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Lawfare Archive: An Assassination in Iran Apr 06, 2024

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From December 2, 2020: The top Iranian nuclear scientist has been killed, apparently in an Israeli strike. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who has long been the mastermind of the Iranian nuclear program, was gunned down in an attack with a remote control machine gun. Iranian reprisals are expected, although their timing and nature is not clear. It also puts the incoming Biden administration, which is looking to bring back the Iran nuclear deal, in a bit of a pickle.

To chew it all over, Benjamin Wittes sat down with Scott R. Anderson, international law specialist and Lawfare senior editor; Suzanne Maloney, the vice president and director of the Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institution and an Iran scholar; and Natan Sachs, director of the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings where he focuses on Israeli policy. They talked about why the Israelis would conduct this operation, how effective its killing of Iranian nuclear scientists has been, whether any of it is legal and what it means for the future of U.S.-Iran relations.

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How Congressional Staffers Helped Our Afghan Allies Apr 05, 2024

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A new report from the POPVOX Foundation focuses on a little-known and hugely under-appreciated congressional effort: that of congressional staffers helping Afghan allies flee the country during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan

Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett sat down with the report’s author, Anne Meeker. They talked about what staffers did to help, the challenges they faced, and how the experience exposed both weaknesses and strengths in how Congress functions.

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Chatter: Why Foreign Policy Elites Matter with Elizabeth Saunders Apr 04, 2024

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The "deep state." The "blob." Foreign policy elites are often so labeled, misunderstood, and denigrated. But what influence on presidents and on public opinion do they actually have?

Elizabeth Saunders, professor of political science at Columbia, has researched this topic deeply and written about it in her new book, The Insiders' Game. David Priess spoke with her about her path to studying foreign policy, the ups and downs of archival research, the meaning of foreign policy "elites," the differences between the influences of Democratic and Republican elites, a counterfactual President Al Gore's decisionmaking about invading Iraq, pop cultural representations of foreign policy elites, how heightened polarization changes the dynamics of elite influence, and more.

Among the works mentioned in this episode:

The book The Insiders' Game by Elizabeth Saunders

The book Leaders at War by Elizabeth Saunders

The TV show The West Wing

The movie The Hunt for Red October

The TV show The Diplomat

The TV show The Americans

The movie Thirteen Days

The article "Politics Can't Stop at the Water's Edge" by Elizabeth Saunders, Foreign Policy (March/April 2024)

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.

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Paul Beckett on the Evan Gershkovich Case Apr 04, 2024

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Paul Beckett was the Washington Bureau Chief of the Wall Street Journal. But since the arrest of the newspaper's Russia correspondent, Evan Gershkovich, last year in Russia on bogus spying charges, he has been working full time on advocating for the reporter's release. In connection with the one-year anniversary of Gershkovich's arrest, he joined Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes to discuss the case. What do we know about the charges against the young reporter? What is the U.S. government doing to secure his release? What progress, if any, has been made? And how is Gershkovich holding up in prison in Moscow?

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Contestability in Government AI Systems Apr 03, 2024

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The use of AI to make decisions about individuals raises the issue of contestability. When automated systems are used by governments to decide whether to grant or deny benefits, or calculate medical needs, the affected person has a right to know why that decision was made, and challenge it. But what does meaningful contestability of AI systems look like in practice?

To discuss this question, Lawfare's Fellow in Technology Policy and Law Eugenia Lostri was joined by Jim Dempsey, Senior Policy Advisor at the Stanford Cyber Policy Center, and Ece Kamar, Managing Director of the AI Frontiers Lab at Microsoft. In January, they convened a workshop with stakeholders across disciplines to issue recommendations that could help governments embrace AI while enabling the contestability required by law. They talked about the challenges that the use of AI creates for contestability, how their recommendations align with recently published OMB guidelines, and how different communities can contribute to the responsible use of AI in government.

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Data Privacy and Consumer Protection with the FTC’s Ben Wiseman Apr 02, 2024

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The Federal Trade Commission’s data, privacy, and AI cases have been all over the news recently, from its proposed settlement with Avast Antivirus to its lawsuit against data broker Kochava.

Lawfare Contributor Justin Sherman sat down with Ben Wiseman, the Associate Director of the Division of Privacy and Identity Protection at the FTC, who oversees a team of attorneys and technologists working on technology and consumer protection. They discussed the FTC’s recent focus on health, location, and kids’ privacy; its ongoing data privacy and security rulemaking; and how the FTC looks beyond financial penalties for companies to prevent and mitigate harm to consumers.

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March Minipod: Does Trump Get to View Classified Documents? Apr 01, 2024

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On this month’s minipod episode, Lawfare Associate Editor for Communications Anna Hickey was joined by Director of Intelligence for Bedrock Learning, Inc., David Priess to discuss what the law says about sharing resources with former President Trump as he becomes a major party candidate for president.

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Asylum-Seekers and the EU Migration Pact Apr 01, 2024

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In early February, the European Union approved a major overhaul of its immigration laws. If approved by EU member states, the pact will drastically curtail the rights of migrants and asylum seekers entering the European Union. It’s part of a trend we’re seeing all over the world, including here in the U.S.

Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett sat down with Steve Meili, Professor of International Human Rights Law at University of Minnesota Law School. They discussed the EU Pact’s new provisions, why critics are calling them a violation of human rights law, and how asylum and migration law is evolving globally.

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Rational Security: The “A Terrorism Briefing From a Goldendoodle” Edition Mar 31, 2024

Show notes

This week on Rational Security, Alan and Quinta were joined again by Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien and Lawfare Foreign Policy Editor Daniel Byman—also of Georgetown University and the Center for Strategic and International Studies— to talk over the week’s national security news, including:

“Terror in Moscow.” On Friday, March 22, a group of gunmen unleashed an attack on a concert hall outside Moscow that killed over 130 people, shooting into a crowd of concertgoers before setting the hall on fire. The Islamic State in Khorasan, the Afghanistan branch of ISIS known as ISIS-K, quickly claimed credit for the attack, and Russian authorities have arrested four suspects. The Kremlin, without evidence, has also continued to hint that Ukraine is somehow responsible. What does the attack tell us about ISIS-K, and what does it mean for the Russian government?
“April, Come She Will.” After a brief delay, Donald Trump’s hush money trial in Manhattan has been scheduled to begin on April 15—the first of Trump’s criminal cases to go to trial. Meanwhile, a New York appeals court threw Trump a lifeline, reducing his appeal bond in the civil fraud case against him from half a billion dollars to $175 million. Will ol’ Donny Trump be able to wriggle out of this jam once again?
“Come On, Aileen.” Judge Aileen Cannon is at it again down in Fort Pierce, Florida. As she presides over Trump’s classified documents case, motions are piling up on her desk without any sign of a ruling, and she issued a strange, convoluted order instructing both parties to “engage with” potential jury instructions reflecting unusual readings of the Presidential Records Act in relation to the Espionage Act. Just what is Judge Cannon doing? And how, if at all, can Jack Smith respond?

For object lessons, Alan endorsed the podcast “Next Year in Moscow,” on Russians living in exile who departed their country after the beginning of Putin’s war with Ukraine. Tyler sang the praises of Waxahatchee’s new album “Tigers Blood.” And Quinta recommended a reflection on Baltimore’s collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge.

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Trump’s Trials and Tribulations: Two Weeks Until a Trial Mar 30, 2024

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It's another episode of “Trump's Trials and Tribulations,” recorded on March 28 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Riverside. Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Legal Fellow Anna Bower, Managing Editor Tyler McBrien, Associate Editor Katherine Pompilio, and Senior Fellows Roger Parloff and Quinta Jurecic to talk about the Monday hearing in New York where Judge Merchan ordered a new trial start date of April 15, the Thursday motions hearing in Fulton County, and why the Fulton County case isn't stayed as the defendants appeal Judge McAfee's decision to not disqualify DA Fani Willis. They also discussed Roger Parloff's article about what the government can do about Judge Cannon's odd proposed jury instructions and the bar discipline proceedings against John Eastman and Jeffrey Clark. And of course, they took audience questions from Material Supporters on Riverside.

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