Steptoe Cyberlaw Podcast, Episode #98: An Interview with Melanie Teplinsky

Stewart Baker
Wednesday, January 27, 2016, 12:42 PM

If there really is another crypto war in Washington, then this week’s podcast features several war correspondents and at least one victim of PTSD. 

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If there really is another crypto war in Washington, then this week’s podcast features several war correspondents and at least one victim of PTSD. Our guest is Melanie Teplinsky, former cybersecurity lawyer at Steptoe, adjunct professor at American University’s Washington College of Law, advisory board member for Crowdstrike, and a regular columnist on privacy and security issues for the Christian Science Monitor.  

We cover crypto news from Davos to the New York legislature. We also discuss my latest policy provocation, designed to unveil yet another example of European hypocrisy where privacy, data protection, and the United States are concerned. Inspired by the still-stalled Safe Harbor talks, I announce plans to award a Europocrisy Prize for filings that force European data protection authorities to assess the adequacy of surveillance law in important European trading partners who aren’t the United States, such as China, Russia, Saudia Arabia, and Algeria. Amazingly, in twenty years of bitter attacks on US privacy adequacy, that’s never been done. 

We dig into several developments in the world of litigation. Michael Vatis and Alan Cohn discuss several new cases: lawsuit claiming that fake emails should be covered by a forgery insurance policy, a hacked casino’s effort to recover from the security consultant that incorrectly told the casino its security problems had been solved, and a Minnesota decision that shoots down still more creative arguments for injury from the breach plaintiff’s bar.   

Michael tells us why the FBI isn’t apologizing for running a child porn site for two weeks in order to catch pedophiles. And I predict with a bit of enthusiasm that the Senate Judiciary Committee will add more conditions to the Judicial Redress Act, as Congressional patience with Europocrisy begins to wear thin.   

Finally, Alan reveals that the Obama administration has just created the worst Schedule C job in government.   

As always, the Cyberlaw Podcast welcomes feedback.  Send an e-mail to CyberlawPodcast@steptoe.com or leave a message at +1 202 862 5785. 

The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not reflect the opinions of the firm. 


Stewart A. Baker is a partner in the Washington office of Steptoe & Johnson LLP. He returned to the firm following 3½ years at the Department of Homeland Security as its first Assistant Secretary for Policy. He earlier served as general counsel of the National Security Agency.

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