Policing agencies consider artificial intelligence a force multiplier because it can rapidly process more data than human brains and yield insights to help solve complex analytical problems. Our limited understanding of how AI algorithms make …
Articles by: "Teagan Westendorf"
The Australian government recently donated $40 million to assist with alleviating the food security and economic crises unfolding in Afghanistan, while reiterating its condemnation of the Taliban’s repression and exclusion of women and girls from …
The Taliban’s recent ban on opium cultivation in Afghanistan, a repeat of previous attempts under Taliban rule up to 2001, shows how large-scale illicit drug economies are a fierce vector for organised crime and terrorism. …
Digital technologies, devices and the internet are producing huge amounts of data and greater capacity to store it, and those developments are likely to accelerate. For law enforcement, a critical capability lagging behind the pace …
The legislative framework governing electronic surveillance by Australia’s policing and intelligence agencies is undergoing major reforms. There have long been calls for such an overhaul given the significant changes in the way we communicate since …
The US government’s recent ban of Israeli technology firm NGO Group’s Pegasus spyware has significant implications for Australian efforts to regulate digital technologies in the face of new online national security threats. Putting human rights …
Last month a whopping 450 kilograms of heroin being imported by ship was seized in Melbourne. That number sounds huge, but it does not convey the true gravity of the challenge faced by police and …
Australia has demonstrated the capacity and capability to undertake fast, scalable responses to disasters and humanitarian crises in recent years. Australian governments, agencies, non-government organisations and the public have proven determined and flexible in both …
When the Australian parliament passed the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill 2021 (SLAID) in August, research institutes and news media voiced concerns about an erosion of civil liberties—for just a few days. The …
US President Joe Biden’s pivot to the Indo-Pacific region has brought announcements of big defence spending by the United States in northern Australia. The US force posture initiatives in the north will involve total spending …
In 1922, German political theorist Carl Schmitt wrote a seminal essay arguing that sovereignty is defined by the power to suspend state law during times of extraordinary threat to national security. The government can then neutralise that …
The Joe Biden administration’s National strategy for countering domestic terrorism, released last month, followed an urgent review of efforts to address what the White House says is ‘the most urgent terrorism threat the United States …