The Lawfare Podcast

From July 31, 2023: This past week, the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs held a spirited hearing on an unusual topic: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, or UAPs, the more correct term for what are commonly called UFOs, or Unidentified Flying Objects. The witnesses included two military veterans who claimed to have borne eyewitness to UAPs, and an intelligence community whistleblower who claims to have heard secondhand from contacts about a range of government activity relating to extraterrestrials, including the recovery of alien remains and crashed aircraft. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the witnesses’ testimony has triggered an array of strong reactions, from outright scorn and disbelief to an array of boosters eager to tie it into their own worldviews and conspiracy theories. To talk through the revelations at this hearing and the debate over UAPs more broadly, Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sat down with veteran Washington Post national security reporter Shane Harris, who has closely followed the debate over UAPs for many years. They talked about how the witnesses’ testimony fits into the broader universe of reports relating to UAPs, what parts reflect serious policy problems and which don't, and how to separate the wheat from the chaff in the broader UAP debate.To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.

On today's podcast, Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett talks with Michael Posner, a professor of business and human rights at New York University, about the landmark verdict last month in Al-Shimari v. CACI. The case involved claims against a government contractor for its role in the abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib detention facility in Iraq in 2004. It became the first case of its kind to make it to trial—and now a jury has returned a verdict finding the company liable and imposing $42 million in damages. They discuss how the case will affect private companies, government contractors, and the future of human rights litigation. To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.Please note that this episode contains content that some people may find disturbing. Listener discretion is advised. 

From April 14, 2023: Over the past few years, TikTok has become a uniquely polarizing social media platform. On the one hand, millions of users, especially those in their teens and twenties, love the app. On the other hand, the government is concerned that TikTok's vulnerability to pressure from the Chinese Communist Party makes it a serious national security threat. There's even talk of banning the app altogether. But would that be legal? In particular, does the First Amendment allow the government to ban an application that’s used by millions to communicate every day?On this episode of Arbiters of Truth, our series on the information ecosystem, Matt Perault, director of the Center on Technology Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Alan Z. Rozenshtein, Lawfare Senior Editor and Associate Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota, spoke with Ramya Krishnan, a staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, and Mary-Rose Papendrea, the Samuel Ashe Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law, to think through the legal and policy implications of a TikTok ban.To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.

From June 15, 2021: A spree of stories has emerged over the last week or so that the Justice Department under the prior administration obtained phone and email records of several journalists, several members of Congress and staffers, and even family members. It has provoked a mini scandal, calls for investigation, howls of rage and serious questions. To discuss it all, Benjamin Wittes sat down with Gabe Rottman of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, former FBI agent Pete Strzok, Lawfare senior editor Quinta Jurecic and Berkeley law professor and Lawfare contributing editor Orin Kerr. They talked about what we really know about these stories and what happened in these investigations. Was it all legal? Was it legitimate? How should it be investigated and by whom? And what does it mean that none of the prior attorneys general or deputy attorneys general seem to remember it?To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.

Adam Thierer, Senior Fellow for the Technology & Innovation team at R Street, joins Kevin Frazier, Senior Research Fellow in the Constitutional Studies Program at the University of Texas at Austin and a Tarbell Fellow at Lawfare, to examine a lengthy, detailed report issued by the Bipartisan House Task Force on AI. Thierer walks through his own analysis of the report and considers some counterarguments to his primary concern that the report did not adequately address the developing patchwork of state AI regulations.To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Anna Bower and Natalie Orpett and Lawfare Contributing Editor Michel Paradis to talk about the week’s biggest national security news stories, including:“A Justice Delayed Still Has Justice on the Mind.” After weeks of waiting, New York state court judge Justice Juan Merchan has finally become the first judge to apply the Supreme Court’s Trump v. United States immunity decision, holding that incoming President Donald Trump’s convictions under New York state law may stand and did not unduly rely on conduct for which he is immune. How persuasive is his ruling? And what can it tell us about the future of both Donald Trump’s criminal case and the Supreme Court’s immunity holding?“A Break in the Case.” Tectonic shifts in Syrian politics over the past few weeks that has led, among other consequences, to the release of thousands of former prisoners, have brought back to the fore the case of Austin Tice, an American journalist who has been missing in Syria for more than a decade. Believed to have been held by the Assad regime before its collapse, some are concerned that he might have been injured or killed during Israeli airstrikes over the past several weeks. What does Tice’s case tell us about the challenges of wrongful detention cases like his? And what should we make of allegations that the Biden administration is not doing enough to bring him back?“Gym, Tan, Low-flying Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.” The state of New Jersey has a new signature activity, as Americans and politicians of all stripes have been voicing concern over reports of mysterious drones of unknown origins operating in the state’s skies. What might explain this phenomenon? And what should we make of the reactions around it? For object lessons, Anna recommended “Intermezzo,” by Sally Rooney as a read over the holiday. Natalie Orpett endorsed Washington, D.C.’s Eastern Market as a worthwhile visit for holiday shopping, and Scott doubled down with another local recommendation of Middleburg, VA, as a holiday wonderland not to be missed. And Michel wrapped things up with a final endorsement of Weike Wang’s dryly comedic book “Rental House,” for those needing to commiserate over managing family relations over the holiday.To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.

For today’s episode, Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sat down with Ashley Deeks, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, and Kristen Eichensehr, also a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, but currently a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, to discuss their forthcoming law review article, “Frictionless Government and Foreign Relations,” which focuses on the dangers that can arise in moments where there appears to be broad consensus on a particular set of policies.They discussed what constitutes frictionless government, where it might exist on the present policy terrain, the risks such circumstances can entail, and strategies policymakers can embrace for managing them.To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.

In response to the compromise of telecommunication companies by the Chinese hacker group Salt Typhoon, senior officials from the FBI and CISA recommended that American citizens use encrypted messaging apps to minimize the chances of their communications being intercepted. This marks a departure in law enforcement’s position on the use of encrypted communications. Susan Landau, Professor of Cyber Security and Policy in Computer Science at Tufts University, and Alan Rozenshtein, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School and Research Director and Senior Editor at Lawfare, sat down with Lawfare Senior Editor Eugenia Lostri to talk about what the recent FBI recommendation in favor of the use of encrypted messaging apps means for the “Going Dark” debate. To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.

Shane Harris makes no secret about his love for the film version of this Cold War submarine thriller, based on the Tom Clancy novel. It’s his favorite movie. So he was delighted to welcome fellow obsessive Katherine Voyles to the podcast. A PhD in English, Voyles writes about national security in culture, as well as the culture of national security. She and Shane talked about why they love the movie, their favorite scenes and characters, and how the story influenced--maybe even created--an entire genre of fiction. They also discussed why it is, actually, a Christmas movie, and their mutual admiration for the martini. Voyles’s writing has appeared in in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Foreign Policy, Task &Purpose, Small Wars Journal, and War on the Rocks. She also works for the Department of Defense. In addition to the greatest movie of all time, essays, TV shows, books, and restaurants discussed in this episode include: Colson Whitehead’s “The Way We Live Now” https://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/11/magazine/the-way-we-live-now-11-11-01-lost-and-found.html Deutschland 83 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4445154/ Garrett Graff’s The Only Plane in the Sky https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Only-Plane-in-the-Sky/Garrett-M-Graff/9781501182211 Lauren Wilkinson’s American Spy https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/253471/american-spy-by-lauren-wilkinson/ Saltie Girl https://www.saltiegirl.com/ Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.