The Lawfare Podcast: Patreon Edition

Lawfare Fellow in Technology Policy and Law Eugenia Lostri sits down with John Speed Meyers, head of Chainguard Labs, and Paul Gibert, a research scientist at Chainguard Labs to talk about the distinct challenges of securing open source software (OSS). They discuss what sorts of harms OSS compromises can lead to, how Log4J opened a political window for action on OSS security, and how the software liability debate affects OSS developers.Meyers and Gibert authored a Lawfare article questioning the conventional wisdom on how software liability could deal with OSS. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From October 23, 2020: It's been a wild couple of days of disinformation in the electoral context. Intelligence community officials are warning about Russian and Iranian efforts to influence the U.S. presidential election—and claiming that Iran is responsible for sending threatening emails from fake Proud Boys to Democratic voters. What exactly is going on here? To talk through the developments and the questions that linger, Benjamin Wittes sat down with Scott R. Anderson, Susan Hennessey and Quinta Jurecic. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of “Trump's Trials and Tribulations,” was recorded on September 5 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Zoom.Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes spoke to Lawfare Senior Editors Anna Bower and Roger Parloff Thursday’s hearing in the D.C. case, Judge Chutkan’s scheduling order on the briefing on the immunity issue, Trump’s efforts to remove his New York hush money and election interference case to federal court, and an interesting amicus brief in the classified documents case.Learn more about Lawfare’s new livestream series about the national security issues under debate during the 2024 presidential election. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s been a busy week in the world of social media and technology platforms. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg sent an odd letter to the House Judiciary Committee apparently disclaiming some of his company’s past content moderation efforts. Telegram founder Pavel Durov was arrested in France on a wide range of charges involving an investigation into the misuse of his platform. And Elon Musk is engaged in an ongoing battle with Brazilian courts, which have banned access to Twitter (now X) in the country after Musk refused to abide by court orders. These three news stories speak to a common theme: the difficult and uncertain relationship between tech platforms and the governments that regulate them. To make sense of it all, Quinta Jurecic, a Senior Editor at Lawfare, with Matt Perault—the Director of the Center on Technology Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill—and Renée DiResta, author of the new book, “Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality,” and the former technical research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Alan, Quinta, and Scott celebrated the third anniversary of Rational Security 2.0 with their Lawfare colleagues Molly Reynolds, Natalie Orpett, and Tyler McBrien, who sat in brutal judgment as the three co-hosts pitched them their hottest takes yet, including:Are concerns about judicial ethics overblown?Do ethics require that we open the borders and make whoever wants to become one a citizen?Should we just treat AI systems like the wild animals they are?Which takes are undercooked, which too hot, and which are just right? Listen in and decide!Meanwhile, for object lessons, Scott shared some news about the future of Rational Security moving forward. Listen to the end of the episode to find out what! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As Robbie Gramer and Amy Mackinnon wrote in Foreign Policy, “If you want to learn more about the U.S. Democratic Party’s foreign-policy vision as the Democratic National Convention (DNC) gets underway this week, you have two options: a webpage that apparently hasn’t been updated in three years or a massive PDF document that is still written as if President Joe Biden, not Vice President Kamala Harris, is the party’s candidate.”In other words, figuring out what a potential Harris administration foreign policy or Harris Doctrine might look like is no small task. On today’s episode, Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien sat down with Foreign Policy Columnist Michael Hirsh to try to do just that. They discussed “Preparing for a Less Arrogant America,” Hirsh’s review of the most recent books by Vice President Harris’s top foreign policy advisors, Philip Gordon and Rebecca Lissner, as well as other clues about the shape of a potential Harris administration foreign policy agenda. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Duncan McLaren, Climate Intervention Fellow in Environmental Law and Policy at UCLA, joins Kevin Frazier, a Tarbell Fellow at Lawfare, to discuss geoengineering in light of a recent New York Times article detailing prior efforts to conduct climate interventions, namely the SCoPEx project. This conversation explores the history of geoengineering, different geoengineering techniques, and the opportunity costs associated with further research in the field. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Walt Hickey is the Deputy Editor for Data and Analysis at Insider News, and the author of You Are What You Watch: How Movies and TV Affect Everything. His book explores the power of entertainment to change our beliefs, how we see ourselves, and how nations gain power.He joined Eugenia Lostri, Lawfare's Fellow in Technology Policy and Law, to talk about how we use media to express our societal apprehensions, the ways in which the military, NASA and the CIA collaborate with Hollywood, and the soft power of media productions.Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Isabelle Kerby-McGowan and Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota Law School and Lawfare Senior Editor Alan Rozenshtein sits down with Kevin Frazier, Assistant Professor of Law at St. Thomas University College of Law, Co-Director of the Center for Law and AI Risk, and a Tarbell Fellow at Lawfare. They discuss a new paper that Kevin has published as part of Lawfare’s ongoing Digital Social Contract paper series titled “Prioritizing International AI Research, Not Regulations.”Frazier sheds light on the current state of AI regulation, noting that it's still in its early stages and is often under-theorized and under-enforced. He underscores the need for more targeted research to better understand the specific risks associated with AI models. Drawing parallels to risk research in the automobile industry, Frazier also explores the potential role of international institutions in consolidating expertise and establishing legitimacy in AI risk research and regulation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From October 28, 2022: There's been a lot of discussion about whether Donald Trump should be indicted. Lately, that discussion has focused on the documents the FBI seized from Mar-a-lago or the Jan. 6 committee's revelations about his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. But what about his speech on the ellipse on Jan. 6 when he told a crowd of thousands to “fight like hell,” and they went on to attack the Capitol? Isn't that incitement?Lawfare executive editor Natalie Orpett sat down with Alan Rozenshtein, a senior editor at Lawfare and an associate professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, and Jed Shugerman, a professor at Fordham Law School. Alan and Jed explained the complicated First Amendment jurisprudence protecting political speech, even when it leads to violence, and why they believe that given everything we know now, Trump may in fact be criminally liable. They also reference Alan and Jed’s law review article in Constitutional Commentary, “January 6, Ambiguously Inciting Speech, and the Overt-Acts Solution.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From October 30, 2020: Laura Rosenberger is the director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy and a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. She was foreign policy advisor for the Hillary Clinton campaign four years ago, where she had to respond to Russian information operations against the campaign in real time. She has been working on combating foreign interference in U.S. domestic politics ever since, and she is the author of two recent significant articles—one in Foreign Affairs and one on Lawfare—both on the subject of foreign influence operations and interference in U.S. politics. She joined Benjamin Wittes to discuss the strategic purpose of these operations, whether we have to fear more operations during or after the election, and if U.S. voters should have confidence in their system. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From January 8, 2021: The storming of the Capitol on Wednesday was a catastrophic failure of protective law enforcement, as rioters overran Capitol Police barricades and gained access to a building that a lot of police were supposed to be protecting. How did it happen? Who screwed up? And what can be done about it? Benjamin Wittes sat down with Fred Burton, the executive director of the Center for Protective Intelligence at Ontic and a former protective officer; Garrett Graff, a journalist who covers federal law enforcement and who wrote a book about continuity in government; and Lawfare's executive editor Susan Hennessey. They talked about how bad the failure was on the part of the Capitol Police, who is responsible for it, what can be done now to bring the perpetrators to justice and how we should think about changing security protocols on Capitol Hill going forward. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Elliot Jones, a Senior Researcher at the Ada Lovelace Institute, joins Kevin Frazier, Assistant Professor at St. Thomas University College of Law and a Tarbell Fellow at Lawfare, to discuss a report he co-authored on the current state of efforts to test AI systems. The pair break down why evaluations, audits, and related assessments have become a key part of AI regulation. They also analyze why it may take some time for those assessments to be as robust as hoped.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Quinta and Scott were joined by Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler "Spicy Tyler" McBrien to talk through the week's big national security news stories, including:“Jack Smith Takes a Mulligan on his Big Swing.” A grand jury has re-indicted former President Trump for his actions relating to the Jan. 6 insurrection, after Special Counsel Jack Smith trimmed and massaged the allegations to accommodate the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on presidential immunity. How different is this indictment? What are the next steps in the trial? And will these new allegations have better odds of surviving Supreme Court review?“An Eye for an Eye Leaves the Whole World in a Bind.” This past week, Israel and Hezbollah traded another vicious round of attacks along Israel’s shared northern border with Lebanon, as part of the long-awaited response to Israel’s targeted killing of Hezbollah leaders a month ago. Now the region is waiting with bated breath to see whether this will be the end of it or the start of a larger war. How significant is the risk of escalation? And what will this mean for, among other things, ongoing ceasefire negotiations in relation to Gaza?“Send Me a Kiss by Wire.” Pavel Durov, the CEO of the Russia-based encrypted messaging platform Telegram—which, in addition to being the platform of choice in much of the world, has become a popular choice among criminals and terrorist groups due to its lack of content moderation—was arrested earlier this week in Paris, and is under questioning in relation to possible criminal charges arising from the criminal use of Telegram. What is motivating this move by French authorities? For object lessons, Quinta recommended "When a Department Self-Destructs," Jennifer Schoenefeld's dramatic account of the in-fighting within Pomona College's English department. Scott threw his endorsement in (alongside the Academy's) for the beautifully mumblecore-ish film "Past Lives." And Tyler urged listeners to check out Tanya Gold's upsetting account of the commercialization of the Holocaust, tellingly entitled "My Auschwitz Vacation."Note: Our discussion of Pavel Durov's arrest in France predated his indictment by French authorities. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of “Trump's Trials and Tribulations,” was recorded on August 28 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Zoom.Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes spoke to Lawfare Senior Editors Anna Bower, Quinta Jurecic, and Roger Parloff about Special Counsel Jack Smith’s superseding indictment against former President Trump in the Jan. 6 prosecution, how it differs from the original indictment, and more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s episode, Vanda Felbab-Brown, Director of the Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors, Co-Director of the Africa Security Initiative, and Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution joins Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien to help make sense of the recent skirmishes in northern Mali between the junta, separatist groups, Islamists, and Russian mercenaries. They discuss what the recent ambush in Mali portends for Russian and Russian-aligned mercenaries' activities in Africa and look back at how Moscow has restructured and reframed the Wagner Group in the year since the death of its former head, Yevgeny Prigozhin. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For more than 40 years, Peter Clement has studied Russian political culture and leaders--serving for most of that time as an analyst, manager, and executive at the CIA before his retirement in 2018. He has PhD in Russian history, teaches at Columbia University, and has thought long and hard about what makes Vladimir Putin tick.He joined David Priess to discuss his road to studying Russia as a career, the art of Kremlinology, Putin's rise, Putin's feelings about Ukraine across the decades, the images of himself Putin projects to the West and within Russia, why FDR would be great to have around right now, and more.Works mentioned in this episode:The book First Person by Vladimir PutinThe essay "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians" by Vladimir Putin The article "Putin's Risk Spiral," Foreign Affairs (October 26, 2022), by Peter ClementThe book Present at the Creation by Dean AchesonChatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s episode, Sherri Goodman, the Secretary General of the International Military Council on Climate & Security and the first Deputy Undersecretary of Defense (Environmental Security) joins Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien to talk about Sherri’s new book, “Threat Multiplier: Climate, Military Leadership, and the Fight for Global Security.”They discuss Sherri’s career in climate security, beginning at the Senate Armed Services Committee before “climate security” entered the lexicon. From there, they trace Sherri’s career educating a generation of military leaders about the nexus between climate change and national security and coining the phrase “threat multiplier,” helping to usher in a paradigm shift at the Pentagon. Sherri addresses skeptics wary of a perceived tradeoff between military readiness and greening the military, as well as others who warn against “securitizing” climate change. Finally, they look ahead, as Sherri lays out her four main pillars of climate action (mitigation and adaptation) and institutional reform (awareness and alliance building). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this month’s minipod episode, Lawfare Associate Editor for Communications Anna Hickey was joined by Lawfare Senior Editor Quinta Jurecic to discuss what the outlook is regarding efforts to prevent election-related disinformation in the run up to the 2024 election, including the recent hack of the Trump campaign by Iranian-backed actors. Read Jurecic’s article on how the press is handling the hack here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lawfare Fellow in Technology Policy and Law Eugenia Lostri sits down with Esteban Carisimo, a Postdoctoral Researcher at Northwestern University to talk about the digital repression in Venezuela after the recent elections. Carisimo co-authored a recent report on the effects of the Venezuelan crisis on internet infrastructure. They discuss how internet censorship impacts the protests, how Venezuela's infrastructure compares to other countries in the region, and what the path to recovery looks like. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From April 26, 2023: If someone lies about you, you can usually sue them for defamation. But what if that someone is ChatGPT? Already in Australia, the mayor of a town outside Melbourne has threatened to sue OpenAI because ChatGPT falsely named him a guilty party in a bribery scandal. Could that happen in America? Does our libel law allow that? What does it even mean for a large language model to act with "malice"? Does the First Amendment put any limits on the ability to hold these models, and the companies that make them, accountable for false statements they make? And what's the best way to deal with this problem: private lawsuits or government regulation?On this episode of Arbiters of Truth, our series on the information ecosystem, Alan Rozenshtein, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota and Senior Editor at Lawfare, discussed these questions with First Amendment expert Eugene Volokh, Professor of Law at UCLA and the author of a draft paper entitled "Large Libel Models.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From November 1, 2022: In recent weeks, the Biden administration has released a trio of long-awaited strategy documents, including the National Security Strategy, the National Defense Strategy, and the Nuclear Posture Review. But how should we read these documents, and what do they actually tell us about how the Biden administration intends to approach the world?To answer these questions, Lawfare senior editor Scott R. Anderson sat down with Richard Fontaine, chief executive officer of the Center for a New American Security, who is himself also a former National Security Council official and senior congressional adviser. They discussed the role these strategy documents play in U.S. foreign policy, what we can learn from them, and what they say about the state of the world and the United States’ role in it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Richard Albert, William Stamps Farish Professor in Law, Professor of Government, and Director of Constitutional Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, joins Kevin Frazier, Assistant Professor at St. Thomas University College of Law and a Tarbell Fellow at Lawfare, to conduct a comparative analysis of what helps constitutions withstand political pressures. Richard’s extensive study of different means to amend constitutions shapes their conversation about whether the U.S. Constitution has become too rigid. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Alan and Quinta sat down with Molly Reynolds and Kevin Frazier to talk about the week’s big developments, including:“It can always get worse…” Although President Biden’s replacement by Vice President Kamala Harris at the top of the Democratic ticket has reenergized the Democrats’ bid to retain the White House, the race is still a tossup, and former President Trump could well reenter the White House in 2025. Have we successfully “Trump-proofed” the government in anticipation? “Run DNC.” The Democratic National Convention is taking place this week in Chicago, and it’s a striking contrast to last month’s Republican convention. That event was largely a celebration of one person, Donald Trump. By contrast, the DNC is as much about the party as it is about its nominee, Kamala Harris. What does it say about the relative strengths of America’s two parties and what that means for the future of American democracy?“Making the Three Laws of Robotics Actual Laws?” California’s SB 1047, the controversial AI safety law, is set to pass the legislature this month and head to Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk for his signature or veto. Many in the AI industry, as well as even some members of California’s own congressional delegation, oppose the bill on the grounds that it will harm innovation. Others, on the other side, worry that the bill doesn’t do enough to protect against AI harms. What’s actually in the bill, and what would its passage mean for the future of AI?For object lessons, Alan introduced us to his favorite flower. Kevin recommended the classic John Steinbeck novel “East of Eden,” while Quinta has been listening to a podcast about sex testing in elite track and field. And fresh off the appearance by Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr at the DNC, Molly dusted off this 2016 NYT Magazine profile of Kerr for those interested.Additional Links:Quinta’s Atlantic article on the failure to Trump-proof the governmentMolly and Quinta’s article on the limitations of the Jan. 6 Committee as a model for future investigative efforts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Anastasiia Lapatina is a Kyiv-based Ukraine Fellow at Lawfare. Leopoldo Lopez is a Venezuelan opposition leader living in exile in Madrid, after escaping prison for leading protests against Nicolás Maduro in 2014.Lapatina and Lopez discuss the results of Venezuela’s recent presidential election, ties between Venezuela’s autocrat Nicolás Maduro and other dictatorships, and the path forward for Venezuela after the rigged election. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The fallout from the SolarWinds intrusion took a new turn with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) decision to file a cybersecurity-related enforcement action against the SolarWinds corporation and its Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), Timothy G. Brown, in October of 2023. But In July, District Court Judge Paul A. Engelmayer dismissed a number of charges in the SEC’s complaint against SolarWinds and Brown. To talk about this significant development in the case, Stephanie Pell, Lawfare Senior Editor and Brookings Fellow, sat down with Shoba Pillay, a partner at Jenner & Block and a former federal prosecutor, and Jennifer Lee, also a partner at Jenner & Block and a former Assistant Director in the SEC’s Division of Enforcement. They discussed the court’s rationale for allowing some charges to stand, while dismissing others, what stood out most in the dismissal of the case, and how this case may shape the SEC’s cybersecurity enforcement actions in the future. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s January 6, 2025. Congress has convened to certify electoral votes in the presidential election. But members of the U.S. military are in revolt, throwing their support behind the losing candidate. The legitimate president huddles in the Situation Room with his top advisers and Cabinet. They have six hours to prevent violent protests from exploding into civil war. That’s the dire scenario imagined in the new documentary “War Game.” Real-world experts--including former elected officials and retired military officers--play the roles of government decision-makers. Over the course of the game, they are surprised with new and increasingly perilous complications, from the spread of online propaganda to a renegade general who exhorts military service members to take up arms against their commander-in-chief. All the while, they grapple with whether the president should invoke the Insurrection Act, a fateful decision that risks undermining the government’s legitimacy at the very moment the president is trying to preserve it. Shane Harris spoke with the film’s producer and co-director, Jesse Moss, about what inspired him to make this real-life thriller and what it tells us about the state of the union as we head into the home stretch of an election. Articles, organizations, and television shows discussed in this episode include: The Washington Post op-ed that inspired the war game: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/12/17/eaton-taguba-anderson-generals-military/ Vet Voice Foundation: https://vvfnd.org/campaigns/war-game-film/ Trailer for the film: https://wargamefilm.com/  “The Bureau”: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4063800/ More about Moss and his work: https://www.jessemoss.com/Jesse-Moss-1  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For today’s episode, Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson and Lawfare Contributing Editor Brandon Van Grack sat down with Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Investment Security Paul Rosen to talk through the groundbreaking new national security-related outbound investment regulations his office is preparing at the direction of President Biden. Together, they discussed what concerns motivated the new regulations’ focus on China and emerging technologies, what exactly they restrict, and how U.S. investors should be preparing to navigate them. They also touched on some recent news regarding Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) enforcement actions and regulations, another issue set within Rosen’s portfolio.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As part of Lawfare’s Security by Design Project, Eugenia Lostri, Lawfare’s Fellow in Technology Policy and Law, and Justin Sherman, CEO of Global Cyber Strategies, published a new paper, “Security by Design in Practice: Assessing Concepts, Definitions and Approaches.” Lawfare Senior Editor Stephanie Pell talked with Eugenia and Justin about the paper’s exploration of the meaning of security by design, scalability solutions and processes for implementing security by design principles across an organization, and the need to engender a corporate culture that values security. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From August 2, 2023: Over the past eighteen months, Ukraine has served as the stage for a proxy battle between superpowers, with the invading Russians on one side and a U.S.-led coalition of Western allies backing Ukraine on the other. As such, it’s the closest thing we’ve yet seen to what many military strategists believe will be the defining challenge of the next strategic era: a near-peer conflict between two or more technologically sophisticated major powers. In this way, the conflict has served as a canary in the coal mine for new military trends, tactics, and technologies that may soon be brought to bear against the West (or by it). Last month, Shashank Joshi, the Defence Editor for The Economist, published a special report in The Economist outlining what lessons military leaders in the West are taking away from the Ukraine conflict as they prepare their own militaries for their next fight. He sat down with Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson to talk over his findings and what Ukraine can tell us about the future of war.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of “Trump's Trials and Tribulations,” was recorded on August 15 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Zoom.Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes spoke to Lawfare Legal Correspondent and Legal Fellow Anna Bower and Lawfare Senior Editor Roger Parloff about Judge Chutkan’s order granting Jack Smith’s motion for an extension of time, briefs filed in Trump’s appeal to disqualify DA Fani Willis from the Fulton County case, and took audience questions from Lawfare material supporters. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

French politics has had quite a summer. In early June, the French far-right made substantial gains in the European Union Parliament. The same day the results came down, French President Emmanuel Macron called snap elections, saying that the rise of nationalists and demagogues was a danger to France and Europe. It was a shocking and risky move. In the first round of elections, the far-right came in first, but after the second round, they were in third. Much of the media moved on after reporting on this story as a triumph over anti-democratic forces. But that narrative misses some important realities about French politics and what it will mean for France, for Europe, for NATO, and for France's standing on the world stage. Executive Editor Natalie Orpett sat down with Tara Varma, a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution and a close observer of French politics, to talk through it all. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, the whole gang—Alan, Quinta, and Scott—got back together to discuss the week's big national security news, including:“In Post-Soviet Russia, Ukraine Invade You!” In an ironic reversal, Ukraine invaded Russia this past week, seizing substantial portions of the oblast of Kursk and surprising both Russian forces and Ukrainian allies in what appears to be its most successful military venture in more than a year. Why did Ukraine take this step? What will it mean in the longer arc of this war?“The X is for Extremism.” Since the tragic murder of three young girls earlier this month, the United Kingdom has been struck by violent riots, the perpetrators of which appear to believe (incorrectly) that the attacker in question was a Syrian asylum seeker, in substantial part due to far-right disinformation being spread by social media, including by X owner Elon Musk. What do these events tell us about the effects of disinformation and their intersection with political violence?“But Our Emails!” The Trump campaign has apparently been hacked, with internal correspondence—including a lengthy vetting paper on vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance—being leaked to reporters. The campaign has blamed Iran, but without any apparent substantiation. Is this a real possibility? Or is it another example of the disinformation—regarding crowd sizes, Kamala Harris’s background, and other topics—that has become a prominent part of the campaign’s messaging? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chris Hoofnagle, Visiting Senior Research Fellow at King’s College and Professor of Law in Residence at the UC Berkeley School of Law, joins Kevin Frazier, Assistant Professor at St. Thomas University College of Law and a Tarbell Fellow at Lawfare, and Eugenia Lostri, Lawfare's Fellow in Technology Policy and Law, to discuss ALL things cybersecurity—its theory, history, and future. Much of their conversation turns on themes expressed in Hoofnagle’s textbook, “Cybersecurity in Context,” that he co-authored with Golden G. Richard III. The trio also explore related concepts such as the need for an interdisciplinary approach to teaching and studying cybersecurity. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Over the past week, Ukrainian forces have launched a major incursion into Russia proper, occupying 1,000 square kilometers in Kursk Oblast, which borders Ukraine. The operation, which caught both Russia and the United States by surprise, is the first major Ukrainian offensive in more than a year. In this episode, Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes sits down with Lawfare's Ukraine Fellow Anastasiia Lapatina and Eric Ciaramella of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace to discuss the operation. What do we know amidst the Ukrainian media blackout? What is Ukraine trying to achieve militarily? How will the Kursk operation affect the other fronts in the ongoing war, in which Russia has been on the offensive? And what are the political implications of Ukraine occupying Russian territory?You can watch this episode on YouTube here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gina Bennett had a remarkable intelligence career of more than three decades, focusing on counterterrorism even before the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 and continuing to apply that expertise long after 9/11. She has written a book about how national security and parenting lessons reinforce each other, taught students at Georgetown University, and mentored women entering national security careers.She joined David Priess to talk about her path into and through the intelligence community, the evolution of counterterrorism analysis since the late 1980s, motherhood and work pressures, the value of teaching, how security studies ignores lessons from more than 99 percent of human history, why a hunter-gatherer perspective illuminates security challenges better than traditional views, the limits of bumper sticker takeaways from 9/11 like "failure of imagination" and "didn't connect the dots," and more.Works mentioned in this episode:The book National Security Mom by Gina BennettThe TV miniseries Catch me a Killer The article "Of Lice and Men: America Needs to Rethink Its National Security Paradigm," Georgetown Security Studies Review (February 2024), by Gina BennettChatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes sits down with MSNBC talk show host Rachel Maddow, creator of the new podcast series, Rachel Maddow Presents: Ultra, Season II. They discuss the ideological aftermath of World War II on the American far right, the rise of Sen. Joe McCarthy, and the rhetorically incredible cast of characters around him. Why do we remember McCarthy merely as a fierce anticommunist demagogue and not as a neo-Nazi? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes sits down with Katie Moussouris of Luta Security to talk bug bounties. Where do they come from? What is their proper role in cybersecurity? What are they good for, and most importantly, what are they not good for? Moussouris was among the hackers who first did bug bounties at scale—for Microsoft, and then for the Pentagon. Now she helps companies set up bug bounty programs and is dismayed by how they are being used. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of “Trump's Trials and Tribulations,” was recorded on August 8 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Zoom.Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes spoke to Lawfare Legal Correspondent and Legal Fellow Anna Bower and Lawfare Senior Editor Roger Parloff about what Judge Chutkan has been up to in D.C., state-level prosecutions of fake electors, and took audience questions from Lawfare material supporters. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From April 24, 2023: Evan Gershkovich has been in Russian detention for the last several weeks. He is a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, and he’s the latest American taken hostage by the Vladimir Putin regime. His good friend Polina Ivanova is a reporter for the Financial Times, a colleague of Evan’s in Russia, and has been an outspoken advocate for his release. She joined Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes from Berlin to talk about Evan: who he is, why he has been detained by the Russians, what we know about his conditions in prison, and what it will take to get him home.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today's episode, Lawfare's Fellow in Technology Policy and Law Eugenia Lostri speaks with Senior Privacy Engineer at Netflix and former Army Reserve intelligence officer, Lukas Bundonis. They talked about the relationship between law enforcement and tech companies, what that relationship looks like in the U.S. and other countries, and the different ways in which that communication can be politicized. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Alan, Quinta, and Scott were joined by co-host emeritus Benjamin Wittes to talk through the week's very big national security news stories, including:“The Waiting Game.” The Middle East is on edge this week as it awaits a possible attack by Iran or Hezbollah on Israel in response to the suspected assassination of senior Hezbollah and Hamas leaders last week, including the chairman of Hamas’s political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed while visiting Tehran for the swearing in of its new president, Masoud Pezeshkian. What might a response look like, if there is one? And what does it mean for the region, including the prospects of a Gaza ceasefire?“Stay Weird, Austin.” Just days after the announcement of a long-negotiated plea deal for three of the four remaining defendants in the military commission trial relating to the 9/11 attacks, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin took the surprising and still largely unexplained move of intervening to rescind that deal and remove the convening authority that had approved it. What can explain Austin’s actions? What will they mean for the future of the military commissions?“A Favorable Exchange Rate.” In a surprise move, the Biden administration and several European allies concluded a massive prisoner exchange with Russia, which resulted in the release of 16 detained U.S. and European nationals and Russian dissidents, among them Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan. In exchange, Russia received eight Russian agents, including convicted assassin Vadim Krasikov. Is this a win for the Biden administration? What does it tell us about the state of hostage politics—and its future?For object lessons, Alan expressed his new passion for pottery. Quinta endorsed synchronized/artistic swimming as her favorite Olympic event, thanks in part to a surprise cameo from Jason Momoa. Scott recommended the movie Thelma for a funny and compassionate take on aging. And Ben shared how a recent near-death experience led him to dump chalk dust outside the Russian Embassy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last week, three defendants in the 9/11 case at Guantanamo agreed to plead guilty in the military commissions. Two days later, the Secretary of Defense pulled out of the agreements. What happened?Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett sat down with General John Baker, who served as the Chief Defense Counsel of the Guantanamo Military Commissions until 2021. They talked about how the 9/11 case got to plea agreements after more than a decade of litigation, why Secretary Austin scuttled them, and what it all portends for the future of this case—and the military commissions more broadly. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today's episode, Lawfare Contributing Editor Justin Sherman speaks with Arun G. Rao, the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division's Consumer Protection Branch at the Department of Justice. They discuss DOJ’s consumer protection work, cyber crime and elder fraud, data privacy, and generative AI. You can find out more about Rao’s work at DOJ below: DOJ-Cerebral case DOJ Elder Justice InitiativeNational Elder Fraud Hotline  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week’s show, Lawfare’s Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sits down with longtime Democratic lawyer Bob Bauer to discuss his mémoire of political lawyering, “The Unraveling Reflections on Politics Without Ethics and Democracy in Crisis.” Bauer, a longtime Lawfare contributing editor, discusses his career as a litigating street fighter on behalf of Democratic Party causes and some of the regrets he has about party lawyering in an era of rising polarization.Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Noam Osband of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A new film from Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines series called “The Night Won’t End” profiles three Palestinian families as they try to survive the war in Gaza.On today’s episode, Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien speaks to the documentary’s director, Kavitha Chekuru, along with a few of the journalists and researchers who came together to work on the project, including Emily Tripp, Director at Airwars; Samaneh Moafi, Assistant Director of Research at Forensic Architecture; and Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Founder and Director of investigations at Earshot.They discuss the three families at the center of this story, other investigations into the killings of civilians by the Israeli military in Gaza, and the role of the United States in the war since Oct. 7.Please note that this episode contains content that some people may find disturbing, including depictions of war and violence against children. Listener discretion is advised. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Scott Wiener, California State Senator, joins Kevin Frazier, Assistant Professor at St. Thomas University College of Law and a Tarbell Fellow at Lawfare, to explore his “Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models” bill, also known as SB 1047. The bill has become a flashpoint in several larger AI debates: AI safety v. AI security, federal regulation or state regulation, model or end-user governance. Senator Wiener and Kevin analyze these topics and forthcoming hurdles to SB 1047 becoming law. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From July 7, 2021: The United States Secret Service has many important missions, the most public of which is protecting the president of the United States. And in this mission, its motto is "Zero Fail." There is no window for them to let their guard down when it comes to protecting the commander-in-chief.And yet, the past several decades of the Secret Service's protection have seen gaps, mistakes and exposures of some fundamental problems within the Secret Service itself. Carol Leonnig is a Pulitzer Prize-winning national investigative reporter at the Washington Post known for her reporting on the Secret Service, as well as the Trump presidency and many other topics. She is also the author of the new book, "Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service." She sat down with David Priess to talk about the United States Secret Service, its mission, its challenges and potential reforms to get over some of its most fundamental flaws. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of “Trump's Trials and Tribulations,” was recorded on August 1 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Zoom.Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes spoke to Lawfare Legal Correspondent and Legal Fellow Anna Bower and Lawfare Senior Editor Roger Parloff about Mark Meadows’ petition for a writ of certiorari in his attempt to remove his Fulton County election interference case to federal court, the briefing schedule in the government’s appeal of Judge Cannon’s order dismissing the classified documents case, and took audience questions from Lawfare material supporters. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Thursday, Russia released 16 prisoners in exchange for eight prisoners held in Western countries, including the United States. The prisoners released by the Putin regime included several Americans, most notably Evan Gershkovich of the Wall Street Journal and two other journalists, and long-time prisoner Paul Whelan. Shane Harris of the Washington Post, who covered the story, and Lawfare's Fellow in Technology Policy and Law Eugenia Lostri, joined Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes to discuss the exchange: what the United States got from Russia, what Russia got from Germany and other Western countries, and the personal involvement of President Biden in setting up the trade. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.