Foreign affairs

Moscow ready to repair ties with US despite ‘regrettable’ security strategy – Ambassador to US

Moscow is ready to “build bridges” with Washington despite the new US national security strategy, which designates Russia as a threat to US security, Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov said.

“We have carefully studied this strategy... we will probably continue scrutinizing all the words and expressions mentioned there, our magnifying lens in hand. I can only say this: the first impression of it is that this strategy is highly regrettable. Regrettable in the context of the Russia-US relations. We see many flawed points in it, but we are ready to work and build ties with the United States, regardless of this, I should say, unfriendly strategy, which the new of national security strategy really is,” he said in an interview with RTVi on Friday.

Infrasrtucture security

Trump’s Infrastructure Plan Is Critical For National Security

On the top of President Trump’s to-do list for 2018 is a plan to upgrade and expand America’s failing infrastructure. With our nation’s roads, dams and power plants in collapse, the administration’s focus on infrastructure could not be more timely. According to the World Economic Forum, the United States continues to lag behind several countries such as Japan, France, United Arab Emirates and South Korea in infrastructure. Crumbling dams, the rising cost of traffic congestion, chronic underfunding and countless other preventable issues earned the United States a D+ on the American Society of Civil Engineers’ infrastructure report card. (I understand the D but why the +? We must be doing something right!)

International security

Peace, War or Chaos?: The 5 Big National Security Challenges of 2018

The Trump administration’s December 23, 2017 approval of lethal defense weapons and anti-tank missiles to Kiev—a decision welcomed by bipartisan majorities on Capitol Hill—turns out to be a significant miscalculation. The Minsk peace process, which was already hanging by a thread, is now a relic. Russian President Vladimir Putin, realizing that Moscow cannot risk ceding more ground to the Ukrainian army during a time when he is seeking his fourth term, redoubles military assistance to the separatists to cancel out whatever capability Kiev receives from Washington. The line of contact is no longer a buffer zone, but an active battlefront.

The death toll increases on all sides and hundreds of thousands of civilians are displaced as Russian-supported separatist units attempt an assault on the port city of Mariupol. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Macron increasingly blame Washington’s arming of the Ukrainian military as the impetus behind the upsurge in violence. The Donbas returns to full-scale armed conflict, complicating any improvement in the U.S.-Russia relationship besides cooperation on case-by-case intelligence sharing on the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda.

Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity: What Must be Done Now to Protect the Future?

The Government and high technology industries must establish or update policies and procedures to help prevent, defend, mitigate, and develop risk based corrective actions to effectively combat these multiple threats. These activities should align with national emergency priorities to prevent or minimize unexpected and unanticipated incidents to high-threat areas related to national security, high technology sectors, and international espionage attempts.

1. The national energy grid and natural resources such as; nuclear energy assets, hydro-electrical generators, water reservoirs, waterways, and oil reserve resource security controls in the U.S. and across the globe must be frequently tested, re-assessed and strengthened.

The security posture and safety of these national and international assets must be carefully inspected, analyzed, and safeguarded to avoid any small or large disruptive event/s that could keep us from maintaining our Government, military assets, national agencies, and local/state entities from performing their planned and unplanned national defense disaster recovery operations.

The Grid Modernization and the Smart Grid whitepaper from the Department of Energy emphasized the importance of grid modernization necessary to bolster and support America’s national security goals, strengthen our global economy, as well as maintaining the health and safety of our population.

Election security

Pressure builds to improve election cybersecurity

Congressional efforts to secure election systems from cyberattacks are picking up steam with lawmakers under pressure to prevent hacks in the 2018 midterms.

After the revelation that Russia tried to probe election systems in 21 states in the 2016 election, security experts, state officials and others demanded federal action to help states upgrade outdated voting machines and bolster security around voter registration databases.

Last week, a bipartisan coalition of six senators introduced the Secure Elections Act, which includes a measure authorizing grants for states to upgrade outdated voting technology and shore up their digital security.

“It is imperative that we strengthen our election systems and give the states the tools they need to protect themselves and the integrity of voters against the possibility of foreign interference,” Sen. James Lankford(R-Okla.), a Senate Intelligence Committee member, said when unveiling the bill.

Terror threat

Defense, Intelligence Officials Warn Against Underestimating Islamic State

Despite suffering what appear to be debilitating defeats on the ground in Iraq and parts of Syria, the Islamic State terror group is far from dead, according to military and intelligence officials from several countries that have long been tracking the threat.

Even on the ground in Iraq and parts of Syria, where anti-IS coalition officials believe the terror group’s fighting force, which once numbered in the tens of thousands, is down to less than 1,000 militants, top military officials remain wary.

“The war is not over,” U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon Friday. “The hunting down of these guys is not over.”

Intel gathering

The UK's spy agencies need more analysts and minorities

While its top three intelligence agencies (MI5, MI6, and GCHQ) have impressive intelligence gathering skills, a new report from Britain's Intelligence and Security Committee complains that their analytical capability is insufficient.

This speaks to an organizational difference between the U.S. intelligence community and that of Britain.

Where the U.S. counterparts of MI5 (the FBI (albeit a law enforcement agency), the CIA (MI6 equivalent), and the NSA (GCHQ equivalent)) collect intelligence in a similar manner to Britain, they also retain large analytical divisions to assess and report on the value and meaning of collected intelligence.

Conversely, while MI6 has a limited "R" (for reporting) cadre focused on analysis, its "P" (for production) stations involved in intelligence collection remain the agency's focus. The ISC notes a senior intelligence official who argues that "[British services] need to introduce… more of the qualitative side… we need to [evolve] the process so that we can also look at the extent to which… it is not just about volume; it is about quality."

Weapons

10 biggest weapons stories of 2017

Concealed carry guns, lasers, sound weapons that attack invisibly, new nuclear bombs….Reveals of new weapons – both personal protection and military use - were big this year. Not just in the sheer number, but in the wide range of types of weaponry.

On the smaller scale, there were pistols and rifles. In two crucial historic shifts, the Army made a radical change in sidearms and introduced a new pistol and the Marines took the Armed Forces lead in adopting a new magazine that eliminates jamming and will save many Marine lives in the future.

There was also a boom in excellent concealed carry options for personal and tactical professional use. With several of the legendary American gunmakers celebrating anniversaries and iconic history, special editions of rifles with meaningful significance were also big alongside innovation for rifle use in law enforcement and military scenarios.

Intel gathering

An inside look at where, why, and how the UK spies

As I noted on Thursday, Britain's top security priority is countering Islamic terrorist threats. Yet the world is big and British spy agencies also have other top concerns.

In its 2016-2017 report released before Christmas, Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee gave us a window into just what those priorities are.

First up, Russia.

While the ISC hints, positively, that MI5 (the U.K.'s domestic-focus spy agency) has a strong awareness of Russian intelligence operations in Britain, it does not bother to mention the costs of that Russian presence. That's a problem because Britain's central challenge with Russian intelligence is not that it doesn't know what the Russians are doing, but that it allows them to do it.

This acquiescence flows from a U.K. political decision to allow pernicious Russian crime and intelligence influences on its soil in return for billions of pounds in Russian spending in London's economy. Only recently did Prime Minister Theresa May outlineplans to take a less amenable stance here.

Still, the ISC does carry some tough language towards the Kremlin. It notes the assessment of MI6 (the U.K.'s foreign-focus spy agency) "that Russia is to all intents and purposes in conflict with Ukraine."

Spy story

A spy story and why British politicians need to respect MI5 officers

Agents are the aorta of human intelligence operations.

Intelligence officers recruit individuals, referred to as agents, to spy for their particular service. Agents are targeted for recruitment based on their ability and willingness to use access or relationships to provide valuable information on matters of concern.

Later, I'll explore what a new report by Britain's Parliament tells us about British intelligence agents. First, however, here's a basic hypothetical example of how an agent might be recruited.

The MI6 (Britain's foreign-focus intelligence service) station in Vienna learns that a mid-ranking SVR (Russia's civilian foreign intelligence service) officer, "Lavrentiy", will be traveling from Moscow to attend an IAEA summit in the Austrian capital. MI6 knows Lavrentiy has a drinking problem and might be disillusioned: he's been passed over for promotion three times.

Recognizing that Russian spies might be monitoring Lavrentiy and MI6's Vienna station during the trip, MI6 headquarters send a mid-ranking MI6 officer, Max, from New Delhi to Vienna. Max knows that Lavrentiy will probably tell him to get lost, but also that this opportunity can't be passed up.

Climate security

Here’s What the Experts Make of Trump Removing Climate Change from the National Security Strategy

The Trump administration recently announced an update to the National Security Strategy (NSS) that removed climate change from the list of threats. The document instead focuses on threats from economic competition and border security, and emphasizes that fossil fuels will be necessary in developing countries to “power their economies and lift their people out of poverty.”

Unfortunately, this move did not surprise experts.

“The Trump Administration’s failure to list climate change as a national security risk is consistent with its general tendency to dismiss climate change as a problem,” said David Konisky, Associate Professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University, to Futurism. Listening to Trump discuss climate change over the course of his campaign, often with scorn and ridicule, has worried environmental advocates long before the first votes were cast in 2016.

Whistleblowing

Chinese military launches website to get national security tip-offs

The Chinese military will begin receiving tip-offs of threats to national security or defense through a website from Jan. 1.

The website www.PLA110.cn, launched by the committee for political and legal affairs of the Central Military Commission, allows people to report online activities, including stealing or leaking military secrets, and fabricating information about the army.

Gambling, drug trafficking or other crimes by soldiers, attacking the party's absolute leadership over the military, obstructing military operations, smearing the image of the army and jeopardizing the military's network information security may all be reported through the website.

The public can give information anonymously or using their real names. Rewards will be given for useful information.

Drones

Next for the Army’s Hunter drones? High-definition sensors

The Army awarded Northrop Grumman a contract modification worth more than $12 million for upgrades to its MQ-5B Hunter unmanned aircraft.

In a contract announcement from the Department of Defense, Northrop’s $12.7 million modification calls for an engineering change to accommodate high-definition payloads on the Hunter.

The Hunter is a multimission medium altitude-long endurance UAS capable of staying aloft for 21 hours with a maximum flight height of 18,000 feet.

According to the Army’s UAS Roadmap released in 2012, these capabilities are essential to the war fighter and are a vital link to other reconnaissance platforms. The aircraft’s sensors detect, identify and track hostile activity, enabling the ability to target threats or maneuver around them, the document states. Upgraded variants after 2008 enabled the Hunter to deploy munitions.

Asia-Pacific

Beyond maximum pressure: A pathway to North Korean denuclearization

President Donald Trump’s speech in Seoul on November 7 and his success in persuading nations to support the U.S. campaign of maximum pressure on North Korea provide a compelling framework for addressing the threat posed by Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs. This brief assesses North Korea’s strategic intentions, evaluates risks and benefits of potential U.S. policy responses, and lays out a framework for an executable, whole-of-government strategy, using the president’s recent Asia trip as a launching pad.

Kim Jong-un is unlikely to give up his nuclear weapons program, absent unprecedented pressure that succeeds in threatening the internal stability of his regime. However, there are ample policy opportunities as a result of the Trump administration’s policy of robust pressure to reorient Kim’s behavior and change his calculus...

Spy story

She was a legendary spy. He worked for three CIA directors. Now he’s writing a novel in her voice.

Craig R. Gralley spent more than 30 years at the CIA, where he worked as a chief speechwriter for three agency directors: William Webster, Robert Gates, and R. James Woolsey Jr. When Gralley, now 62, retired from Langley in 2013, he began writing in the voice of someone quite different: legendary World War II spy Virginia Hall, a woman known as “The Limping Lady.”

For the past four years, Gralley, who still works as a part-time CIA contractor, has been researching Hall’s life for a book. Not a work of nonfiction, though. Two Hall biographies already exist, and another volume — along with a movie starring Daisy Ridley of “Star Wars” — is apparently  on the way.

Instead Gralley has written a novel, tentatively titled “Hall of Mirrors,” that he hopes to sell to a publisher. It’s narrated in the first-person, in the voice of Hall, who worked for the British in France during World War II and later became a CIA officer. The Maryland-born operative helped organize the French resistance against the Nazis and once fled the Gestapo by hiking through the Pyrenees on a wooden prosthetic leg she nicknamed Cuthbert.

Opinion

The National Security Strategy Will Work

President Donald Trump’s new National Security Strategy codifies what has already been a noteworthy shift from his predecessor’s worldview. It is the difference between “leading from behind” and actually leading.

Early on, the president established a national objective of creating “a more peaceful world, with less conflict and more common ground.” The core strategic concept in pursuit of this objective is “peace through strength.”

In doing so, the White House is returning to a time-honored strategic model. Peace through strength was the guiding concept of President Ronald Reagan’s national security strategy in the 1980s. Reagan understood that American weakness invites aggression. At the time, America’s power and prestige were severely diminished in the wake of the Vietnam War, while the Soviet Union was at the peak of its power. Pundits talked about the “hollow forces”—military capabilities that were undermanned, underfunded and undermotivated. Some saw the United States as a faded power that was past its prime, with the country on the downhill slope, never coming back.

Nuclear security

Plan was floated to wipe Soviet debt in exchange for nuclear disarmament, files show

Britain was urged to write off billions of dollars of Soviet debt in return for nuclear disarmament, declassified documents show. The 1991 plan was designed to stop nukes falling into the wrong hands after the USSR collapsed.

Then-British Prime Minister John Major received a letter from Jacques Attali, head of the London-based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), suggesting how to deal with the dangers of the Soviet Union’s collapse. “Dear John,” Attali wrote, “as you know the world’s main problems with the Soviet Union today are debt and nuclear weapons.

“I should therefore like to propose that we think about using one problem to solve another, that is to say, the organization of debt-nuclear swap – the partial or total exchange of nuclear weapons against debt relief. The price of world peace might only amount to some 1 percent of the combined annual defense budgets of the G7 [nations].”

Weather security

Cold enough to freeze your dog in much of US

The northern U.S. was in the throes of a brutal cold snap overnight Thursday into Friday morning, with forecasters issuing warnings of hypothermia and frostbite as temperatures remain low through New Year's weekend.

As the Arctic blast spread across the region, a dog was found frozen to death on a porch in Ohio, the Toledo Blade reported.

“I don’t know how long she was out there,” Megan Brown, a cruelty investigator with the local Humane Society, told the paper. “She was frozen solid.”

The Department of Energy projected a rise in fuel costs, potentially hurting low-income Americans.

In North Carolina, Gov. Roy Cooper looked to prevent price gouging by signing an emergency declaration to loosen restrictions on transporting heating fuel, allowing it to be more easily distributed.

In the Northeast, Adam Gill, a staffer at a weather observatory in New Hampshire, took video as he poured boiling water out of a pitcher and watched it immediately turn into snow.

Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity guru McAfee claims his Twitter account hacked to promote alternate cryptocurrencies

Cryptocurrency enthusiast and cybersecurity pioneer John McAfee has claimed that his Twitter account was compromised by an unknown offender who used his social media account to fraudulently promote “undervalued” digital coins.

McAfee said his Twitter account was compromised and used by a hacker to promote lesser-known cryptocurrencies. The now deleted tweets imitated McAfee's “coin of the day” posts, which the cyber security expert stopped posting a few days ago, indicating instead, that he will write each Monday on a “coin of the week.”

The alleged hack triggered a joke storm from tweeters, which mainly revolved around advising McAfee to use better anti-virus software. While the cybersecurity guru sold his company some 20 years ago, the McAfee anti-virus software still bears his name. McAfee responded to the mockery by stating he has “no control over Twitter’s security,” adding, that his fame as a cybersecurity guru makes him a primary target for hackers and impersonators with fake accounts.

Spy story

Spy who masterminded Operation Mincemeat was granted deathbed request to read official verdict into the mission that was one of the greatest coups of the Second World War

Operation Mincemeat was a spectacular plot used to deceive the Germans and helped change the course of World War Two. 

It started when a homeless tramp from South Wales was found dying in an abandoned warehouse near King's Cross in London and was taken to St Pancras Hospital, where he died.

He was believed to have swallowed rat poison in a suicide attempt, which caused fluid to build up in his lungs - consistent with death at sea.

The dead man's name was Glyndwr Michael, and he was 34 years of age a the time of his death. 

The coroner agreed to keep Michael's body in a cold store while the architects of the plan - Lieutenant Commander Ewen Montagu and Charles Cholmondeley - set about the task of creating a new identity for their corpse.  

Public security

Army and Homeland Security prepping teachers for the gunman at the door

The U.S. Army and the Department of Homeland Security have created a computer-based simulator that trains teachers on how best to react in an active-shooter situation.

The $5.6 million program – it's called the Enhanced Dynamic Geo-Social Environment, or EDGE – is similar to those used by the Army, in which a virtual environment helps train soldiers in combat tactics and scenarios.

The program is expanding to schools to allow teachers and other school personnel to train for active shooters alongside first responders. Homeland Security officials said the school version should be ready for launch by spring.

"With teachers, they did not self-select into a role where they expect to have bullets flying near them," said Tamara Griffith, a chief engineer for the project. "Unfortunately, it's becoming a reality. We want to teach teachers how to respond as first responders."

Public security

Dogs, snipers and bag-checks: NYC plans to keep Times Square revelers safe on New Year’s Eve

New York City is ramping up security for an extremely chilly New Year's Eve celebration that expects to see 2 million revelers ring in 2018.

During a press conference on Thursday, local law enforcement officials explained that while there are no credible threats to New York City or its New Year's Eve celebration, additional resources would be on hand for the big night.

Officials said there will be 12 points of entry for spectators to come into the area before being subjected to multi-layer checkpoints, which will include bomb-sniffing "vapor wake dogs," magnetometers or wand searches and bag inspections before being allowed into the viewing pens.

Terror attack

Putin: Wednesday’s blast in St. Petersburg store a terrorist attack

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday’s blast in a St. Petersburg store was a terrorist attack. Thirteen people were injured when an improvised explosive device went off in the busy supermarket.

Six people are still in hospital after the explosion in St. Petersburg, the city’s deputy governor Anna Mityanina tweeted on Thursday. The condition of five of the eight victims is of intermediate severity, and the rest are said to be in a satisfactory condition.

The explosion, equivalent to 200 grams of TNT, was caused by a homemade explosive device filled with lethal fragments. An investigation is currently underway.

Putin gave law enforcement officers carte blanche to act decisively and “take no prisoners” if suspected terrorists resist and a police officer’s life is threatened. “You know that a terrorist attack was committed yesterday in St. Petersburg. Recently, the FSB [Federal Security Service] thwarted another attempt to commit an act of terrorism. And what would have happened if the thousands [of terrorists] whom I have just mentioned, returned [to Russia] – well trained and armed?” he said.

“I have instructed the director of the Federal Security Service… to act within the framework of the law during detention [of suspected terrorists.] But if there’s a threat to a police officer’s life and health, our officers need to act decisively, take no prisoners, kill the assailants on the spot.”

International security

China condemns US 'Cold War mentality' on national security

China has condemned the "Cold War mentality" of the White House after the publication of a new US national security policy.

The document labels China and Russia as "rival powers" and lays out a number of potential threats they pose.

The new strategy said Beijing and other governments were determined to challenge American power.

But China's foreign ministry criticised the strategy report, saying Washington should "abandon outdated notions".

Spokeswoman Hua Chunying said: "No country or report will succeed in distorting facts or deploying malicious slander.

"We urge the US side to stop intentionally distorting China's strategic intentions and to abandon outdated ideas of Cold War mentality and the zero-sum game."

Russia also responded to the new strategy by saying it "cannot accept" that it is treated as a threat.

Nuclear security

Military secrets of our nuclear power plants

In her excellent article on the Hinkley C nuclear plant financial fiasco (The long read, 21 December), Holly Watt mentions the innovative insight of Sussex University academics Prof Andy Stirling and Dr Phil Johnstone, who have identified the central importance of expansion of the skill base of the new nuclear build programme – headed by Hinkley C – for the Trident military nuclear renewal programme. Watt also mentions the first nuclear plant built on the same site, Hinkley A. What is barely acknowledged about this reactor is it was both built and operated to manufacture plutonium for British nuclear warheads, and probably some plutonium it created was sent to the US for use in its military stockpile too.

I have dug up considerable evidence that demonstrates this beyond any doubt. The first public hint came with an announcement on 17 June 1958 by the Ministry of Defence, on “the production of plutonium suitable for weapons in the new [nuclear] power stations programme as an insurance against future defence needs”.

Syrian war

RUSSIA SAYS U.S. MILITARY TRAINING ISIS TO RETURN UNDER NEW NAME AND TAKE OVER SYRIA

One of Russia's highest ranking military leaders has accused the U.S. of using its base in Syria to train fighters of the Islamic State militant group (ISIS), further destabilizing the war-torn country for which Moscow has led peace talks.

General of the Army Valery Gerasimov, chief of the Russian military's general staff and deputy defense minister, said Wednesday that the U.S. was gathering defeated ISIS fighters in order to regroup the militants under a new banner and challenge the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who Russia has backed in his fight against insurgents and jihadis attempting to overthrow him since 2011. Citing satellite intelligence and other sources, Gerasimov claimed the U.S. had moved up to 400 fighters from the Kurd-controlled city of Al-Shaddadi in the northeast to the U.S.'s self-proclaimed de-confliction zone in the southern region of Al-Tanf.

Homeland security

Homeland Security Presence on the Rise Worldwide

The Department of Homeland Security is increasing its presence around the world, with an estimated 2,000 employees, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to Transportation Security Administration officials, are deployed in more than 70 countries, according to The New York Times.

"Many threats to the homeland begin overseas, and that's where we need to be," said James Nealon, assistant secretary for international engagement.

Some in European countries have criticized the increase, while other allies say that a longer United States reach is helpful in ramping up security, the Times reported.

A member of Germany's Left Party said U.S. customs officers are extending a travel ban to the U.S. by interviewing travelers in Germany before they are allowed to board planes to the United States.

Costs of the operations also are an issue, with costs of stationing an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent overseas is around four times more costly than a domestic posting, according to the Times. 

The work of the officers has made an impact against extremists, drug smugglers, wildlife traffickers, and Nigerian scammers in Kenya and South Africa.

Homeland is pushing to bring in more ICE special agents and analysts for offices in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador to combat drug trafficking, the Times noted. 

Information security

Old KGB spy manual reveals origin of fake-news strategy

A long-secret how-to manual for Russian spies reveals that many Cold War-era tactics used by the KGB look very similar to Russia's online meddling in the 2016 election.

The Daily Beast obtained the First Chief Directorate manual, dated 1989, from a European security service and is unpacking its contents in a series on the site. The contents were never declassified in Russia, reports Michael Weiss, because it's still used as a teaching tool for Putin's modern spy force.

The manual covers the borscht-to-nuts of international espionage, from planting spies in other countries to approaching and converting targets. It suggests that KGB agents disguise themselves as members of diplomatic agencies, such as "The Foreign Ministry, the Ministry for Foreign Economic Ties, the State Education Committee, the Ministry of Culture, the Peace Committee, the Academy of Science, etc. can be used as well as theatre, art shows, cinema, tourism." The guide advises on how to make an approach: "Opportunities for contact with foreigners come when they have to solve problems and resolve a conflict situation, for example, violation of customs rules, road accidents, or violation of other Soviet laws. Agents can be placed in trains, planes and hotels to make these approaches.”

Public security

Children increasingly used as weapons of war, Unicef warns

Children caught in war zones are increasingly being used as weapons of war – recruited to fight, forced to act as suicide bombers, and used as human shields – the United Nations children’s agency has warned.

In a statement summarising 2017 as a brutal year for children caught in conflict, Unicef said parties to conflicts were blatantly disregarding international humanitarian law and children were routinely coming under attack.

Rape, forced marriage, abduction and enslavement had become standard tactics in conflicts across Iraq, Syria and Yemen, as well as in Nigeria, South Sudan and Myanmar.

Forensics

New Remote Fingerprint Scanning Application

A new mobile fingerprint scanning application for local and state law enforcement officers instantly searches state and national databases for a positive identification. The technology has been deployed by the US State Bureau of Investigation.

The process is simple. A suspect places his or her finger on a small portable device, about the size of a smartphone and the fingerprints become digitized and sent to the SBI’s Statewide Automated Fingerprint Identification System and to the FBI for a search of their databases for any matches. Once the fingerprint image is received at the SBI, the image is compared against the SBI’s entire biometric database and sent to the FBI for a search of the Repository of Individuals of Special Concern, a combination of many different FBI databases that house sensitive law enforcement information.

According to bladenjournal.com, the Rapid ID System allows law enforcement officers to capture fingerprints remotely using the mobile fingerprint scanner. An officer quickly receives the results of a search on the handheld device.

Predictions

3 Predictions for Government Tech in 2018

May I be the first to wish you a Happy New Year? For me anyway, 2017 seemed to fly by in the blink of an eye. I almost can’t believe it’s late December and we are about to put this one into the books. The pending start of a new year means that it’s prediction season once again, where pundits and columnists make their calls about what they expect to see in the coming year. And unlike most others, I actually go back over my work and fact check everything at the end of each year, so I need to be careful with my predictions. Thankfully, I got more right than wrong in 2017, although the ratio was closer than I would have liked.

Past performance aside, I’m feeling pretty good about my 2018 predictions for technology and government.

Prediction 1: Blockchain Beefs Up Government Cybersecurity

Originally created in 2009 to secure the emerging Bitcoin cryptocurrency, blockchain has lately been examined as a possible way to secure transactions, documents and messaging for a variety of applications in many sectors. Now the government is doing its own experiments in this area. Part of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2018, signed earlier this month by President Donald Trump, directs the Defense Department to conduct a comprehensive study of blockchain technology to find out where it can be successfully deployed in government...

Cybersecurity

How DARPA sparked dreams of self-healing networks

On an August day in 2016, computer security gurus traveled to Las Vegas to prove that artificial intelligence, or AI, could find and fix flaws in software at machine speeds.

There, teams battled for nearly 12 hours to see whose automated systems could best identify and patch vulnerabilities in software, with the top three prizes ranging from $750,000 to $2 million. Judges had winnowed a field of 100 teams to seven finalists for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency-hosted Cyber Grand Challenge (CGC) Final Event.

Nearly 18 months later, DARPA officials and winnings contestants agree: AI is fast emerging as a way to give Department of Defense agencies the edge in the ongoing cat-and-mouse battle for cyber supremacy.

Gun control

Cities sue Defense Department over gun-check system failures

Three large U.S. cities filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against the Department of Defense, arguing that many service members who are disqualified from gun ownership weren’t reported to the national background check system.

New York City, San Francisco and Philadelphia said in court papers that the military’s broken system for relaying such information helped spur the massacre of 26 people inside a Texas church last month.

“This failure on behalf of the Department of Defense has led to the loss of innocent lives by putting guns in the hands of criminals and those who wish to cause immeasurable harm,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement. “New York City is joining Philadelphia and San Francisco to stand up to the Department of Defense and demand they comply with the law and repair their drastically flawed system.”

Local law enforcement officials rely on the FBI’s database to conduct background checks on gun permit applications and to monitor purchases. It must be up-to-date in order to prevent people from wrongly getting guns, the cities’ attorneys wrote.

Border security

Could Texas' Big Bend be the border's weakest link? Smuggling of drugs and immigrants is on the rise

In the late 1990s, border traffic moved from Southern California to remote desert stretches of Arizona; by 2013, it moved east again to Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, the epicenter of migration and enforcement ever since. Now, one of the things driving the Trump administration’s push for millions of dollars in new border security measures is a troubling new reality: New smuggling routes are opening up, and some of them are even further west, in Texas’ Big Bend region.

The river here, about 60 miles east of El Paso, is just a few yards wide, one of the reasons Border Patrol agents in Big Bend have seen worrying increases in smuggling, attacks on agents and immigrant deaths.

“There’s hundreds of these crossings just in our area of operation,” Smith said. “The drug cartels, they own this part of the land. We have conceded large swaths of the border. There are areas where there are not agents for days.”

Weapon smuggling

Scandinavian Streets Awash With Arms Smuggled From Balkans

Scandinavia has seen a dramatic influx of firearms in recent years. The lion's share of the smuggled arms stems from the war-ravaged Balkans and has been used in a number of attention-grabbing cases.

After the conflicts in the Balkans receded, a large number of weapons flooded Europe's black market. Today, Scandinavia's streets are awash with "foreign" and previously unseen gun brands, such as the Serbian Zastava and Czech-Serbian Scorpion machine guns, amid an unparalleled upswing in shooting incidents.

Although the origin of the arms was not investigated in a number of cases, the Norwegian Dagbladet daily reported that arms of South and East European origin are increasingly used in gang milieus and drug trafficking. This autumn alone, a dozen of men were charged with drug offences and illegal arms procurement as a follow-up to "Operation Hunger," during which arms sales from the former Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and the former Soviet Union were revealed.