Reposted from CISA/DHS

On January 5, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) announced the release of a new resource titled, Personal Security Considerations Action Guide: Critical Infrastructure Workers. Designed for critical infrastructure workers, this new resource provides actionable recommendations and resources intended to prevent and mitigate threats to critical infrastructure workers’ personal safety, both on and off the job.

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Reposted from EMR-ISAC

Human trafficking affects millions across the globe. Each January, the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS’s) Center for Countering Human Trafficking’s (CCHT) Blue Campaign recognizes National Human Trafficking Prevention Month (HTPM) to raise awareness of and combat this heinous crime.

January 11 marks National Human Trafficking Awareness Day, also known as #WearBlueDay. On this day, Blue Campaign invites individuals and offices to:

• Wear blue, the international color of human trafficking awareness, to state your commitment to help save lives. Need inspiration? See how other organizations have participated.
• Post a photo or video of yourself, or with your colleagues, on your personal or organization’s social media channels using the hashtag #WearBlueDay. You can also download ready-to-use #WearBlueDay graphics and captions to post on your social channels to spread the word. Don’t forget to tag @DHSBlueCampaign.
• Encourage your colleagues, friends, and family to do the same.

First responders are in a unique position to recognize the indicators of human trafficking, due to the many ways they interface with the public. In addition to promoting public awareness and engagement, the Blue Campaign also provides resources and training to help first responders, disaster responders, law enforcement and other industry partners to recognize the indicators of human trafficking and appropriately respond to possible cases. 

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PLA 2024 Early Bird Registration Ends January 12th, 2024   Don’t miss this annual in-person gathering of nonprofits, land management agencies, and companies coming together to learn, network, and engage on public lands issues.   Attendees – Register early and SAVE $100 with your Hilton PLA room block confirmation number at time of registration.   Exhibitors – Register before the show is sold out - only a few booth spaces remain.

 

Optional field trips are filling up quickly! Don’t delay; register today for PLA 2024 and enhance your learning experience by adding on optional public land field trips. ·       Golden Gate Bridge, Fort Point NHS, and Presidio Tunnel Tops ·       Candlestick State Park ·       Don Edwards San Francisco NWR ·       Alcatraz Island ·       Golden Gate Bridge and Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front NHP   Learn More About PLA 2024 and Register Today

 

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Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter where we regularly post highlights of the great work our members are doing every day!   Not a PLA Member? Join us today!

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Reposted from CISA

CISA has published the finalized Microsoft 365 Secure Configuration Baselines, designed to bolster the security and resilience of organizations’ Microsoft 365 (M365) cloud services. This guidance release is accompanied by the updated SCuBAGear tool that assesses organizations’ M365 cloud services per CISA’s recommended baselines. Today’s release incorporates stakeholder input from last year’s public comment period and pilot effort with federal agencies. Changes to the draft Microsoft 365 Secure Configuration Baselines were integrated with the SCuBAGear tool, which is also now more automated to reduce organization effort. CISA thanks all whose input took this guidance from a series of best practices to actionable policies and made the SCuBAGear tool easier to use.

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Reposted from CISA

On January 9, 2024, at 1:00 PM (ET), The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Emergency Services Sector Management Team (ES SMT) will host an Unclassified,  U//FOUO/LES  threat briefing and discussion on US Violent Extremist Mobilization Indicators. This briefing will be provided by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). A Q&A session will follow the briefing. Briefing Description: The U.S. and other Western nations face a heightened threat from violent extremists motivated by a broad range of ideologies. The 2021 US Violent Extremist Mobilization Indicators booklet and presentation provides a catalog of observable behaviors that could signal whether individuals or groups are pursuing violent extremist activities. These indicators were developed based on a review of FBI terrorism information, peer-reviewed academic studies, and analytic exchanges among Intelligence Community and law enforcement professionals. These indicators are intended to aid law enforcement and first responder investigative and detection efforts in order to prevent a violent act from occurring. In short, it is meant to help identify the “something” in, “See something, say something.” 

Agenda:

• Pathways to violent extremism
• What does a violent extremist look like?
• What does suspicious activity look like?
• Key uses of this resource
• Risk Factors, Labels, and the Indicators
• The importance of Observers
• Case Studies

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Reposted from NPR

In the weeks since Hamas' Oct. 7 attack, Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip have killed more than 15,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's health ministry, and destroyed thousands of homes in the territory.

And there have also been tremendous losses to the region's ancient and globally significant cultural heritage. The region was a hub for commerce and culture under Egyptian, Greek, Roman and Byzantine rule. It remained influential for centuries thereafter. A recent survey by the group Heritage for Peace details the damage done so far to more than 100 of these landmarks in Gaza since the start of the present conflict.

The casualties include the Great Omari Mosque, one of the most important and ancient mosques in historical Palestine; the Church of Saint Porphyrius, thought to be the third oldest church in the entire world; a 2,000-year-old Roman cemetery in northern Gaza excavated only last year; and the Rafah Museum, a space in southern Gaza which was dedicated to teaching about the territory's long and multi-layered heritage — until it was hammered by airstrikes early on in the conflict.

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Reposted from Washington Post

Howard University is investigating a break-in and alleged vandalism, posted on social media, of a campus building that holds historical documents and other archival material. It was unclear whether any of the materials were stolen or damaged.

The break-in occurred at Benjamin E. Mays Hall, a building on the university’s East Campus that had been home to the Howard University School of Divinity until 2015, when the school relocated, the dean of the school said in a statement. A video of the break-in that had been circulating on Instagram until it was recently deleted, showed a group of people “rummaging through Mays Hall, running through the stacks of its library, flipping through books and files, and even deploying a fire extinguisher indoors,” the Rev. Kenyatta Gilbert, the school’s dean wrote in a letter to the Howard University community on Friday. The break-in was brought to the school’s attention by alumni, who raised concern over the security of historical files that remain in the building, including early copies of the Christian Recorder, the nation’s oldest newspaper published by African Americans that predates the Civil War. The break-in was first reported on the What I'm Reading newsletter. Gilbert said that the group, whose identity was not disclosed, forced entry into the boarded-up building through a mechanical room. In response, Howard University public safety officers are ramping up patrols of the building while the university works to reassess everything in it and secure it. “The University is taking the necessary steps to ensure the School of Divinity’s most precious archival materials are in safekeeping,” Gilbert said. The Rev. Melech E.M. Thomas, an alum of the school, said in an interview that more needs to be done. “Remove, recover and restore” the materials in the building and in other forgotten places on campus, said Thomas, who was alerted to the break-in early Friday after a fellow alum sent him the video. “We don’t know what’s been stolen, lost, destroyed forever,” Thomas said, calling the images “heartbreaking to say the least.”

The now-deleted video, which Thomas had copied before it was removed and shared with The Washington Post, features three people walking into the abandoned building, commenting on old photos hanging on a wall, stained glass windows, books that were more than 100 years old, abandoned dorm rooms and “this sick broken statue” — a headless torso that a member of the group sprayed with a fire extinguisher they had found. The building appears neglected, with fallen tiles and papers strewn across floors. The account holder who posted the video — who described themselves as a “history enthusiast/explorer” on Instagram — posted an Instagram story on Saturday in which they defended the video and exploration, saying the goal was to create awareness of neglected historical items. The account also posted direct messages they said they had received thanking the group for highlighting the neglected state of the archives. The poster also said the video was made “a while back” and that it was clear they weren’t the first to explore the building. “Those of you worried about the individual spraying a fire extinguisher in my post should focus on the current state of the place,” the story said. A message seeking an interview with the account’s owner was not returned Saturday. Thomas said the video showed callousness toward what should have been treated as priceless relics documenting the history and experiences of African Americans. But he said the incident should serve as a wake-up call for the university to discover all important documents, artwork, relics and other archival material that remains vulnerable to theft, erosion or vandalism.

The materials were left in the building when the School of Divinity moved to the West Campus because of the limited capacity of the school’s new space, Gilbert said in the letter. The university had prioritized the items, moving materials important to the school’s coursework and accreditation first, as well as “high-value collections of art, administrative files, and other archival materials.” “The remainder of the school’s possessions continued to be stored at Mays Hall due to limited capacity of the school’s new space,” he said. The university has been working since 2017 to redevelop the site and have been working with the preservationists to designate much of the area the building sits on as a historic landmark district, Gilbert said.

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Reposted from The Guardian

Detectives arrested a man last night on suspicion of the theft of a Banksy Street sign worth up to £500,000 that was stolen in London less than an hour after being confirmed as a genuine installation. The Metropolitan police said they had deployed detectives to investigate after a council in south-east London asked them to help find the stolen artwork. The piece – a red stop sign with three military drones on it – appeared on the corner of Commercial Way, Peckham, on Friday morning – with Banksy confirming its credentials just after midday. However, footage on social media showed two men with a bolt cutter appearing shortly afterwards to carry out a brazen theft, making no attempt to hide their identities as witnesses filmed them. Footage shows one of them wrenching the sign off the post before running away clutching the artwork. The Met said earlier in the day: “We have received a report of theft and inquiries are ongoing. This incident is being investigated by officers from the Met’s central south CID.” Later they said that a man, arrested on suspicion of theft and criminal damage, remained in custody and investigations were ongoing. Jasmine Ali, from Southwark Council said yesterday: “I have every confidence they will get it back. We are not just talking about a street sign here, it is a work of art which was put there for the community. It is street art, and it is for the people.” It also emerged that the council had already replaced the road sign to avoid potential traffic accidents. Ulrich Blanché, a street art expert at Heidelberg University in Germany, believes the installation’s location in Commercial Way close to a funeral director, along with the drones – which appear to be military Reapers – suggests a critique of the global arms trade. 

Many of Banksy’s Instagram followers interpreted his latest work as calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. One gallery owner has said the artwork could be worth up to £500,000. John Brandler, whose Essex gallery sells Banksy’s works, said: “It could easily be higher. The media attention has made it more valuable.” Similar drone art appeared at Banksy’s Walled Off hotel in Bethlehem in 2017, which the artist said had “the worst view of any hotel in the world” – in a reference to Israel’s controversial wall in the West Bank. The artist has installed other pieces this year including Valentine’s Day Mascara, a mural weighing 3.8 Tonnes that appeared on the side of a house in Margate, Kent. It depicted a 1950s housewife with a swollen eye and missing tooth, wearing an apron and yellow washing-up gloves, and throwing a man into a chest freezer. In September it was placed in the foyer of The Art of Banksy exhibition in central London, where it can be viewed for free.

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Reposted from US Attorney's Office-District of Columbia

A New York woman pleaded guilty today to one count of causing injury to a National Gallery of Art exhibit in the May 26, 2023, defacement of Edgar Degas’ Little Dancer, Age Fourteen. Joanna Smith, 54, of Brooklyn, N.Y., pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington D.C., announced U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves and Acting Special Agent in Charge David Geist, of the FBI’s Washington Field Office’s Criminal and Cyber Division.  According to the government’s evidence, Smith, along with other co-conspirators, traveled to Washington D.C., to smear red and black paint on the National Gallery of Art permanent exhibition of Little Dancer, Age Fourteen, a sculpture created by Degas in 1881. Smith and a co-conspirator previously had conducted research on the piece and specifically targeted it. Before entering the National Gallery, the duo recorded video statements explaining their intent. Smith and the co-conspirator passed through security undetected with paint secreted inside water bottles. The duo approached the exhibit, removed the bottles from their bags, and began smearing paint on the case and base surrounding Little Dancer, Age Fourteen. Smith delivered statements telling onlookers why she was undertaking the action as paint dripped from the exhibit onto the surrounding floor. Following the action, the National Gallery was required to remove the sculpture from public display for 10 days. Gallery officials said it cost over $4,000 to repair the damage. Judge Berman Jackson scheduled sentencing for Apr. 3, 2024. The charge carries a statutory maximum sentence of five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. The maximum statutory sentence for federal offenses is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes. The sentencing will be determined by the court based on the advisory Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors. The case is being investigated by the FBI’s Washington Field Office, specifically the FBI’s Art Crime Team, with assistance from National Gallery of Art Police, and U.S. Park Police. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Cameron A. Tepfer of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.

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Reposted from The Art Newspaper

One story dominated the museum sector this year; the revelation that the British Museum had lost thousands of priceless artefacts in its care. “We believe we have been the victim of thefts over a long period of time,” George Osborne, the chair of the museum, said in an interview on BBC’s Radio 4 in August. As a consequence, numerous governments across the world have doubled down on their calls for the restitution of artefacts held by the British Museum.

The first response came from the Greek government, which left Osborne’s long-negotiated “share” plan for the Parthenon Marbles in tatters. In an interview with the Greek newspaper To Vima, Greece’s culture minister Lina Mendoni said the argument that the marbles were safer in London than Greece had “collapsed”. She said: “When this happens from within, beyond any moral and criminal responsibility, a major question arises regarding the credibility of the museum organization itself.”

The Nigerian government quickly followed suit, calling for the Benin Bronzes to be returned. “It’s shocking to hear that the countries and museums that have been telling us that the Benin Bronzes would not be secure in Nigeria have thefts happening there,” said Abba Isa Tijani, the director of Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments, to Sky News.

Cultural representatives from Ghana and Ethiopia also called for the museum to return their artefacts. The art historian Nana Oforiatta Ayim, who curated Ghana’s first Venice Biennale pavilion in 2019, said the museum’s claim that it took better care of African artefacts than the states from which they came is “racist, patriarchal and patronizing” in an interview with the New York Times.

Nations that have not traditionally confronted the museum over its artefacts also intervened. In August, an editorial in the Global Times, China’s state-run English-language newspaper, stated: “The vast majority of the British Museum’s huge collection of up to eight million items came from countries other than the UK, and a significant portion of it was acquired through improper channels, even dirty and sinful means.” In India, meanwhile, media focused on the return of the contentious Koh-i-Noor diamond, set in the crown of the Queen Mother and part of the Royal Collection at the Tower of London.

Writing in The Art Newspaper, the Oxford academic Dan Hicks was unequivocal: “The last remaining argument against restitution has now been lost.”

The British Museum has launched an independent investigation as it seeks a new director. Time will tell if it sticks to the plan to retain the Parthenon Marbles and its other artefacts. But it seems clear that 2023 will be remembered as the year when the pendulum definitively swung on the restitution debate and the idea that “world” museums are the rightful possessors of other nations’ priceless artefacts.

In the wake of the October terrorist attack by Hamas on civilians in Israel, the devastating war in Gaza has resulted in the loss of thousands of lives along with the destruction of mosques and archaeological sites. Although the Russian-led war in Ukraine dropped down the news networks, cultural and heritage buildings continue to be damaged and destroyed. In June, floodwater from the breached Nova Kakhovka Dam in the Russian-occupied Kherson province of southern Ukraine is suspected to have submerged the home of the late Ukrainian artist Polina Rayko.

UNESCO has moved to protect Ukraine by listing the historic center of Odesa, the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv and the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra monastery complex, as well as the entire historic center of the city of Lviv, on its list of endangered World Heritage sites. Odesa, newly protected, was subject to a sustained air barrage in July. The fighting has also led to a pointed restitution debate. An investigation by The Art Newspaper raised serious concerns that works of art taken by Russian troops in occupied Ukraine may not be repatriated once the fighting ends. Hundreds of paintings were removed from the Kherson Regional Art Museum in November and dispatched to Simferopol in Crimea, a territory seized by Russia in 2014. Other Ukrainian museums have suffered similar fates. Works from the Kherson Museum are now stored in a concert hall in Simferopol’s art museum (part of the Taurida Central Museum), which is under the directorship of Andrei Malgin. The Simferopol-born Malgin is close to Russian president Vladimir Putin and has been a vocal supporter of the Russian takeover of Crimea. News emerged this year of the scale of China’s economic crisis, one that has not been matched since the global crash of 2008. The impact on the country’s burgeoning museum sector could be profound.

The pandemic continued to play a significant role in 2023. In January, China reopened its borders to international visitors for the first time since March 2020. But President Xi Jinping’s Zero-Covid policies have had a major impact on the construction industry, leading in part to the potential defaulting of Evergrande and Country Garden, the country’s two largest property developers. What this means for China’s museum sector is not yet known, but commentators have pointed to worrying signs. The auctioning off of a significant amount of art from Shanghai’s Long Museum, one of China’s most revered private art museums, at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong in October was concerning. There was also the significant downsizing of Shanghai’s Yuz Museum and the closure of the Shanghai Centre of Photography. The global rise in populist movements and authoritarian governments globally continues to impact the museum and heritage sector. In January, during the inauguration of Lula da Silva as president of Brazil, supporters of the former president Jair Bolsonaro stormed the Brazilian National Congress, the Supreme Federal Court and the Presidential Palace of Planalto, leading to extensive damage to artworks. In Africa, the presidents of Niger and Gabon were toppled in coups d’état, while civil war broke out in Sudan in April between the country’s military and the populist paramilitary group the Rapid Support Forces. Protected heritage sites in each of these countries were threatened by the violence. Direct action on climate has been escalating throughout 2023, with groups like Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion using museums as frequent sites of protest. In October 2022, Just Stop Oil activists threw soup at a painting by Vincent van Gogh in London’s National Gallery. But, in November, they escalated their actions at the museum by staging a hammer attack on Velázquez’s “Rokeby Venus”.

There is no doubt that climate change continues to exert a huge impact on the world’s ability to protect its places of collective heritage. Catastrophic natural disasters included a huge earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria in February, leaving nearly 60,000 people dead and destroying many archaeological sites and ancient buildings. In September, a major 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck western Morocco, wreaking havoc on the country’s museum sector and protected heritage sites.

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