April 2017, by Center for Advanced Studies on Terrrorism (CAST)

The digital revolution has created a world where analog paper files and other antiquated media have largely been replaced by digital data. Neither the government nor the private sector anticipated the speed of this technological revolution, nor did they anticipate demands for privacy and security, or provide adequate technical solutions in a timely manner. In the digital world, users are no longer in control of their personal data or what is being done with it, and are increasingly demanding levels of privacy and security that simply did not exist before. Often users look to technical solutions,such as encryption, as an effective means of meeting this challenge. As an unintended result, criminals and hostile actors face greatly reduced costs in hiding their activities from legitimate U.S. Government surveillance, effectively “going dark.”

January 2017, Cybersecurity Group - Trump-Pence Transition Team

Cyber espionage, cyberwarfare, and attacks on vital domestic systems are among the most serious and dynamic threats facing the United States. Current policy, organization and programs have failed to meet these growing threats and need to be radically changed to successfully manage these critical challenges. The Trump administration will take America’s cybersecurity into the next generation, but can only succeed by building a stronger bi-partisan political consensus concerning these threats and making needed organizational and policy changes. The following plan includes several essential actions that should be taken within the first 100 days of the Trump Presidency, and defines a long-term path to meet these challenges.

November 2015, by Abraham R. Wagner

The recent ISIS attacks in Paris and elsewhere has rightfully heightened concern over bringing an additional 10,000 Syrian refugees into the U.S., and more after that. While most Americans are sympathetic to the plight of these refugees, it represents a significant security threat to the nation which cannot be easily discounted or falsely represented as the Obama Administration has sought to do.

December 2014, by Abraham R. Wagner

Reports that the Obama Administration is now actively working to normalize relations with Cuba should be welcome news to Americans across the political spectrum. The current state of affairs is an artifact of the Cold War that should have been changed decades ago and serves no national security or economic interest of the nation at all. It only continues as a source of hardship for Cuban-American families and the Cuban people. For many years the only real issue was one of electoral politics in Florida. Both parties believed they could lose votes and the state with any candidate that supported normalization. A recent poll, however, shows an increasing majority of Cuban-Americans support normalization, which is welcome news indeed.

December 2014, by Abraham R. Wagner

Reports that the Obama Administration is now actively working to normalize relations with Cuba should be welcome news to Americans across the political spectrum. The current state of affairs is an artifact of the Cold War that should have been changed decades ago and serves no national security or economic interest of the nation at all. It only continues as a source of hardship for Cuban-American families and the Cuban people. For many years the only real issue was one of electoral politics in Florida. Both parties believed they could lose votes and the state with any candidate that supported normalization. A recent poll, however, shows an increasing majority of Cuban-Americans support normalization, which is welcome news indeed.

November 2014, by Jeremy Bender and Armin Rosen

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) rakes in over $1 million a day and commands "a volume of resources and territory unmatched in the history of extremist organizations," according to Janine Davidson and Emerson Brookings of the Council on Foreign Relations.

May 2014, By Camille Francois

In the aftermath of the NSA spying revelations, our society is struggling to equip itself with the laws and public understanding necessary to deal with the spread of technology into every corner of our lives.

April 2014, by Abraham R. Wagner

Recent history has seen both the rapid evolution of cyberspace, accompanied great expansion in terms of users and capabilities.  These new technologies have also led to a virtual explosion in the amounts of data resident systems worldwide  – often referred to as "big data."  The era of big data has also brought a set of challenges in terms of security and privacy that increasingly affect the lives of Americans

November 2013, by Paul Swallow

Whilst many states have had a long experience of internal terrorism, the events of 9/11, and the sub- sequent transport attacks in Madrid and London have all highlighted the international nature of the present terrorist threat and the increasing need for effective cross-border police and judicial coopera- tion to counter it. These events provided an impetus for a wide range of political and legal initiatives undertaken by the European Union (EU) and elsewhere (Den Boer 2003), and have shone a light on the pre-existing bi and multilateral arrangements for doing so. Among these are located Counter Terrorism Liaison Officers (CTLOs), who, along with non-specialist or criminal police liaison officers (LOs), are a little researched and little understood area of international police cooperation. 

November 2013, By Ye-Ra Kim

Guarding national security in cyberspace has become a core interest for many nations connected to the Internet. Indeed, the growing dependence on fast evolving information technology and continuous occurrence of cyberattacks against nations demonstrate the need for solid security strategy in cyberspace. South Korea is not an exception in this regard. Notwithstanding cybercrimes on various scales, South Korea has undergone major cyberattacks in recent years.

July 2013, by Abraham R. Wagner

In recent years the vast expansion of cyberspace, not only in terms of user but content and applications, has brought about a set of new threats and challenges never anticipated by the net’s designers. At the outset of this technological revolution access to the net was only through a few connected mainframe computers; there was lit- erally nothing to steal or attack; and no infrastructure was connected to the net. Cybersecurity was simply not an issue.

August 2012, by Abraham R. Wagner

The rapid evolution of cyberspace has clearly been one of the greatest technological revolutions in recorded history. What began as a Defense Department experiment at the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA, later DARPA) in the late 1960s has transformed almost all aspects of life with new technologies as well as related applications available on a myriad of new devices. Since the transition from the ARPAnet to the Internet in 1989, there has been an explosive growth in e-mail, the web and net-based applications of a magnitude never anticipated.

May 2012, by John P. Sullivan

Transnational organized crime is a pressing global security issue. Mexico is currently embroiled in a protracted drug war. Mexican drug cartels and allied gangs (actually poly-crime organizations) are currently challenging states and sub-state polities (in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and beyond) to capitalize on lucrative illicit global economic markets. As a consequence of the exploitation of these global economic flows, the cartels are waging war on each other and state institutions to gain control of the illicit economy. Essentially, they are waging a ‘criminal insurgency’ against the current configuration of states. As such, they are becoming political, as well as economic actors..