Free Speech, Deportation, and the Suspension of Habeas Corpus
Denying habeas review of detention for protected speech risks accomplishing in practice what the Constitution forbids without actual suspension.
USPS Plays a 'Puzzle Game' With the Right to Vote
Months away from elections, a federal judge worries President Trump's mail-in voting executive order could cause disenfranchisement.
China's Private-Sector Botnets Are Worth Disrupting
The latest edition of the Seriously Risky Business cybersecurity newsletter, now on Lawfare.
Open-Weight Diplomacy: How China’s AI Models Are Rerunning the Digital Silk Road
China's “free” AI models are rerunning Huawei’s telecom playbook: Give the weights away, sell the stack around it, own the dependency.
The ‘Covered List’: A Fraud Claimed ‘National Security’
A tool built to block Huawei and Hikvision now bans drones, routers, and solar inverters—undermining the security it was meant to protect.
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AIs as Modern Genies
With AI we have built genies. Old stories told us how this goes.
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The Week That Was
Your weekly summary of everything on the site. -
Free Speech, Deportation, and the Suspension of Habeas Corpus
Denying habeas review of detention for protected speech risks accomplishing in practice what the Constitution forbids without actual suspension. -
USPS Plays a 'Puzzle Game' With the Right to Vote
Months away from elections, a federal judge worries President Trump's mail-in voting executive order could cause disenfranchisement. -
China's Private-Sector Botnets Are Worth Disrupting
The latest edition of the Seriously Risky Business cybersecurity newsletter, now on Lawfare. -
Open-Weight Diplomacy: How China’s AI Models Are Rerunning the Digital Silk Road
China's “free” AI models are rerunning Huawei’s telecom playbook: Give the weights away, sell the stack around it, own the dependency. -
The ‘Covered List’: A Fraud Claimed ‘National Security’
A tool built to block Huawei and Hikvision now bans drones, routers, and solar inverters—undermining the security it was meant to protect. -
AIs as Modern Genies
With AI we have built genies. Old stories told us how this goes. -
Search Warrants for Election Materials Get Their Day in Court
The California Supreme Court has a chance to emphasize that the criminal justice system isn’t built to “double-check” election results. -
Persistent Engagement and the Illusion of Cyber Equilibrium
Strategies built to disrupt cyber adversaries may impose costs but are unlikely to lead to long-term stability. -
The Supreme Court’s Ballroom Non-Decision
The Court avoided the merits of Trump’s ballroom fight by leaning on aesthetic standing—and left the doctrine murkier than before. -
Governance by Shakedown
How the administration converts legal pretexts into coercive leverage—and why the tactic works even when courts say no. -
White House Unveils Program to Authorize Private-Sector Cyber Surveillance and Disruption Operations
The Aug. 12 presidential memorandum directing the creation of a private-sector hacking program raises novel questions for participants. -
The “GEC Files” Don’t Show a Censorship Operation
The State Department promised proof of a vast censorship scheme. The documents Sarah Rogers released show something else entirely. -
The First Amendment Problems With Meta’s $17 Billion Deal
Meta's settlement includes some social media speech restrictions that states can't directly impose. -
Understanding Al-Shabaab’s Recruitment Pipeline
Members’ motivations are changing, and the approach of counter-recruitment programs must respond.
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What's Old Is New Again
With every new administration comes new promises and new actions on national security. But what’s “new” has often been proposed or even tried before—which means there’s a good chance Lawfare has already analyzed some of the legal and policy implications they present. So we’re making that past content readily accessible as it becomes newly relevant.
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The Return of Schedule F
The Trump administration has proposed new rules to remove due process protections for thousands of federal employees. -
Donald Trump and the Department of Justice
On the loyalty of lawyers and the attitude of voters -
Trump’s Attacks on Justice Department Independence, Then and Now
What the first Trump administration carried out slowly, the new administration is doing at once.
Documents
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White House Releases Executive Order Declaring a National Emergency Regarding the Electrical Grid
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White House Releases National Security Science & Technology Strategy
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Justice Department Releases Opinion on Military Arrests Near Borders
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White House Releases Executive Orders on Quantum Computing
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White House Releases Executive Order on AI
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Former Cuban President Raúl Castro Indicted
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Trump Administration Releases 2026 Counterterrorism Strategy
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Southern Poverty Law Center Indicted on Federal Fraud Charges
The Lawfare Podcast 
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Lawfare Daily: Mike Schmidt Talks CHIPS and U.S. Industrial Policy
In this episode of the Security Economics podcast series Mike Schmidt discusses the CHIPS Act. -
Lawfare Daily: Peter Salib on the Legal and Policy Ramifications of the OpenAI-Hugging Face Postmortems
What does the OpenAI-Hugging Face incident mean for the broader AI evaluation ecosystem? -
Lawfare Daily: The Trials of the Trump Administration, September 1
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Lawfare Live: The Trials of the Trump Administration, September 4
Join the Lawfare team at 4 pm ET for a discussion of the litigation surrounding the Trump administration.
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Lawfare is a non-profit multimedia publication dedicated to “Hard National Security Choices.” We provide non-partisan, timely analysis of thorny legal and policy issues through our written, audio, and other content—all of which you can find here.
