The Lawfare Podcast
Ideas
The Lawfare Podcast features discussions with experts, policymakers, and opinion leaders at the nexus of national security, law, and policy. On issues from foreign policy, homeland security, intelligence, and cybersecurity to governance and law, we have doubled down on seriousness at a time when others are running away from it. Visit us at www.lawfareblog.com.
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare.
Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.
The Lawfare Podcast features discussions with experts, policymakers, and opinion leaders at the nexus of national security, law, and policy. On issues from foreign policy, homeland security, intelligence, and cybersecurity to governance and law, we have doubled down on seriousness at a time when others are running away from it. Visit us at www.lawfareblog.com.
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare.
Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.
Location:
United States
Description:
The Lawfare Podcast features discussions with experts, policymakers, and opinion leaders at the nexus of national security, law, and policy. On issues from foreign policy, homeland security, intelligence, and cybersecurity to governance and law, we have doubled down on seriousness at a time when others are running away from it. Visit us at www.lawfareblog.com. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.
Twitter:
@lawfareblog
Language:
English
Episodes
Chatter: Journalism as Fodder for Fiction with Mary Louise Kelly
8/14/2022
Mary Louise Kelly is one of the most recognizable voices in American journalism. A co-host of NPR’s flagship program “All Things Considered,” she has spent years interviewing top newsmakers and traveling the world to chronicle stories about national security and foreign policy. And on top of all that, she’s a novelist. Kelly has written two books that incorporate many of her own experiences covering corridors of intelligence and international intrigue.
This week on Chatter, Lawfare’s weekly...
Duration:01:09:15
Emergency Edition: About That Mar-a-Lago Warrant
8/13/2022
Friday afternoon, the federal court in Florida, acting at the Justice Department’s request, unsealed the search warrant for Mar-a-Lago that the FBI had executed earlier in the week. There was a lot of interesting information in it: How many bathrooms are there at Mar-a-Lago? How many TS/SCI documents did the FBI seize from the resort? Which European head of state had various documents about him lying around at Mar-a-Lago?
For an emergency version of the Lawfare Podcast, Benjamin Wittes sat...
Duration:00:55:06
The Past and Future of the Jan. 6 Committee
8/12/2022
The Jan. 6 select committee has wrapped up its first spree of hearings, and it has announced a second set of hearings when Congress returns in September. The month of lull gives us a good opportunity to assess where the committee has come so far and where it might be going.
Benjamin Wittes sat down in Twitter Spaces on Thursday with Lawfare’s executive editor and host of The Aftermath Natalie Orpett, Lawfare senior editors Quinta Jurecic and Molly Reynolds, and Lawfare managing editor Tyler...
Duration:00:55:18
Tunisia's New Constitution
8/11/2022
The country of Tunisia is in the midst of a slow motion political crisis. The country's populist president has crafted a new constitution that gives him broad, unchecked powers and secured its approval by referendum, albeit a referendum in which most Tunisians did not participate. What's not clear is whether other factions will acquiesce to his exceptional actions, and whether those actions will prove to be the antidote for corruption that he has promised or the nail in the coffin for what...
Duration:00:47:47
Unpacking the FBI's Search at Mar-a-Lago
8/10/2022
The FBI on Monday conducted a surprise search of Donald Trump's home and resort at Mar-a-Lago in Florida. The investigation appeared to involve the retention of classified information by the former president after he left the White House. There's not a whole lot of information, but Trump did confirm the search.
To go through it all, Benjamin Wittes sat down on Twitter Spaces with Lawfare senior editors Alan Rozenshtein and Quinta Jurecic, and Andrew Weissmann, a former senior prosecutor for...
Duration:00:53:35
Nick Turse on the Pentagon’s Secretive Funding Authority, 127e
8/9/2022
Last month, The Intercept published a new investigation from Alice Speri and Nick Turse looking into a secretive funding authority at the Pentagon known as 127e, or 127-echo. Using exclusive documents and interviews, the reporters revealed how U.S. Special Operations forces are involved in a proxy war program on a significantly larger scale than previously known.
To discuss the program and what it means for U.S. foreign policy, Tyler McBrien sat down with Nick, an investigative journalist...
Duration:00:30:52
Decoding Aleksandr Ionov’s Influence Operation with Thomas Rid and Brandon Van Grack
8/8/2022
On July 29, the Justice Department announced the indictment of Aleksandr Ionov, a Russian national and president of the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia. Ionov is charged with “conspiring to have U.S. citizens act as illegal agents of the Russian government”—and the Justice Department alleges that he was essentially running a years-long influence operation within the United States on behalf of the FSB, the Russian intelligence agency. The indictment is a wild ride, with a number of...
Duration:00:51:50
Rational Security: The “Small World After All” Edition
8/7/2022
This week on Rational Security, Alan, Quinta, and Scott were joined by favorite guest Lawfare executive editor Natalie Orpett to hash through the week's big national security news stories, including:
successfully killed yet another major terrorist leaderindicted Russian agent Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionovflown to Taiwan
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare.
Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.
Duration:01:08:04
Lawfare Archive: Elsa Kania on China’s Quantum Quest
8/6/2022
From September 22, 2018: If you ask scientists what is most likely to kick off the next great wave of technological change, a good number will answer “quantum mechanics”—a field whose physics Albert Einstein once described as “spooky,” but whose potential, once tapped, could unleash exponentially faster computer processes, unbreakable cryptography, and new frontiers in surveillance technology.
No one understands this better than the People’s Republic of China, who over the last several...
Duration:00:47:28
When Lawyers Spread Disinformation
8/5/2022
A few weeks ago on Arbiters of Truth, our series on the online information system, we brought you a conversation with two emergency room doctors about their efforts to push back against members of their profession spreading falsehoods about the coronavirus. Today, we’re going to take a look at another profession that’s been struggling to counter lies and falsehoods within its ranks: the law. Recently, lawyers involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 election have faced professional...
Duration:00:52:56
Pelosi in Taiwan
8/4/2022
Nancy Pelosi made a visit to Taiwan this week. It wasn't exactly a surprise—we all knew it was happening—but it wasn't announced, and it wasn't quite official either. Beijing has gone a little bit crazy. There are military exercises taking place off the coast of Taiwan in response. There are threats of war. There was even talk of shooting down Pelosi's plane.
To talk it all through, Benjamin Wittes sat down with Sophia Yan, Beijing correspondent for the Telegraph; Julian Ku, professor of...
Duration:00:50:11
Dan Byman and Scott Anderson on the al-Zawahiri Strike
8/3/2022
Another day, another leader of al-Qaeda is killed by U.S. forces. This time, it was Ayman al-Zawahiri, killed on his balcony in Kabul by a Hellfire missile strike. To talk about it all, Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare senior editor Scott R. Anderson and Lawfare’s foreign policy editor Daniel Byman. Is it a big deal? Is it kind of old news that we’ve killed yet another al-Qaeda leader? How badly degraded is al-Qaeda? Who's going to replace al-Zawahiri? What does it mean for the...
Duration:00:49:45
Europe Doubles Down on Client Side Scanning
8/2/2022
On May 11, the European Commission announced a new proposal designed to combat online child sexual abuse material. The proposal has drawn notable criticism from major member states, especially Germany, and has raised concerns about the national security risks it could create.
To talk through the issues at hand, former Lawfare managing editor Jacob Schulz sat down with two experts, each of whom wrote Lawfare articles about the EU’s proposal back in June: Robert Gorwa, postdoctoral research...
Duration:00:48:21
How to Evaluate Progress in the Justice Department's Jan. 6 Investigation
8/1/2022
There’s been a great deal of debate recently about how to understand the apparently slow pace of the Justice Department’s investigation into Jan. 6, particularly into Donald Trump’s personal role in the insurrection. On Lawfare, editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes made the case that everyone should just chill out and let the department do its work, while executive editor Natalie Orpett and senior editor Quinta Jurecic argued that it’s reasonable to push harder for the department to understand...
Duration:01:16:16
Chatter: Spotting Fake News with Cindy Otis
7/31/2022
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...
Duration:01:30:03
Lawfare Archives: Liza Osetinskaya on Journalistic Freedom Under Putin
7/30/2022
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.
Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit...
Duration:00:45:22
John Gleeson on ‘The Gotti Wars’
7/29/2022
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,...
Duration:00:40:50
The Corporate Law Behind Musk v. Twitter
7/28/2022
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....
Duration:00:59:14
The Secret Service Text Crisis
7/27/2022
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,...
Duration:00:53:59
Derek Muller on Moore v. Harper and Independent State Legislature Doctrine
7/26/2022
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...
Duration:00:55:15