The Lawfare Podcast

Fake news has been around for thousands of years in different forms that have changed with media technology, and there's little doubt that it's here to stay. For reasons ranging from human biases to financial incentives to the need for speed, it remains a hard problem. Cindy Otis, who worked for about 10 years at the Central Intelligence Agency as an analyst and a manager, now writes about fake news and related matters in articles and books—including True or False: A CIA Analyst's Guide to Spotting Fake News, which she targeted at a Young Adult audience. She balances a deep understanding of the challenges of fake news with a deep commitment to providing practical guidance for dealing with it.David Priess spoke with Cindy about writing about fake news and other national security issues for the Young Adult audience, the history of fake news, the challenges of writing about the Holocaust, the changing terminology for disabled persons, the continuing challenges of wheelchair use in travel and in government buildings, her experiences at the CIA, why she writes for outlets ranging from Teen Vogue to USA Today, how to avoid falling prey to fake news, and why the exposure of Russian fake news about Ukraine gives her optimism about our collective ability to counter disinformation.Chatter 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.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From March 20, 2018: Shortly before last Sunday’s election in Russia, Alina Polyakova spoke to Liza Osetinskaya, editor of The Bell and former editor in chief of Forbes Russia and independent Russian news agency RBC. They discussed the Kremlin’s approach to censorship and how the Putin regime reacted when RBC, under Osetinskaya’s leadership, began covering the Panama Papers.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

John Gotti was the boss of the Gambino Crime Family in New York City and one of America's most notorious mobsters. Nicknamed “The Teflon Don” for his ability to beat criminal charges, Gotti became a celebrity mob boss and was no stranger to law enforcement. Gotti's reign was put to an end by convictions obtained by John Gleeson, a former federal prosecutor, and Gotti's conviction and others that followed eventually led to the takedown of La Cosa Nostra in New York City.Decades later, now-Judge Gleeson memorialized how he obtained Gotti's conviction in his new book entitled, “The Gotti Wars: Taking Down America's Most Notorious Mobster.” Former Lawfare associate editor Bryce Klehm sat down with Judge Gleeson. They discussed how Gleeson became involved in one of the biggest mafia cases in the history of United States jurisprudence, conflicts between the prosecution and the FBI, and how underboss “Sammy The Bull” Gravano became an informant to take down the rest of the mob.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You’ve likely heard that Elon Musk wanted to buy Twitter… and that he is now trying to get out of buying Twitter… and that at first he wanted to defeat the bots on Twitter… but now he’s apparently surprised that there are lots of bots on Twitter. It's a spectacle made for the headlines, but it's also, at its core, a regular old corporate law dispute. This week on Arbiters of Truth, our series on the online information ecosystem, Evelyn Douek spoke with Adriana Robertson, the Donald N. Pritzker Professor of Business Law at the University of Chicago Law School, to talk about the legal issues behind the headlines. What is the Delaware Court of Chancery in which Musk and Twitter are going to face off? Will it care at all about the bots? And how do corporate lawyers think and talk about this differently from how it gets talked about in most of the public conversation about it?Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The United States Secret Service is in the spotlight once again—this time because of deleted texts for the time surrounding January 6, 2021—and the organization is reeling. To discuss it, Lawfare publisher David Priess sat down with Juliette Kayyem, formerly assistant secretary for intergovernmental affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, who has served on the DHS Homeland Security Advisory Committee and has written the book, “The Devil Never Sleeps,” and also with Jonathan Wackrow, chief operating officer of Teneo Risk, who was a long-serving special agent in the Secret Service, including in the presidential protection division.They talked about the use of phones on that job, the loss of trust and confidence in the Secret Service, and its mismanagement of the crisis. They also talked about the performance of the vice president's protection detail on Jan. 6, the Secret Service’s status within DHS, and the prospect for a Department of Justice investigation of the Service.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At the end of its past term, the Supreme Court took up the case of Moore v. Harper, a challenge to North Carolina State Supreme Court rulings on elections that promises to confront the controversial independent state legislature doctrine, which argues that the Constitution empowers state legislatures over other state institutions when it comes to deciding certain election matters. Court watchers have posited that the decision could be a major one, as upholding the independent state legislature doctrine could not only hinder the state judicial enforcement of various election-related rights, but potentially strengthen arguments that state legislatures can decide how to allocate their state's electors in presidential elections, a contention that played a central role in some of the legal machinations that former President Donald Trump supporters attempted to pursue following the 2020 election in order to turn the results in his favor. To better understand what exactly is at stake in Moore v. Harper, Scott R. Anderson spoke to Derek Muller, a professor at the University of Iowa College of Law and a leading election law expert. They discussed what the independent state legislature doctrine may look like in practice, how it intersects with congressional and presidential elections, and what Moore v. Harper does and doesn't mean for the security of U.S. elections moving forward. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Cyber Safety Review Board issued its first major report this month, which focused on the Log4j disaster. So, what is the Cyber Safety Review Board, and what is Log4j?To answer these questions and others, Benjamin Wittes sat down with the deputy chair of the Cyber Safety Review Board, Heather Adkins, and board member Dmitri Alperovitch. They talked about what the board is, where it comes from, how it is composed, and what it does. And they talked about Log4j, why the board started with this particular cybersecurity incident, how the board went about doing its investigation, what it found, and what it recommended. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From July 20, 2020: This year marks the 70th anniversary of the beginning of the Korean War. Though often called the "Forgotten War," the Korean War has highly conditioned much of our contemporary international politics in East Asia, and the people of Korea continue to live with its aftermath, both in the north and in the south. And the shadow of the Korean War looms large over something we often debate on Lawfare—war powers. To commemorate the 70th anniversary of the U.S. entry into the Korean War, Benjamin Wittes spoke with Katharine Moon, a professor of political science at Wellesley College and a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution Center for East Asia Policy Studies; Matt Waxman, a professor at Columbia University Law School and long-time Lawfare contributor; and Scott R. Anderson, senior editor of Lawfare and a specialist on war powers, among other things. They talked about what happened on the Korean peninsula during the war, how it affected the way we talk about war powers, and the international law status of the conflict in Korea.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lawfare No Bull is a podcast featuring primary source audio from the world of national security law and policy. This episode features audio from the Jan. 6 committee's eighth public hearing on July 21. The committee focused on former President Trump's actions and inactions during the insurrection, describing in detail the three hours during which the mob overran the Capitol and Trump refused to instruct his supporters to stand down. The committee also heard testimony from two Trump officials who resigned from their positions on Jan. 6: former Deputy National Security Adviser Matthew Pottinger and former Deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Matthews. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The final hearing in the spree of hearings the Jan. 6 committee has put on this summer took place Thursday evening during prime time. It focused on Donald Trump's personal conduct in the period in which the riot was taking place. To debrief on it all, Benjamin Wittes sat down in Twitter Spaces with Lawfare publisher David Priess, Lawfare executive editor Natalie Orpett, and Lawfare senior editors Quinta Jurecic and Molly Reynolds. They talked about where this hearing fit in with the larger story the committee was telling, what they learned that was new, what they learned that was duplicative, and what the committee is going to do between now and when its hearings resume in September.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The false claims of election fraud and other controversies that followed the 2020 election brought to light a number of frailties in the United States system for selecting presidents. Several have their origins in the Electoral Count Act, an 1887 law whose vagaries played a central role in efforts by John Eastman and other supporters of former President Trump to keep him in the White House, despite the election results.This past Wednesday, after months of negotiations, a bipartisan group of senators finally put forward a set of legislative reforms aimed at resolving these and other issues well in advance of the next presidential election in 2024. To determine what this reform package will do and how it may impact future elections, Scott R. Anderson sat down with Ned Foley, a leading election law expert and professor at The Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law, and Genevieve Nadeau, a counsel at Protect Democracy who has been actively engaged in reform efforts. They talked about what the reform package intends to change, what will stay the same, and how likely it is to eventually become law.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When the Supreme Court handed down its opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, overturning Roe v. Wade, the impact of the decision on the internet may not have been front of mind for most people thinking through the implications. But in the weeks after the Court’s decision, it’s become clear that the post-Dobbs legal landscape around abortion implicates many questions around not only data and digital privacy, but also online speech. One piece of model state legislation, for example, would criminalize “hosting or maintaining a website, or providing internet service, that encourages or facilitates efforts to obtain an illegal abortion.” This week on Arbiters of Truth, our series on the online information ecosystem, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Evan Greer, the director of the digital rights organization Fight for the Future. She recently wrote an article in Wired with Lia Holland arguing that “Section 230 is a Last Line of Defense for Abortion Speech Online.” They talked about what role Section 230’s protections have to play when it comes to liability for speech about abortion and what content moderation looks like in a post-Dobbs world. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Over the past two decades, the Chinese government has cooperated extensively with U.S. state governments on economic issues, replacing Canada as the country with the most diplomatic relations with U.S. states. To discuss how we got here and what it means for U.S.-China relations, former Lawfare managing editor Jacob Schulz sat down with Ryan Scoville, professor of law at Marquette University Law School. Jacob and Ryan discussed new evidence that sheds light on the nature of the relationships between China and U.S. states, the lack of public discourse and transparency around these arrangements, and how this subnational diplomacy has allowed China to acquire cutting-edge American technology. They also discussed what Congress should do to ensure federal monitoring and public discourse of future arrangements. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In recent weeks, we've brought you information and insight about Swedish and Finnish attitudes toward NATO membership, and about Turkey's machinations regarding the two country's applications. But now, Sweden and Finland have been invited to NATO - and member country ratifications are coming in.To explore the topic deeper, David Priess sat down with Katarina Tracz, the director of the Stockholm Free World Forum (Frivärld) and author of the book in Swedish, The Sea of Peace? Increased Tensions Around the Baltic Sea, and with Minna Ålander, from the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, where she focuses on Finnish and Nordic security.They talked about Swedish and Finnish strategic perceptions and military interoperability with NATO equipment, the geopolitical importance of the Baltic sea, specifically the Gulf of Finland and Gotland, and about Swedish and Finnish risk perceptions as they await NATO membership. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Earlier this month, the Fulton County special grand jury investigating potential criminal interference into Georgia's 2020 elections subpoenaed members of former President Donald Trump's inner circle, including Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman and Senator Lindsay Graham, among others.To discuss these high profile subpoenas and some of the finer points of Georgia state criminal procedure, Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien sat down with Tamar Hallerman, reporter at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, who is covering the Fulton County Trump probe, and who also formally served as the papers Washington correspondent covering the Trump administration. Tamar also hosts a weekly podcast on the special grand jury called The Breakdown.They discussed the scope of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis's criminal probe, how a special grand jury operates in the state of Georgia, what this one has been up to, and what's next for the investigation. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

#LiveFromUkraine is an experimental project hosted on Twitter Spaces by Ben Wittes, with the goal of interviewing a diverse lineup of guests to educate and engage directly with people on the ground in Ukraine during Russia's ongoing invasion. In this episode, Ben talks with Katya Savchencko (@shanovna_s), who grew up in the Donbas region of Ukraine and moved to Bucha following the Russian invasion of that region in 2014. This year, following the full-scale invasion, she survived several days of the brutal and murderous Russian occupation of Bucha before escaping by train with her sister. She kept a diary of her days in Bucha, which she recently published on Medium in English translation. Savchhencko joined Benjamin Wittes on #LiveFromUkraine. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From April 9, 2019: On this episode of the Lawfare Podcast, our friends at the National Security Institute at George Mason University came over to have a discussion in our podcast studio about Yemen and the U.S.-Saudi alliance. Four former Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffers who worked with and sometimes at odds with each other participated. The conversation was moderated by Lester Munson, former Staff Director of the Committee under Chairman Bob Corker, and it included Jodi Herman, former Staff Director of the Committee under Ranking Member Ben Cardin; Jamil Jaffer, Founder and Executive Director of the National Security Institute and former Chief Counsel and Senior Advisor with the Committee under Chairman Bob Corker; and Dana Stroul, former Democratic senior staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for the Middle East.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Global crises of the last 20 years have led to a backlash against elites of all kinds, but those same crises often lay bare just how much power they still have, especially informed policy. Former Lawfare Associate Editor Bryce Klehm sat down with Elizabeth Saunders, an associate professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, to talk about her recent article in the Annual Review of Political Science: "Elites in the Making and Breaking of Foreign Policy."They discussed questions like who exactly are foreign policy elites, why they behave the way they do, and what, if anything, is the alternative to concentrating power in the hands of an elite few? Bryce and Elizabeth also got into why, when it comes to foreign policy elites, we can't live with 'em and we can't live without 'em.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, we’ve talked a lot on this show about how falsehoods about the coronavirus are spread and generated. For this episode, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with two emergency medicine physicians who have seen the practical effects of those falsehoods while treating patients over the last two years. Nick Sawyer and Taylor Nichols are two of the cofounders of the organization No License for Disinformation, a group that advocates for medical authorities to take disciplinary action against doctors spreading misinformation and disinformation about COVID-19. They argue that state medical boards, which grant physicians the licenses that authorize them to practice medicine, could play a more aggressive role in curbing falsehoods. How many doctors have been disciplined, and why do Nick and Taylor believe that state medical boards have fallen down on the job? What are the possibilities for more aggressive action—and how does the First Amendment limit those possibilities? And how much good can the threat of discipline do in curbing medical misinformation, anyway?Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Yesterday, July 12, the January 6 committee held its seventh in a series of prominent hearings unveiling the findings of its investigation to the public. This hearing focused on the role of extremist groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys in planning the assault on the Capitol, and unveiled new evidence about Trump’s plans to direct protestors to the Capitol in advance of January 6. As always, we convened afterwards on Twitter Spaces to discuss. Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes moderated a conversation with Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett and Senior Editors Scott Anderson, Roger Parloff, and me.It’s the Lawfare Podcast, July 13: The Jan. 6 Committee, Day Seven.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The “hackers for hire” industry continues to grow unbothered. Reports in recent years have uncovered details about governments and officials using spyware and other security and privacy circumventing tools to target dissidents and other sensitive targets. But another equally invasive and secretive industry has developed over the last decade, involving the use of foreign hackers to win lawsuits and arbitration battles. To discuss this issue, Alvaro Marañon, fellow in cybersecurity law at Lawfare, sat down with Chris Bing and Raphael Satter. Chris is a reporter for Reuters, covering digital espionage and Raphael is a journalist and writer for Reuters, covering cybersecurity. Chris and Raphael recently published an extensive investigation, entitled “How Mercenary Hackers Sway Litigation Battles”, where they breakdown this hackers-for-hire business model in India. They discussed the details around the structure of this marketplace such as how the clients and hackers are matched, the tactics, techniques, and procedures used by the various hacking groups, and what the significance of this illicit industry could be for other sensitive communities. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We often use the terms democracy and liberal democracy interchangeably, but they're not the same thing. Democracy means majority rule and public participation. Liberal democracy means democracy plus minority rights. There's no guarantee that democracy will be liberal. And in fact, some of the same things that enable democracy can also undermine its liberal commitments. Zac Gershberg, a professor of journalism and media studies at Idaho State University and Sean Illing, the host of the Vox Conversations podcast, have recently released a new book, The Paradox of Democracy: Free Speech, Open Media, and Perilous Persuasion.In the book, they argue that every democracy is fundamentally shaped by the dominant media technology of its time. And that the current landscape of social media and cable news fuels our democracy, but also pushes it in an illiberal authoritarian direction. Alan Rozenshtein spoke with Zac and Sean about how American democracy got to this point, how the present compares to the past, and what, if anything, can be done to put liberal democracy on firmer footing. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rational Security is a weekly roundtable podcast featuring Quinta Jurecic, Scott R. Anderson and Alan Z. Rozenshtein. It's a lively, irreverent discussion of news, ideas, foreign policy and law. And there’s always a laugh.This week, Quinta and Scott were joined by Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien. They discussed the news of the week, primarily the surprise testimony given by former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson to the House Select Committee to Investigate January 6th. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From January 8th, 2019: On this episode of the Lawfare podcast, David Priess sat down with John Sipher to discuss the past, present and future history of spy swaps in reference to the 2019 Russian arrest of Paul Waylon, who is currently imprisoned in a Russian labor camp now. This is more relevant than ever, as WNBA star Brittney Griner, who is imprisoned and on trial in Russia on drug charges, sent president Biden a handwritten letter this week pleading for his help in bringing her back to the United States. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For decades, experts and analysts have written in great detail about the importance of liberalization and its role in promoting democracy and other western values. Specifically, many believed that once a state began this track towards liberalization, open markets and a liberal democracy was inevitable. Yet, the several decades following Henry Kissinger’s secret trip to China has proven differently, as China continues to grow more distant and confrontational with the West. Lawfare Fellow in Cybersecurity Law, Alvaro Marañon, sat down with Aaron Friedberg, professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University. Aaron is an expert on the relations between China and the West, and has written numerous articles and books assessing the economic, military and political dangers of this rivalry.  They explored his new book, “Getting China Wrong”, and discussed the origins of the West’s engagement with China, how and why the West miscalculated the Chinese Communist Party’s identity and objectives, and how the U.S. and Biden administration can start getting China “right.”Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Algorithms! We hear a lot about them. They drive social media platforms and, according to popular understanding, are responsible for a great deal of what’s wrong about the internet today—and maybe the downfall of democracy itself. But … what exactly are algorithms? And, given they’re not going away, what should they be designed to do?Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Jonathan Stray, a senior scientist at the Berkeley Center for Human-Compatible AI and someone who has thought a lot about what we mean when we say the word “algorithm”—and also when we discuss things like “engagement” and “amplification.” He helped them pin down a more precise understanding of what those terms mean and why that precision is so important in crafting good technology policy. They also talked about what role social media algorithms do and don’t play in stoking political polarization, and how they might be designed to decrease polarization instead.If you’re interested, you can read the Senate testimony by Dean Eckles on algorithms that Jonathan mentions during the show.We also mentioned this article by Daniel Kreiss on polarization.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Earlier this year, Finland and Sweden applied to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. But both of their applications were held up, due to an objection by Turkey. NATO being a mutual security alliance, any one member can prevent new countries from joining. To fully understand the background dynamics at play here and to explain the agreement that the three countries recently signed, allowing the applications to move forward, Lawfare Publisher David Priess spoke with two people who have covered Turkey from a multitude of angles. Nick Danforth is the author of The Remaking of Republican Turkey: Memory and Modernity since the Fall of the Ottoman Empire. He has also covered U.S.-Turkish relations for the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy, the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the Woodrow Wilson Center and the Bipartisan Policy Center. Rachel Rizzo is a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council's Europe Center, where she focuses on European security, NATO, and the trans-Atlantic relationship. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Many individual police officers acted heroically on January 6th. But the successful attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, seeking to disrupt the certification of the electoral votes, remains one of the biggest policing failures in American history. Not only did the Capitol police fail to prepare for the attack, but many members of the mob were themselves police officers from around the country.To talk through the many reasons behind this failure, Alan Z. Rozenshtein sat down with Vida Johnson, an associate professor of law at Georgetown Law School and the author of a recent Brooklyn Law Review article and companion Lawfare post, exploring the tactical and structural policing failures that contributed to January 6th.Alan spoke with her about what the police should have done differently, and the role that race and politics play in how police react to domestic extremism. Resources mentioned in this episode:Vida's Brooklyn Law Review article - https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/blr/vol87/iss2/3/Vida's Lawfare article - https://www.lawfareblog.com/policing-and-siege-united-states-capitolSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today we’re bringing you another episode of Lawfare No Bull, a podcast featuring primary source audio from the world of national security law and policy. Today’s episode features audio from the surprise sixth public hearing held by the House select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The committee heard explosive testimony from former white house aid, Cassidy Hutchins. Learn more and subscribe to Lawfare No Bull.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today we’re bringing you another episode of Lawfare No Bull, a podcast featuring primary source audio from the world of national security law and policy. Today’s episode features audio of the fifth of a series of public hearings held by the House select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The hearing included testimony from former Acting Attorney General, Jeffrey Rosen, former Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, and former head of the Office of Legal Counsel Steve Engel. Learn more and subscribe to Lawfare No Bull.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chatter, a podcast from Lawfare, features weekly long-form conversations with fascinating people at the creative edges of national security. This week on Chatter, David Priess talked with former U.S. Secret Service agent Jonathan Wackrow to discuss the inherent dilemmas that come along with the job. One of them can arise if agents become partisan actors or allow themselves to even be perceived as such. We heard another one described in shocking terms during this week's testimony before the Jan. 6 committee: A protectee and the agents protecting him or her can disagree with the protectee about the latter's presence in a threatening situation or movement toward it.It turns out a whole lot of training prepares agents for these contingencies--as well as more predictable ones like how to respond instantaneously to myriad threats. Many lessons emerge from the study of past service failures, up to and including presidential assassinations and attempts. And some others can shed light elsewhere, such as on personal security and safety of institutions from schools to churches.Jonathan is now the COO and Global Head of Security for Teneo Risk and a law enforcement analyst for CNN. He and David have a deep and wide discussion about how cable news networks cover tragedy, the challenges of providing insight on security incidents in real time, his path into the Secret Service, how agents are trained, the lessons learned from historical failures of presidential protection, his own experiences with security breaches during the Obama administration, the dangers of perceived or actual politicization in the service, the balance between protecting a president and allowing a president's desired movements, agents' duty to testify in criminal investigations involving their protectees, how Secret Service experiences can help other institutions during an era of rising political violence, the benefits and drawbacks of school active shooter drills, and more.Chatter 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.Among the works discussed in this episode:The movie The BodyguardThe movie In the LIne of FireThe book Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service by Carol LeonnigThe book The Devil Never Sleeps: Learning to Live in an Age of Disasters by Juliette KayyemSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When a Russian missile recently struck a TV tower in Kyiv, near Babyn Yar, the site of Nazi mass murders during the Holocaust, some saw the attack as a potent symbol of the tragic occurrence of violence in Ukraine. To talk through the historical significance of the attack, Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien sat down with Maksym Rokmaniko, an architect, designer, entrepreneur, and director at the Center for Spatial Technologies in Kyiv, and Linda Kinstler, a PhD candidate in the rhetoric department at UC Berkeley.In her recent New York times essay, the Bloody Echoes of Babyn Yar, Linda wrote, "the current war in Ukraine is so oversaturated with historical meaning, it is unfolding on soil that has absorbed wave after wave of the dead, where soldiers do not always have to dig trenches in the forest because the old ones remain."Linda's writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic and Jewish Currents, where she recently reported on the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial center. Linda is also the author of Come to This Court and Cry: How the Holocaust Ends, which is out in the U.S. on August 23rd, from Public Affairs.Tyler, Linda and Maksym discuss the history of Babyn Yar as a sight and symbol, the role of open source investigative techniques and forensic modeling in the documentation of war crimes, the battle over historical narratives, memorialization and memory, as well as the limits of the law in achieving justice for victims of negation and genocide.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection is midway through a blockbuster series of hearings exploring Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. Central to those efforts, of course, was the Big Lie—the false notion that Trump was cheated out of victory in 2020.This week on Arbiters of Truth, our series on the online information ecosystem, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Kate Starbird, an associate professor of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington—and repeat Arbiters of Truth guest. Kate has come on the show before to talk about misinformation and Jan. 6, and she and a team of coauthors just released a comprehensive analysis of tweets spreading misinformation around the 2020 election. So she’s the perfect person with whom to discuss the Jan. 6 committee hearings and misinformation. What does Kate’s research show about how election falsehoods spread, and who spread them? How has, and hasn’t, the Jan. 6 committee incorporated the role of misinformation into the story it’s telling about the insurrection? And is there any chance the committee can break through and get the truth to the people who most need to hear it?Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It was a blockbuster day at the Jan. 6 committee hearings. Cassidy Hutchinson, former aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows testified in riveting detail about what the president was up to and what the people around him were up to in the days leading up to Jan. 6 and on the day itself. There's an assault against a Secret Service officer. There's a shattered plate and ketchup dripping down the wall. And there are a lot of warnings that violence was coming, warnings that the president really didn't seem to mind. Benjamin Wittes sat down on Twitter Spaces to debrief it all with Lawfare publisher David Priess, Lawfare executive editor Natalie Orpett, and Lawfare senior editors Alan Rozenshtein, and Roger Parloff. They went over what was new and what it means for the investigation to come.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On May 19, the Department of Justice announced a new policy concerning how it will charge cases under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, or CFAA, the primary statute used against those who engage in unlawful computer intrusions. Over the years, the statute has been criticized because it has been difficult to determine the kinds of conduct it criminalizes, which has led to a number of problems, including the chilling of security research.Stephanie Pell sat down with Andrea Matwyshyn, professor of law and associate dean of innovation at Penn State Law School to discuss DOJ's new charging policy and some of the issues it attempts to address. They talked about some of the problems created by the CFAA's vague terms, how the new charging policy tries to protect good faith security research, and the significance of the requirement that prosecutors must now consult with the Computer Crimes and Intellectual Property section at main Justice before charging a case under the CFAA.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

An interesting subplot of the Russian invasion and subsequent war in Ukraine has been the rush of fighters from other countries to join the Ukrainian foreign legion and to fight as legionnaires on behalf of the Ukrainian government. The phenomenon of legionnaires is an interesting one that crops up all throughout history yet has remained relatively understudied. What role do legionnaires play in conflicts? How does their impact differ from that of typical soldiers? How can we distinguish them from contractors or mercenaries or other categories of fighters? And what can legionnaires tell us about the ways that states like to conduct international affairs and international conflict?To talk through these issues, Jacob Schulz spoke with Elizabeth Grasmeder, a researcher and author of an international security article entitled “Leaning on Legionnaires: Why Modern States Recruit Foreign Soldiers.” They talked about the historical practice of use of legionnaires and what it can reveal about conflicts today. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chatter, a podcast from Lawfare, features weekly long-form conversations with fascinating people at the creative edges of national security.This week on Chatter, Shane Harris talked with historian Tim Naftali about the legacy of Watergate and how we tell stories, fifty years later, about America’s most notorious presidential scandal. What is it about Watergate that still captures our attention? What do historians, journalists, and citizens misremember about the events? And how does the scandal shape our understanding of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol?Naftali was the first federal director of the Richard Nixon library and earned accolades from historians—and criticism from Nixon loyalists—for his efforts to truthfully tell the story of Watergate in the Nixon museum. Naftali has written about intelligence, counterterrorism, national security, and the American presidency in the modern era. He is currently a professor at New York University.Chatter 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. Learn more and subscribe to Chatter.Among the works discussed in this episode:Naftali’s recent article in The Atlantic about a controversial proposal from the National Archives on presidential librariesNaftali on TwitterNaftali’s book on the secret history of U.S. counterterrorism, “Blind Spot”Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From May 4, 2021: 2020 was a remarkable year in so many ways, not least of which was the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects. Why did so many countries bungle their responses to it so badly? And what should their leaders have learned from earlier disasters and the pathologies clearly visible in the responses of their predecessors to them?Niall Ferguson is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and the author of more than a dozen books, including, most recently, "Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe." David Priess sat down with Niall to discuss everything from earthquake zones, to viruses, to world wars, all with a mind to how our political and social structures have or have not adapted to the certainty of continued crises.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It was Day Five of the House select committee hearings on Jan. 6. This time, the committee was focused on the president's efforts to pressure, and one may even say decapitate, the Justice Department to get it to put pressure on states on voter fraud matters and overturn the results of the 2020 election. In front of the committee were senior Justice Department officials who threatened to resign if an obscure environmental lawyer was made acting attorney general. It was another dramatic day of testimony, and to chew it all over, Benjamin Wittes sat down on Twitter Spaces with Lawfare senior editors Quinta Jurecic and Roger Parloff, and New York Times reporter Katie Benner, who broke the whole story of the coup attempt at the Justice Department shortly after it happened. They talked about whether they learned anything new. They talked about how the department officials came off: are they heroes or are they apparatchiks? And they talked about how all of it fits into the committee's larger story. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you’ve been watching the hearings convened by the House select committee on Jan. 6, you’ve seen a great deal about how the Trump campaign generated and spread falsehoods about supposed election fraud in 2020. As the committee has argued, those falsehoods were crucial in generating the political energy that culminated in the explosion of the January 6 insurrection. What shape did those lies take, and how did social media platforms attempt to deal with them at the time? Today, we’re bringing you an episode of our Arbiters of Truth series on the online information ecosystem. In fact, we’re rebroadcasting an episode we recorded in November 2020 about disinformation and the 2020 election. In late November 2020, after Joe Biden cemented his victory as the next president but while the Trump campaign was still pushing its claims of election fraud online and in court, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Alex Stamos, the director of the Stanford Internet Observatory. Their conversation then was a great overview of the state of election security and the difficulty of countering false claims around the integrity of the vote. It’s worth a listen today as the Jan. 6 committee reminds us what the political and media environment was like in the aftermath of the election and how the Trump campaign committed to election lies that still echo all too loudly. And though it’s a year and a half later, the problems we’re discussing here certainly haven’t gone away.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tuesday was day four of the Jan. 6 committee hearings, this time on Donald Trump's efforts to coax, cajole, and threaten state election officials and legislators into overturning their state election results in 2020. To go over it all, Benjamin Wittes sat down in Twitter Spaces with Lawfare senior editors Roger Parloff, Quinta Jurecic, and Molly Reynolds. They talked about where this story fits in with the larger narrative the committee is trying to spin, about what is working and what is not working in the committee's presentation, and they took live questions from the audience.The committee’s next hearing is currently scheduled for Thursday, June 23, at 3pm Eastern. We'll be hosting these events on Twitter Spaces after every hearing. Find us on Twitter @lawfareblog for more details.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Asfandyar Mir of the U.S. Institute of Peace and Daniel Byman of Lawfare, Brookings, and Georgetown, are both analysts of al-Qaeda and terrorist groups. They have a different analysis, however, of how al-Qaeda is faring in the current world. Rather than argue about the subject on Twitter, they wrote an article on it, spelling out where they agree and where they disagree, and they joined Benjamin Wittes to talk it all through. Where is al-Qaeda strong and resilient? Where is it weak and failing? And where has it disappeared altogether? Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today we’re bringing you another episode of Lawfare No Bull, a podcast featuring primary source audio from the world of national security law and policy. Today’s episode features audio of the third of a series of public hearings held by the House select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The committee heard in-person testimony from former Vice President Pence’s general counsel Greg Jacob and retired federal judge Michael Luttig. Learn more and subscribe to Lawfare No Bull.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today we’re bringing you another episode of Lawfare No Bull, a podcast featuring primary source audio from the world of national security law and policy. Today’s episode features audio of the second of a series of public hearings held by the House select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The committee heard in-person and video testimony, including from former Attorney General William Barr and former Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien.Learn more and subscribe to Lawfare No Bull.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today we’re bringing you an episode of Lawfare No Bull, a podcast featuring primary source audio from the world of national security law and policy. This episode features audio of the first of a series of public hearings held by the House select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The hearing included testimony from documentarian Nick Quested and Capitol police officer Caroline Edwards, as well as video footage of interviews from a number of Trump aides.Learn more and subscribe to Lawfare No Bull.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Thursday, June 16, the Jan. 6 committee held its third day of public hearings. Afterwards, the Lawfare team convened once again in Twitter Spaces for a live recording of the podcast. Lawfare senior editor Quinta Jurecic talked with editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes, executive editor Natalie Orpett, and senior editor Alan Rozenshtein about the substance of the day’s hearing, which focused on President Trump’s efforts to pressure Vice President Mike Pence into overturning the results of the 2020 election.The committee’s next hearing is currently scheduled for Tuesday, June 21, at 1pm Eastern. We'll be hosting these events on Twitter Spaces after every hearing. Find us on Twitter @lawfareblog for more details.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you loaded up the internet or turned on the television somewhere in the United States over the last two months, it’s been impossible to avoid news coverage of the defamation trial of actors Johnny Depp and Amber Heard—both of whom sued each other over a dispute relating to allegations by Heard of domestic abuse by Depp. In early June, a Virginia jury found that both had defamed the other. The litigation has received a great deal of coverage for what it might say about the fate of the Me Too movement—but the flood of falsehoods online around the trial raises questions about how useful defamation law can really be in countering lies. This week on Arbiters of Truth, our series on the online information ecosystem, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with RonNell Andersen Jones, the Lee E. Teitelbaum Professor of Law at the University of Utah College of Law and an expert on the First Amendment and the interaction between the press and the courts. Along with Lyrissa Lidsky, she’s written about defamation law, disinformation, and the Depp-Heard litigation. They talked about why some commentators think defamation could be a useful route to counter falsehoods, why RonNell thinks the celebrity litigation undercuts that argument, and the few cases in which claims of libel or slander really could have an impact in limiting the spread of lies.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Monday, the Brookings Institution hosted a panel discussion titled, “Allies: How America failed its partners in Afghanistan.” The event featured comments from Lawfare editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes, a preview clip of Episode 6 of the podcast Allies, and a moderated discussion with an all-star panel.Lawfare associate editor Bryce Klehm sat down with Shala Gafary, the managing attorney for Project: Afghan Legal Assistance at Human Rights First; Col. Steven Miska, who serves on the steering committee of the Evacuate Our Allies Coalition; and Matt Zeller, a U.S. Army veteran, co-founder of No One Left Behind, and an advisory board chair of the Association of Wartime Allies. They discussed some of the past failures that led to a situation where tens of thousands of the U.S.’s allies were left behind in Afghanistan. They also discussed current resettlement issues and relocation for those still in Afghanistan or other third countries. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Recorded almost immediately after the Jan. 6 committee conducted its second public hearing, Benjamin Wittes sat down on Twitter Spaces with Lawfare’s Quinta Jurecic, Natalie Orpett, and Rohini Kurup. They talked about what the committee accomplished in this second hearing, what evidence it put forth, and whether Donald Trump actually knew that the election lies were false or whether he had convinced himself that they were true.We'll be hosting these events on Twitter Spaces the morning after every hearing. Find us on Twitter for more details.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lawfare senior editor Roger Parloff has been following in a way that just about nobody else has the litigation to keep people off ballots under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment—the part of the amendment that says that if you engaged in an insurrection, you're excluded from public office. It was the subject of a recent major Fourth Circuit opinion, and the state of Section 3 litigation is also the subject of a significant new Roger Parloff piece on Lawfare entitled, “After the Cawthorn Ruling, Can Trump Be Saved From Section 3 of the 14th Amendment?”Roger joined Benjamin Wittes to talk through the piece. What are the major legal arguments that people involved in Jan. 6 are using to keep themselves on the ballots? How strong are the factual cases against different gubernatorial and congressional actors? And why is Donald Trump uniquely vulnerable to a challenge on this basis?Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.