A stark graph showing a 1,533% increase in terror arrests in the U.K. this year comes with an interesting asterisk: it's mostly protestors whose "terror" offense occurred at pro-Palestinian marches, typically in the form of spoken or printed messages supporting Palestine Action and related slogans. — Read the rest

The post Britain's typical "terrorist" now a 60 year-old woman appeared first on Boing Boing.

LONDON — Britain’s spies will have a leading role in Britain’s preparation for AI threats, the head of MI5 announced on Tuesday, after warning the technology could enable terrorists to access bioweapons.

Ken McCallum, director general of the U.K.’s domestic intelligence agency has established the AI Threat Assessment Centre to help determine how the government views potential threats.

Giving his annual threat update from MI5 headquarters in London, McCallum said: “Human history has given us no experience of facing an actor which is smarter than we are, is capable of outthinking us.”

He stressed the “real” risks of AI, saying MI5 has caught terrorists seeking to use AI to “improve their reconnaissance and attack methodologies,” in addition to the danger of AI-enabled drones.

Though it has not yet been “realized,” he said he attaches “the greatest weight” to AI’s potential to “change the stakes on existing or even new bioweapons.”

He said “low-capability” terrorists may get a “capability” uplift if the safety guardrails in AI models don’t work as intended. 

He added that for a long time “many terrorists would dearly love” access to chemical, biological or radiological weapons, but that it has been hard for them to achieve.

“One risk is that AI could enable dangerous knowledge to get into the hands of people who […] didn’t have that knowledge.”

McCallum added that “sober attention” must be given to the risk that “AI could generate novel pathogens not previously seen.” He noted that the government is taking “additional steps” on bioweapons. 

One thing that “does trouble me”, McCallum said, is the pace at which the world is evolving. He noted that the “weird bits inside MI5” that focus on how Britain’s adversaries will act in five years from now are seeing those timelines shortening due to AI.

He said it is now his responsibility to “drag my organization forwards at a faster pace than human beings generally want to be dragged.”

Sifting threats from hype

The new threat assessment centre, known as AITAC, will bring together expertise from bodies including Britain’s AI Security Institute, National Crime Agency, and the National Cyber Security Centre to “separate the bluster from the realities” of AI’s threat to the British public.

This is the third center of its kind MI5 has set up, after creating similar units dedicated to analyzing terrorism and state threats.

Asked how the agency would work, McCallum said it would look at emerging trends and how the U.K. can best think about and prioritize the various manifestations of AI threats. 

Though the government, rather than AITAC, will decide the response to AI, McCallum said it was partly set up to avoid “competitive analysis, slightly conflicting and confusing messages that otherwise might exist, where you have different departments offering their own opinion” on the issue.

He said that it would enable everyone to have “a single version of the truth, a single understanding, a single lexicon, typography.”

McCallum also said MI5 will now give national resilience — such as protecting critical infrastructure, countering cognitive warfare, and addressing technology threats — “front-rank mission status” alongside its twin roles of countering state threats and terrorism.

He noted that MI5 is now devoting more resources to countering state threats than it was during the Cold War, noting an uptick in anti-immigration cases tipping into terrorist intent, while Iran has shifted its ambitions to hit harder targets such as military sites.

BRUSSELS — EU countries must “do their job” to prevent travelers from being stuck in airport queues over Christmas, Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner told POLITICO, as he singled out Brussels Airport for the way it has handled the new Entry/Exit System.

In an interview, Brunner defended the bloc’s digital border system and blamed its problems on national authorities and airports.

“Member states had enough time to prepare themselves for this system. They agreed on the system,” Brunner said. “It’s a security issue. It has to work … it’s up to the member states to do their job.”

EU countries began rolling out the Entry/Exit System, which records the fingerprints and facial images of non-EU visitors to the Schengen area, a year ago. It has been fully operational at all external Schengen border crossings since April.

But it has led to long waits at many airports — particularly over the summer, when some countries switched it off during peak periods. Delays persist at some airports, including at Brussels Zaventem, where travelers were forced to wait in lines for up to five hours last month.

“Some member states are a bit behind,” Brunner acknowledged. “We have some challenges, like Zaventem for instance, in Belgium, but also in other member states. And they have to do their job. They agreed on the new system, and now it’s up to the member states to do their job.” 

Brunner also said the Commission had offered support from border agency Frontex and funding to help countries implement the system, adding that he was “very confident” the problems would be ironed out before the next holiday rush.

Belgian Interior Minister Bernard Quintin pushed back at Brunner’s criticism, with a spokesperson saying his responsibility was to ensure there were enough police officers to staff the infrastructure provided by Brussels Airport Company.

The police have “been fully staffing the 12 positions at arrivals,” the spokesperson said, but the airport can process only 500 to 600 non-Schengen passengers an hour, compared with nearly 3,500 who may arrive between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m. on busy days. The airport’s infrastructure “cannot cope” with that demand, the spokesperson said, and the company must “make significant changes.”

Brussels Airport did not directly address the criticism from Brunner or Quintin, instead saying in a statement that “all parties involved” were working to fix the delays, including testing new e-gates and pre-registration kiosks, and training more police. “The need for additional infrastructure is also being assessed,” the statement said.

The Entry/Exit System has logged almost 230 million entries and exits across roughly 1,500 border points, Brunner said. Authorities have refused entry to about 80,000 people, including 2,000 considered security threats because of links to activity such as terrorism or organized crime.

“So you see, it actually works. And it pays off,” the Austrian commissioner said.

“This is the most modern border management system in the world,” he added. “We have the comparison to the U.S., to Canada, to others, and they’re all jealous.”

Ceuta stress test

As the EU’s migration commissioner, Brunner also faced another major test over the summer, when tens of thousands of people crossed from Morocco into Spain’s North African exclave of Ceuta.

The crisis remains an ongoing challenge for Spain and the EU.

Madrid initially said almost all those who crossed from Morocco had returned within days. But thousands remained in Ceuta. More than 3,000 people were living at Trampolín beach when authorities cleared an encampment last week; more than 1,200 then chose to return voluntarily to Morocco rather than go through the asylum-screening process, according to local authorities.

Images of thousands of people swimming toward Ceuta and overwhelming the area quickly became political ammunition, with far-right politicians campaigning for tougher migration policies — turning the crisis into a potent election issue and putting pressure on Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.

Brunner described Ceuta as a warning that the EU needs to be better prepared for sudden arrivals. He recently proposed a plan for cooperation with partner countries, stronger external borders, early-warning systems, and action against smuggling networks. Migration will be a key topic of conversation at this week’s EU leaders’ summit in Brussels.

Among the Commission’s plans to tackle migration is a proposal to strengthen Frontex that would see it have a reinforced standing corps of officers able to be deployed more quickly, a bigger role in returning people to non-EU countries, closer cooperation with partner countries and more capacity to monitor the EU’s borders. The Commission has also proposed giving the agency a role in monitoring social media to help spot emerging migration movements.

Brunner said the reforms would not mean countries would be forced to host Frontex operations if they did not want them. The plan envisages EU support during border emergencies, but member countries remain responsible for their own external borders.

Greece and other countries want the EU to be able to suspend asylum applications during a large influx and Brunner said he is “definitely going ahead” with an emergency response framework, as requested by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. EU leaders will discuss “concrete steps” at this week’s leaders’ summit.

The goal is to make the EU “more flexible” and “more agile” if events like Ceuta occur, where “mass movements are actually engineered and weaponized” against the bloc, he said.

Brussels also wants to help partner countries protect their borders to reduce irregular arrivals into Europe. To that end, Brunner on Monday begins a trip to Bangladesh and Pakistan, seeking to strengthen cooperation on migration with the two countries, he said.

“We want to help them to protect their borders,” Brunner stated, adding that the EU could support Bangladesh “via Frontex, for instance.”

This story has been updated with statements from Interior Minister Bernard Quintin’s office and Brussels Airport.

Netflix’s film “Unabomber” arrived last Friday, and by the weekend it was the most-watched movie on the platform — despite reviews calling it “dangerously simplistic” (IndieWire) and “another box checked on Netflix’s long, long list of true crime content” (Decider). Mixed is putting it kindly.

I watched this streaming content through a unique lens because I have a vantage point on this story almost no one else does: I grew up next door to Ted Kaczynski. For 16 years, the Unabomber was my neighbor in Lincoln, Montana. Which is why you’ll notice I don’t call this a “true-crime thriller.” 

Ted wasn’t always the wild-eyed figure the FBI dragged out of a 10×12 cabin in the woods. He was a son, a brother, a student, a professor — the perpetrator of one of the longest domestic terrorism campaigns in American history was once a baby in his mother’s arms, a boy idolized by his younger brother, David. When Ted and David bought 1.4 acres from my grandfather in 1971, Ted still looked like the buttoned-up Berkeley professor, not a disheveled hermit with a taste for murder.

“Teddy,” as our family called him in those early years, didn’t just live alongside us. In the ’80s — before a text message counted as a greeting — he shared meals and dinner conversation with our family. He held me in his arms when I was a baby, brought me gifts as a child, played cards with my parents, and even worked for my family. Ted didn’t present as a monster. He presented as an eccentric neighbor who’d chosen a peaceful, off-grid lifestyle.

I only began to grasp the full extent of his violence while writing my book, “Madman in the Woods: Life Next Door to the Unabomber.” For five years, my evenings were spent trying to crawl inside not only a killer’s mind, but the mind of the man next door who spoke to me in the gentle voice in which people reserve for children. I interviewed people who knew him and people who hunted him, reading thousands of pages of his journals, and corresponding with Ted himself at ADX Florence — the federal supermax known as the Alcatraz of the Rockies.

The violence I uncovered in our shared backyard was harrowing: the strychnine fed to my beloved jet-black dog, Wiley, a threat against my little sister’s life when she was still a toddler, and evidence that Ted had built and tested bombs in the very woods where I’d ridden horseback and built childhood forts, under the ponderosa pines.

But here’s what complicates the monster story, and what Hollywood has failed to illustrate in this movie: I also found a young man failed by nearly every system around him. A baby separated from his mother during a critical window of his development. A child so advanced in school he couldn’t relate to his peers. A teenager shipped off to Harvard at 16.

It’s that Harvard chapter where the Netflix film plants its flag. And look — the Murray experiments make for good cinema. Jacob Tremblay’s young Ted sits under bright lights, electrodes on his chest, while Russell Crowe’s Henry Murray takes him apart. The film wants this to be the moment. The scene where the monster gets made. A monster that discovers he cannot be “broken.” 

Some of it is true. His code name was Lawful, and Ted did want to prove that he couldn’t be defeated. There was a camera rolling, electrodes measuring heart and respiratory rates. The experiments were designed to break down a subject’s ideals and measure the stress response. They were unethical and cruel — especially for a 16-year-old who placed such importance on identity and intellect.

But the film mistakes a chapter for the whole story, and a dramatization for the record. If this is your first encounter with Kaczynski, the movie hands you a clean origin story and calls it a day. The experiments were not the single catalyst that turned a teenager into a man who would kill three people and injure 23 others. Were they part of the imperfect storm? In my opinion, yes. But an origin story is what Hollywood needs. The story is deeper, more complicated, and far from clean-cut black and white. There are so many interesting facets of this story, and I wish that the film would have taken the time and the care to tell them. 

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Ted isn’t here to give his take on the reenactment, but I can tell you what he said about the experiments themselves. In a letter Ted wrote in response to a pen pal who was concerned about what the man went through with the Harvard study, he said: “The truth is that in the course of the Murray study there was one and only one unpleasant experience. It lasted about half an hour and could not have been described as ‘torture’ even in the loosest sense of the word. Mostly the Murray study consisted of interviews and the filling out of pencil-and-paper personality tests. The CIA was not involved. . .”

I believe I know which half hour he meant. Buried in a transcript of one session, I found the interrogator attacking the young man’s philosophy, then pivoting — with a cruelty so casual it’s almost worse — to his appearance: “. . .don’t interrupt me, please. On this avoiding of society or of society is a bad thing, is that why you’re trying to grow that beard?” Ted: “. . .I mean, really, this isn’t really a beard yet.” The interrogator: “. . .you’re darn right it’s not.”

It was cold. It was damaging. But was it the singular experience that set a man on a decades-long mission to dismantle technological society? Simply put: no.

 

And as far as the additional timeline in this movie — the hunt, just read my book. The agent is fictional, the heroes were erased, and just about the only thing I found factual was the re-creation of Kaczynski’s mailbox. But I will admit that Russel Crowe, Jacob Tremblay, and Shailene Woodley all deliver riveting performances. Jacob Tremblay embodies a young Kaczynski almost exactly as I have imagined him, minus the smiling and the forging of his mother’s signature. But there were moments of his performance in which I recognized a young version of my own childhood monster. 

Hollywood keeps asking what made the monster, because a monster with a making is a monster we can understand — and contain. The harder truth, the one I lived next door to for 16 years, is that there was no single breaking point. There was a baby, a boy, a brilliant teenager, an eccentric neighbor — and, somewhere in the shadows, a killer. No one scene explains him. 

The post I grew up next door to Ted Kaczynski appeared first on Salon.com.

British counterterrorism police are investigating a possible Iran connection after five men were arrested near a U.S.-used air base on suspicion of preparing a terrorist act.

Police received a call shortly after midnight Sunday about three suspicious vehicles apparently traveling toward RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, England, near the southern Welsh border. Armed officers stopped the vehicles and arrested five men in nearby Whelford on suspicion of explosives offenses.

The men were later also arrested on suspicion of preparing a terrorist act, according to Counter Terrorism Policing.

Investigators are examining whether the suspected plot is linked to Iran, according to multiple reports. A source familiar with the investigation told Reuters that an Iran-linked motive is considered the leading possibility, while Russian sabotage and an Islamist plot are also being examined.

British authorities have not publicly identified a motive or said who they believe was behind the alleged plot.

RAF Fairford has played a role in U.S. military operations during the war with Iran. American B-1 and B-52 bombers have operated from the base, including for strikes on Iranian missile sites.

Iran‘s Revolutionary Guards warned Britain in July against allowing U.S. bombers to operate from Fairford, saying bases used for attacks on Iranian territory could become legitimate targets.

Police established a roughly 400-meter cordon around the vehicles while an explosive ordnance disposal team examined them. About 85 nearby households were advised to evacuate as a precaution.

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President Donald Trump said Sunday that U.S. and British authorities had worked together on the investigation and claimed the suspects intended to cause “big damage.”

“We had them under investigation,” Trump told reporters. “They were looking to do big damage to our fort.”

British authorities have not publicly confirmed Trump’s characterization of the alleged plot or said how long the suspects had been under surveillance.

“We are in the early stages of an investigation, and five men remain in custody,” Deputy Assistant Commissioner Vicki Evans, the senior national coordinator for Counter Terrorism Policing, said.

Police said the immediate incident has been contained, but the investigation remains ongoing.

The post Five arrested near UK-US base in Iran terror probe appeared first on Salon.com.

In Rough Edges, Mike Rothschild writes about fringe groups, conspiracy theories and how the Internet broke our brains. This column is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.

The Sept. 11 attacks came during a boom time for conspiracy theories. A vast industry of radio talkers, book writers, and cranks was finding new audiences on the nascent internet and using new technology to spread their messages faster and farther.

This was a new generation of media savvy personalities who knew how to tap into the fears of white evangelicals, revenge-seeking militia members, anti-tax activists, libertarians, Clinton haters, and paranoids on both the far left and far right. Many believed a traumatic event, whether real or “false flag,” was imminent. Some even claimed that the government would perpetrate it, then blame a convenient figure around whom the country could rally its bloodlust and need for revenge.

When it finally happened, though, they were just as baffled and desperate for answers as the rest of us. And they turned to the gurus helping them shape their world views — who were also baffled. 

Three major figures in the conspiracy theory world broadcast live on the radio in those first hours after the Twin Towers went down. They started to solidify narratives that would drive the next two decades of conspiracy theories and myths about the attacks — even as basic facts about what had happened were hard to come by.