The Lawfare Podcast

On September 7, the Brookings Institution convened a discussion on a pilot program to disrupt online ISIS recruitment spearheaded by Jigsaw, a technology think tank run by Alphabet. Yasmin Green, Jigsaw's Head of Research and Development, presented the organization's new "Redirect Method," which uses online advertisements to reach out to those who might be susceptible to ISIS propaganda. Will McCa...

Michel Paradis, a senior attorney in the Department of Defense’s Office of the Chief Defense Counsel and counsel for Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, came on the podcast with Bob Loeb, a partner at Orrick, Herrington and Sutcliffe and the former Acting Deputy Director of the Civil Division Appellate Staff at the Department of Justice. Along with Benjamin Wittes, Michel and Bob discussed the D.C. Circuit C...

Dave Aitel and Matt Tait come on the podcast to discuss their recent  Lawfare  essay critiquing the current status of the Vulnerability Equities Process. They argue that the process by which the US government decides whether or not to disclose software vulnerabilities is fundamentally broken, and that now is the time to discuss how to fix it. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare ....

It's the dog days of summer, and Lawfare is bringing you the special August AMA edition. All week, we've been taking your questions on Twitter under the hashtag #LawfareAMA, on topics ranging from Trump to the War Powers Resolution. Now, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes and Managing Editor Susan Hennessey are weighing in with the answers.  Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfar...

Walter Pincus, the Washington Post ’s recently-retired national security reporter, sat down with Benjamin Wittes at the Hoover Book Soiree to discuss Walter's recent essay, "Reflections on Secrecy and the Press from a Life in Journalism." Walter and Ben chat about Walter’s work in journalism and how his unusual career has shaped his views on the unique responsibilities and difficulties of national...

Director of the Central Intelligence Agency John Brennan came to the Brookings Institution on July 13th for a conversation with Brookings Senior Fellow Bruce Riedel on “CIA’s strategy in the face of emerging challenges.” The two discussed a range of topics, from the Arab Spring, to the drone program, to the importance of integration across intelligence agencies. Support this show http://supporter....

Shadi Hamid is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Project on US Relations with the Islamic World and the author of the new book Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam Is Reshaping the World. Shadi sat down with Benjamin Wittes to discuss his book, which examines Islam’s unique relationship with democratic politics and the modern world. It's a thoughtful discussion of liber...

Steve Budiansky is the author of Code Warriors: NSA's Codebreakers and the Secret Intelligence War Against the Soviet Union . He joined Ben at the Hoover Book Soiree for a live conversation about his new book, which studies the National Security Agency’s origins in World War II codebreaking and its development throughout the Cold War. Budiansky goes deep into how the organization’s history has sha...

Will McCants, a Senior Fellow at Brookings and the Director of the Project on US Relations with the Islamic World, comes on the podcast to discuss ISIS’s involvement in the recent spate of terrorist attacks across the globe. To what extent has ISIS really been involved in these attacks? How does their involvement reflect a change in strategy or a response to recent territorial losses? And how does...

FBI Director James Comey faced the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee this week for live long hours over the Clinton email investigation. We hacked it down to 90 minutes. Just the questions. Just the answers. None of the crap.  Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Assistant Attorney General John Carlin has a new law review article on a "whole of government" and "all-tools" approach to national security cyber threats. He sat down with Benjamin Wittes this week to discuss the article and the progress the government has made in confronting bad cyber actors internationally. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/pr...

Department of Justice Computer Crimes Prosecutor Mona Sedky discusses the sextortion cases she has prosecuted and the meaning and danger of this new kind of crime. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fred Kaplan joins Benjamin Wittes at a Hoover Book Soiree to discuss "Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War." Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Suzanne Spaulding, Under Secretary for the National Protection and Programs Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security, joins Lawfare's Benjamin Wittes for interview on cybersecurity and the role of DHS is cyberdefense in front of a live a audience. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Iran deal adopted in July 2015 was an effort not only to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons but also to avert a nuclear arms competition in the Middle East. But uncertainties surrounding the future of the agreement, including the question of what Iran will do when key restrictions on its nuclear program expire after 15 years, could provide incentives for some of its neighbors to keep...

This week, the American Bar Association hosted a panel discussion on  “Achieving More Transparency about Secret Intelligence Programs” , which along with Lawfare's Carrie Cordero, featured comments from Alexander Joel of Office of the Director of National Intelligence and Rachel Brand and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. The panel explores recent calls for greater transparency, and...

Four years ago, Anwar al Awlaki—an American citizen—was killed in an American drone strike in Yemen, marking the first targeted killing of a U.S. citizen by the U.S. government. While the attack occurred almost four years ago, the legality, morality and prudential nature of the strike, and others like it that occur nearly daily in a scattershot of countries around the world, remain a subject of mu...

This week on the show, Zachary Goldman and Samuel Rascoff of the NYU Center on Law and Security came on the show to discuss their new edited volume, “Global Intelligence Oversight: Governing Security in the Twentry-First Century.” The book’s contributors take a comparative approach to examining trends in intelligence oversight. And Zach and Sam join Lawfare’s Benjamin Wittes and Bobby Chesney---ye...

Last week, Juliette Kayyem joined Lawfare’s Jack Goldsmith at the Hoover Book Soiree for a discussion of her new book , Security Mom: An Unclassified Guide to Protecting Our Homeland and Your Home.  In their conversation, Kayyem, who served as Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs in the Department of Homeland Security, distills lessons from her years of government service, outlining a...

Intel Security's Chris Young gives a talk on the currentcybersecurity landscape. And we hold a debate on using BigData to protect personal privacy, featuring Daniel Weitzner ofMIT, Laura Donahue of Georgetown Law, Susan Hennessey of Brookingsand Lawfare, Greg Nojeim of the Center for Democracy andTechnology, and David Hoffman of Intel: Is Big Data just a privacythreat? Or is it part of the solutio...

This week on the podcast, Benjamin Wittes and  Cliff Kupchan  talk about the future of U.S-Russia relations and to delve into the Russian intervention in Syria. Kupchan is the Chairman and Practice Head for Eurasia at the Eurasia Group, where he covers Russia’s domestic and foreign policy, as well as its energy sector. He argues that the United States has good reason to talk to and work with Russi...

Apple and the FBI may have been settled out of court, but that doesn’t mean the fight is over. With Congress on the verge of considering new legislation to compel technology companies to decrypt data, the Going Dark debate is alive and well.  Last week on a panel at the IAPP Global Privacy Summit in Washington D.C., Lawfare's Editor-in-Chief Ben Wittes and Daniel Weitzner discussed the fallout fro...

Eric Schwartz , dean of the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota and previously U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration, explains why the United States has an interest in alleviating the Syrian refugee crisis.  Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Adam Segal of the Council on Foreign Relations joined Lawfare’s Jack Goldsmith at the Hoover Book Soiree for a discussion of his new book, The Hacked World Order: How Nations Fight, Trade, Maneuver, and Manipulate in the Digital Age . Segal begins at what he calls “year Zero”—sometime between June 2012 and June 2013—explaining that the events in that year ushered in a new era of geopoli...

This week on the podcast, Lawfare’s Ben Wittes interviews Amy Zegart and Stephen Krasner, both of the Hoover Institution, about their recently released national security strategy called Pragmatic Engagement Amidst Global Uncertainty: Three Major Challenges. The document, which was produced by the Hoover Institution’s Working Group on Foreign Policy and Grand Strategy, presents three key challenges...