criminalizing People Smuggling Will Not Work

THE NEW YORK Declaration which was the centerpiece of a much-vaunted U.N. summit on refugees paid scant attention to one of the most potent vectors in large-scale irregular migration: the role of smugglers.

Human smuggling is now estimated to be one of the largest global illicit markets, with a value of some $157 billion annually. In Europe’s migration crisis, for example, EUROPOL estimates that upwards of 90 percent of the people who arrived in Europe in 2015 used a smuggler, paying them an average of between $3,000 and $6,000 for their journey. Smugglers’ practices of overloading boats and using unseaworthy vessels are largely accountable for the nearly 10,000 people who have died in the central Mediterranean in the last three years.

Privacy security

Researchers ask federal court to unseal years of surveillance records

Two lawyers and legal researchers based at Stanford University have formally asked a federal court in San Francisco to unseal numerous records of surveillance-related cases, as a way to better understand how authorities seek such powers from judges. This courthouse is responsible for the entire Northern District of California, which includes the region where tech companies such as Twitter, Apple, and Google, are based.

According to the petition, Jennifer Granick and Riana Pfefferkorn were partly inspired by a number of high-profile privacy cases that have unfolded in recent years, ranging from Lavabit toApple’s battle with the Department of Justice.

Election safety

US Official: Hackers Targeted Election Systems Of 20 States

 Hackers have targeted the voter registration systems of more than 20 states in recent months, a Homeland Security Department official said Friday.

The disclosure comes amid heightened concerns that foreign hackers might undermine voter confidence in the integrity of U.S. elections. Federal officials and many cybersecurity experts have said it would be nearly impossible for hackers to alter an election’s outcome because election systems are very decentralized and generally not connected to the internet.

The official who described detecting the hacker activity was not authorized to speak publicly on the subject and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. It was unclear, the official said, whether the hackers were foreign or domestic, or what their motives might be. ABC News earlier reported that more than 20 states were targeted.