The Lawfare Podcast

Benjamin Wittes speaks on his and Kenneth Anderson's book, Speaking the Law, at an October 25 media colloquium at the Hoover Institution.  Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Congressional scholars Tom Mann of the Brookings Institution and Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute discuss the arguments in their book It's Even Worse Than It Looks , the government shutdown and the effects of political dysfunction on national security. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bruce Riedel, Director of the Intelligence Project at Brookings, hosted Matt Apuzzo of the AP for a discussion of his new book with Adam Goldman, entitled “Enemies Within: Inside the NYPD’s Secret Spying Unit and bin Laden’s Final Plot Against America.” The book is about the 2009 plot to attack the New York City subway system, led by Afghan-American Najibullah Zazi. During this conversation, Bruce...

Benjamin Wittes, Steven Vladeck, and Orin Kerr debate NSA surveillance and the Snowden leaks at an event hosted by the George Washington University chapter of the Federalist Society. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lawfare veteran Steve Vladeck and NYU law professor Ryan Goodman discuss their new national security blog, Just Security --which launches today. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Polymathic technology businessman Nathan Myhrvold discusses his paper, " Strategic Terrorism: A Call to Action ." Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Thursday, Brookings hosted an event on possible U.S. military intervention in Syria.  Brookings Senior Fellow Michael O'Hanlon lead the discussion, in which Brookings scholars debated the strategic, legal and moral wisdom behind a strike against the Assad regime.   Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben interviews Laura Dean, Lawfare's Cairo Diarist, about the coup in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, and freelancing the revolution. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Daniel Byman of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy and Ben Wittes of the Governance Studies program at Brookings launched their report entitled “ Tools and Tradeoffs: Confronting U.S. Citizen Terrorist Suspects Abroad .” The paper describes the wide range of tools the United States has employed in dealing with citizens suspected of engaging in terrorist activities abroad, and examines the cos...

Robert LItt, general counsel of the ODNI, speaks at the Brookings Institution on Privacy and Intelligence Collection. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Raffaela Wakeman interviews Covington & Burling partner Mark Plotkin on private sector national security law. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For a week last June, Ben was  hanging out in Bangkok, at the International Military Law and Operations (MILOPS) Conference .  While there, he took in an interesting and important address by Alan Liotta, a senior Defense Department official with responsibilities for worldwide detention policy.  Liotta's remarks constitute the thirty-fourth episode in our  Lawfare  Podcast series. Support this show...

The Brookings Institution hosted Rached Ghannouchi, co-founder and president of Tunisia's Nahda Party, for an address on the future of Tunisian democracy. His remarks centered around the progress the country has made since the Arab awakening began, and the discussion that followed covered the different Islamist movements in the region, as well as the lessons Tunisia’s revolution can teach us about...

This week,  Lawfare  sat down with CDR Walter Ruiz, a lawyer for accused 9-11 co-conspirator Mustafa al-Hawsawi. Our discussion touched on, among other things: the fairness of military commission rules; Ruiz's contention that those rules allow evidence derived from torture; Ruiz's own background; his experience as capital defense counsel in history's most closely-watched terrorism case; and the bu...

Benjamin Wittes and Ritika Singh interview Ben Emmerson about his investigation. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lawfare's editor in chief, Benjamin Wittes, gives a talk at the Palace of Westminster--sponsored by the Henry Jackson Society--on whether drones are becoming the new Guantanamo. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Brookings Senior Fellow Bruce Riedel interviews before an audience Philip Mudd, former CIA and FBI counterterrorism official and author of a new book on the the hunt for Al Qaeda. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On April 4, the National Security Law Society at Georgetown Law Center held a panel discussion on the “Legal and Ethical Implications of Autonomous Weapons.” It featured Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch, Missy Cummings, Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT, and Benjamin Wittes of the Brookings Institution. The panel was moderated by Shane Harris of Washington magazine.  Support thi...

Lawfare's Alan Rozenshtein interviews Afghan Presidential Candidate Fawzia Koofi on the Taliban and Women in Afghanistan Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Osama bin Laden may have been the most notorious face of al-Qaeda before his death, but a terrorist by the name of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi arguably had far more blood on his hands—and for years was enemy number one for the United States government. Running the al-Qaeda franchise in Iraq, Zarqawi and his followers usurped the Sunni insurgency and through vicious attacks on Iraqi civilians stoked a civ...

Stanford Polical Scientist Stephen Krasner discusses his current book project--a study of the circumstances in which states can and cannot encourage the democratic development of other states. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Federal Public Defender Miriam Conrad talks with Lawfare's Alan Rozenshtein about the case of Rezwan Ferdaus, a 26-year old U.S.-born citizen of Bangladeshi origin who recently pled guilty to terrorism charges arising out of an FBI sting operation. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Military Commission Chief Prosecutor Mark Martins discusses his decision not to pursue standalone conspiracy charges against KSM and the other 9/11 defendants in the wake of Hamdan II . Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ritika Singh interviews American University scholar Stephen Tankel on Pakistani counterterrorism cooperation, the endgame in Afghanistan, and Lashkar-e-Taiba. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lawfare's Alan Rozenshtein hosts a debate over Clapper v. Amnesty International between ACLU attorney Jameel Jaffer and Benjamin Powell, one of the godfathers of the FISA Amendments Act. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.