The Lawfare Podcast features discussions with experts, policymakers, and opinion leaders at the nexus of national security, law, and policy. On issues from foreign policy, homeland security, intelligence, and cybersecurity to governance and law, we have doubled down on seriousness at a time when others are running away from it. Visit us at www.lawfaremedia.org.
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From July 17, 2023: The only thing more impressive than the performance of generative AI systems like GPT-4 and Stable Diffusion is the sheer volume of training data that went into these systems. GPT was reportedly trained on, essentially, the entire Internet, while Stable Diffusion and other image-generation models rely on hundred of millions if not billions of existing pieces of artwork. Of course, much of this content is copyrighted, and the authors and artists whose work is being used to tra...
From January 9, 2025: Jack Goldsmith sits down with Orin Kerr, a Professor at Stanford Law School, to discuss his new book , “The Digital Fourth Amendment: Privacy and Policing in Our Online World.” They talk about how Kerr became interested in these issues, the history and physicality assumptions of the Fourth Amendment, and how and why the digital world is different. They also discuss how the courts are interpreting the Fourth Amendment in a digital age, as well as Kerr’s Equilibrium-Adjustmen...
On May 7, Lawfare Senior Editor Kate Klonick sat down for a live discussion on Substack with Steve Vladeck, a professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center, to discuss the impact of the New York Times’ “shadow papers” story, the continued omnipresence of the shadow docket, and the courts v. Court in this administration. 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://giv...
This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Molly Roberts, Roger Parloff, and Tyler McBrien to talk through the week’s big national security news stories, including: “Jim Spells Seashells By the Seashore.” Former FBI Director James Comey was indicted again this past week, this time for allegedly threatening the life of the president by spelling “8647” in shells at the beach and posting an image on social media. It is a ludicrous argument. So what does it tell us that Acting Attorney Ge...
On today’s podcast, Lawfare Associate Editor for Communications Anna Hickey talks to Nicholas Enrich, former acting assistant administrator of Global Health at USAID, about his book, “ Into the Wood Chipper: A Whistleblower's Account of How the Trump Administration Shredded USAID .” Enrich details the agency's dismantling during the early months of the Trump administration and whether those doing the dismantling understood the consequences of their actions. He also discusses the impact on global...
Patrick Radden Keefe, a staff writer at the New Yorker and the author of “ Say Nothing ” and “ Empire of Pain ,” sits down with Lawfare Associate Editor Peter Beck to discuss his most recent book, “ London Falling .” The two talk about Radden Keefe’s investigation of a London teenager’s fatal plunge into the Thames, the United Kingdom’s acquiescence to foreign influence, and his process in writing about the book. To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com...
Lawfare Senior Editor Kate Klonick speaks with former Deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreeben ; lecturer in law at Stanford, Richard Salgado ; and attorney Adam Unikowsky , to discuss the geofencing Fourth Amendment case that was heard Monday, April 27 in the Supreme Court, Chatrie v. United States. They discuss the background of the case with their unique perspectives, starting with Unikowsky's framing of the case for his client, Chatrie, and his thoughts on the arguments he made in his defens...
In a live conversation on YouTube , Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Anna Bower, Molly Roberts, and Roger Parloff and Lawfare Contributing Editor Nicholas Bednar to discuss the second indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, a judge finding that he has jurisdiction over Maureen Comey’s litigation challenging the Justice Department’s firing of her last her, oral argument at the Supreme Court over the cancellation of TPS, and more. You can find inf...
From June 9, 2017: As the dust settles following former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, the Lawfare Podcast brings you expert views on what exactly happened yesterday and what it means for the Trump administration going forward. Benjamin Wittes sat down with Carrie Cordero, a former attorney at the National Security Division of the Justice Department, and Paul Rosenzweig, who worked for Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, for a conversation on the Co...
From June 26, 2024: On June 10, the jury reached a verdict in the federal trial against Chiquita Banana. It found that the company had financed a paramilitary group in Colombia in the late 1990s and early 2000s, resulting in the deaths of eight men, and it awarded the victims' families $38 million in damages. It's the culmination of a 17-year-long multi-district litigation that had faced significant procedural, evidentiary, and legal challenges. And it may represent a new frontier in the fight t...
In this episode of Scaling Laws , we explore how the "black box" of global greenhouse gas emissions is being cracked open by artificial intelligence and satellite imagery. Kevin Frazier is joined by Gavin McCormick, who leads Watt Time and ClimateTrace, a global coalition that has revolutionized the process of identifying and quantifying emissions. For decades, climate policy has relied on self-reported data from nations and corporations—a system prone to gaps and "greenwashing." McCormick’s wor...
This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Executive Editor Natalie Orpett and Contributing Editors Ariane Tabatabai and Joel Braunold, to talk through the week’s big national security news stories, including: “The Art of the Heel.” As it approaches the 60-day mark, the war of Iran appears to have entered the “war of attrition” stage. The Strait of Hormuz remains closed by both Iran and the United States, as each side waits to see if the other will capitulate first. President Trump re...
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...
The Lawfare Podcast team discusses their new series, "Who Blew Up the Guidestones?", investigating the enigmatic Georgia Guidestones—a monument built in 1979 by an individual using a pseudonym and destroyed in 2022. They delve into the creator's dark eugenicist ideals, the monument's rising opposition, and the surprising ease of purchasing the explosive (tannerite) used in its destruction. The hosts also touch upon the GBI's lackluster investigation and their own identification of potential suspects, leaving many questions about justice and the monument's future.
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 governm...
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 hom...
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 ...
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 profe...
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 ...
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...
On today’s episode, Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien sits down with Lawrence Douglas, the James J. Grosfeld Professor of Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought at Amherst College to discuss Douglas’s new book, “The Criminal State: War, Atrocity, and the Dream of International Justice.” They talk about how and why international criminal justice shifted from a focus at Nuremberg on the crime of aggression to an “atrocity paradigm,” as well as the “belatedness problem” and other limitations of...
In her recent profile of Harmeet Dhillon , the assistant attorney general for civil rights at the Department of Justice, The Atlantic’s Quinta Jurecic writes, “Dhillon’s leadership of the division is both the next step in the natural progression of a career spent needling liberals and a preview of what is to come if she continues to rise within the Justice Department.” But, Jurecic notes, Dhillon may be “at the top of her game, yet her position has never appeared more precarious.” For today’s ep...
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 to discuss the disbarment of John Eastman, the Justice Department dropping the last Jan. 6 criminal matters, a warrant issued in the first state criminal charges against an ICE agent, the firing of 6 immigration judges, and more. You can find information on legal challenges to Trump administration actions here . And check out Lawfare ’s new...
From October 25, 2024: Hunter Marston, PhD candidate at the Australian National University and Southeast Asia Associate at 9DashLine, joins Kevin Frazier, Assistant Professor at St. Thomas University College of Law and a Tarbell Fellow at Lawfare , to explore the economic and geopolitical significance of the South China Sea. Hunter leans on his extensive knowledge of Southeast Asian politics and history to paint a comprehensive picture of why the next Administration should pay close attention to...
From January 6, 2025: On today’s podcast, Lawfare Senior Editor and Brookings Senior Fellow Molly Reynolds is joined by Quinta Jurecic, a Fellow at Brookings and Senior Editor at Lawfare , and Ryan Reilly, Justice Reporter at NBC News, to discuss a long-awaited report on Jan. 6 from the Department of Justice’s Inspector General, as well as a new report from House Republicans focusing on the pipe bombs planted outside the Democratic and Republican National Committees as part of the violence that ...
The Justice Department has moved the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to drop the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys seditious conspiracy cases, the last remaining criminal matters arising from the Jan. 6 insurrection. Lawfare’ s editor in chief, Benjamin Wittes, sits down with four contributors who had intimate involvement with the cases to discuss the decision: Senior Editor Roger Parloff, who covered both trials; Senior Editor Michael Feinberg, who investigated both the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers;...
Ben McKenzie, co-author of “ Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud ,” and writer and director of the new documentary, “ Everyone Is Lying to You for Money ,” sits down with Lawfare Senior Editor Michael Feinberg about his years-long deep dive into the cryptocurrency industry and why his research makes him skeptical of its literal and figurative value. To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare . You can also su...
Lawfare Senior Editor Michael Feinberg and historian Frank Dikötter, the author of “ Red Dawn Over China: How Communism Conquered a Quarter of Humanity ,” discuss the early years of the Chinese communist movement, the American reaction to its successes, and how our current understanding of the era greatly differs from our previous assumptions. 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 a...
Senior Editor Kate Klonick interviews reporters Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz on their recent article in the New Yorker, titled “ Sam Altman May Control Our Future—Can He Be Trusted? ” In their 16,000-word piece, Farrow and Marantz create a cohesive narrative with receipts around Sam Altman, the products he's building at OpenAI, and how he's selling them not just to investors and the public, but also to regulators and world leaders. Klonick unpacks three key areas that are discussed in the pie...
In a live conversation on YouTube , Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Molly Roberts, Eric Columbus, and Roger Parloff to discuss Judge Friedman rejecting the Defense Department’s revised press rules, the D.C. Circuit denying Anthropic’s petition for a stay pending review of the enforcement of its supply chain designation, Judge Sorokin rejecting the Justice Department’s attempt to obtain Massachusetts voter records, and more. You can find information on...
