Hoover Institution: Security by the Book

INTERVIEW WITH SPECIAL GUEST: Jefferson Powell

Jack Goldsmith’s interview with Jefferson Powell on his new book, Targeting Americans: The Constitutionality of the U.S. Drone War. The interview focuses on the legal debate surrounding drone strikes, the use of which has expanded significantly under the Obama Presidency as part of the continuing war against terror. Despite the political salience of the legal questions raised by targeted killing, the author asserts that there has been remarkably little careful analysis of the fundamental legal question: the constitutionality of the policy.

INTERVIEW WITH SPECIAL GUEST: Juliette Kayyem

Jack Goldsmith interviews author Juliette Kayyem on her new book, Security Mom: An Unclassified Guide to Protecting Our Homeland and Your Home. The interview examines the smart, measureable guidelines that every American citizen can follow in order to make a more resilient home and a more resilient nation.

INTERVIEW WITH SPECIAL GUEST: Adam Segal

Jack Goldsmith interviews Adam Segal about his new book, The Hacked World Order, which begins at what Segal calls “year Zero”—sometime between June 2012 and June 2013—explaining that the events in that year ushered in a new era of geopolitical maneuvering in cyberspace, with great implications for security, privacy, and the international system. These changes, he suggests, have the potential to produce unintended and unimaginable problems for anyone with an internet connection.

INTERVIEW WITH SPECIAL GUEST: General Michael Hayden

Benjamin Wittes interviews General Michael Hayden on his book, Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror, where Hayden provides an inside look at some of the most critical intelligence decisions since 9/11, including the CIA’s controversial rendition, detention, and interrogation program, the NSA's Stellarwind program, and the U.S.’s interactions with the intelligence agencies of its allies in the following years. In addition to weighing in on the ongoing FBI vs. Apple battle, Hayden also offers his perspective on the successes of the intelligence community, and outlines the challenges it will face in the coming years.

INTERVIEW WITH SPECIAL GUEST: Orde Kittrie

Jack Goldsmith interviews Orde Kittrie on his new book, Lawfare: Law as a Weapon of War, examining the deployment and impact of lawfare, the role played by the private sector, and real-world examples of its use by the United States, China, Iran, and Israel.

INTERVIEW WITH SPECIAL GUEST: Gaylor Tzemach Lemmon

Benjamin Wittes interviews Gayle Tzemach Lemmon on her new book, Ashley’s War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield. Lemmon, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, discussed the growing role of women soldiers in special operations and beyond, examining the story of a cultural support team of women hand-picked from the Army in 2011 to serve in Afghanistan alongside Army Rangers and Navy SEALs. Their conversation dives into how the program developed, the lessons learned in the process, and why its success may provide critical insights for future force integration. Former Marine and current Lawfare contributor Zoe Bedell, who served in a similar capacity in Afghanistan, joined them on the panel to discuss her own experiences.

INTERVIEW WITH SPECIAL GUEST: Edward Lucas

Benjamin Wittes interviews Edward Lucas on his new book, Cyberphobia: Identity, Trust, Security and the Internet where Lucas discusses the rapid increase in cybercrime, the difficulties of identity verification on the web, and why, even today, we still do not take cybersecurity seriously enough. Lucas paints a bleak picture of our cybersecurity landscape, but closes with a few recommendations for how we can fix it. It’s a conversation that prompted Ben to digitally betray his country, and the rest of us to grab our dongles and strengthen our passwords.

INTERVIEW WITH SPECIAL GUEST: Charlie Savage

Jack Goldsmith interviews Charlie Savage on his new book, Power Wars: Inside Obama's Post-9/11 Presidency, for a discussion of the Obama administration’s national security legacy. The conversation is full of insider accounts of just about all of the most important Obama administration legal and policy decisions. Savage discusses how Abdulmutallab’s failed underwear bombing affected President Obama, and the two discuss exactly why a president who came into office critiquing Bush's national security policies ended up keeping so many of them. Savage and Goldsmith even touch on whether he will actually shutter Guantanamo Bay.