The annual worldwide threats assessment from the US intel community was just released. Find it here:

I'll share some interesting passages belowintelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/… The threats report finds China "would consider aggressive cyber operations against U.S. critical infrastructure and military assets" if Beijing believed a major conflict was imminent.

New: in a blow to the Biden administration, a privacy board has recommended Congress adopt substantial overhauls to a key surveillance power, saying it threatens Americans’ privacy and needs more court oversight.

wsj.com/politics/natio… In a 3-2 split, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board said the FISA Section 702 program is highly valuable to national security but “poses significant privacy and civil liberties risks.”

All five members of the board urged some reforms.

wsj.com/politics/natio…

Republican Sen. Mike Lee tees off on FISA abuses during Senate Judiciary hearing, says the FBI and others have shown “shocking disregard for American’s privacy rights and civil liberties." Lee brings up the recent disclosure by the FISA Court of improper searches of 702 data on 19,000 political donors, George Floyd protesters and more. "Every one of those searches violates a constitutional American right."

New: FISA 702 spying helped U.S. investigators confirm the identify of the Colonial Pipeline hacker and claw back millions of dollars in ransom the paid to the perpetrators, senior U.S. officials said, declassifying a new example of the tool’s use. wsj.com/articles/spy-t… The disclosure of the use of 702 in pursuing the culprits behind one of the most disruptive cyberattacks ever on U.S. critical infrastructure comes as part of a campaign by the Biden admin to rally congressional support for renewing the law before it expires at year end.

New: U.S. spy agencies acknowledge collecting vast quantities of commercially available data, including about Americans, and says access to such data can “cause harm to an individual’s reputation, emotional well-being, or physical safety." w/ @ByronTau
wsj.com/articles/u-s-s… Commercially available information, or CAI, has grown in such scale that it has begun to replicate the results of intrusive surveillance techniques once used on a more targeted and limited basis, the report released by ODNI found.

wsj.com/articles/u-s-s…

NEW: FBI improperly used FISA 702 to search for information on Americans suspected of a having a role in the Jan. 6 attack or George Floyd protests as well as 19,000 donors to a congressional candidate in foreign intelligence database. That and much more wsj.com/articles/fbi-i… Asked about these violations, a senior FBI official said during a press briefing that remedial training was given to the analysts who improperly conducted the searches. No additional disciplinary action was taken. wsj.com/articles/fbi-i…

Just published: The latest installment of WSJ’s #FacebookFiles series

Company documents show antivaccine activists undermined Zuckerberg’s ambition to support vaccination by flooding the site and using Facebook’s own tools to sow doubt and misinformation. wsj.com/articles/faceb… One internal memo said initial testing concluded that roughly 41% of comments on English-language vaccine-related posts risked discouraging vaccinations.

Even authoritative sources of vaccine information were becoming “cesspools of anti-vaccine comments.” wsj.com/articles/faceb…

Biden is set to retaliate against Russia tomorrow with steep financial penalties, including new prohibitions on banks trading Russian government debt. Dozens of Russian firms and individuals will be designated for supporting hacking and elex meddling.

wsj.com/articles/u-s-t… More: A new executive order expected to prohibit U.S. financial institutions from buying new bonds directly from Russia’s central bank, finance ministry and the country’s massive sovereign wealth fund after June 14. wsj.com/articles/u-s-t…

New: The intelligence community's Global Trends 2040 report says the pandemic is the most "significant, singular global disruption" since WWII, an event that is likely to profoundly impact world development for decades to come. wsj.com/articles/covid… Among its dire predictions, the Global Trends 2040 report envisions continued fragmentation of communities where “people are likely to gravitate to information silos of people who share similar views, reinforcing beliefs and understanding of the truth.” wsj.com/articles/covid…

This is strange, as the FBI has solicited proposals from vendors to pull vast troves of public data from social media “to proactively identify and reactively monitor threats to the United States and its interests” as @JeffHorwitz and I have reported.
wsj.com/articles/fbi-a…

https://twitter.com/kendilaniannbc/status/1367161242759094273

As @RachelBLevinson—who has done excellent research into this area—points out, this stated view appears in clear disagreement with FBI’s written policies.

https://twitter.com/RachelBLevinson/status/1367174935031001091

11,869,478 (+1,080,708) vaccine doses have now been administered in the U.S., according to Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker. bloomberg.com/graphics/covid… 12,962,550 (+1,093,072) vaccine doses have now been administered in the U.S., according to Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker. An average of 844,387 shots were recorded each day for the last week. bloomberg.com/graphics/covid…

New: The electronic filing system used by federal courts has likely been breached in the SolarWinds hack, extending to another branch of government the impact of a suspected Russian cyber-espionage campaign. wsj.com/articles/feder… This might be rather significant. Gaining access to sealed judiciary records could be especially valuable to foreign spies because of the extreme sensitivity of info they often contain, like investigative techniques described in search warrants. wsj.com/articles/feder…

President-elect Biden, in most extensive remarks on the SolarWinds hack to date, says Trump admin needs to clearly and publicly call out who is responsible and that all indications are Russia is the culprit.

“Even if (Trump) does not take it seriously, I will.” Biden emphasizes cybersecurity is among the gravest threats facing the United States and it should be treated as such across the entire federal government. He likens it to other "unconventional weapons" that can wreck an unprepared nation.

NEW: Major cybersecurity firm FireEye has been hacked in what it says is a highly sophisticated foreign nation-state attack that compromised its Red Team tools. A person familiar with the matter said Russia is the leading suspect. MORE: The attack used infrastructure not previously seen in attacks elsewhere and appeared very deliberately targeted at FireEye. "This was a sniper shot that got through," a person involved in the response said. wsj.com/articles/u-s-c…

I have finally found the best twitter and folks it is Nevada slow counting twitter

https://twitter.com/notorious_krg/status/1324435042630881280

I mean

https://twitter.com/nicholasdante_/status/1324158473786019840

New: The Senate Intelligence Committee just released its bipartisan report on the Obama administration’s response to Russian interference in the 2016 election. Find it here: intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/… Lisa Monaco recalled a conversation with Mitch McConnell where he stated "you security people should be careful that you're not getting used," which she interpreted as the majority leader doubting the intelligence concluding Russia was trying to interfere.

WARNINGS IGNORED: The Iowa Democratic Party barreled ahead with the use of an unvetted, undisclosed mobile app despite admonishments from security experts. DHS offered to test the app, but was turned away. 1/

wsj.com/articles/iowa-… Sen. @RonWyden's office asked the DNC three times about details regarding the app during the run up to the Iowa caucuses, but received no reply, an aide to the senator said. wsj.com/articles/iowa-…

SCOOP: Deceased GOP operative Peter Smith secretly raised $100k from 4 donors in Oct. 2016 as part of a project to obtain Hillary Clinton’s emails, an effort that documents and sources say is being actively probed by Mueller

wsj.com/articles/gop-o… Smith, who said he was working on behalf of Michael Flynn, was warned he was likely getting mixed up with Russian hackers in his pursuit of emails, but he continued to pursue them just weeks before the election. wsj.com/articles/gop-o…

SCOOP: The three top cyber officials at the FBI are departing, a sweep of turnover that comes amid concerns about flagging morale due to Trump's repeated attacks and as U.S. security agencies have warned of unprecedented cyber threats to the country wsj.com/articles/three… In addition, Carl Ghattas, executive assistant director of the FBI’s national security branch, is leaving the bureau this month. wsj.com/articles/three…

This affidavit unsealed today against Russian national Mariia Butina is incredible. This Twitter DM she sent to a Russian official discusses how one political party, apparently the GOP, is "for us" while the other, Democrats, is "against" us.

"Our move here is very important." Right after Trump won, Butina told the Russian official: "I'm going to sleep. It's 3 am here. I am ready for further orders."

Russian official replied: "Think about in which areas of life we could go towards bringing us closer. ISIS ... we need to look at the American agenda."