Josh Meyer's Reports on Quartz
Medill National Security Zone's Josh Meyer is a regular contributor on national security topics to Quartz, a business-focused site with "bracingly creative and intelligent journalism with a broad worldview." We also cross-post his reports on National Security Zone.
By devising an ingenious series of possibly undetectable airline bombs, a wiry Saudi named Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri has become the latest personification of the ever-changing al Qaeda threat. You can thank him and his tradecraft for much of the frenzy of counterterrorism activity in recent days. That includes pretty much every country shutting down its embassy in Sana’a, Yemen and evacuating government personnel, and dire warnings of a possibly large-scale imminent attack in North Africa or the Middle East—or possibly somewhere else.
The global war on terrorism has never lacked a face of evil to embody the threat; Osama bin Laden, of course, as well as Ayman Zawahiri, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and others. But authorities are now pursuing Asiri with an especially high level of urgency and concern. The reason: not only is he a bomb-maker for the terror network’s most dangerous affiliate, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), he’s apparently a very capable and creative one who has trained other al Qaeda operatives. Continue reading →
As the only person to ever head both the US National Security Agency and the US Central Intelligence Agency, retired Air Force General Michael V. Hayden has a lot of experience in seeing around corners. He’s now a global security consultant, helping companies and governments to protect themselves against cyber threats and other dangers.
Last week, Hayden, also a director of Motorola Solutions and a distinguished visiting professor at the George Mason University School of Public Policy, said in a rare extended interview that Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies shared sensitive US information with the Beijing government. In a brief aside, he added that he’s undecided as to whether corporations should be allowed to go on the cyber-offensive, even in the absence of government intervention and protection.
Quartz talked to Hayden about the threats private companies face and whether they’re well-positioned to address those threats for themselves, and for humanity. Continue reading →
Say you’re minding your own business in outer space, and all of a sudden, one of your multibillion-dollar satellites gets blown up. Or the signals it sends to Earth go haywire and fly-by-wire planes start crashing. Or, worse, those signals … Continue reading →
There’s no longer doubt that the US government spies on foreign multinational corporations as well as governments, thanks to the disclosures by former National Security Agency contractor turned international fugitive Edward Snowden. The NSA vacuums up mountains of classified information from a rich array of sources. The CIA assists by launching digital “black bag” operations aimed at manually penetrating the computer systems of some of the world’s largest foreign multinationals.
Washington isn’t alone, of course; dozens of other governments do the same, in collaboration with each other and individually. But one thing that US officials insist they won’t do is use the information gleaned from industrial espionage to help US corporations, like the Chinese do with their state-run defense, oil and other companies. Continue reading →
Italy’s ambitious organized crime syndicates are still killing people and trafficking drugs and weapons, but their latest bet is eco-friendly businesses. The cash-heavy groups are tapping into corporate cost-cutting in Europe’s crisis-torn economy, including the often exorbitant expenses required to properly … Continue reading →
The biggest exporter of unmanned aerial vehicles, which are fast becoming essential to governments worldwide for both military and civilian uses, isn’t the United States, China or other major power. The big winner in this booming global market is Israel. And that … Continue reading →
The US State Department announced yesterday that it will send a senior official, Tom Kelly, to the Bahamas this coming week to formally strengthen bi-lateral cooperation on global counter-piracy efforts. This might seem a bit odd, seeing as Blackbeard and the other … Continue reading →
Olympic officials are downplaying this week’s call to arms by a top Chechen rebel, who released a videotape urging Islamist militants to disrupt the upcoming Winter Games in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Doku Umarov, leader of the Caucasus Emirate, told his … Continue reading →
On July 1, while wrapping up his trip to Africa, US president Barack Obama announced that he wants to get serious about thwarting black market trafficking in elephant tusks, rhinoceros horns and body parts of other endangered species. The added bonus, … Continue reading →
One of the reasons former NSA contractor Edward Snowden was able to get away with stealing top-secret documents about government surveillance programs is because Washington’s system of classifying national security information is badly broken. So many entire categories of data … Continue reading →
