The Week that Was: All of Lawfare in One Post
Your weekly summary of everything on the site.
Jen Patja Howell shared an episode of the Lawfare Podcast in which Quinta Jurecic spoke with Thomas Rid, a professor at Johns Hopkins and author of “Active Measures,” and Evelyn Douek, co-host of Lawfare’s "Arbiters of Truth" series on disinformation, about the New York Post’s recent story on Hunter Biden:
Richard Tilley reviewed Thomas Rid’s “Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare.”
Jacob McCall, Mathew Simkovits and Haley Schwab detailed the laws guiding poll observation in eight battleground states.
Scott Anderson published a three-part series on the legal process for selecting a president and the possibility of a contested 2020 election. In part one, Anderson analyzed the function of state law procedures and the electoral college in deciding the presidential election. In part two, he explained how Congress counts the electoral votes. And in part three, he considered what Congress will do if electoral votes aren’t dispositive for deciding the presidency.
Anderson then appeared on Lawfare Live to discuss his articles and answer questions on contested election procedures on-air:
David Priess and Tia Sewell announced that a new Lawfare e-book, "The Laws and Norms of a Disputed Presidential Election," is now available on the Kindle store.
Krithika Iyer, Mathew Simkovits, Adriana Stephan, Tom Westphal and Amanda Zerbe discussed how voter intimidation is defined in six battleground states.
Rohini Kurup shared an Oct. 21 press conference led by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe and FBI Director Christopher Wray on foreign election interference by Iran and Russia.
Howell shared this week’s edition of Lawfare’s "Arbiters of Truth" series on disinformation, in which Stanford University’s Janine Zacharia and Andrew Grotto discussed how to report on hacked material and disinformation without participating in an online influence campaign:
Samantha Fry and Samuel Rebo dissected the Justice Department’s indictments against six Russian intelligence officers for hacking into the 2018 Olympics, the Ukrainian government and several other vulnerable groups. Alvaro Marañon shared the Justice Department’s indictments against the Russian intelligence officers. And Jack Goldsmith criticized the indictment for communicating the Justice Department’s inability to stop or slow malicious cyber activities.
Howell also shared an episode of the Lawfare Podcast entitled, “Foreign Interference… It’s Happening,” in which Benjamin Wittes sat down with Scott R. Anderson, Susan Hennessey and Quinta Jurecic to review the allegations of Russian and Iranian intervention in the eleciton process:
Kurup shared the Department of Justice’s criminal complaint against members of the “Boogaloo” far-right extremist group for allegedly shooting into a Minneapolis Police Department building.
Brett Raffish suggested that the Monell doctrine—a theory which governs lawsuits about police misconduct—may be due for reform.
Anoush Baghdassarian discussed the history behind the ongoing violence between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Bryce Klehm posted a lawsuit filed by the late Jamal Khashoggi’s wife against Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom she accuses of ordering her husband’s murder at the Saudi consulate in Turkey.
Jen Patja Howell released the latest episode the Lawfare Podcast, in which David Priess spoke with Brookings Fellow Tanvi Madan and Lavina Lee, a director of Australian Strategic Policy Institute Council, about the growing partnership between the U.S., Japan, Australia and India:
Jordan Schneider argued that the U.S. must take a more aggressive approach towards China in order to generate the economic reaction needed to combat Beijing’s forced reeducation and labor camps targeting the Uighur ethnic minority in the Xinjiang region. Schneider then joined Benjamin Wittes on Lawfare Live to discuss his propositions for a full U.S. court press on Beijing and answer questions in real time from the audience:
Mark J. Valencia argued that U.S. spy flights in the South China Sea violate international norms.
Eric Talbot Jensen and Sean Watts shared their Hoover Institution Essay entitled, “Due Diligence and the U.S. Defend Forward Cyber Strategy.”
Alan Z. Rozenshtein examined why the Supreme Court justice has taken so long to pay attention to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
Bill Priestap and Holden Triplett discussed the challenge facing U.S. businesses as nation-state adversaries look to target the American private sector.
Stewart Baker released the latest episode of the Cyberlaw Podcast, which features a conversation with University of Toronto Professor Ronald Deibert about his new book, “Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society”:
Lorenzo d’Aubert and Eric Halliday discussed Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s prior rulings on national security issues.
Scott Anderson and Benjamin Wittes shared a long-overdue Trump administration report on the legal and policy frameworks for using military force, which they obtained by suing the White House to compell the report's production. Anderson and Wittes then discussed what it took to obtain the report from the executive.
Howell shared an episode of Rational Security in which Benjamin Wittes, Tamara Cofman Wittes, Shane Harris and Susan Hennessey discuss the latest national security news, including the possibility that Rudy Giuliani was ensnared in a Russian influence operation:
Howell also shared an episode of the Lawfare Podcast in which Lawfare’s Margaret Taylor spoke with NPR’s David Folkenflik about the politicization of government-run media organizations like Voice of America:
Eli Nachamy detailed the Trump administration’s recent efforts to address vulnerabilities in supply chains for critical minerals.
Janine Zacharia and Andrew J. Grotto argued that the U.S. media must prepare to responsibly handle a newsworthy hack-and-leak scenario soon.
Abby Lemert and Eleanor Runde analyzed recent U.S.-China technology policy developments and national security news in the latest edition of SinoTech.
Lester Munson shared an episode of the Fault Lines podcast called “Bipartisanship in Natsec.” Munson sat down with a group of experts to talk about the importance of bipartisanship in national security and foreign policy:
William Ford analyzed three U.S. federal lawsuits filed against Khalifa Hifter, the commander of the Libyan National Army, which seek millions of dollars in damages for Libyan nationals under the Torture Victim Protection Act.
Alexandra Popke, Haley Schwab and Christopher Wan discussed the hot-button partisan topic of ballot collection and forecasted that the practice will be a source of political contention both during and after the election.
Bryce Klehm shared the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s 74-page minority report titled, “The Cost of Trump’s Foreign Policy: Damage and Consequences for U.S. and Global Security.”
In partnership with the Stanford Internet Observatory, Lawfare posted the first three articles in a series on the threat of foreign influence operations targeting the United States. Renee DiResta and Josh A. Goldstein wrote an introductory essay, Yochai Benkler explained the dangers of overstating information operations’ impact and Darren Linvill and Patrick Warren argued that operations don’t need to be successful in order to be effective.
Bobby Chesney and Steve Vladeck released the latest episode of the National Security Law Podcast, featuring a wide-ranging discussion of the latest news in military justice and national security:
Vishnu Kannan shared national security highlights from the second and final presidential debate of the 2020 U.S. election cycle.
And Bryce Klehm and Rohini Kurup announced that Lawfare is now accepting spring internship applications through the Brookings Institution.
And that was the week that was.
