Scott R. Anderson and Alex Zerden explained how the Trump administration’s plan to route revenue from Venezuelan oil exports through Qatar reflects a deeper level of pragmatic legal risk management than what might appear.
On Lawfare Daily, Natalie Orpett sat down with Anderson to discuss the U.S.’s plan to take possession of Venezuelan oil, sell it on the world market, and hold the revenue from those sales in Qatari accounts. The pair parsed through the details of Executive Order 14373, how it is supposed to work, why Qatar is involved, the potential challenges, and more.
Also on Lawfare Daily, Eric Columbus sat down with Anna Bower, Roger Parloff, and Molly Roberts to discuss the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s search of the election center in Fulton County, Georgia, the arrest of protestors in Minnesota, a 9th Circuit decision regarding temporary protected status for Venezuelans, and more.
Thomas E. Brzozowski argued that U.S. national security law is dangerously drifting toward treating protest and civil disobedience as domestic terrorism. Drawing from historical patterns seen in the Palmer Raids, COINTELPRO, and more, Brzozowski contended that modern frameworks invite ideological policing that weaken civil liberties.
On Rational Security, Michael Feinberg, Troy Edwards, and Roberts joined Anderson to discuss the week’s national security news, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s search of the Fulton County election center, the leaked ICE memos that seemingly circumvent Fourth Amendment protections, the search of a Washington Post reporter’s home, and more.
On Lawfare Live, Bower, Parloff, Columbus, and Roberts joined Orpett to discuss litigation updates regarding the Department of Government Efficiency, the oral argument on the Trump administration’s mandatory detention policy at the 5th Circuit, and more.
Michael R. Dreeben argued that the Supreme Court’s potential overturning of administrative agency independence in Trump v. Slaughter could reinvigorate the nondelegation doctrine to limit executive regulatory power.
Justin Sherman explained how the Trump administration’s personnel cuts at the Office of Information and Communications Technology Services is evocative of a larger policy shift that is weakening the U.S. technology and national security toolkit.
Isabella Ulloa and Abby André evaluated 10 years worth of data showing how rising threats and instances of violence against public servants constitute a national crisis that is hollowing out American governance.
On Lawfare Daily, Cynthia Miller-Idriss joined Daniel Byman to discuss her new book, “Man Up: The New Misogyny & the Rise of Violent Extremism." The pair explored how misogyny can lead to political and social violence, why scholarship and media tend to ignore the role of gender, and more.
Benjamin Wittes reflected on the disorienting guilt of being physically distant from U.S. democratic crises while immersed in Ukraine’s far more immediate war-time emergencies.
John Drennan and Ariane Tabatabai explained why NATO’s internal crisis over U.S. threats to takeover Greenland benefits Russia by weakening the alliance’s cohesion and distracting the organization from deterring Russian aggression.
On Lawfare Daily, Tabatabai also sat down with Nate Swanson and Iria Puyosa to discuss new information about the Iranian regime’s brutal crackdown on protestors after Iran’s weeks-long internet shutdown. The trio parsed through the emerging details of the crackdown, the U.S.’s response to the crisis, and more.
In the latest edition of Lawfare’s Foreign Policy Essay series, Adam Weinstein and Michael Kugelman assessed the effectiveness of Pakistan’s renewed ban on the Pakistani Taliban. Weinstein and Kugelman unpacked how the ban has reduced extremist mobilization and violence, but leaves the underlying threat of the organization unresolved.
Barak Ben-Zur highlighted the unresolved questions following Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel regarding the Israeli prime minister’s role in the intelligence community, structural weaknesses in the division of responsibility between Israel’s intelligence agencies, and more.
On Lawfare Daily, Feinberg sat down with Matthew Guariglia and Brian Hochman to discuss their new book, “The Church Committee Report: Revelations from the Bombshell 1970s Investigation into the National Security State.” The trio explored law enforcement and intelligence community activities during the Cold War, the Senate’s Church Committee investigation into those activities, what we can learn from the Church Committee’s report, and more.
Stewart Baker argued that Congress should renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as a permanent tenet of the U.S. homeland security toolbox to protect one of the U.S.’s key resources in tracking belligerent foreign actors. In his assessment, Baker addressed criticisms such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s violations of its own rules for accessing information through 702, the Trump administration’s claims of 702 weaponization against President Trump and his supporters, and more.
Jakub Kraus broke down the latest National Defense Authorization Act and how the bill supports the implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) in U.S. defense, AI governance, and disentangling the U.S. from Chinese technology supply chains.
Cedric Sabbah and Moshe Uziel proposed a layered framework that intertwines AI infrastructure, logic and open-source components, and various human-facing AI applications to guide AI governance around the world.
And in the latest edition of the Seriously Risky Business cybersecurity newsletter, Tom Uren explored Google’s cyber disruption unit’s successful disruption of the world’s largest residential proxy network, SpaceX’s prevention of Russian forces from using Starlink to control drones in Ukrainian territory, and more.
And that was the week that was.
