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The Lawfare Podcast: Patreon Edition – The Lawfare Institute — Government
The Lawfare Podcast: Patreon Edition – The Lawfare Institute

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Copyright: © The Lawfare Institute

Latest Episodes:

ChatGPT Tells All Feb 01, 2023

Show notes

You've likely heard of ChatGPT, the chatbot from OpenAI. But you’ve likely never heard an interview with ChatGPT, much less an interview in which ChatGPT reflects on its own impact on the information ecosystem. Nor is it likely that you’ve ever heard ChatGPT promising to stop producing racist and misogynistic content.

But, on this episode of Arbiters of Truth, Lawfare’s occasional series on the information ecosystem, Lawfare editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with ChatGPT to talk about a range of things: the pronouns it prefers; academic integrity and the chatbot’s likely impact on that; and importantly, the experiments performed by a scholar name Eve Gaumond, who has been on a one-woman campaign to get ChatGPT to write offensive content. ChatGPT made some pretty solid representations that this kind of thing may be in its past, but wouldn't ever be in its future again.

So, following Ben’s interview with ChatGPT, he sat down with Eve Gaumond, an AI scholar at the Public Law Center of the University of Montréal, who fact-checked ChatGPT's claims. Can you still get it to write a poem entitled, “She Was Smart for a Woman”? Can you get it to write a speech by Heinrich Himmler about Jews? And can you get ChatGPT to write a story belittling the Holocaust?

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Even More Classified Documents Jan 31, 2023

Show notes

It seems like everyone has classified documents stashed away these days. First, it was Donald Trump, with the Justice Department investigation into documents stored improperly at Mar-a-Lago. Then, it was Joe Biden, with news that documents bearing classification markings were found at Biden’s Wilmington home and at the Penn Biden Center. And now, former Vice President Mike Pence has also uncovered classified materials at his home. What on earth is going on?

Lawfare senior editor Quinta Jurecic sat down with Lawfare editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes, publisher David Priess, and senior editor Scott Anderson to discuss. They talked about why classified documents are suddenly showing up everywhere; how to understand the differences between the Trump, Biden, and Pence cases; and what to make of the pickle that Attorney General Merrick Garland now finds himself in.

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Roger Parloff with a Proud Boys Trial Update Jan 30, 2023

Show notes

For the last several days, Lawfare senior editor Roger Parloff has been in court covering the Proud Boys trial on a live blog on Lawfare. The trial took a two-day break the other day, so Lawfare editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Roger to catch up on what is proving to be a grueling presentation of evidence. They talked about how the government has been doing in presenting its case against Enrique Tarrio and the other Proud Boys, where the defense has scored points, what evidence is left still to present, and how long this trial is likely to go.

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Rational Security: The “M1 Abrams Accords” Edition Jan 29, 2023

Show notes

This week on Rational Security, Quinta and Scott were joined by special guest Michel Paradis to talk over the week's big national security news, including:

“Don’t Tank my Chain.” Western allies of Ukraine have finally agreed to a way forward on providing the country with tanks, an issue which has proven surprisingly contentious in recent weeks. Germany will now allow its Leopard tanks to be used in the near-term while the United States will send Ukraine a series of M1 Abrams in the future, meeting the German demand for a matched U.S. contribution. Why was this so important to Germany? And what does it tell us about the broader state of the war?
“Slight of the Valkyries.” The U.S. Treasury Department has slapped new sanctions on the Russian mercenary group, the Wagner Group, labeling them a Transnational Criminal Organization (“TCO”)—even as U.S. officials continue to resist calls to designate them a terrorist organization. What explains this reticence? Is it warranted?
“Empire State of Mind.” For the first time, the New York City district attorney is trying someone under state criminal laws barring material support for terrorism that the state adopted following the September 11 attacks—even though the criminal suspect was never present in New York, but merely knew his actions would have repercussions there. Is this a sensible move? Or is there reason for pause?

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Lawfare Archive: Brad Moss on Presidential Power and Security Clearances Jan 28, 2023

Show notes

From August 18, 2018: The President of the United States this week stripped the former CIA Director John Brennan of his security clearance in a dramatic White House statement by Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. The White House is threatening more adverse security clearance actions against presidential critics, and former senior security officials are outraged. Benjamin Wittes sat down Friday afternoon with Bradley Moss, who represents people in security clearance revocation processes, to discuss the president's move, how different it is from a normal security clearance action, and what we can expect if a lawsuit develops.

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Gavin Wilde and Justin Sherman on Russia’s Information War and Regime Security Jan 27, 2023

Show notes

Russia’s use of information warfare during the 2016 U.S. presidential election period focused attention on Russia’s weaponization of information in its effort to influence a U.S. election outcome and sow discord across the American public. But to the extent that we only view Russian information warfare as an aggressive or expansionist expression of Moscow’s foreign policy, we may misunderstand some key tenets of Russian information warfare doctrine.

To gain a better understanding of the history and dynamics of Russian information warfare, Lawfare senior editor Stephanie Pell sat down with Gavin Wilde, senior fellow in the Technology and International Affairs Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Justin Sherman, nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative. They discussed their new paper, "No Water’s Edge: Russia’s Information War and Regime Security,” and they talked about Russian information doctrine under Vladimir Putin, the differences between how the concept of information security is understood in Russia versus the West, and some key takeaways of their research for analysts and policymakers.

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Finland’s NATO Bid, Interrupted Jan 26, 2023

Show notes

Turkish President Erdoğan has thrown a giant wrench into Sweden's NATO membership bid after a protest outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm. This, in turn, affects Finland's application to the alliance because Sweden and Finland applied to and intended to join the alliance concurrently.

Lawfare publisher David Priess sat down with Minna Ålander, research fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, to talk about how we got here, about what Finnish leaders have been saying about these new developments, and about paths forward for Finland and NATO.

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Anna Bower on Judge McBurney's Deliberations Jan 25, 2023

Show notes

Judge Robert McBurney of the Superior Court of Fulton County held a hearing on Tuesday to decide whether or not to release the Fulton County Special Grand Jury's report on 2020 election interference in Georgia. Lawfare's Fulton County correspondent Anna Bower was in the room live-blogging the matter, and Lawfare editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes caught up with her right after the hearing to talk it through. Why did the district attorney argue that the report should continue to be sealed for now? What were the media organizations’ arguments, and which way was Judge McBurney leaning? Is the report going to become public? And if so, when?

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Lynzy Billing on Afghanistan's Zero Unit Night Raids Jan 24, 2023

Show notes

In 2019, investigative journalist and photographer Lynzy Billing went to Afghanistan to investigate a very personal story: her own past. In the process, she discovered what she came to call a classified war, one with lines of accountability so obscured that no one had to answer publicly for operations that went wrong.

Lawfare managing editor Tyler McBrien sat down with Lynzy to talk through her four-year investigation, published last month in ProPublica. They discussed Afghanistan's shady Zero Units and their relationship with the CIA, the traumatic ripple effects caused by this lack of accountability, and why the U.S. continues to rely on a strategy of night raids, which Lynzy describes as quick, brutal operations that went wrong far more often than the U.S. has acknowledged. They also discussed why Lynzy decided to tell this story when few others would.

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When States Make Tech Policy Jan 23, 2023

Show notes

Tech policy reform occupies a strange place in Washington, D.C. Everyone seems to agree that the government should change how it regulates the technology industry, on issues from content moderation to privacy—and yet, reform never actually seems to happen. But while the federal government continues to stall, state governments are taking action. More and more, state-level officials are proposing and implementing changes in technology policy. Most prominently, Texas and Florida recently passed laws restricting how platforms can moderate content, which will likely be considered by the Supreme Court later this year.

On this episode of Arbiters of Truth, our occasional series on the information ecosystem, Lawfare senior editor Quinta Jurecic spoke with J. Scott Babwah Brennen and Matt Perault of the Center on Technology Policy at UNC-Chapel Hill. In recent months, they’ve put together two reports on state-level tech regulation. They talked about what’s driving this trend, why and how state-level policymaking differs—and doesn’t—from policymaking at the federal level, and what opportunities and complications this could create.

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