Category «Defense»

Trump Is Asking the Supreme Court To Let Him Have Black Sites

Slate – “The Trump administration inadvertently revealed on Monday that it is attempting to trap Venezuelan migrants in a catch-22 that would effectively block them from challenging their deportation and detention in an El Salvador prison. In a court filing, the government acknowledged that it had deported at least one migrant to El Salvador due …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Courts, Defense, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legal Research

Inspector general will scrutinize Hegseth’s disclosures in Signal chat

Follow up to Here Are the Attack Plans That Trump’s Advisers Shared on Signal – the Washington Post [no paywall] – “The inquiry follows revelations that top administration officials used the unclassified messaging platform to coordinate military strikes in Yemen…The Pentagon inspector general’s office said Thursday that it will scrutinize disclosures made by Defense Secretary …

Subjects: Congress, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Defense, E-Records, Government Documents, Legal Research

NOAA removed 2024 Climate Literacy Guide from its website

Union of Concerned Scientist: “Yet another resource that belongs to us, the US public, has disappeared down the Trump administration’s memory hole. I just learned from the valiant Environmental Data and Government Initiative that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has removed the 2024 Climate Literacy Guide from https://www.climate.gov (though a data savior has …

Subjects: Censorship, Climate Change, Defense, Education, Energy, Environmental Law, Government Documents

Here Are the Attack Plans That Trump’s Advisers Shared on Signal

Follow up to ‘Boggles the mind’: Trump aide central to war plan debacle left Venmo friends list public and The High Cost of Team Trump’s Sloppy OPSE, The Atlantic’s Editor in Chief Jeffrey Goldberg and Shane Harris respond with the transcript of the Signal group chat [unpaywalled] after Trump and participants on the national security …

Subjects: Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Defense, Government Documents, Legal Research, Legislation

Mozilla Calls for Action to Stop Surveillance Firm’s Data Scraping

Cyber Insider: “A Mozilla-led campaign is calling on major tech platforms to block surveillance firm ShadowDragon from scraping user data from over 200 websites — including Reddit, Tinder, Duolingo, and Etsy — to support U.S. government surveillance programs, especially those run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The controversy centers on ShadowDragon’s flagship tool, SocialNet, …

Subjects: Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Defense, E-Records, Legal Research, Privacy, Search Engines, Social Media

‘Boggles the mind’: Trump aide central to war plan debacle left Venmo friends list public

Follow up to The High Cost of Team Trump’s Sloppy OPSEC via Raw Story: “A new analysis suggests the widely condemned error triggered by National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, who included a journalist in a group chat discussing top-secret war plans, may not be an isolated incident, leaving him open to potential national security risks. That’s …

Subjects: Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Defense, E-Records, Freedom of Information, Government Documents

Trump Admin Plans to Cut Team Responsible for Critical Atomic Measurement Data

If nothing else, the endless Trump/DOGE/MAGA coordinated attacks on every aspect of federal government services is bringing to light, all be it too late it would seem, the vast expertise and responsibilities of government employees who work for dozens of agencies and departments that most Americans have never heard of before. Via Wired [unpaywalled] – …

Subjects: Defense, Government Documents, Legal Research

The High Cost of Team Trump’s Sloppy OPSEC

This OPSEC Special Bulletin, on the left, went out to the Pentagon during the same time period that SECDEF was using an unauthorized Signal chat. The Bulwark: The top issue of the 2016 presidential election, the one that changed Donald Trump from a TV loudmouth to a world historical figure, was information security. Hillary Clinton’s …

Subjects: Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Defense, E-Mail, E-Records, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legal Research, Privacy

Inside Elon Musk’s ‘Digital Coup’

Wired [unpaywalled] “Musk’s loyalists at DOGE have infiltrated dozens of federal agencies, pushed out tens of thousands of workers, and siphoned millions of people’s most sensitive data. The next step: Unleash the AI…In the days and weeks that followed, DOGE hit one part of the federal government after another. The Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Education, …

Subjects: AI, Civil Liberties, Climate Change, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Defense, E-Government, E-Records, Environmental Law, Food and Nutrition, Government Documents, Legal Research

Donald Trump, Revenge Junkie

Mother Jones, David Corn: “Now that he’s back in the White House—after his humiliating 2020 defeat—Trump has embarked on a revenge-a-thon that goes beyond what we might have expected even from a vengeance junkie. He has removed security protection from past aides who pissed him off—including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former National Security …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Climate Change, Congress, Courts, Cybercrime, Defense, Education, Energy, Environmental Law, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Health Care, Housing, Internet, Legal Research

Federal Worker Layoffs Climb Toward 250,000 as Deadline Looms

Bloomberg Law: “The Trump administration’s push to drastically shrink the federal government shifts to a new gear Thursday, when agencies face a deadline to submit plans for large-scale layoffs and budget cuts. With them, the list of government job cuts that for weeks had been measured in the tens of thousands — and included retirements, …

Subjects: Congress, Courts, Defense, Education, Energy, Environmental Law, Food and Nutrition, Government Documents, Health Care, Legal Research