Massachusetts Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira is expected to face a military court-martial for leaking highly classified military documents.

The post Pentagon leaker Jack Teixeira to face a military court-martial, Air Force says first appeared on Federal News Network.

Federal authorities say a North Korean military intelligence operative has been indicted in a conspiracy to hack into American medical centers, military bases and even NASA. The grand jury indictment announced Thursday in Kansas City accuses Rim Jong Hyok of ransomware attacks and other hacks on targets in the U.S., China, Taiwan and South Korea. It says he laundered ransom money and used it to fund more cyber attacks on defense, technology and government entities around the world. A $10 million reward is offered for information leading to him or any other foreign operative who attacks critical U.S. infrastructure.

The post North Korean charged in cyberattacks on US hospitals, NASA and military bases first appeared on Federal News Network.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says passage of a six-month temporary spending bill would have widespread and devastating effects on the department and the military. He wrote in a letter Sunday to key members of Congress that passing a continuing resolution that caps spending at 2024 levels, rather than taking action on the proposed 2025 budget will hurt thousands of defense programs, and damage military recruiting just as it is beginning to recover after the COVID-19 pandemic. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has teed up a vote this week on a bill that would keep the federal government funded for six more months.

The post Pentagon chief says a six-month temporary budget bill will have devastating effects on the military first appeared on Federal News Network.

A bench trial began last week in Baltimore federal court in a civil case over affirmative action at American military academies. Attorneys for the U.S. Naval Academy say the school should be allowed to continue using race as an admissions factor because prioritizing diversity in the military makes it stronger and more effective. But the group that brought the case, Students for Fair Admissions, says candidates should be evaluated based only on other factors, including socioeconomics. The group was also behind the case that led to the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision last year that ended the consideration of race and ethnicity in college admissions. The group also sued West Point, but the Naval Academy case went to trial first.

The post US Naval Academy says considering race in admissions helps create a cohesive military first appeared on Federal News Network.

What does fried chicken and notebooks have in common? Read to find out.

First space, now immortality: Jeff Bezos reportedly invests in eternal life start-up Altos Labs

La Palma volcano: How satellite imagery is helping us understand the eruption

The new Skins Lite accessory is more approachable compared to the original Skin. #secretlab #titanevo2022 #gamingchair

The iPad mini gets ready for Apple Intelligence. Should you upgrade? #apple #ipadmini #appleintelligence

Is deploying 5G in Singapore necessarily easier just because we’re smaller? Here, the big cities come out to play. #5g #connectivity

Do any of these new Lenovo AI-powered notebooks make you want to spend your dollars? #lenovo #copilot+ #ai

Improved unified observability capabilities are enhanced with new AI capabilities.

Alitalia to lay off more than 2,000 remaining employees as liquidation nears

Ultra-Orthodox Jews protest outside Israeli military enlistment office

Kyiv battles fires and damage after multiple drone blitzes

"Starships are meant to fly. It sure as hell flew today. So let’s get ready for the next one.”

Ukrainian authorities have arrested a 28-year-old man in Khmelnytskyi for running an illicit virtual private network (VPN) service that enabled access to the Russian segment of the internet, known as Runet.

The views from space reveal how devastating, long-lasting thunderstorm winds left many thousands of people without power.

Diverticulitis is a common condition that affects digestive health. Learn the causes and symptoms and get the best tips for managing and preventing flare-ups.

Fueled by record-warm waters, the storm turned into one of the largest on record ever to slam into the Gulf Coast.

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Why is it so hard to picture COVID-19?

Collision avoidance technologies need beefing up to cope with solar storms, says astronomers.

CubeSats make it affordable for universities and private companies to launch a satellite into space.

Location: Special Collections Hevelin Collection- PS3513.A575N6 1961

Location: Electronic Resource- 

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Coalition Senate floor alert in opposition to California SB-1081

The California Senate will vote this week on a bill to automatically register register draft-age applicants for driver’s licenses and state IDs with the Selective Service System for a possible future military draft.

The floor vote in the state Senate on SB-1081 is expected this week and could come at any time.

[Update: The Senate voted 23-2 in favor of SB-1081, with 15 Senators not voting. The Senate approved minor amendments to the bill by its author, which make the bill somewhat worse. The bill now goes to the state Assembly Committee on Transportation, where it is scheduled for a hearing on Monday, 1 July 2024. See this letter to the Assembly Transportation Committee in opposition to the current version of SB-1081.]

SB-1081 was held in the 'suspense' file by the Senate Appropriations Committee, but was called up and sent to the floor for a vote by the full state Senate despite both Democratic and Republican opposing votes in committee, with only minor amendments that fail to assuage any of the opponents of the bill.

As amended, SB-1081 is still opposed by a diverse coalition including the ACLU, the California Immigrant Policy Center, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, and the Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild.

Yesterday, during markup of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2025, the U.S. House Armed Services Committee approved an amendment to the NDAA that would automatically register all draft-aged male U.S. residents with the Selective Service System for a possible military draft, based on information from other Federal databases.

This system of automatic draft registration would replace the system in effect since 1980 in which young men can decide for themselves whether or not to sign up for the draft -- and so many choose not to register that the Selective Service database would be useless for an actual draft.

[Excerpt from the summary released by the Senate Armed Services Committee of the version of the NDAA for FY 2025 approved by the SASC and to be voted on by the full Senate.]

A proposal to expand registration for a possible military draft to young women as well as young men is moving forward again this year in Congress, along with a seductively simple-seeming but in practice unfeasible proposal to switch from the current system in which young men are required to register with the Selective Service System (SSS) to a system in which the SSS tries to identify and locate everyone eligible for a future draft and automatically register them based on other existing Federal databases from the Social Security Administration, IRS, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, etc.

Today both the U.S. Senate Armed Service Committee and the full U.S. House of Representatives approved different proposals to expand and/or make it harder to avoid the requirement for men ages 18-26 to register with the Selective Service System for a possible military draft.

The proposals for changes to Selective Service registration were approved during consideration of the Senate and House versions of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025, a "must-pass" annual bill that typically runs to more than a thousand pages.

The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) approved a version of the NDAA that would expand Selective Service registration to include young women as well as young men. This version of the NDAA will now go to the floor as the starting point for consideration and approval by the full Senate.

Also today the full House of Representatives approved a different version of the NDAA that would make Selective Service registration automatic while keeping it for men only.

A House amendment proposed by Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH), a West Point graduate and Army veteran, which would have replaced the provision to make draft registration automatic with a provision to repeal the Military Selective Service Act, was not "made in order" by the Rules Committee to be considered or voted on by the full House. There was no separate House floor vote on the proposed change to Selective Service registration, only a single vote on the entirety of the NDAA as a package.

The SASC markup was conducted in closed session, and only a summary of highlights of the version adopted by the SASC was released. It's not clear whether the SASC version also includes the provision in the House version of the NDAA to try to make Selective Service registration 'automatic' or only the provision to expand the registration requirement (with which compliance is currently low) to young women as well as young men. A spokesperson for the SASC told The Hill today that the full text of the Senate version of the NDAA won't be released until sometime in July.

Floor amendments are still possible in the Senate before it approves its version of the NDAA. But as of now, it seems likely that competing bad proposals with respect to expansion and/or attempted enforcement through automation of Selective Service -- one from the Republican-majority House to try to make it automatic, and one from the Democratic-majority Senate to expand it to women -- will be included in the House and Senate versions of the NDAA and go to the eventual House-Senate conference committee to sort out in closed-door negotiations late this year, after the elections.

It's possible that either or both of these proposals were included as "bargaining chips" intended to be withdrawn in exchange for concessions on other issues during the conference negotiations. The conference committee could include either, neither, both, or some other compromise on Selective Service in its final package of compromises, which typically are voted on and approved "en bloc" without further amendments.

Either of these misguided proposals would be the most significant change to the Military Selective Service Act since 1980. There have been no hearings, debate, or recorded vote on either of these proposals, and there appear unlikely to be any. The decision will probably be made in secret by the House-Senate conference committee for the NDAA.

[I'm often asked, "Why should we care about draft registration if there isn't going to be a draft?" In the article below, which was first published earlier today on Antiwar.com, I look at what war planners say about why draft registration is an important weapon in the arsenal of military strategy, even if there isn't going to be a draft -- and what that says about why draft registration ought to be equally important to antiwar activists, even when an actual draft isn't active or likely.]

[Stages of mobilization for war. Image from CNAS report based on Department of Defense mobilization plan. Note the absence of a Congressional declaration of war at any stage up to and including total military mobilization.]

A new report released 18 June 2024 by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) provides a remarkably candid window into the flawed and dangerous thinking of military strategists who support continual "readiness" for an on-demand military draft, even while they claim -- perhaps truthfully -- not to prefer a draft, even as Plan B, but only as Plan F for "Fallback" in case of prolonged and total war. (Thanks to longtime anti-draft activist Eric Garris of Antiwar.com for bringing this report to my attention.)

The CNAS report is intended to show supporters of the current bipartisan mainstream U.S. foreign policy and military consensus why the U.S. should step up planning and preparation for a draft as a tool of deterrence. But for those outside that consensus who think current U.S. policy is already bellicose enough, especially those who assume that opposing draft registration and other steps toward readiness for a draft should be a low priority for antiwar activists because the U.S. will never again (or at least not soon) activate a draft, the CNAS report provides an important lesson in how preparedness for a draft is itself a tool of war, even in "peacetime".

The CNAS report shows how its authors want to use readiness for a draft, and the circumstances in which they think it should be used.

The fundamental argument of the CNAS report is that a "credible" capability to quickly activate a draft is an important deterrent, especially to other great-power military "peers" and potential adversaries.

As with nuclear weapons, to speak of readiness for a draft as a deterrent is another way to speak of preparation for a draft as a threat. As also with nuclear weapons, that threat is itself a weapon.

Preparation for a draft is used as a weapon when it is used to threaten escalating war to another level of death and destruction, even when that threat isn't carried out. The "credibility" of U.S. readiness to implement a draft -- stressed repeatedly in the CNAS report -- is relevant only to the use of that readiness for a draft as a threat.

Proponents of draft registration and readiness for a draft such as the authors of the CNAS report argue that if, and only if, the great-power enemies of the U.S. believe that we are able and willing to activate a draft, we can use that threat of draft-enabled rapid and total military escalation and total war as a tool of diplomatic and military policy.

Resistance to planning and preparation for a draft is thus a way to rein in those policies that are based on the ability to rush into total war, and the threat to do so.

[Originally published by Responsible Statecraft, the journal of the Quincy Institute]

How did this suddenly become the summer of “the draft”?

There are a number of proposals in the annual defense policy bill (National Defense Authorization Act, NDAA) that deal with the subject. There is one to expand Selective Service registration to women. Another that would make Selective Service registration for American men "automatic."

Still another proposed amendment to the NDAA, which has also been introduced as a freestanding bill, S. 4881, would repeal the Military Selective Service Act entirely. Meanwhile, the Center for a New American Security just published an exhaustive blueprint for modernizing mobilization, including readiness to activate conscription.

All this talk has compelled “fact checkers” to insist that no, the U.S. government isn’t suddenly "laying the groundwork" for a draft.

But saying the U.S. isn’t preparing for a draft is like saying it isn’t preparing for nuclear war. Just as the Department of Defense is tasked with maintaining readiness to initiate nuclear strikes whenever the Commander-In-Chief so orders, the Selective Service System has the sole mission of maintaining readiness to hold a draft lottery within five days and start selecting draftees and sending out notices to report for induction whenever Congress and the President so order.

As such, there are currently ten thousand draft board members who have been appointed and trained to adjudicate claims for deferment or exemption. As recently as this month, states have been openly seeking volunteers to fill empty slots. And both the SSS and hawkish think-tanks have been war-gaming the government’s contingency plans to activate a draft.

[Timeline for a draft, counting from “Mobilization Day” (M=0), from SSS Agency Response Plan (ARP) Workshop (September 7, 2023)]

There’s room for argument about how likely it is that the U.S. would launch nuclear missiles or activate a draft. But there’s no question that it’s planning and preparing for both, as it has been for decades. It would seem that after years of atrophy, the government is stepping up its attention to military mobilization and readiness for a draft.

Maybe it’s time to ask whether more easy and efficient ways of tapping into human capital for war make it easier to get into one and whether it is in our best interest to do so.

Fewer young Americans are willing to fight the government’s wars.

[Also published on Antiwar.com. Portions of this article were first published by Responsible Statecraft and are reprinted by permission.]

Of men in the U.S. who turned 18 in 2023, fewer than 40% signed up for the draft – down from more than 60% in 2020 before the start of the war in Ukraine.

This eye-popping and previously undisclosed admission, as well as other revelations equally damning to plans to increase readiness to activate a draft, was included in documents released recently by the Selective Service System (SSS) in response to a Freedom Of Information Act request.

Library - Art Library, Location - LIB, Call number - TS140.R36 L68 2011

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My OII colleague Tobias Escher reports on a German decision on website operator liability for user-posted content. A professor unhappy with his reviews on Meinprof.de, such as comments calling him a "psychopath," sued. The site had removed the comments on his complaint, but he nonetheless demanded that the site pay a fine and be enjoined from allowing similar comments to be re-posted. The appeals court sensibly rejected that injunction. According to Tobias:

The court has decided that a general “cease and desist” for unacceptable comments is against the law. As a professor one has to face public criticism that cannot be prohibited ex ante.
...
In general this is a positive outcome for web sites that leverage the wisdom of the crowds as it offers some protection for the often not-for-profit operators of these sites. However, this does not justify defamatory comments on those sites and the court has emphasized the operators’ duty to remove those entries as soon as they are recognized. Last but not least, the subject under public scrutiny does matters as professors might well be made to face personal criticism in their role as public figures while teachers and nurses might have to be treated differently.

German law lacks a CDA Section 230, which immunizes U.S. service providers from defamation liability for user-contributed comments. So RateMyTeachers.com can ignore claims of defamation, leaving U.S. teachers to fight back with words, leaving their own comments or questioning the reliability of the site.

German sites, by contrast, can be held liable for their users' false assertions. If such liability were automatic, triggered immediately upon the posting of a defamatory comment, sites that permitted users to post content might as well paint lawsuit targets on their homepages: anyone could claim to have been defamed there; anyone unhappy with postings could get a heckler's veto against not just individual posts but the site itself. Sensibly, then, the MeinProf.de court limits the potentially unbounded liability in a manner similar to the U.S. caution against prior restraints of speech. The site can't be held liable until it has been given an opportunity to defend or remove the post; those who want to make libel claims against hosts should start by giving the host notice.

My U.S.-centric view is still that posters and their subjects should battle over online defamation between themselves, leaving their online hosts out of the picture. As we all depend on intermediaries to speak online, our speech gets less free with each new burden and risk-sensitivity we put on the intermediaries. Those who feel victimized have access to the same speech technologies to respond -- putting them on a more level playing field than arises when one calls in the law and an intermediary is chilled. In the German context and legal tradition, however, this decision seems to get close.

Location: Main Media Collection - Video record 42440 DVD

Location: Law Library- JC328.6V56 2016

Location: Main Library- HA19.B447 2016

Location: Government Information - J 1.42/3:SD-JD-2

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