The Lawfare Podcast

It's a special encore performance of our panel discussion from last year on the legal architecture of the zombie apocalypse: Foreign Policy's Shane Harris hosts a panel--incuding Bobby Chesney, Benjamin Wittes, and Jennifer Daskal--on the law of the War on Zombies. What will be the legal architecture when the dead walk and come for your brains? Do we need a zombie AUMF? Do zombies have due process...

With Congress is away, the economists will play, and last week, Brookings hosted a discussion on the health of the U.S. national security industrial base. The panel, which featured Brookings scholars Michael O'Hanlon, Ben Bernanke, and Mark Muro, looks across the spectrum at both the security and economic sides of the defense economy, evaluating the effects of sequestration, how America’s defense...

Last week, Ben posted  five hard questions  to both government and industry regarding encryption and the "going dark" debate. We posed these questions and more on the issues of technology, public policy and corporate responsibility to Mike Janke, co-founder and Chairman of  Silent Circle , an international company that sells a platform of devices and services with built-in privacy-by-design. As a...

The war with ISIS turns one today. This week, Senator Kaine marked the anniversary of the fight with a speech at the Cato Institute, which has generously allowed us to use the audio for the podcast. With more than 5,000 airstrikes, more than 3,500 troops on the ground, and new fronts opening with Division 30 and the Turkish military, Senator Kaine wonders how it is that Congress has still failed t...

Last week, the Aspen Security Forum featured interviews from a host of Obama administration national security officials,  some of which we provided last week . This week is part II, wherein we share edited discussions from White House Homeland Security Advisor Lisa Monaco, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and Attorney General Loretta Lynch.  Monaco's conversation with Mike Isikoff ...

FBI Director James Comey, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, and NSA Director Adm. Michael Rogers all spoke this week at the Aspen Security Forum. CNN's Wolf Blitzer interviewed Comey. The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza spoke with Johnson. And New York Times reporter David Sanger interviewed Rogers. We have edited the interviews down to manageable length and strung them together for listeners. Than...

While the world powers and Iran were embroiled in last minute negotiations last week,  Brookings hosted a discussion  on the meaning of another power’s recent nuclear threats: this time looking at Russia. In recent months, Russia has issued a variety of nuclear threats: Putin's has commented both on his nuclear options during the Crimea crisis and issued a mild threat to nuke the Danish navy. Give...

This week, we invited the the Virginia Cyber Commission’s Executive Director, Rear Admiral Bob Day (USCG, Ret.) to come tell us more about the Commission’s work and the upcoming release of its report later this month. The Commission’s mandate is expansive and ambitious. It aims to take on: securing Virginia’s government networks, systems and data; incorporating cybersecurity into state government...

Last week, Brookings convened three policy experts, Michael Doran of the Hudson Institute, Brookings fellows Michael O’Hanlon and Jeremy Sharpiro, as well as Senator Chris Murphy for the first ever Brookings Debate. The question at hand? Should the United States put boots on the ground to fight ISIS? As the ground continues to advance against Iraqi security forces, is ISIS a threat to the region,...

Benjamin Wittes gives a lecture at the George Mason Law and Economic Center on his paper with Jodie Liu, " The Privacy Paradox: The Privacy Benefits of Privacy Threats ."   Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week’s Lawfare Podcast, Lawfare Managing Editor Wells Bennett invited Steve Vladeck of both Lawfare and Just Security, and Adam Thurschwell, an attorney with the Office of the Chief Defense Counsel of the Military Commissions, into the Lawfare studio to discuss the D.C. Circuit’s decision in al Bahlul v. USA , in which the Court vacated Ali Hamza Suliman al Bahlul’s conviction for inchoate...

On this week’s Lawfare Podcast, Lawfare Founding Editor Jack Goldsmith and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Marty Lederman sat down to discuss the Supreme Court’s sweeping ruling in Zivotofsky v. Kerry. In its opinion, the Court ruled that the President has the exclusive power to recognize foreign sovereigns, and he therefore can disregard a Congressional statute requiring him to designate...

The Daily Beast's Shane Harris takes stages a coup, takes over the podcast, and interviews temporarily-deposed host Benjamin Wittes about the new website Lawfare  is unveiling next week and the development of Lawfare that took a small blog to this new place.     Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last week, FBI Director James Comey spoke at the  3rd Annual Cybersecurity Law Institute , hosted by Georgetown University Law Center in cooperation with the American Bar Association Cybersecurity Legal Task Force, Bloomberg BNA, and the Center for Internet SecuritBenjamin Powell, a partner at WilmerHale, interviewed Director Comey.   Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted o...

Last May, the Bharatiya Janata Party won the first majority government in India in 25 years, giving newly minted Prime Minister Narendra Modi a broad mandate to initiate much needed reforms in the country. The question is, how is Modi delivering on his promises to root out corruption, spur economic growth and job creation, and garner greater respect for India on the world stage?  This Wednesday, t...

For months, the world has been transfixed by the apparent brutality of the Islamic State's practices in war. The beheading of journalists, the burning of prisoners and the enslavement of religious minorities all seem like a return to a barbaric past. Certainly, these practices seem far removed from any notion of conduct constrained by law. Islam, however, has a robust religious legal tradition, in...

The Triple Entente Beer Summit was a great success, with an audience that filled the Washington Firehouse loft and a cast that mashed up Lawfare, Rational Security, and the Steptoe Cyberlaw Podcast.  We attribute the podcast’s freewheeling interchange to the engaged audience, our profound respect for each other, and, mostly, the beer. After a discussion of between the combined panels, we throw the...

This week, following the New York Times revelation of the purported identities of three covert CIA agents, the Johns Hopkins University Center for Advanced Governmental Studies, along with the James Madison Project and Just Security, hosted an entitled “Whistleblowing and America’s Secrets: Ensuring a Viable Balance,” which with the support of the Center for Advanced Governmental Studies at Johns...

This week, Benjamin Wittes spoke at the Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas on his and Gabriella Blum's new book,  The Future of Violence . Robert Chesney introduces Wittes in what turns into a lively discussion with an engaged audience.    Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A few weeks ago, Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken  visited Brookings for a public address  on the current priorities and future prospects for U.S. engagement in Central Asia. With the draw-down in Afghanistan on the horizon, Mr. Blinken makes clear that the United States is not relinquishing its interests in the region. Blinken stresses that the security of the United States is enhanced by...

When Oula Abdulhamid Alrifai was nearly 19, her family fled Damascus for Washington under death threats from the Bashar Assad regime. Since she left, she has watched as her country has fallen apart.  Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

With a tenuous ceasefire holding in Ukraine, we asked  Fiona Hill  onto the show to discuss the man behind the unrest: Vladimir Putin. Fiona is the co-author of  Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin , and a  Senior Fellow and Director of the  Center on the United States and Europe  at Brookings. On the  Lawfare  Podcast, Fiona tackles the hard questions about Putin. Who exactly is he? What does he...

This week,  Brookings hosted a book launch  with  Jessica Stern  and co-author Brookings Fellow  J.M. Berger  for their new book,  ISIS: The State of Terror . The panel, which also featured  Brookings Fellow William McCants , details ISIS’s strategies and techniques--its unprecedented mix of brutality, media savvy, territorial gain, and recruitment. The authors also outline their recommendations f...

This week, we invited Major General Michael Lehnert (Ret.), the first commander of the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, onto the show. In January 2002, General Lehnert deployed to Guantanamo Bay as Commander of Joint Task Force 160 with the mission to construct and operate the detention facilities for Taliban and Al Qaeda Detainees. He is now one of the most prominent voices callin...

This week, Brookings hosted a book launch with Harvard Law Professor Gabriella Blum and co-author Benjamin Wittes for their new book, The Future of Violence: Robots and Germs, Hackers and Drones—Confronting a New Age of Threat . The panel, which also featured Senior Fellow William Galston and the ACLU’s Ben Wizner, explored the book’s themes surrounding the potential dangers of modern technology i...