Really excited (and nervous!) to share that my new elearning course, Terrorist Financing Analysis, is open for pre-sale. During the pre-sale window, you'll get a few freebies on top of the course itself:
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JMDavis
@JessMarinDavis
Global security research, policy and practice. President Insight Threat Intelligence & CASIS. PhD candidate. Newsletter writer.
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US warns Wagner Group seeking arms, slaps sanctions on group's head in Mali
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NEW: Two Trump workers moved boxes back into a Mar-a-Lago storage room one day before the feds came to collect subpoenaed docs in June. And multiple witnesses have testified Trump showed classified material off at Mar-a-Lago. more w/ & co:
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"JI has developed various organizational infrastructures on the island, ranging from fundraising, firearms smuggling, and dakwah (preaching)."
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Notable, more info is better. IMO people underestimate how sensitive foreign interference (FI) reporting can be. FI reports can have the potential to deeply impact the way our democratic institutions function and negatively influence public confidence in democracy itself.
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Breaking: Trudeau to waive cabinet confidence to let agencies review foreign interference documents. Story by @PhilipLing & I #cdnpoli. cbc.ca/news/politics/
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Stewart Rhodes, leader of the Oath Keepers, was sentenced today to 18 years in prison for seditious conspiracy / plot to keep Trump in power.
If you want to learn more about how the Oath Keepers financed their activities (including Jan 6th), read on:
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Stewart Rhodes, leader of the Oath Keepers, has been sentenced to 18 years in prison for his seditious conspiracy conviction. I first wrote about Rhodes & the OK back in 2009, in this report: adl.org/sites/default/
Note that way back then I observed that many Oath Keepers
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Here's my interview on with on the issue of foreign interference in Canada, and the first report from special rapporteur David Johnston (starts at the 1:11 mark)
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🚨🗞We talk a lot about terrorist financing, but what about the financing of other threats to global security? In today's Insight Intelligence, we take a look into what threat financing entails, and how we can detect & disrupt it.
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Somalia forces foil major Al-Shabaab attack
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To clarify: my concern is less with the report, and more about the limitations of the report (based on the availability and completeness of intelligence). That’s more an issue with our s&i community than the report itself
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The government needs to be much more clear about that going forward if we are to have faith in their judgments about foreign interference in Canada.
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And this concern extends to the entire report, if I'm being honest. I believe that Johnston didn't find support for the media allegations.
What I don't take on faith is that Canada has a robust and complete body of intelligence on foreign interference.
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This matters. Because an absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.
I want to believe that there was a thorough and complete investigation into this.
But I can't take that on faith, having been on the inside.
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What is less clear is how robust the investigation into this was. Did CSIS/RCMP rely solely on human or technical sources? Did they get disclosures from FINTRAC? Did they apply for warrants to look directly at the bank accounts?
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The $250k alleged to have been given to 11 political candidates. The Johnston report says that there is no evidence that the money ever got to the candidates.
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It remains entirely unclear to me if our FI investigations are well-resourced, getting good intelligence, and building a robust picture. Or if we're dealing with snippets of intelligence. Let me give you a concrete example:
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I'm still reflecting on the first foreign interference report, and I have one lingering question: what is the body of evidence that the report is based on?
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This is a good summary / analysis of the first report from the special rapporteur on foreign interference in Canada.
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US Designations of Al Shabaab finance leaders, focusing on taxation networks and intelligence wing (Amniyat) as well as a series of companies facilitating AS finance.
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New investigative story out on a multi year chinese cyberspionage campaign in Africa reuters.com/world/africa/c
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The Netherlands is now the second state to prosecute #ISIS atrocities against Yazidis under the principle of universal jurisdiction.
Hasna Aarab, a 31-year-old Dutch national woman from Hengelo, faces charges crime against humanity and terrorism:
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Rwandan ex-police chief arrested in South Africa over 1994 genocide
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Tomorrow we've got a special edition of Insight Intelligence looking at threat finance - it's describing how threats to international security are financed, with plenty of concrete examples.
Subscribe so you don't miss out!
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Yesterday's Johnston report correctly emphasized major structural problems in the intelligence-policy interface in Canada. Some reactions since yesterday, however, are over the top: it's not the apocalypse. Au contraire: we've had the luxury of being able to neglect this- so far.
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CSE has just issued a warning about cyber-attacks by a state-sponsored actor associated with China targeting critical infrastructure in the US.
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I’ll be on with and tonight talking about the special rapporteur’s report on electoral interference. It’s gonna be a good one, so tune in!
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The reaction from people who actually study national security seem really measured and reasonable to me
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Yesterday's Johnston report correctly emphasized major structural problems in the intelligence-policy interface in Canada. Some reactions since yesterday, however, are over the top: it's not the apocalypse. Au contraire: we've had the luxury of being able to neglect this- so far.
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So - Canada and Saudi Arabia kiss and make up (at least in part). Why, and why does it matter? A thread.
-why is not clear yet, but I assume it is in line with consistent Saudi efforts to resolve the many disputes born in the crazy early years of MbS - Qatar, Yemen.
(1/x)
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Canada and Saudi Arabia to appoint ambassadors, possibly ending dispute frozen since 2018:
reuters.com/world/canada-s
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Canada and Saudi Arabia to appoint ambassadors, possibly ending dispute frozen since 2018:
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If you’re looking for more foreign interference content, strongly recommend this episode. Great guests and smart discussions. and more!
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All of this really makes me reflect on what the leaker(s) has been sharing, and why. Because based on Johnston's report, most of it was patently untrue, or a very narrow selection of intelligence meant to paint a particular picture. 🧐
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And this should be on the front page of every newspaper in this country, but of course it isn't. The allegation against Han Dong is false.
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Probably need to keep pointing to this for the kids in the back of the class (this has caused some serious confusion in the public discussion around FI in Canada...)
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Also, the fact that a (or more than one) leaker was leaking DRAFT documents is really telling. A real attempt to shape a particular narrative, in my view. (A partisan one, as I've long asserted.)
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Also, the play-by-play of the media allegations (and debunking of the theories / conspiracies around them) is pretty excellent.
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I'm re-reading the first Foreign Interference Report today, and was struck by this passage, and that old adage to never attribute something to malicious intent that can be explained by incompetence....
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