Katherine Pompilio and Benjamin Wittes examined the implications of 355 immigration habeas cases in which the Lawfare team identified instances of government noncompliance with federal court orders, and drew out some of the lessons learned from the project.
On Lawfare Daily, Molly Roberts sat down with Pompilio to discuss Lawfare’s new interactive tracker documenting instances of government non-compliance with federal court orders in immigration habeas cases. The duo’s conversation addressed why Lawfare built this tracker, what the dataset reveals about holding the Trump administration accountable, the absence of institutional record-keeping, and more.
Also on Lawfare Daily, Wittes sat down with Anna Bower, Roger Parloff, Roberts, and Pompilio to discuss Lawfare’s new database tracking government non-compliance in immigration habeas corpus cases, the firing of Pam Bondi as attorney general, legal challenges to President Trump’s new elections integrity executive order, and more.
Roberts unpacked the Department of Justice’s current investigation into voting systems vendor Smartmatic over an alleged violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act following the 2020 presidential election. Roberts explained that the case fits into a larger narrative of vindictive and selective prosecutions under the Trump administration.
On Lawfare Live, Wittes sat down with Eric Columbus, Roberts, and Parloff to discuss the D.C. Circuit’s denial of Anthropic’s motion to stay its supply chain designation, an update in the legal challenge to the attempted deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, and more.
On Rational Security, Daniel Byman, Tyler McBrien, and Natalie K. Orpett joined Scott R. Anderson to unpack the week’s biggest Iran-focused news stories, including the newly announced two-week ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran, Trump’s use of increasingly outlandish rhetoric, and the state of U.S. public opinion on the conflict.
Herb Lin argued that the Trump administration’s piecemeal response to the Iranian closure of the Strait of Hormuz reflects a failure to prepare for a well-known risk of the U.S.-Israeli joint strikes. Using the concept of “unknown knowns,” Lin described how a long-anticipated scenario and its consequences were not translated into actionable plans, leading to the delays and improvisation seen in the U.S.’s actions when the closure occurred.
William Ford and Cerin Lindgrensavage described how the Trump administration has increasingly used “Category C” apportionments across a wider range of accounts than previous administrations to withhold or delay federal funds from agencies until the end of the fiscal year.
On Lawfare Daily, Michael Feinberg sat down with Arne Westad to discuss 19th and 20th century global power politics and how the lessons learned from those conflicts can inform a better understanding of the rise of China on the contemporary global stage.
Also on Lawfare Daily, Yaqiu Wang joined Feinberg to discuss the role of emerging technologies in China’s surveillance and censorship efforts.
In the latest edition of the Seriously Risky Business cybersecurity newsletter, Tom Uren discussed the current state of the U.S.’s ability to defend against propaganda and disinformation from foreign actors, Salt Typhoon’s recent attacks on U.S. intercept and surveillance systems, and more.
David S. Kris examined how the increased implementation of non-state entities in national security operations exposes a governance gap, in which private actors lack accountability while state controls risk overreach. Kris argued that the existing frameworks for national security governance are outdated and require new safeguards to balance power between states and non-state actors.
In the latest edition of Lawfare’s Foreign Policy Essay Series, Joel Brenner explained that despite the increasingly widespread implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) in the national security apparatus, AI may not be capable of adequately responding to intelligence surprises due to the limitations of data and the nature of AI reasoning.
Lennart Maschmeyer described how AI is shaping cyber conflict unevenly amongst actors and operations of different scales. Maschmeyer argued that while AI can improve the efficiency of large offensive operations, AI adoption is more effectively implemented in defensive strategies carried out by lower-level actors.
Jakub Kraus unpacked the White House’s newly released national framework for AI and what it means for the future of AI legislation, including the preemption of “cumbersome” state AI laws, limits on liability for developers, and an overall aversion to heavy federal regulations.
Lam Tran examined how the rapid development of AI data centers and its stress on local infrastructure is growing into a political flashpoint—which has led to bipartisan backlash and is likely to continue influencing election, legislative, and policy debates at state and national levels.
Jennifer E. Rothman argued that the ongoing lawsuit against Grammarly for its allegedly unauthorized use of journalists’ and scholars’ writing style does not necessitate new legislation to protect people’s likeness from abuse by AI. Rather, Rothman suggested that the legal dispute reveals how existing federal and state privacy laws can strengthen the plaintiffs’ case against the AI tool.
Daji Landis explored the merits of technology companies’ claims of security risks to push back against interoperability antitrust regulations, and proposed an analytical framework to strike a better balance between security and antitrust interests.
Lisa Klaassen and Ralph Schroeder explained why Anthropic’s novel “constitution” for its AI model Claude fails to lend constitutional or moral legitimacy to Claude in practice. Klaassen and Schroeder criticized the document for anthropomorphizing the AI tool, borrowing the language of public law for a private product, and obscuring the contractual obligations that may usurp the AI’s stated principals.
On Lawfare Daily, Rep. Nick Begich (R-Alaska) joined Kevin Frazier to unpack the current state of AI policy in Congress, Alaska’s role as a leader in developing AI infrastructure, the use of AI in Rep. Begich’s office operations, and more.
And that was the week that was.
