Economic security

How Protectionist Rhetoric Endangers America

THE NEED to fight protectionism may well stand as one of America’s clearest and most vital national interests. From the voting booth to the country’s foreign-policy establishment, action is needed to defend free trade and shift away from past, unnecessarily partisan trade policies. Protectionism has destroyed prosperity time and again. The most dramatic illustration emerges from the history of the Smoot-Hawley tariffs of the 1930s. Sen. Reed Smoot and Rep. Willis Hawley, both Republicans, wanted to protect American jobs and industry from the ill effects of the 1929 stock market crash by building a tariff wall around the economy. Their legislation raised duties on some twenty thousand products by an average of 20 percent...

Terror threat

Wanted in Russia: EU court blocked suspected Istanbul attack mastermind from extradition in 2010

A Chechen national suspected of being the mastermind behind the deadly Istanbul airport terrorist attack, earlier received refugee status in Austria, which helped him to repeatedly avoid extradition to Russia on terror charges.

The fatal attack on the Istanbul airport that took lives of 44 people and left more than 230 injured was allegedly organized by Ahmed Chataev, a Russian citizen of Chechen origin, who joined Islamic State (IS, former ISIS/ISIL) in 2015 and now fights in Syria, Turkish media report, citing police sources.

Chataev was assigned a leading role in training extremists that would then commit terrorist attacks in both Russia and Western Europe, the Deputy Chairman of the Russian Investigative Committee Andrey Przhezdomsky said, adding that, in Syria, Chataev also commands a unit consisting “primarily of immigrants from the North Caucasus,” Russia's Kommersant newspaper reported earlier this year.

Transportation security

A Tesla Fatality and the Future of Self-Driving Cars

Federal officials are investigating a crash that killed the driver of a Model S, a Tesla vehicle with a partially autonomous driving system, in a move that has major implications for the future of driverless vehicles.

“This is the first known fatality in just over 130 million miles where Autopilot was activated …” Tesla wrote in a statement on Thursday. “It is important to emphasize that the NHTSA action is simply a preliminary evaluation to determine whether the system worked according to expectations.”

The investigation may be standard procedure, but it’s also certain to influence the ongoing conversation about the safety of self-driving vehicles.

The Model S isn’t technically a driverless car, but Tesla has been a vocal player in the race to bring truly driverless cars to market. 

Airport security

After Istanbul, Here’s How Airport Experts Want to Protect You at the Curbside


We’ve become so concerned with keeping terrorists off of airplanes that we’ve created an entirely new terrorist target: lines of people waiting to get through airport security.

The Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, and Transportation Security Administration, or TSA, will increase security at some U.S. airports over the July 4 holiday weekend. But the best way DHS could fight this problem for the long term, in addition to more security officers on both sides of the screening line, may be getting more people into advanced screening programs before they even reach the airport — likeTSA PreCheck.

DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson told lawmakers Thursday that airports would see increased security in the days ahead. “Here in the homeland, since Brussels, we have enhanced security … The American public should expect to see, this July 4th weekend, an enhanced security presence at airports, train stations and other transit centers across the country by TSA and other state and local law enforcement, as well as security personnel generally,” he said.

Biosecurity

The D.C. Monument Full of Zika Mosquitoes

The newest monument in Washington, D.C., is not a soaring stone obelisk or a bigger-than-life statue but a thigh-high cement birdbath.

Once two tiered, now one, the birdbath is no less apt a symbol of unconscionable inaction in the Capitol three blocks away.

On each of the previous four years, the birdbath has produced living specimens of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, best known for carrying the Zika virus.

And, even as the Senate proceeds to the Fourth of July recess without passing a bill funding Zika research, a scientific team is poised to test whether the birdbath and its immediate vicinity have produced a fifth generation of the bugs.

9/11 investigation

Saudi Arabia: Framed for 9/11, Guilty of Fueling Hate

 ...The government in Riyadh represents a pact between the Saud royal family and a clerical establishment that promotes a corrosive and extreme version of Islam. And while the Saudis have improved dramatically in the last dozen years in regulating charities that were linked to al-Qaeda in the 1990s and terrorist financing in general, to this day Saudi Arabia promotes a kind of Islamic Supremacism that stokes an enmity of Jews, Christians, Shiites and "apostates."  

Evidence for this is ample. Consider the textbooks Saudi Arabia uses in its own classrooms. A 2006 diplomatic cable, published by WikiLeaks, indicated that an eighth-grade textbook says, "God will punish any Muslim who does not literally obey God just as God punished some Jews by turning them into pigs and monkeys.”

Information security

SECRET RULES MAKE IT PRETTY EASY FOR THE FBI TO SPY ON JOURNALISTS

SECRET FBI RULES allow agents to obtain journalists’ phone records with approval from two internal officials — far less oversight than under normal judicial procedures.

The classified rules, obtained by The Intercept and dating from 2013, govern the FBI’s use of National Security Letters, which allow the bureau to obtain information about journalists’ calls without going to a judge or informing the news organization being targeted. They have previously been released only in heavily redacted form.

Media advocates said the documents show that the FBI imposes few constraints on itself when it bypasses the requirement to go to court and obtain subpoenas or search warrants before accessing journalists’ information.

The rules stipulate that obtaining a journalist’s records with a National Security Letter (or NSL) requires the sign-off of the FBI’s general counsel and the executive assistant director of the bureau’s National Security Branch, in addition to the regular chain of approval.

Encryption

Official Tally of Wiretaps Belies Government Scare Stories About Encryption

DESPITE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION CLAIMS that encryption is increasingly obstructing law enforcement investigations, the authoritative annual Wiretap Report from the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts released on Thursday found that encryption was less of a problem in 2015 than the year before.

The report’s figures include all court-ordered wiretaps, but not those conducted without a warrant for “foreign intelligence” purposes by the National Security Agency and others.

Despite a 21 percent increase in wiretaps authorized by state courts overall between 2014 and 2015, the number of cases where law enforcement encountered encryption decreased from 22 to seven.

And out of 1,403 wiretaps authorized by federal judges, only six encountered encrypted communication. Two of those were decrypted by law enforcement, leaving only four that could not be deciphered.

Children security

Change.org Disputes 'How Was The Swim?' Official's Take On Petition To Oust Him

The popular online petition and campaign site Change.org says almost all of the 150,000-plus people who signed a petition demanding the resignation of the Kremlin's reportedly ill-fated children's rights ombudsman are based in Russia, despite Pavel Astakhov's dismissal of his online critics as American puppets.

The Change.org petition called on Astakhov to resign over a seemingly insensitive remark he made while visiting child survivors of a deadly boating accident at a camp near the Finnish border.

Irrespective of the Change.org campaign, the anti-Astakhov effort appeared to have gained traction within Russia, as RBC on June 30 quoted "a source close to the Duma leadership" as saying that Astakhov had already submitted his resignation and would soon be leaving his post.

A number of Russians had publicly pilloried Astakhov, including the spokesman for Russia's Investigative Committee, who implied that the ombudsman's statement to the survivors was beyond "the norms of morality and ethics."

"So how was the swim?" Astakhov asked one of 37 survivors of a twin capsizing that killed 14 people, almost all of them child campers, when a storm struck their boating expedition on remote Lake Syamozero in the northern Karelia region on June 18 and the camp's staff inexplicably failed to seek outside assistance.

Predictions

Social Networks Could Predict the Next Brexit

The failure of polls and bookmakers to predict the outcome of theBrexit referendum will push the financial sector, which relies on accurate information, to search for alternatives. Some claim they obtained good results from scraping social media, which may have been the best way to predict the June 23 vote result.

Brevan Howard Asset Management, co-founded by the billionaire Alan Howard, reportedly reduced risk ahead of the vote after using artificial intelligence to study social network data. Its $16 billion macro fund gained 1 percent on the day the results were announced; hedge funds globally lost 1.6 percent. Other funds, Bloomberg News reports, are increasing investments in this technology.

Demographic security

China's population will be down to half by the end of this century?

What scholar Zheng Zhenzhen of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said at the 2016World Economic Forum has stirred a heated discussion about the Chinese population.According to Zheng, China’s population will reduce to 1 billion by the end of this century,just like the volume it had reached by 1980.

However, some experts think a 1 billion population is still a number too optimistic,considering the overestimate of fertility rates, they point out that the Chinese populationmay possibly reach 600 million by 2100.

A demography scholar Huang Wenzhen from the University of Wisconsin considers it isimpossible that China could still have a 1 billion population by the end of the century. Evenassuming with a total open birth policy, the birth rate can be 20 percent higher than theone during 2010 to 2015, and the average life expectancy also keeps increasing, Huangestimated the total population of China in 2100 would be 580 million, and decrease to 280million by 2150.

Terror threat

CIA boss ‘worried’ ISIS is planning a major attack in US

CIA Director John Brennan warned Americans hours after Tuesday’s deadly Istanbul terror attack that he fears ISIS is planning similar large-scale offensives inside the United States.

In an interview with Yahoo News, the nation’s top spy said he’s “worried” that a copycat attack will be carried out within our borders by the radical jihadist network, which is believed to be behind the suicide bombings at Ataturk Airport that claimed 41 lives and injured scores more.

“I am worried from the standpoint of an intelligence professional who looks at the capabilities of (ISIS) … and their determination to kill as many as people as possible and to carry out attacks abroad,” Brennan told Yahoo News, adding, “I’d be surprised if (ISIS) is not trying to carry out that kind of attack in the United States.”

Terrorism blacklist

Global ‘terror’ database leak reveals 2.2mn people tracked by spy agencies

Thomson Reuters are reportedly “working feverishly” to recover more than 2.2 million records which form their ‘World Check’ database of “heightened risk individuals and entities” used by governments, banks, and law firms around the world.

Reddit user Chris Vickery says he obtained a copy of the database, although he won’t reveal how until “a later time.”

The security researcher says the database is from mid-2014 and contains millions of “heightened-risk individuals and organizations,” which it places in one or more of a number of categories, including terrorism, money laundering, organized crime, bribery, corruption, and “other unsavory activities.”

Forming part of the company’s “risk management solutions,” Thomson Reuters says it’s used by more than 300 government and intelligence agencies around the world, as well as 49 of the world’s top 50 banks and nine of the top 10 global law firms.

To access the database, customers must pay an annual subscription charge, which can reach up to $1 million, according to Vice, with potential subscribers then vetted before approval.

Consumer security

Toyota Recalls 1.4 Million Vehicles for Airbag Problem

Public concern about faulty automobile airbags spread to a second major supplier on Wednesday, after Toyota recalled 1.43 million Prius and Lexus models equipped with bags made by Autoliv, a big Swedish-American manufacturer.

Although no injuries have been reported from the problem, there have been incidents in which the Autoliv bags deployed spontaneously in parked vehicles, sending metal pieces of the inflater into the cars’ cabins.

The problem sounded ominously similar to issues with faulty airbags made by another major supplier, Takata, which have been linked to 14 known deaths and more than 100 injuries. Takata’s airbags have been the target of the largest safety recall in automotive history.

Intel policy

Intelligence Planks for a Sturdy National Security Platform

No U.S. presidential race has ever turned on the appeal of the candidate’s promises on intelligence policy. Indeed, many recent party platforms have either ignored altogether or addressed with vague generalities how an aspiring commander in chief would manage the world’s most sophisticated information gathering enterprise. Such inattention was not always the norm.

In 1976, a pious Georgia farmer promised to keep our security agencies out of domestic politics, and also to respect the choices made by voters in foreign elections. Four years later, a California film actor committed to rebuild and unleash U.S. intelligence on the Soviet Union, which at the time appeared ominously ascendant. While few ballots were likely impacted, as candidates both Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan clearly signaled their approach to secret intelligence activities.

Recent declarations proved less reliable. For example, the Democratic Party’s 2008 platform promised to “depoliticize” intelligence by appointing a Director of National Intelligence for a fixed term. Of course, President Obama ended up firing his DNI after only 16 months for reported political missteps.

European security

EU army? New security strategy says bloc should ‘go beyond NATO’

The EU should develop military autonomy from NATO and take a stronger role on the global stage as it must be able to “repel, to respond and to protect,” a new EU security strategy says, encouraging closer military cooperation within the union.

The EU cannot any longer rely on NATO on various security issues and must instead develop an ability to “act autonomously if and when necessary,” a document named European Union Global Strategy says as it outlines new foreign policy and security proposals for the EU.

“As Europeans we must take greater responsibility for our security. We must be ready and able to deter, respond to and protect ourselves against external threats,” the paper, drafted by EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, says.

“While NATO exists to defend its members — most of which are European — from external attack, Europeans must be better equipped, trained and organized to contribute decisively to such collective efforts, as well as to act autonomously if and when necessary,” it adds.

Flights security

EgyptAir 804: Wreckage and recorder show signs of heat, smoke

The flight data recorder on doomed EgyptAir Flight 804 indicates possible lavatory and avionics smoke before the plane plummeted into the Mediterranean Sea, the nation's civil aviation ministry said Wednesday.

Additionally, wreckage from the Airbus A320's front section showed "signs of high temperature damage and soot," the ministry said in a statement.

What caused the plane carrying 56 passengers and 10 crew members to plunge to the sea on May 19 remains a mystery, but the latest information could bring investigators closer to determining a cause.

"We now know that there was some form of either smoldering or some form of fire or some form of combustion, if you like, on that plane, and that has been verified," CNN aviation analyst Richard Quest said.

The recorded data was consistent with information from the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System, or ACARS -- which sends messages between planes and ground facilities -- indicating "lavatory smoke and avionics smoke," according to the ministry.

Weapons

Air Force has directed energy weapons; now comes the hard part

Over the past 20 years, the military and its partners in industry have figured out how to build lasers and other directed energy weapons. The devices have changed from often-hazardous chemical lasers to more reliable solid-state lasers. The power has grown from dozens of watts to dozens of kilowatts.

Now comes the hard part, Air Force leaders said Thursday in Washington, D.C., at the second annual Directed Energy Summit. Many significant hurdles remain.

The conference, hosted by defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton and the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment, a Washington think tank, brought together the best and the brightest minds to discuss advancements on directed energy.

Top brass is itching to get the capability into the field. Directed energy weapons could shut down enemy vehicles or communication networks, destroy incoming missiles or be used for a range of other purposes.

Marine security

Latest Warship Encounter Brings Russian Protest

The latest Russian-US kerfuffle at sea appears to feature a US warship making a close-in, high-speed pass on a Russian ship — but there may be more to the story than what a one-minute and two-second video shows.

The incident took place June 17 in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, and involved the US destroyer Gravely and the Russian frigate Yaroslav Mudry.

In a video posted June 28 on YouTube by the Russian news agency Sputnik, the Gravely is seen coming up on the Mudry’s port, or left, side, on a roughly parallel course. The Gravely then appears to pick up even more speed and maneuver directly ahead of the Russian, pulling away and rocking the frigate with its wake.

Surveillance

U.S. OKs Russian Overflights Despite Worries About Intrusive Surveillance

The United States has authorized a Russian surveillance jet to overfly U.S. territory as part of an international treaty, closing a dispute that had elicited vocal criticism from some lawmakers over the technology being used by the Russians.

The decision, made by an interagency government group, focused on the scope of the Open Skies Treaty, a 14-year-old agreement that aims to increase transparency and international security by allowing member nations to fly over each other's territory and monitor military installations or other objects.

The final decision to authorize the Russian flights was made after consultations in Moscow that wrapped up June 28, according to a U.S. official with knowledge of the process.

Terror threat

'Lone wolf' terror attacks inspired by ISIS to persist in West

The threat of "lone wolf" acts of terrorism inspired by the Islamic State will persist in the West, a senior Obama administration official said Tuesday, even as the extremist group loses battles and territory in the Middle East.

Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy to the anti-Islamic State coalition, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the Islamic State has always sought to strike the United States and other Western nations. But the group is now acknowledging it may be unable to hold onto ground in Iraq, Syria, and Libya, blunting its quest for an Islamic caliphate. So the Islamic State has changed its message and its recruiting tactics, he said.

"'We're still going to be around, still join us,'" said McGurk, describing what he called the Islamic State's propaganda. "And they're trying to inspire these lone wolf attacks around the world."

War on terror

RAF uses Storm Shadows against IS bunker

The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced on 27 June that the Royal Air Force (RAF) had used MBDA Storm Shadow cruise missiles for the first time against Islamic State targets in Iraq.

It said that two Tornado GR4 strike aircraft used the missiles to destroy a large bunker at an unidentified location in western Iraq on 26 June.

"Due to the massive construction, built during the Saddam era, it was decided to use four Storm Shadow missiles against it, as the weapon has particularly good capabilities against such a challenging target," the MoD said. "All four Storm Shadows scored direct hits and penetrated deep within the bunker."

The Storm Shadow carries a powerful shaped-charge warhead that punches a hole into a hardened target through which a penetration warhead can pass.

Can the leopard change his spots?

US Senate Candidate and Tactical Rabbit Release Exhaustive Report on Orlando Shooter, His Family and Potential Involvement in Terrorist Financing Networks

 Tactical Rabbit has published a detailed biographical investigation of Pulse nightclub shooter Omar Mateen, including his work history and relevant details about his immediate family. Everett Stern – US Senate candidate and intelligence director at Tactical Rabbit – concludes that Mateen almost certainly received material assistance in carrying out his rampage. Furthermore, evidence supports a link between Mateen's inner circle and terrorist financing activities. The full intelligence report is available here.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160628/384513LOGO

"Like the rest of the nation, the recent mass shooting in Orlando has left me shocked and angry," says Stern. "But in the wake of this event, an even more sinister problem has been revealed: Apathy. Too many of us now take for granted that terrorism is just a fact of life. Instead of giving in to this sentiment, we must redouble our efforts to expose and fight evil in the world."

Part of Tactical Rabbit's mission is to zero in on the money laundering and other financial movements that make terrorism possible. Money is at the root of global terror – tracking the flow of funds is a critical component in this clash of ideologies. The firm's report on the Orlando shooter focuses on the business and real estate dealings of Mateen's immediate family.

Defense procurement

Governments Ignoring Corruption in Arms Sales, Report Says

A new report highlights the growing levels of corruption in military procurement contracts involving unaccountable middlemen or agents, who are employed by corporations to secure defense contracts.

National government’s that “turn a blind eye” to the destructive impact of their defense export policies are undermining domestic and international legislation created to reduce corruption, Transparency International, the Berlin-based monitoring group, warned on Tuesday.

“Governments must take responsibility for defense export policy, especially when the cost can be the future stability of some of the most insecure parts of the world,” Katherine Dixon, Director Transparency International Defense and Security said in a press release.

Due to defense spending cuts in the West, major arms companies have turned their attention to opportunities across the global south and east.

In many of these countries, defense budgets are concealed from the public, which the report argues, “creates huge opportunities for abuse by corrupt third-party agents.”

The Transparency International report estimates that around 80 percent of U.K. exports of major conventional weapons have been delivered to markets assessed by TI to have high to critical corruption risk in their defense institutions. Meanwhile, France and the United States sent 71 percent and 53 percent, respectively.

Communications security

Hillary Clinton’s email story continues to get harder and harder to believe

On Monday night, the Associated Press published a piece noting the release of an additional 165 pages of emails Hillary Clinton sent from her private email address while serving as secretary of state. These were emails that had never been previously released and only were made public because of a court order in response to a request from a conservative group.

And  yet again, the emails poke holes in Clinton's initial explanation for why she decided to exclusively use a private email server for her electronic correspondence while serving as the nation's top diplomat.

Let's start with this from the AP story: "The emails were not among the 55,000 pages of work-related messages that Clinton turned over to the agency in response to public records lawsuits seeking copies of her official correspondence."

Whistleblowing

Whistleblowers should be celebrated not persecuted

The term “whistleblower” brings to mind a dishevelled Al Pacino as Frank Serpico, a cop, who though ostracised and beaten up by his colleagues, exposed corruption in the New York Police Department in the 1970s.

In a recent interview, the real Serpico told the New York Times: “No matter how big or how much corruption there is, it’s never greater than the individual or the might of doing the right thing.”Unfortunately, doing the right thing still comes at a price.

The debate over Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning in the US is ongoing - and in Europe, this week, there is a milestone court decision coming up.

Though Antoine Deltour, a former PriceWaterhouseCoopers employee, his former colleague Raphael Halet and Edouard Perrin, a journalist, haven’t faced a bullet like Serpico, they could face jail time for exposing tax avoidance at multinational companies in the LuxLeaks scandal.

Without sufficient legal protections and reliable avenues to report wrongdoing, employees throughout Europe face being fired, demoted or harassed if they expose corruption and other crimes.

Brexit impact

A Post-Brexit Britain Would Double Down on Middle East Alliances

Opponents of Brexit often see leaving the EU as a step to isolationism – or international irrelevance. Yet a post-Brexit Britain would likely want to demonstrate that it was still a force in the world. For the sake of domestic security and economic concerns, Britain would still need its allies, in the Middle East as well as in the EU. The MENA region will remain important for trade and investment links ($18 billion of British exports went to MENA in 2014), diaspora communities on both sides, counterterrorism cooperation and defence priorities.

Leaving the EU is unlikely to have a major impact on the UK’s ability to project force in the Middle East. Any military interventions, as in the past, would involve ad hoc coalitions or partnerships with leading powers like the US or France, rather than the larger and oft-divided EU. A post-Brexit Britain would work more closely with Anglophone and Middle Eastern allies, including more cooperation with militaries in Jordan and the Gulf.

Terror threat

FBI Not Telling Americans on ISIS 'Kill List'

The FBI has not informed many Americans that they are on various encrypted "kill lists" published by the Islamic State or others inspired by the terrorist group.

"The FBI and other government agencies have very wide latitude to deny releases of information for the public for national security reasons, to a degree that I personally find very unsettling," Ryan Mauro, a national security analyst for the Clarion Project, told Newsmax Tuesday in an interview.

The Clarion Project, based in Washington, monitors Islamic terrorism and its supporters in the U.S.

"All they have to do is say it is related in some way to an ongoing investigation or national security," Mauro said. "It is very difficult for the public to contest that rejection because you don't know what they are holding.

Communications security

Why Hillary Is Stalling Her FBI Interview

James Comey, the straight-arrow director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is eager to wind up his investigation of Hillary’s use of an unsecure email system, but he can’t do that until he and Justice Department prosecutors sit down with Hillary and interview her.

Hillary says that neither she nor her campaign have been contacted by the FBI. But that is not true.

Negotiations have been going on for quite some time between the FBI and Hillary’s attorney, David Kendall, who went to law school with Hillary and defended Bill Clinton in his impeachment trial.

Hillary has come up with a dozen excuses why she’s too busy to take time out for an FBI interview.

Intel gatheruing

Germany to further curb activities of spy agency in wake of NSA scandal

Germany has approved new measures to rein in the activities of its foreign intelligence agency after a scandal over improper collusion with the US National Security Agency.

Two months after replacing the head of the BND service over the damning revelations, chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet signed off on the reforms to keep the country’s spies on a tighter leash.

Oversight of the spy agency directly from Merkel’s office will be beefed up with an external watchdog panel of jurists, and the list of duties the BND carries out for the NSA has been overhauled.

Brexing & intel

Brexiting A Spy Nest


Last week, the citizens of the United Kingdom decided by majority vote to pull out of the European Union. One thing that voters probably didn't consider was that world governing bodies such as the EU are rampant with espionage.

Global governance institutions act as permanent installations in and around which intelligence officers can intermingle with their counterparts from other countries -- identifying, recruiting and cultivating sources and assets in order to discreetly collect information or influence policy, all while enjoying the diplomatic immunity that prevents them from suffering any serious consequences if they are caught.

This partly explains why the European Commission's diplomatic corps isn't limited to European countries and also includes accredited missions of the African Union, the General Delegation of Palestine, the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates), Hong Kong, the International Monetary Fund, the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the United Nations, the World Bank and others.

Basically, intelligence officers from around the world gather in Brussels under the guise of European solidarity, all while competing for potentially valuable information. The show that European citizens see on television, with members of European Parliament squawking at one another in a near-empty hall, represents only the noisy splashing on the surface of much deeper waters.

Intel opinion

Russia's Ex-Spy Chief Shares Opinions Of His American Counterparts

...So what should intelligence money be spent on? Trubnikov pauses and takes a nibble of a chocolate cookie.

"Today, to get any kind of secret paper, with the top-secret info — that's nothing," he said. "It is essential to penetrate into the brains of those who are leading the countries."

And to penetrate the brains of foreign leaders — to predict your adversary's next move — Trubnikov says only human intelligence works. Meaning, traditional espionage.

"An intelligence officer must grow up to the level of Michelangelo," he said.

What does Michelangelo have to do with a modern Russian spy? Trubnikov's answer: The best spy is a Renaissance man.

"He has to have in his brain an encyclopedia. He cannot today be a very narrow specialist. To get information, very, very delicate information. This is the task of an intelligence officer."

European security

Marine Le Pen: After Brexit, the People’s Spring Is Inevitable

...The European Union has become a prison of peoples. Each of the 28 countries that constitute it has slowly lost its democratic prerogatives to commissions and councils with no popular mandate. Every nation in the union has had to apply laws it did not want for itself. Member nations no longer determine their own budgets. They are called upon to open their borders against their will.

Countries in the eurozone face an even less enviable situation. In the name of ideology, different economies are forced to adopt the same currency, even if doing so bleeds them dry. It’s a modern version of the Procrustean bed, and the people no longer have a say.

And what about the European Parliament? It’s democratic in appearance only, because it’s based on a lie: the pretense that there is a homogeneous European people, and that a Polish member of the European Parliament has the legitimacy to make law for the Spanish. We have tried to deny the existence of sovereign nations. It’s only natural that they would not allow being denied.

Airport security

Suspected Islamic State suicide bombers kill 36 at Istanbul airport

Three suicide bombers opened fire then blew themselves up in Istanbul's main international airport on Tuesday, killing 36 people and wounding close to 150 in what Turkey's prime minister said appeared to have been an attack by Islamic State militants.

One attacker opened fire in the departures hall with an automatic rifle, sending passengers diving for cover and trying to flee, before all three blew themselves up in or around the arrivals hall a floor below, witnesses and officials said.

The attack on Europe's third-busiest airport was one of the deadliest in a series of suicide bombings in Turkey, which is part of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State and is struggling to contain the spillover from neighboring Syria's civil war. It is also battling an insurgency by Kurdish militants in its largely Kurdish southeast.

Flights security

Crashed EgyptAir flight data recorder successfully repaired: investigation committee

Egypt investigators said on Monday that the flight data recorder of crashed EgyptAir flight MS804 had been successfully repaired, paving the way for investigators to analyze data that may explain why the jet plunged into the Mediterranean last month.

The investigators added in a statement that the doomed plane's cockpit voice recorder would begin to be worked on "within hours" also.

The recorders arrived in Paris from Cairo on Monday to remove salt deposits. They will be sent back to a laboratory in Cairo to analyze the data once the repairs are completed, the statement added.