Bryan Vorndran is Assistant Director of the FBI's Cyber Division, a position he's held since around March 2021. Prior to that, he was the special agent in charge in New Orleans, and he's worked in Afghanistan and on the Joint Terrorism Task Force at the Washington Field Office. David Kris, Lawfare contributor and former Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division, and Bryan Cunningham, Lawfare contributor and Executive Director of the University of California, Irvine’s Cybersec...
Dec 19, 2023•1 hr 1 min
The conflict in Gaza may be approaching a turning point. An increasingly frustrated Biden administration has reportedly told Israeli officials that the military campaign needs to wind up within weeks, while even some Israeli officials have suggested that Hamas is on the verge of defeat. But as the physical and human devastation in Gaza continues to mount, the question of what comes after the conflict ends looms just over the horizon, without anyone offering a clear answer. To talk through the st...
Dec 18, 2023•1 hr 1 min
This week on Rational Security , Quinta and Scott were joined by Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien to talk through the week’s big national security news, including: “You’ll Shoot Your Five Eyes Out with a Bibi Gun.” From Ukraine to Gaza, some of the biggest controversies surrounding U.S. foreign policy hinge on the assistance—including weapons and intelligence—that the United States provides to its allies. What makes these relationships so complicated? “The Sock-It Docket.” Late last week, S...
Dec 17, 2023•1 hr 8 min
It's another edition of “Trump’s Trials and Tribulations,” recorded on Thursday before a live audience of Lawfare Material Supporters. This week, Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editor Roger Parloff, Lawfare Legal Fellow Anna Bower, and special guest Steve Vladeck from the University of Texas School of Law. They discussed Jack Smith's petition to the Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari “before judgment” on the question of presidential immunity. They talked...
Dec 16, 2023•1 hr 8 min
From July 29, 2017: On December 31, 2017, Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act will sunset. While U.S. officials insist that the provision authorizes critical intelligence gathering, it remains an open question whether Congress will reauthorize the law as it exists, pass it with amendments, or allow it to lapse altogether. In this week's podcast, Susan Hennessey sits down with FBI General Counsel Jim Baker and the Bureau's Executive Assistant Director of the National Security Branch Carl Ghatt...
Dec 16, 2023•42 min
According to the resolution signed at the end of the 28th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), or COP28 for short, fossil fuels have finally been sentenced to a slow and painful death. This year’s global climate summit, held in the United Arab Emirates, ended with an overtime session that resulted with the nations agreeing to transition away from fossil fuels for the first time in COP history. But what does this really me...
Dec 15, 2023•34 min
In the summer of 1944, a group of artists, visual designers and sound engineers--all of them GIs--began a series of secret operations in occupied France. Their mission: to deceive German forces about the location and size of U.S. military units, using a combination of inflatable vehicles, sound recordings, and “actors” posing as officers. The ranks of the “Ghost Army” included future stars of the worlds of art and design, including Ellsworth Kelly, Bill Blass, Arthur Singer, Victor Dowd, Art Kan...
Dec 14, 2023•1 hr 7 min
Ben Saul is the Challis Professor of International Law at the University of Sydney, Australia, whose internationally recognized work has focused specifically on the intersection of human rights, terrorism, and international law. The United Nations Human Rights Council voted to appoint Saul as the newest Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, which has become one of the most visible and urgent special rapporteur mand...
Dec 14, 2023•1 hr 2 min
You may have heard of Javier Milei, Argentina’s new president, thanks to some of his eccentricities, like his five cloned dogs or his reliance on a chainsaw prop to illustrate the need to cut public expenditure. But Milei was able to harness the dissatisfaction with a system that has left the country with 150% inflation and over 40% of the population under the line of poverty. Now, the self described anarcho-capitalist libertarian will attempt to turn the economy around with shocking fiscal adju...
Dec 13, 2023•55 min
FISA Section 702 is set to expire on Dec. 31, 2023. Last week, two bills were marked up by two different House committees—one in the House Judiciary Committee and one in the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. To talk about these very different approaches to FISA Section 702 reauthorization and reform, Lawfare Senior Editor Stephanie Pell sat down with Preston Marquis, a JD candidate at Harvard Law School and a former analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency; Molly Reynolds, Seni...
Dec 12, 2023•45 min
The Senate last week failed to move forward the national security supplemental, which includes a large package of aid for Ukraine. The holdup? Migration at the southern border and Republican insistence that the administration and Democrats will have to swallow major policy changes in order to get the Ukraine aid through. Meanwhile, the mood in Kyiv is a little down. The counteroffensive did not go as planned, the U.S. aid situation and the European commitment to Ukraine is alarming, and domestic...
Dec 11, 2023•55 min
This week on Rational Security , co-hosts Quinta and Scott were joined by co-host emeritus Benjamin Wittes to talk over the week’s big national security news, including: “Stalled and Appalled.” Ukraine’s counteroffensive to try and reclaim Russia-held parts of eastern Ukraine appears to have stalled, triggering a degree of finger-pointing on both sides of the Atlantic—just as U.S. and European support for their military campaign appears to be waning. What does this mean for the next stage of thi...
Dec 10, 2023•1 hr 14 min
It's another edition of “Trump’s Trials and Tribulations,” recorded on Thursday before a live audience of Lawfare Material Supporters. Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sat down with Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes, Senior Editor Roger Parloff, and Legal Fellow Anna Bower to discuss a range of matters, from Judge Chutkan’s denial of Trump's motions to dismiss his D.C. criminal case, to Trump's filing seeking to stay the D.C. case in its entirety, the lack of movement in the D.C. Ci...
Dec 09, 2023•1 hr 19 min
From November 6, 2013: On October 25, 2013, the Hoover Institution held a day-long media colloquium out at Stanford University for a first-rate group of journalists focused on national security legal issues and the work of Hoover’s Jean Perkins Task Force on National Security and Law . The first session of the day, Ben’s talk on Speaking the Law , ran as episode of the podcast on Sunday. The second session, the subject of this episode, was a talk by Matt and Ken about autonomous weapons and the ...
Dec 09, 2023•1 hr 2 min
Last week, former Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger passed away. To assess his legacy, Jack Goldsmith sat down with Graham Allison, the Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at Harvard University. Allison knew Kissinger well. He first met Kissinger in 1965 when he was a student in Kissinger's class at Harvard. And Allison worked with Kissinger for decades, right up until the end of Kissinger's life, when he and Kissinger coauthored an essay published in October on...
Dec 08, 2023•51 min
World War I was a seminal event for American national security and foreign policy, as the United States deployed nearly two million soldiers and sailors to Europe and engaged in the most intense overseas combat in its history up to that point. Yet the development of modern American intelligence just before and during the war, and even the magnitude of the war itself, have been largely forgotten by the US public. David Priess spoke with historian and former intelligence officer Mark Stout, author...
Dec 07, 2023•1 hr 27 min
Watching the footage of the attack on the U.S. Capitol on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, Bradley Onishi thought to himself, “If I hadn’t left evangelicalism, would I have been there?” In his book entitled, “ Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism and What Comes Next ,” Onishi offers a sobering historical account of the origins and development of White Christian nationalism in the United States and its offshoots. From the unique perspective of a former insider, Onis...
Dec 07, 2023•56 min
A little over a month ago, President Biden issued a sweeping executive order on artificial intelligence (AI) covering a broad set of AI issues, such as privacy, transparency, the development of biological weapons, and many more. The order hands out expansive directives to several U.S. government agencies and private industry, which the Biden administration hopes will help the U.S. lead the globe in AI development in a safe and sustainable manner. Lawfare Research Fellow Matt Gluck sat down with ...
Dec 06, 2023•36 min
On Friday, two courts weighed in on the question of presidential immunity. First, Judge Chutkan of the DC District Court ruled that Trump is not immune from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s criminal prosecution for his conduct on Jan. 6. In the second, the DC Circuit Court ruled that Trump is not immune from a civil suit brought by members of Congress and Capitol Police officers, also relating to his conduct on Jan. 6. To talk through the decisions, Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett sat down w...
Dec 05, 2023•56 min
Is the Fourth Amendment doing any work anymore? In a forthcoming article entitled “Government Purchases of Private Data,” Matthew Tokson, a professor at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law, details how, in recent years, federal and state agencies have begun to purchase location information and other consumer data, as government attorneys have mostly concluded that purchasing data is a valid way to bypass Fourth Amendment restrictions. Lawfare Senior Editor Stephanie Pell sat down ...
Dec 04, 2023•34 min
This week on Rational Security , a contentedly full post-Thanksgiving Scott and Quinta sat down with two Lawfare colleagues—Senior Editor and Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Molly Reynolds and Cyber Fellow Eugenia Lostri—to talk through the week’s big national security news stories, including: “Showdown with an Only O.K. Rationale.” The House and Senate are preparing for a showdown over national security priorities, with assistance for Ukraine (and Israel and border security) hanging in the ...
Dec 03, 2023•1 hr 12 min
It's another edition of “Trump’s Trials and Tribulations,” recorded on Thursday before a live audience of Lawfare Material Supporters. Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editor Roger Parloff, Lawfare Legal Fellow Anna Bower, and special guest Kyle Cheney of Politico, to talk about Scott Perry's text messages that were newly revealed in a filing in D.C. District Court, about happenings with New York gag orders and D.C. gag orders, about Section 3 of the 14th Amen...
Dec 02, 2023•1 hr 25 min
From September 25, 2018: The United States has become the global leader in both defense and private-sector AI. Inevitably, this has led to an environment in which adversary and ally governments alike may seek to identify and steal AI information—in other words, AI has become intelligence, and those who work in AI have become potential sources and assets. And with intelligence, comes counterintelligence. Jim Baker, a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution and former FBI General Counsel, is ...
Dec 02, 2023•47 min
Anna Bower is a Legal Fellow at Lawfare and our Fulton County Correspondent, and has been digging into the weird events in Coffee County in the aftermath of the 2020 election. Her latest tome on the subject is entitled “ What the GBI Missed in Coffee County ,” and is about the Georgia state investigation, the report on which clocks in at almost 400 pages but is a great deal less impressive than it may seem at first glance. Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Anna to talk about ...
Dec 01, 2023•48 min
Peter Strzok is a former United States Federal Bureau of Investigation agent. He was the Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division and led the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. He speaks with Ben Wittes about the numerous places he has called home and a career spent in counterintelligence. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Nov 30, 2023•1 hr 20 min
Israel’s military response to Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre has raised deep concern from international legal observers and the general public. The IDF’s tactics have been described as “disproportionate,” and not taking sufficient care to avoid killing civilians or damaging civilian infrastructure, as the law of armed conflict requires. When it comes to incidental casualties in particular, Mark Lattimer, Executive Director of Ceasefire Centre for Civilian Rights, recently argued on Lawfare ’s pages tha...
Nov 30, 2023•41 min
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard a great deal over the last year about generative AI and how it’s going to reshape various aspects of our society. That includes elections. With one year until the 2024 U.S. presidential election, we thought it would be a good time to step back and take a look at how generative AI might and might not make a difference when it comes to the political landscape. Luckily, Matt Perault and Scott Babwah Brennen of the UNC Center on Technolog...
Nov 29, 2023•49 min
Last month, following Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, President Biden announced that his administration would ask Congress for “an unprecedented support package for Israel’s defense,” totaling $14.3 billion. Such a package would supplement the defense aid Israel already receives from the U.S. According to Jonathan Guyer in Vox , “Israel has received about $3 billion annually, adjusted for inflation, for the last 50 years, and is the largest historical recipient of US security aid.” But with civ...
Nov 28, 2023•50 min
Tiana Epps-Johnson is the Executive Director of the Center for Tech and Civic Life, an organization which provides technical and financial assistance to election workers nationwide. If this sounds like it should be uncontroversial, hang on to your hats, folks. It is anything but. After her work in 2020 to help election workers conduct the presidential election under horrendously difficult COVID conditions and with inadequate budgets, Epps-Johnson found herself the subject of lawsuits, investigat...
Nov 27, 2023•51 min
From November 7, 2015: Last week, George Washington University and the CIA co-hosted an event entitled Ethos and Profession of Intelligence . As part of the conference, Kenneth Wainstein moderated a conversation between CIA General Counsel Caroline Krass, Orin Kerr, and Benjamin Wittes on Bridging 20th Century Law and 21st Century Intelligence , a panel which we now present in full. What new legal questions are raised by rapidly evolving technologies and how do those questions interact with exis...
Nov 26, 2023•1 hr 9 min
