The Lawfare Podcast

Most of us don’t think of United States history as an imperial history, but the facts are there. The law and policy surrounding westward expansion, off-continent acquisitions, and a worldwide network of hundreds of bases reveal much about how and why the United States grew as it did. Last month, David Priess spoke with Daniel Immerwahr, associate professor of history at Northwestern University and author of “How to Hide an Empire.” They talked about everything from what the Constitution says about lands west of the thirteen colonies, to the critical role of the Guano Islands in U.S. history, to the famous Insular Cases, to how military access agreements and long-term leases help the United States avoid a truly territorial empire.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Margaret Taylor spoke with Brookings scholars Tom Wheeler and Nicol Turner Lee to discuss their new papers published as part of a two-year-long Brookings project called Global China: Assessing China’s Growing Role in the World. They talked about where the United States and China stand in the so-called “race” to deploy 5G networks, and the need for a coherent U.S. national strategy going forward. They talked about spurring American competition by liberating the crucial asset of the next wave of the digital economy—consumer-generated data—and they talked about the prospects for effective regulation and protection of individual privacy. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Lawfare's Arbiters of Truth miniseries on disinformation, Quinta Jurecic and Alina Polyakova spoke with Thomas Rid about his new book, "Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare." Yesterday’s episode of the Lawfare Podcast featured a conversation between Thomas and Jack Goldsmith about the book, focusing on the early history of disinformation through the 1980s. Today, Alina and Quinta follow up with a discussion with Thomas on disinformation in the digital age, along with some questions about what it’s like to interview former KGB and Stasi officials about their influence campaigns.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jack Goldsmith spoke with Thomas Rid about Rid’s new book, "Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare." The book is about the history of information operations and influence campaigns, and we’re bringing you a two-part Lawfare Podcast to discuss it in detail. On this episode, Jack and Thomas discuss the history of disinformation from the beginning of the 20th century through the 1980s. Tomorrow on the Lawfare Podcast’s “Arbiters of Truth” miniseries on disinformation, Alina Polyakova and Quinta Jurecic will be sharing their discussion with Thomas about his research starting at the beginning of the internet age.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sophia Yan, a correspondent in Beijing for the London Telegraph, joined Benjamin Wittes from Beijing where she is in coronavirus lockdown after traveling to Wuhan, China, to see how it was recovering from being the coronavirus epidemic center earlier in the year. They talked about what Wuhan looks like these days, what quarantine means in China, and how close the surveillance is. And they talked about the Chinese government, how it is responding to the crisis, and about how the Chinese economy is recovering and suffering.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We've covered this novel coronavirus from many angles, focusing on the disaster response issues that make up part of national security. For this episode of the Lawfare Podcast, we have something a bit different: a case study of how pandemic control measures intersect with federalism issues and supply chain continuity and security. With a focus on what's happening in Illinois, David Priess spoke with Rob Karr, the president and CEO of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, representing the industry employing one out of every five people in Illinois, and with Mark Denzler, the co-chair of the state's Essential Equipment Task Force and the president and CEO of the Illinois Manufacturers' Association, representing companies that employ almost 600,000 Illinoisans.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode of Lawfare's Arbiters of Truth series on disinformation, Kate Klonick and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Charlie Warzel, an opinion writer at large at the New York Times. He’s written about the internet, disinformation, privacy and platform governance—and recently he’s been focusing on how these collide with COVID-19 and the uncertainty and anxiety of living through a pandemic. They talked about what the pandemic shows us about the role of big tech companies and how the spread of a deadly disease in the midst of a polarized information environment may be a worst-case scenario for disinformation.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There has been a lot of confusion during the COVID-19 crisis about what counts as legitimate clinical evidence that a treatment really works. The president is endorsing unproven drug therapies based on anecdotal accounts. And while Lawfare is not a clinical trials or medical site, the subject of treating coronavirus cases certainly has become a national security issue. Benjamin Wittes and Quinta Jurecic just happen to know the perfect people to offer a basic explainer of the clinical research process. Mom and Dad. To be precise, Ben's mom and Quinta's dad, both of whom are biostatisticians. Janet Wittes is the president of Statistics Collaborative, a company that designs and analyzes data from clinical trials. She used to be the chief of statistics at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. Steve Buyske is a professor of statistics at Rutgers University, who works on biostatistics, statistical genetics and experimental design. The four gathered in the virtual Jungle Studio to talk about the history of clinical trials, the standards for good clinical research and to what extent those standards can slip when you're dealing with an ongoing pandemic that is killing people worldwide.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On April 16, former members of Congress participated in a "Mock Remote Hearing" via Zoom to test the viability of online congressional proceedings during the COVID-19 pandemic. Former General David Petraeus testified, along with representatives from Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and other experts; a Member of the UK Parliament testified about how the UK Parliament is innovating to meet the demands of social distancing. Margaret Taylor talked with former Congressman Brian Baird—who chaired the mock hearing—and Daniel Schuman, a lawyer, technologist and government transparency advocate who testified. They talked about Congress’s rather timid efforts so far to innovate in the age of social distancing, and ways Congress could continue to do hearings, markups and floor votes in a live, digital, remote format. They talked about the constitutional underpinnings of remote work by Congress and the importance of robust legislative and oversight work in a representative democracy—especially in the midst of a national crisis.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Many people are holding out contact tracing as the way we are going to control the COVID-19 epidemic. Once we start opening up the economy again, it involves identifying people who have tested positive for the virus and notifying those with whom they have been in close contact that they are at risk and need to quarantine. It also involves surveillance—electronic surveillance of a type that we are not comfortable with as a society. Can we do it legally? Should we do it? Will it be effective? To work through the do's and don'ts and cans and can'ts of contact tracing, Benjamin Wittes spoke with Josh Sharfstein, Susan Landau, Alan Rozenshtein, Stewart Baker, and Bobby Chesney.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lawfare founder Bobby Chesney and Lawfare contributing editor Steve Vladeck host the weekly National Security Law Podcast from the University of Texas Law School, where they discuss current developments in national security law. This week’s episode had lots of content that we thought Lawfare Podcast listeners may be interested in hearing, so we are bringing it to you in a distilled form. In this episode, the fourth edition of a Lawfare edited National Security Law Podcast, Bobby and Steve discuss the legality of President Trump’s claim that he might adjourn Congress, whether or not he has “total authority”—as he claims—over when the economy should reopen and the latest in the 9/11 case at Guantanamo.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode of our Arbiters of Truth series on disinformation, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Camille François, the Chief Innovation Officer at Graphika, where she works to identify and mitigate disinformation and misinformation online. On April 15, Graphika released a report on an Iranian influence operation focused on COVID-19, an operation blaming the United States for supposedly creating the virus and praising China’s response to the pandemic. Camille discussed what Graphika found and how this campaign compares to similar operations in the past—like another campaign from Ghana that Graphika helped uncover, which was linked to Russia and posted content aimed at black Americans. And they discussed the “ABC framework” that Camille has developed to understand disinformation campaigns.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nobody has been more aggressive about using the coronavirus crisis to seize power than Hungarian strong man Viktor Orbán. Orbán declared a state of emergency and has been ruling by decree. He has also instigated criminal penalties for spreading false information about the coronavirus, and his Fidesz party has effectively dissolved Parliament. Joining Benjamin Wittes to discuss the decline of Hungarian democracy is András Pap, a Hungarian scholar of constitutional law and a professor at Central European University's nationalist studies program in Budapest, and Anne Applebaum, essayist, author, and scholar of Eastern Europe, nationalism and the former Soviet Union. They talked about whether Orbán's seizure of power is as big a deal as it initially appears, about where Orbán stands in the pantheon of right wing populists worldwide, and about what, if anything, the European Union is likely to do about it.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whether it has been travel bans, family separation, or changes to asylum rules, the Trump administration has long been embroiled in controversies over its immigration and detention policy. Those controversies have come amidst surges in migrants and asylum seekers, particularly at the U.S. southern border. The Trump administration's new policies have been legally and technically complex, and that was all before COVID-19. Mikhaila Fogel sat down with immigration reporters Hamed Aleaziz of Buzzfeed News, Dara Lind of ProPublica, and Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a lawyer at the American Immigration Council. They discussed how Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as Customs and Border Protection, are responding to COVID-19; the changing legal landscape for those agencies before the pandemic; and the challenges faced by migrants, asylum seekers and the U.S. immigration system during coronavirus and beyond.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Margaret Taylor sat down with Stan Brand, who served as the general counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives from 1976 to 1983. They talked about key issues working their way through the courts that could redefine congressional subpoena power and congressional oversight for a generation. How will these cases move forward in light of the COVID-19 pandemic? How might they be decided, and what might that mean for the future of congressional power? And what impact are these cases having on congressional oversight right now?Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jim Baker served as general counsel for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He was also the counsel for the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review at the Justice Department, where he supervised FISA applications. He joined Benjamin Wittes in the virtual Jungle Studio to discuss Inspector General Michael Horowitz's shocking report on inaccuracy in FISA applications, and the problems at the FBI that led to these errors.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode of Lawfare's Arbiters of Truth series on disinformation, Quinta Jurecic speaks with Alina Polyakova and Kate Klonick, who both have expertise that can clarify our confusing current moment. Alina has been running a great series of virtual events at the Center for European Policy Analysis on disinformation and geopolitics during COVID-19. And Kate’s research on platform governance helps shed light on the aggressive role some tech platforms have been playing in moderating content online during the pandemic.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

March 11 marked the launch of the official report of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission. The commission is a bicameral, bipartisan intergovernmental body created by the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, and charged with developing and articulating a comprehensive strategic approach to defending the United States in cyberspace. For the last month, Lawfare has published a series of commentaries on various highlights from the report, some by analysts involved with the commission. In this episode of the Lawfare Podcast, we hear a lively discussion from some of the Commission's members, including the co-chair, Representative Mike Gallagher, on a part of that project focusing on China, technology and global supply chains.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The devastating effects of the coronavirus COVID-19 are being felt in nearly every corner of the world, with little regard for national borders or boundaries. In many ways, this makes it the exact sort of transnational threat that the United Nations is supposed to help address, yet the response across various U.N. institutions has been inconsistent at best. To understand how the United Nations is responding to the coronavirus crisis and why, Scott R. Anderson spoke with two people who know it like few others: U.N. Resident Correspondent and CBS News Analyst Pamela Falk, and U.N. Director for the International Crisis Group Richard Gowan.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stephen Holmes is the Walter E. Mayer Professor of Law at New York University. With Ivan Krastev he is the author of "The Light that Failed: a Reckoning." Jack Goldsmith sat down with Holmes to talk about his new book and much more. The pair discussed the fate of liberalism in the decades following the fall of the Berlin wall, Holmes’ experience studying Eastern European politics, the problems with trying to export liberalism across the globe and the factors that have led to the global rise of illiberal leaders.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode of the Lawfare Podcast's Arbiters of Truth series on disinformation, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Nate Persily, the James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School. Persily is also a member of the Kofi Annan Commission on Democracy and Elections in the Digital Age, which recently released a report on election integrity and the internet for which Nate provided a framing paper. Alongside his work on internet governance, Nate is also an expert on election law and administration. They spoke about the commission report and the challenges the internet may pose for democracy, to what extent the pandemic has flipped that on its head, and, of course, the 2020 presidential election.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Joining Benjamin Wittes in the virtual jungle studio is Daniel Drezner, professor at the Fletcher School at Tufts University, and the author of two political science books: one on zombie apocalypses and international relations theory, and a new book on the president as a toddler. These books are serious pieces of political science, are very funny, and in different ways, are highly relevant to the situations we face today as a society. Dan and Ben talked about how zombies are similar to and different from coronavirus, whether international relations theory correctly anticipates how governments will respond to crises, and about Dan's epic Twitter thread on the toddler in chief.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Saudi Arabia continues to be a mainstay of newspaper headlines, whether it be for its oil price war with Russia or for news about Turkish indictments in connection with the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. But making sense of Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Mohammed Bin Salman, known widely as MBS, can be a difficult proposition. He has made social reforms—lifting the ban on women driving and taking power away from Saudi Arabia’s infamous religious police—but he has no interest in political reform and has a propensity to take impulsive and remarkably violent action, both in the foreign policy space and toward perceived enemies within Saudi Arabia and beyond. Ben Hubbard, Beirut bureau chief for the New York Times, provides an account of the young prince’s rise and his early years in power in Saudi Arabia. Jacob Schulz talked with Hubbard about MBS's rise to power, his influence on domestic life in Saudi Arabia, his relationship to Jared Kushner and the Trump administration, and about the White House response to Khashoggi’s murder. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As the coronavirus pandemic spreads across the globe, it can be difficult to keep track of how the virus has spread and how different countries have responded. So, this week we are doing something a little bit different. We are bringing you dispatches about how nine different countries are handling the COVID-19 outbreak. Jacob Schulz spoke with experts about the situations in Poland, Spain, South Korea, Italy, Russia, South Africa, Iran, China, and Great Britain. You will hear from journalists, Brookings experts, a former CIA officer, and a Member of European Parliament, among others. What are the restrictions different governments have put in place? What legal authorities have they relied on? How has COVID-19 and the corresponding government response affected life in each of the countries? Guests this week were Amanda Sloat, Robert Bosch Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution; Radek Sikorski, Member of European Parliament and former Polish Minister of Defense and Minister of Foreign Affairs; Alex Finley, satirist and former CIA officer; Brian Kim, Lawfare contributor and law student at Yale Law School; Giovanna De Maio, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution; Joshua Yaffa, the Moscow correspondent for The New Yorker; Erin Bates, law student and freelance broadcast journalist in South Africa; Suzanne Maloney, Interim Vice President of Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution; and Sophia Yan, China correspondent for the Telegraph.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this bonus edition of the Lawfare Podcast, we have combined two conversations about about how the Department of State and the Department of Defense are responding to the Covid-19 pandemic, including the impact on the workforce of these agencies, their efforts to assist and protect Americans abroad and domestically, and the broader national security and foreign policy consequences for the United States. Margaret Taylor sat down virtually with Robbie Gramer, the diplomacy and national security reporter at Foreign Policy magazine covering the State Department. And Scott Anderson sat down remotely with Katie Bo Williams, the senior national security correspondent for the Defense One news outlet.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode of Lawfare's Arbiters of Truth series on disinformation, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Baybars Örsek, the Director of the International Fact-Checking Network at the Poynter Institute. Fact-checking has become newly prominent in recent years, as fact-checkers work to counter surges of online disinformation and misinformation. And it’s more important than ever right now in the middle of a pandemic, when incorrect information circulating online has immediate consequences for people’s health. Baybars has been on the front lines of fact-checking in recent years. Quinta and Evelyn spoke with him about the IFCN’s “Fact-Checkers’ Code of Principles,” Facebook’s partnership with fact-checkers for content shared on their platforms, and why fact-checking is important right now.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Like a marriage, a healthy relationship between an intelligence officer and an asset usually features ample attention and extensive energy. And of course, a lot of time spent with one another. But how do intelligence officers have the necessary face-to face-meetings when going outside is all but forbidden? What about conducting surveillance detection or servicing dead drops on empty streets in the coronavirus era? Three former CIA officers—Alex Finley, Jonna Mendez, and David Priess—explored this tricky topic in a recent article on Lawfare, which David reads in full for this edition of the Lawfare Podcast Shorts.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Since 1974, Freedom House has compiled the “Freedom in the World” report, a comparative assessment of global rights and civil liberties that ranks each country’s level of freedom and identifies regional and global trends. And the results for 2019 do not look good. David Priess spoke with Michael Abramowitz and Sarah Repucci of Freedom House about the threat to civil rights in India and Kashmir; the ethnic cleansing of muslims in China; the decline of democracy even in traditional strongholds like the United States; the era of peaceful, non-violent protests across the globe; and recommendations for supporting burgeoning democracies overseas.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Democracies around the world are under assault, with their norms and institutions undermined by authoritarian actors. From Hungary to India and beyond, illiberal or populist governments are weakening the rule of law, the separation of powers, and the integrity of elections. As part of a two-episode Lawfare podcast series on the state of global democracy, Benjamin Wittes spoke with Alina Polyakova and Torrey Taussig about democracy promotion. They discussed “The Democracy Playbook,” a report by Alina and Torrey—along with Brookings experts Norman Eisen, Andrew Kenealy, and Susan Corke—outlining strategies that supporters of liberal democracy can implement to prevent and reverse democratic backsliding. They talked about Central and Eastern Europe, the drivers of democratic discontent, and how all of this compares to the situation in the United States.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What can the president do in a national emergency? What limits what the president can do? What authorizes the president to do all those things he can do in a national emergency? Is the president abusing, misusing, using appropriately, or under-using emergency powers during the coronavirus crisis? And what are the logical end points for how far this could go? For this bonus edition of the Lawfare Podcast, Benjamin Wittes got on the phone with Steve Vladeck to work through these questions and talk about all things presidential emergency powers.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Rebecca Katz is the director of the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University Medical Center. She also teaches courses on global health diplomacy, global health security, and emerging infectious disease in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown. From 2004 to 2019, she was a consultant to the Department of State, working on issues related to the biological weapons convention, pandemic influenza, and disease surveillance. On Sunday, Margaret Taylor spoke with Rebecca about the international legal architecture and institutions for pandemic preparedness response, how some Asian and European countries have approached the problem, and the United States's response.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode of Lawfare's Arbiters of Truth series on disinformation, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Kate Starbird, an Associate Professor of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington. She’s long done fascinating research about online disinformation and misinformation—and she's an expert in what’s called crisis informatics, or the study of how information flows during crisis events. For this conversation, they focused on one crisis in particular: Covid-19. They talked about the possibilities and dangers of social media and the internet in times of crisis, how communities make sense of disaster, and the anxiety of living in the world right now.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Josh Sharfstein is the vice dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He also served as the secretary of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. He was the principal deputy commissioner and at some point, the acting commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and he was the Commissioner of Health for the city of Baltimore. He is remarkably well qualified to talk about coronavirus crisis response at the federal, state, and local levels. He's even written a book about managing public health crises, and he's hosting a daily podcast of his own on the coronavirus crisis. He joined Benjamin Wittes in the virtual Jungle Studio to talk about the role of coercion in managing these crises, how the U.S. government has performed (and not performed), and what we should be doing differently to get the corona crisis under control.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Lawfare’s Arbiters of Truth series on disinformation, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Joshua R. Fattal about a fascinating law review article he’s written: “FARA on Facebook: Modernizing the Foreign Agents Registration Act to Address Propagandists on Social Media.” The Foreign Agents Registration Act, known as FARA, is an American law that requires lobbyists for foreign entities to register with the Justice Department. It made the headlines when Special Counsel Robert Mueller claimed that Russians spreading social media disinformation around the 2016 election failed to register under the law. Josh argues that Mueller’s indictments represent an innovative new use of FARA—and he suggests that the law could offer a mechanism for the U.S. government to address disinformation campaigns.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Since we are recording remotely due to coronavirus concerns, it is a good day to discuss the congressional response to coronavirus. Benjamin Wittes spoke with Margaret Taylor, Lawfare's congressional guru, about what legislation Congress has passed, what legislation Congress and the Trump administration are considering in relation to the virus, and how Congress has responded institutionally.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We ask a lot of questions about foreign policy on this podcast. Why do certain countries make certain decisions? What are the interests of the players in question? What are the consequences and, of course, the legality of foreign policy choices. In a new book, Joseph Nye, professor emeritus and former dean of the Harvard Kennedy School, asks another question about foreign policy. Do morals matter? Jack Goldsmith sat down with Nye to discuss his new book "Do Morals Matter?: Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR to Trump." They discussed the ethical and theoretical factors by which Nye judged each president before going through many of the cases he focuses on in the book.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Lawfare’s Arbiters of Truth series on disinformation, Alina Polyakova and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Lisa Kaplan and Sophie Lawton of Alethea Group, an organization that works to detect and mitigate disinformation on social media. Lisa recently published a piece on Lawfare about a massive network of companies run by TheSoul Publishing—founded in Russia by a company called AdMe. The companies publish bizarre craft videos on Youtube and Facebook, along with a handful of videos about history and politics with an overtly pro-Russian slant. So what is actually going on here? They talked about what red flags Lisa and Sophie look for in hunting down disinformation, their experiences tackling disinformation while working for Senator Angus King’s reelection campaign in 2018, and how political campaigns need to tackle online influence efforts in 2020.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Friday afternoon, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals handed down a decision concerning the House of Representatives' efforts to compel Don McGahn, Donald Trump's former White House counsel, to testify about his conduct with respect to the president, the Mueller investigation, presidential obstruction of justice, and other matters. At the president's direction, McGahn has refused show up, citing absolute immunity from congressional subpoenas. In a surprise ruling for a lot of people, the DC Circuit determined that it had no jurisdiction to hear the case because the House lacks standing to bring it. To discuss it all, Benjamin Wittes spoke with Jonathan David Shaub, Lawfare contributor and incoming faculty at the University of Kentucky Law School, and Lawfare senior editors Margaret Taylor and Scott R. Anderson.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The population of Africa is projected to double by 2050, giving the continent one quarter of the world's people by then. Nigeria alone will have a larger population than the United States. To the extent they aren't so already, the world's problems and opportunities will be Africa's, too, and African problems and opportunities will also be the world's. David Priess spoke about developments in African politics and international engagement with two experts from the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies—its director Judd Devermont, and one of its senior associates, Emilia Columbo.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig are reporters at The Washington Post and the authors of the new book, 'A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America.' This week, Susan Hennessey sat down with Rucker and Leonnig to talk about the new book, the president's interactions with his cabinet, his attitude toward the law, and the efficacy of his public attacks.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Lawfare’s Arbiters of Truth series on disinformation, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Bridget Barrett and Daniel Kreiss of the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media and UNC’s Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life. In all the controversy around social media platforms at the moment, perhaps nothing is taking up as much oxygen as their policies around political ads. But it’s difficult to discuss this topic without a detailed understanding of what the platforms are actually doing. That’s where Bridget and Daniel come in. They’ve worked to provide a comprehensive account of the different policies in this space, how those policies interact, and how they’re changing—or not—the way we interact with politics.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Buchanan is a professor at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and a scholar on cybersecurity and statecraft. He has a new book out this week: “The Hacker and the State: Cyber Attacks and the New Normal of Geopolitics." Jack Goldsmith sat down with Buchanan to talk about Ben’s new book, about the so-called name-and-shame of Justice Department indictments, and about the various reasons why states engage in offensive cyber operations.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Every year for a quarter of a century, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, or both, have hosted the worldwide threat briefing featuring open unclassified testimony from leaders of the intelligence community about the biggest threats facing the United States. That is, at least until this year, when it is still unclear when the worldwide threat testimony will take place, if at all. To shed some light on the history, the norms, and the value of this open intelligence testimony, we gathered an extraordinary group of intelligence leaders who have done it, in some cases many times. David Priess spoke with Jim Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and former director of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency; Michael Hayden, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, former principal deputy DNI, and former director of the National Security Agency; and Andrew McCabe, the former Acting Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lisa Monaco was Barack Obama's counterterrorism and Homeland Security advisor in the White House, and headed the Justice Department's national security division. Sophia Yan is a Beijing-based correspondent for the British newspaper The Telegraph. Lisa and Sophia may not seem to have a lot in common, but these days, they are both spending a lot of time thinking about coronavirus. Monaco managed epidemic and pandemic disease events for the Obama administration, and Yan is in the middle of covering the ongoing epidemic in China. Benjamin Wittes joined Lisa (in the Jungle Studio) and Sophia (remotely from Beijing) on Thursday to talk about how the Chinese government has responded, how the Trump administration has responded, and how much worse this is likely to get before it ebbs.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Lawfare’s Arbiters of Truth series on disinformation, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Brendan Nyhan, a professor of political science at Dartmouth University. We talk a lot about the crisis of falsehoods circulating online, but Nyhan’s work focuses on empirical research on what the effects of disinformation and misinformation actually are. And he’s found that those effects might play less of a role in political discourse than you’d think—or at least not quite in the way you might think. They talked about the fake news about fake news and the echo chamber about echo chambers.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jessica Stern, who served on the National Security Council during the Clinton administration, has a remarkable skill: she interviews really bad people, and she writes about them in really interesting ways. She spent quite a bit of time interviewing Bosnian-Serb war criminal Radovan Karadzic, who is serving a life sentence at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague for genocide in connection with the Bosnian conflict in the 1990s. Their conversations led to the publication of the book, "My War Criminal: Personal Encounters with an Architect of Genocide," which triggered a remarkable outpouring of rage at Jessica Stern. Benjamin Wittes spoke with Jessica recently about the book, the controversy, and her general approach to talking to evil men.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In what ways did American foreign policy fail to capitalize on victory in the Cold War? Andrew Bacevich, professor emeritus at Boston University and co-founder and president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, tackles that question and more in "The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory." Jack Goldsmith sat down with Professor Bacevich to talk about his new book. The pair discussed the establishment consensus on American foreign policy, the state of civil-military relations, and the mission of the newly founded Quincy Institute.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 2013, Patrick Radden Keefe, a staff writer for the New Yorker, came across the obituary of a woman named Dolours Price, a former member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Keefe's interest in Price led to sprawling research about an appalling crime that took place over the course of the three-decade Troubles in Northern Ireland: The disappearance of Jean McConville, a widowed young mother of ten children. His research led to his 2019 book, “Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland.” Mikhaila Fogel sat down with Keefe to discuss his book, the shocking history of McConville’s disappearance, the broader context of the terrorism and counterterrorism campaigns in Northern Ireland over the course of the Troubles, and what happened to the perpetrators and the victims of this crime.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lawfare founder Bobby Chesney and Lawfare contributing editor Steve Vladeck host the weekly National Security Law Podcast from the University of Texas Law School, a discussion of current national security law developments. In this episode, the third edition of a Lawfare edited National Security Law Podcast, Bobby and Steve discuss a range of topics that we thought would be of interest to listeners. So we are bringing you a distilled version of their conversation. Bobby and Steve talk about the legal side of accusations that President Trump pressured the Justice Department to amend a sentencing recommendation in the case of Roger Stone and his retaliation against Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman. They give context about the federal quarantine law, as the coronavirus continues to spread globally. And, they go over recent war powers developments and a special listener request about the case of Omar Ameen. A quick logistical note: Bobby and Steve recorded this conversation on Wednesday, so news about the Flynn case and about the Senate passing War Powers legislation are not mentioned in their discussion.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Lawfare's Arbiters of Truth series on disinformation, Evelyn Douek and Kate Klonick spoke with Alex Stamos, the director of the Stanford Internet Observatory. Prior to joining Stanford, Alex served as the chief security officer at Facebook, and before that, as the chief information security officer at Yahoo. They talked about Alex's experience at Facebook handling 2016 election interference, as well as his work on cybersecurity, disinformation, and end-to-end encryption.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.