Vox Sentences: Boko Haram, like ISIS, is losing territory and lashing out

Two bombings in Nigeria are probably Boko Haram's fault; France and the US ask for new government powers post-Paris; Congress on Syrian refugees.

TOP NEWS

2014's deadliest terrorists strike again

Mohammed Elshamy/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

• A bombing in a market in the northeastern Nigeria town of Yola killed 32 people today.

  [Reuters / Emmanuel Ande ]

• In another northern Nigeria town, a suicide bombing killed 15 people and injured over 100. One of the two bombers was reported to be an 11-year-old girl.

  [CNN / Aminu Abubakar and Eliott C. McLaughlin]

• The perpetrators of the Yola bombing haven't been identified, but authorities suspect that Boko Haram — the Islamist insurgency that's been fighting the government since 2009 — is behind both attacks.

  [Al Jazeera]

• Boko Haram was the deadliest terrorist group on earth in 2014 — killing 6,644 people — according to a new report from START terrorism data. ISIS, by comparison, killed 6,073.

  [The Independent (UK) / Rose Troup Buchanan]

• This year, those numbers might be counted differently — Boko Haram aligned with ISIS earlier in 2015.

  [BBC / Tomi Oladipo]

• But this year's totals also might be lower. Boko Haram — like ISIS itself — is reportedly losing power. It's resorting to suicide bombings because it no longer has the ability to take over entire towns.

  [New York Times / Dionne Searcey]

A semi-permanent state of emergency

Stephane de Sakutin/AFP/Getty Images

• Tomorrow and Friday, the French parliament will consider extending the country's current state of emergency for another 3 months.

  [USA Today / Kim Hjelmgaard, Maya Vidon and Jabeen Bhatti]

• The state of emergency gives broad powers to the interior minister to monitor suspects and keep them in custody (France has already put over 100 people on house arrest since Friday night's attacks).

  [Al Jazeera America / Alfonso Serrano]

• It also allows the government to cancel public gatherings, such as a massive climate rally for the beginning of the UN climate negotiations in Paris at next month. That event was officially spiked today.

  [Time / Justin Worland]

• And, potentially, the state of emergency allows the interior ministry to control the press.

  [AFP via Twitter (French)]

• President François Hollande doesn't even think he should have to go to parliament for an extension. The government is asking to revise the constitution so that the executive can unilaterally (and indefinitely) invoke a state of emergency.

  [RFI / Mike Woods]

• Meanwhile, French and American authorities are convinced — though they don't have hard evidence yet — that the Paris attackers coordinated using encrypted social-messaging apps.

  [New York Times / David E. Sanger and Nicole Perlroth]

• So, of course, US officials have already renewed calls to require companies to install a "backdoor" for governments to surveil encrypted communication.

  [CNN / Wesley Bruer]

• In the US, this is an extension of ongoing surveillance fights. In Europe, it's more interesting: Europeans have been more concerned with data privacy than Americans, but in the wake of Paris, that may change.

  [Politico Europe / Joseph J. Schatz]

• Surveillance experts agree that encryption backdoors probably won't help catch terrorists. Once an app starts allowing government surveillance, terrorists can just switch to another app.

  [Scientific American / Annie Sneed]

• Encryption backdoors also make it easier for non-government actors, like foreign governments and hackers, to access networks.

  [Washington Post / Ellen Nakashima and Barton Gellman]

A bill called the American SAFE Act because of course it is

Mark Runnacles/Getty Images

• The House of Representatives is set to vote tomorrow morning on a bill that would require a new certification process for Syrian refugees — essentially putting a hold on all refugee admissions until the government sets up the process.

  [The Hill / Scott Wong]

• This would, of course, be on top of the existing security screenings, which, according to BuzzFeed, include not only traditional background checks but also a super-secret screening program known as CARRP.

  [BuzzFeed / Ali Watkins]

• The White House has already threatened to veto the bill.

  [Washington Post / Karoun Demirjian]

• Per usual, then, the question will be whether House Republicans care enough about halting Syrian refugees to shut down the government over it — and how new House speaker Paul Ryan deals with that.

  [Vox / Dara Lind]

• Arguably, Ryan has already started breaking promises he made upon assuming the office of speaker. He promised that bills wouldn't be "rush jobs," and his first major floor vote will be on a bill that had no hearings and didn't exist 48 hours ago.

  [Washington Post / Dana Milbank]

MISCELLANEOUS

The surprisingly contentious, 250-year history of people claiming to own the moon. [Atlas Obscura / Jess Zimmerman]

• The kind of hardball debate questions I (Dara) can get behind: philosophically ridiculous ones.

  [Slate Star Codex / Scott Alexander]

• Those videos of people scaring cats with cucumbers are bad and you should feel bad for watching them (we sure do!).

  [National Geographic / Brian Clark Howard]

• In praise of GarageBand, an undercelebrated tool for democratizing (and de-masculinizing) the music business.

  [Pitchfork / Art Tavana]

• Want to live in a posh New York apartment without paying anything at all? Welcome to the world of aspirational housesitting.

  [New Republic / Jordan Kisner]

VERBATIM

"You go to make a movie and all you do is get criticized and people try to make decisions about what you’re going to do before you do it. It’s not much fun, and you can’t experiment." [George Lucas to Vanity Fair]

• "Frequent customers of Starwood Hotels & Resorts are reacting emotionally to the news that Marriott International is acquiring Starwood, which owns the Westin, Sheraton and W hotel chains. It seems less like a company they do business with is merging and more like their mother is marrying a man they disapprove of."

  [NYT / Josh Barro]

• "For American Jews in the twentieth century, the creation of the Catskills was as necessary as the leaving of it."

  [New Republic / Jason Diamond]

• "Apparently there’s a term for someone who gets turned on by intellectual stuff. You know, just talking. What’s the word? I want to say 'sodomy'?"

  [Tinder CEO Sean Rad to The Standard / Charlotte Edwardes]

• "People just want to conquer somebody."

  [Julia Holter to The Guardian / Kate Hutchinson]

WATCH THIS

NASA is hiring astronauts. Do you qualify? [YouTube / Gina Barton and Joss Fong]

Vox / Gina Barton and Joss Fong