The Lawfare Podcast: Patreon Edition

Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien sits down with Chinmayi Sharma, an associate professor at Fordham Law School and a contributing editor at Lawfare, to discuss Sharma’s forthcoming law review article, “Immigration Enforcement Intermediaries.”They discuss the U.S. federal government’s increasingly privatized and automated system of immigration enforcement—which Sharma describes as “a code-based Leviathan—cloaked in the veneer of legal legitimacy yet operating outside traditional democratic channels”—and how private technology vendors entrench their positions within that system. Sharma also walks through a number of proposals for states and other sub-federal entities to counteract these harms to immigrants, society, and the rule of law itself.

In 1979, a man using a pseudonym built a strange monument in Elberton, Georgia. Called “America’s Stonehenge" by some, the massive granite monolith known as the Georgia Guidestones attracted conspiracy theories and controversy until July 2022, when someone blew them up. Those two mysteries—who built the Guidestones and who destroyed them—are at the heart of a new narrative podcast series from Goat Rodeo and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution called “Who Blew Up the Guidestones?”Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sits down with some of the team behind the show, including its host, Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien; series lead producer Megan Nadolski of Goat Rodeo; and Charles Minshew, senior editor of data journalism at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. They talk about the origins of the Guidestones and their creator, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, over-the-counter explosives, QAnon, and much, much more.

Lawfare Book Review Editor Jonathan Cedarbaum sits down with Anja Shortland, professor of political economy at King's College London, to discuss her new book, "Dark Screens: Hackers and Heroes in the Shadowy World of Ransomware." The book offers a history of the development of ransomware into perhaps the most important form of cyber crime, costing the global economy $75 billion a year. In the book, Shortland depicts the evolving strategies of ransomware organizations and the efforts by governments and corporations to defend themselves from this often crippling type of cyber attack. Shortland and Cedarbaum talk about the emergence of organized criminal groups specializing in digital extortion over the past 15 years, some of their most spectacular hacks, how target organizations have worked to make themselves more resilient to ransomware attacks, and how governments have sought to disrupt ransomware groups.

In a live conversation on YouTube, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Anna Bower, Eric Columbus, and Roger Parloff and Lawfare Public Service Fellow Troy Edwards to discuss the indictment of the SPLC, the DOJ dropping its investigation into Fed Chair Jerome Powell, the government’s renewed attempt to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia, and more.You can find information on legal challenges to Trump administration actions here. And check out Lawfare’s new homepage on the litigation, new Bluesky account, and new WITOAD merch.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 December 17, 2024: CNN correspondent Elle Reeve has spent the last decade reporting on extremism in the United States. Her book, "Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society and Capture American Politics" provides an insider's glimpse into the "insidious"—and underestimated—world of alt-right internet culture that is now at the center of the Republican Party under Donald Trump. Lawfare Associate Editor Katherine Pompilio sat down with Reeve to discuss her investigative reporting and "Black Pill," incels, political violence, memes, what it's like to build working relationship with alt-right figures, the 2017 Charlottesville Unite the Right Rally, Jan. 6, the 2024 presidential election, and more.

From August 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 discipline—like Rudy Giuliani, whose law license has been suspended temporarily in New York and D.C. while a New York ethics investigation remains ongoing.Quinta Jurecic sat down with Paul Rosenzweig a contributing editor at Lawfare and a board member with the 65 Project, an organization that seeks to hold accountable lawyers who worked to help Trump hold onto power in 2020—often by spreading lies. He’s also spent many years working on issues related to legal ethics. So what avenues of discipline are available for lawyers who tell lies about elections? How does the legal discipline process work? And how effective can legal discipline be in reasserting the truth?

Geoffrey Pipoly and Andrew Tauber, partners at the Bryan Cave law firm, speak with Senior Editor Roger Parloff about their case, known at the Supreme Court level as Trump v. Miot. In it, they have been fighting to preserve Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for more than 350,000 Haitian immigrants. The Court is hearing the case on April 29, along with Mullin v. Dahlia Doe, which concerns the government’s attempt to terminate TPS status for about 7,000 Syrians. Pipoly and Tauber explain what the TPS program is and why they contend that the government’s attempt to terminate it for Haitians violates the TPS statute, the Administrative Procedure Act, and the equal protection component of the Due Process clause of the U.S. Constitution.

On today's episode, Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sits down with several leading experts to break down the recent ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel and what it might mean for their ongoing conflict, and the broader conflict with Iran.Joel Braunold is a contributing editor at Lawfare as well as the managing director of the Center Project. Dan Byman is a foreign policy editor at Lawfare as well as the director of the Warfare, Irregular Threats, and Terrorism Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Mona Yacoubian is the director of the Middle East Program at CSIS.Together, Scott, Dan, and Mona first discuss the contours of this latest Israel-Lebanon war, the nature of the ceasefire, and what will likely be needed for it to lead to a more enduring and stable resolution of the conflict. Scott and Joel then sit down separately a day later to specifically discuss Israel's view of the conflict and approach to the ceasefire, and what recent events might tell us about, among other things, Israeli-U.S. relations.

Every month, Lawfare contributors sit down for a webinar where Lawfare paid supporters can ask them their most pressing questions. This month Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes and Lawfare Senior Editors Kate Klonick and Kevin Frazier answered questions on tech policy, AI, and more.The registration link is sent out via Patreon, Substack, and Givebutter.