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The 2011 military assault on Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, was so successful, it is possible to forget how difficult the U.S. Navy SEAL mission really was.

"The SEAL team that went into this, they didn't think they would make it back," said CBS News correspondent John Dickerson.

"That was a surprise to me," said Fox News anchor Chris Wallace. "One of the top CIA operatives, back watching the drone view back at Langley, at CIA Headquarters, fully expected that he was gonna see the compound just explode like a Jerry Bruckheimer action movie that the whole place was just gonna blow up."

The SEALs didn't know if bin Laden would even be there, and (if he was) if he'd be ringed by tripwires, bodyguards, and maybe Pakistani troops.

"In fact, [Rob] O'Neill called his particular team of the SEALs 'The Martyrs Brigade,' because he thought, 'We're gonna go out there, we're gonna do it, we're gonna avenge 9/11, we're gonna bring bin Laden to justice, but there's no way we're getting home,'" Wallace said.

O'Neill, the Navy SEAL credited with killing bin Laden, is just one of the characters in Wallace's new book, "Countdown bin Laden" (published by Simon & Schuster, a division of ViacomCBS), that traces 247 days leading up to that fateful moment.

Wallace said, "The president is making a decision about a raid that's gonna endanger the lives of a couple of dozen SEALs; that threatens relations with a very important ally, Pakistan; and, not so incidentally, probably betting his presidency."

Dickerson asked, "Where do you put this one in the history of tough presidential calls?"

"In terms of just the process, the professionalism, the care, the meticulousness, this is right at the top," Wallace replied.

Wallace's account isn't just about night vision goggles and stairway firefights; it also follows the painstaking puzzlework done at lonesome cubicles and in windowless conference rooms.

Wallace said, "The old line, 'The harder you work, the luckier you get'? They had worked as hard as I can't see anything more they could have done to give themselves a chance for success here."

It wasn't the only thing going on at the time, Wallace noted: "Obama has got a civil war in Libya; he's got the Arab Spring across the Middle East; he's got Donald Trump pushing the birther movement."

Four days before the raid, President Obama had to prove he was born in America.

"I'm speaking to the vast majority of the American people, as well as to the press: We do not have time for this kind of silliness," the president said. "We've got better stuff to do."

Wallace said, "It's true of every president. You don't get to decide what issues you're gonna deal with, what's gonna be on your plate today. You know, some of it you get to decide, but some of it is just incoming."

The clock was ticking. The longer the CIA worked to be certain they'd found bin Laden, the greater the chance they might spook him, losing the best chance they'd had in nine years.

Dickerson asked, "Were you conscious of the disconnect between what we see, and then what's really going on behind the scenes?"

"Absolutely," Wallace replied. "I mean, nobody had a clue. Remember, the night before the raid, Obama is at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. And he's taking off after Donald Trump because Trump has been propagating the birther theory. And he starts making fun of the decisions that Trump made on 'Celebrity Apprentice':

Mr. Obama: "But you, Mr. Trump, recognized that the real problem was a lack of leadership. And so ultimately, you didn't blame Lil' Jon or Meatloaf. You fired Gary Busey. And these are the kind of decisions that would keep me up at night."

"He's 24 hours from the biggest decision of his presidency," Wallace said. "And perhaps, it's either going to secure or eliminate the chances for his reelection."

It was the biggest decision for that president, but a typical presidential one: a choice where the chance for success was not much better than 50 percent, and even the best outcome was one where Americans were almost certain to die.

"I came to quite a different view of Obama through writing this book," Wallace said. "Did a lotta people think he was the candidate of hope and change and peace, and a dove? Yeah, but they didn't recognize how tough Obama was."

Admiral William McRaven, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command, was also surprised, as Wallace recalled: "One of the things that McRaven said is, 'I know the guy had never been in the military. But he was so discerning about what was important and what wasn't, and he knew his strengths and he knew his limits. He knew the stuff he didn't know, and he wasn't gonna presume or pretend that, you know, I'm more of a general than the generals.'"

Dickerson asked, "Given that, what do you think when leaders say, 'Well, I just trust my gut'?"

"I think they're damn fools," Wallace replied.

"Do you ever think some of the people who are running, or want to run, you think, 'They couldn't have handled this kind of challenge' that Obama faced, or that any president faces, when it really gets to the toughest things?"

"Yes," he replied.

As a presidential debate moderator, Wallace has thought a lot about what it takes to be president: "There are a lot of things about the presidency other than making these kinds of life-and-death decisions. But for the biggest things, the things like bin Laden, the things like getting out of Afghanistan and confronting North Korea and all of these things, there are gonna be crises, completely unforeseen crises. And the idea of thinking, really thinking, 'Could they handle that? Could they handle all of the incoming, all of the information, all of the pressure, all of the risks, all of the possibilities, and come to the right conclusion?' In the end, it's kind of a guess; you don't know until they're there. But it's a useful way to look at a potential president."

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Story produced by Ed Forgotson. Editor: Remington Korper.

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"Countdown bin Laden": Obama's pursuit of the 9/11 mastermind - CBS News

Ben Ginsberg, a GOP election lawyer who helped George W. Bush prevail in the Florida recount in 2000, is now wielding his legal expertise to provide advice to election officials threatened by Republican-initiated voting laws.

Hes teaming up with Democratic lawyer Bob Bauer to help election officials from both parties deal with harassment stemming from Donald Trumps grievances about the 2020 election and new state laws that restrict their authority.

Ginsberg and Bauer, who previously worked together in 2013 as co-chairs of a presidential commission on how to remove barriers to voting, will serve as co-chairs of the new Election Official Legal Defense Network, founded in collaboration with the nonprofit Center for Election Innovation & Research. The network will provide officials with legal advice and representation at no cost, they said.

Election officials face an increasing wave of state laws subjecting them to criminal penalties for performing their professional duties, while at the same time facing threats of violence to themselves and their families, Bauer and Ginsberg said in a joint statement, along with David Becker, director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research.

Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call

Ben Ginsberg, right, and Bob Bauer, launched a legal defense network to advise election officials threatened by new state voting laws.

Longtime disagreements between the major political parties over voting rules have been exacerbated since the 2020 election. Republicans say new laws are needed to restore public confidence after Trumps false claims the election was stolen. Democrats counter that these laws are intended to prevent their supporters, including minorities, from casting ballots.

Intimidation of election officials is actually becoming a strategy, Ginsberg said Wednesday in a call with reporters, with weaponized poll watchers and threats to election officials being used by partisans to try to gain office.

The network of volunteer lawyers being assembled will help these officials across the country to respond to threats and avoid being bullied, he said. Legal services offered could range from informal advice to litigation.

Ginsberg was at the forefront of GOP election efforts for decades, including Bushs Florida recount battle against Al Gore after the 2000 election. More recently, hes worked cooperatively with Democrats, including Bauer, Barack Obamas White House counsel. Ginsberg has fiercely criticized Trump and said that widespread voter fraud cited by Republicans to justify restrictive voting laws doesnt exist.

Bauer said on the call that the involvement of Ginsberg and other Republicans serving on the legal networks advisory board should send a message to the public. We need a strong note of bipartisanship to be sounded in defense of these officials, he said.

Examples where local election officials say they may be threatened include a new Texas law signed Tuesday by Gov. Greg Abbott (R). The Texas law ends drive-thru voting, implemented by Harris County to facilitate socially distanced voting in Democrat-dominated Houston during the pandemic. It limits mail-in voting and gives more power to partisan poll watchers, among other things.

Abbott said in signing it that the Texas law would restore trust and confidence in our elections.

According to a lawsuit filed by the Brennan Center for Justice and others, the law will make it harder for election workers to maintain safety and security in the polling place by curtailing election workers authority to remove partisan poll watchers who are harassing voters. The law could subject election workers to prosecution if they try to limit poll watchers behavior.

Harris County Elections Administrator Isabel Longoria, who joined the lawsuit, said her First Amendment free speech rights would be restricted under the bills anti-solicitation provision, which makes it a crime for her to encourage individuals to apply to vote by mail.

Any American whether Republican, Democrat or independent must know that systematic efforts to undermine the ability of those overseeing the counting and casting of ballots on an independent, nonpartisan basis are destructive to our democracy, Ginsberg and Bauer said in a Washington Post op-ed.

To contact the reporter on this story: Kenneth P. Doyle in Washington at kdoyle@bgov.com

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Bennett Roth at broth@bgov.com; Kyle Trygstad at ktrygstad@bloombergindustry.com

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Bush, Obama Lawyers Advising Threatened Election Officials (1) | Bloomberg Government - Bloomberg Government

Problematic celebrity activist Rose McGowan has claimed that the families of former President Barack Obama and California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) are in on a Democratic plot to protect convicted sexual assaulter Harvey Weinstein.

McGowan made her comments while endorsing Larry Elder, an anti-LGBTQ Republican California gubernatorial recall candidate, during a Sunday press conference in Los Angeles. Elder is one of several Republicans along with Caitlyn Jenner trying to unseat Gov. Newsom in tomorrows recall election.

Related:Republicans are poising themselves to win regardless of the outcome in California recall

In 2017, McGowan, an actor and activist in the #MeToo movement, said that Weinstein sexually assaulted her in 1997. At the Sunday press conference, she accused Newsoms wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, of trying to bribe her in order to keep her from accusing Weinstein of sexual assault.

She said that Jennifer Newsom had offered McGowan whatever it would take to make [McGowan] happy. McGowan also said that Jennifer Newsom inferred that she was a Weinstein rape victim to get into [a] private group of Weinstein rape victims.

McGowan then said that the Newsoms, the Obamas, and other Hollywood Democrats are all in on it it presumably being a campaign to protect Weinstein.

As proof of the Obamas involvement, she brought up the fact that Malia Obama, Michelle and Barack Obamas daughter, had an internship at the Weinstein Company immediately after her father left the presidency. Her internship began months before Weinstein was publicly accused of three decades worth of numerous sexual assaults by roughly 87 women.

Weinstein was a major donor to Democratic candidates, including Obama.

In January 2020, McGowan came out as a Republican via Twitter, though she initially backtracked, claiming she had only written the tweets because she had freaked out. In April, McGowan went on the right-wing cable network Fox News to call Democrats a deep cult against changing the world for the better.

In 2018, she implied that transgender women face less harassment than cisgender women. Numerous statistics have shown that transgender women face disproportionately high levels of harassment, assault and violence (including sexual) compared to the general population.

When a trans woman publicly called her out for her comments at a 2018 book reading event, McGowan accused her of being a paid plant, possibly paid by Harvey Weinstein. McGowan then cancelled the rest of the stops in her book tour.

In 2014, she said that gay men are more misogynistic than straight men and gay men spent the last century fighting for the right to stand on top of a float wearing an orange Speedo and take molly.

Despite her anti-LGBTQ comments, she has actively campaigned for same-sex marriage.

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Rose McGowan says the Obamas were 'in' on Harvey Weinstein's sexual assaults - LGBTQ Nation

On 14 September 2021, eight international organisations joined forces to launch a new portal promoting global co-operation on artificial intelligence (AI). The portal is a one-stop shop for data, research findings and good practices in AI policy.

The objective of the portal is to help policymakers and the wider public navigate the international AI governance landscape. It provides access to the necessary tools and information, such as projects, research and reports to promote trustworthy and responsible AI that is aligned with human rights at global, national and local level.

Key partners in this joint effort include the Council of Europe, the European Commission, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United Nations (UN), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and the World Bank Group.

Access the website: https://globalpolicy.ai

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Artificial Intelligence A New Portal to Promote Global Cooperation Launched with 8 International Organisations - Council of Europe

Artificial intelligence (AI) is sometimes referred to as a herald of the fourth industrial revolution. That revolution is already here. Whenever you say Hey Siri or glance at your phone in order to unlock it, youre using AI. Its current and potential applications are numerous, including medical diagnosis and predictive technologies that enhance user interactions.

As chairwoman of the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, I am particularly interested in the potential for AI to accelerate innovation and discovery across the science and engineering disciplines. Just last year, DeepMind announced that its AI system AlphaFold had solved a protein-folding challenge that had stumped biologists for half a century. It is clear that not only will AI technologies be integral to improving the lives of Americans, but they will also help determine Americas standing in the world in the decades to come.

However, the vision of AIs role in humanitys future isnt all rosy. Increasingly autonomous devices and growing amounts of data will exacerbate traditional concerns, such as privacy and cybersecurity.Other potential dangers of AI have also arrived, appearing as patterns of algorithmic bias that often reflect our societys systemic racial and gender-based biases. We have seen discriminatory outcomes in AI systems that predict credit scores, health care risks, and recruitment potential. These are domains where we must mitigate the risk of bias in our decision-making, and the tools we use to augment that decision-making.

Technological progress does not have to come at the expense of safety, security, fairness, or transparency. In fact, embedding our values into technological development is central to our economic competitiveness and national security. Our federal government has the responsibility to work with private industry to ensure that we are able to maximize the benefits of AI technology for society while simultaneously managing its emerging risks.

To this end, the Science Committee has engaged in efforts to promote trustworthy AI. Last year, one of our signature achievements was passing the bipartisan National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act, which directs the Department of Commerces National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to develop a process for managing AI risks.

NIST may not be the most well-known government institution, but it has long conducted critical work on standard-setting and measurement research that is used by federal agencies and private industry. Over the past year, NIST has conducted a series of workshops examining topics like AI trustworthiness, bias, explainability, and evaluation. These workshops are geared at helping industry professionals understand how to detect, catalogue, and ultimately prevent the harmful outcomes that erode public trust in AI technology.

Most recently, NIST has been working to construct a voluntary Risk Management Framework that is intended to support the development and deployment of safe and trustworthy AI. This framework will be important for informing the work of both public and private sector AI researchers as they pursue their game-changing research. NIST is soliciting public comments until Sept. 15, 2021 and will develop the framework in several iterations, allowing for continued input. Interested stakeholders should submit comments and/or participate in the ongoing processes at NIST.

We know that AI has the potential to benefit society and make the world a better place. In order for the U.S. to be a true global leader in this technology, we have to ensure that the AI we create does just that.

Eddie Bernice JohnsonEddie Bernice JohnsonUS must not only lead in artificial intelligence, but also in its ethical application Our approach to schizophrenia is failing House passes bills to boost science competitiveness with China MORE represents the 30th District of Texas and is chairwoman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.

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US must not only lead in artificial intelligence, but also in its ethical application | TheHill - The Hill