In a live conversation on YouTube, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Scott Anderson, Anna Bower, Eric Columbus, and Roger Parloff to discuss the Supreme Court granting certiorari in Rebecca Slaughter’s challenge to the president’s attempt to remove her as FTC commissioner, the indictment of James Comey, the Supreme Court allowing President Trump to withhold foreign aid funds, a lawsuit challenging warrantless immigration arrests in D.C., and so much more.You can find information on legal challenges to Trump administration actions here. And check out Lawfare’s new homepage on the litigation, new Bluesky account, and new WITOAD merch.

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From May 10, 2024: David Pozen is the Charles Keller Beekman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School and the author of the new book, “The Constitution of the War on Drugs,” which examines the relationship between the Constitution and drug prohibitions. He joined Jack Goldsmith to talk about the constitutional history of the war on drugs and why the drug war was not curbed by constitutional doctrines about personal autonomy, limits on the federal government’s power, the Equal Protection Clause, or the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. They also talked about whether the political process is working with advancing decriminalization and how this impacts the constitutional dimension of the drug war.

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From June 28, 2024: On June 26, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Murthy v. Missouri—the “jawboning” case, concerning a First Amendment challenge to the government practice of pressuring social media companies to moderate content on their platforms. But instead of providing a clear answer one way or the other, the Court tossed out the case on standing. What now? Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes discussed the case with Kate Klonick of St. Johns University School of Law and Matt Perault, Director of the Center on Technology Policy at the University of North Carolina.

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Gavin Wilde, Nonresident Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, adjunct lecturer at Johns Hopkins University, and author of the recent paper, “Pyrite or Panic? Deepfakes, Knowledge and the Institutional Backstop,” joins Lawfare’s Justin Sherman to discuss worries about deepfakes and their impact on information and society, the history of audiovisual media and what we can learn from previous evolutions in audiovisual technologies, and the role that fakery has played over the centuries in said media. They also discuss the social media and political context surrounding deepfake evolutions circa 2015; what happened, or not, with deepfakes in elections around the globe in 2024; and how institutions, policy, and law might pursue a less technology-centric approach to deepfakes and their information impacts.

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This week, Scott sat down with Senior Editors Kate Klonick and Eric Columbus to talk through the week’s big national security news stories, including: 

• “An Un-Airing of Grievances.” Since the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, some supporters of his—including several figures within the Trump administration—have actively sought to have individuals who have said critical or purportedly insensitive things about Kirk removed from their jobs or otherwise punished. This arguably came to a head after Jimmy Kimmel Live! was pulled from the air following statements by FCC Chairman Brendan Carr suggesting networks might face additional regulatory scrutiny for not addressing alleged misinformation about Kirk’s killer he purportedly put forward. And while Kimmel is now back on the air, several major local affiliates are refusing to air his show. How do these efforts comport with the First Amendment? And what do they mean for freedom of speech regardless?
• “You Can’t Spell Appeasement Without App.” After months of negotiations—during which it has held off on enforcing a statutorily mandated ban—the Trump administration has announced that it has reached a deal with China regarding the disposition of the social media platform TikTok and its operation in the United States. But the public details of the deal have been few and far between, and much more remains to be worked out. How close to a deal are the parties in actuality? And does it address the national security concerns motivating Congress’s ban in the first place?
• “Playing with White House Money.” The Trump administration has been rocked by two major corruption-related stories in the past week. First, the Justice Department is reported to have closed an investigation into White House immigration czar Tom Homan, who reportedly accepted $50,000 from undercover FBI agents prior to joining the administration on the understanding that he would help the donors gain access to the incoming Trump administration. And second, new details suggest that the recent deal to permit chip sales to the UAE were tied up in a variety of major cryptocurrency deals that enriched both the Trump Organization and others in the Trump administration—only the latest in a long history of suspect cryptocurrency transactions by Trump-related businesses. How big a problem are these transactions? And what do they tell us about the state of corruption on the second Trump administration?

In object lessons, Eric marked the Jewish New Year with a novel recommendation: “To Rise Again at a Decent Hour,” by Joshua Ferris, a midlife-crisis tale woven through Judaism, baseball, and dentistry—two subjects close to his heart, and one that isn’t. Scott, meanwhile, is back on the D.C. concert circuit and wants you to join him at Union Stage on October 14 to see Katie Pruitt, whose rock-infused Americana sound he thinks deserves a bigger audience. Kate rounded things out with a little blue hippo—specifically the souvenir version of the famous Egyptian figurine better known as “William,” a reminder of a past mother-daughter trip to Paris that involved butchering French while scouring the Louvre.

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Alan Rozenshtein, Lawfare Senior Editor and Research Director; Renée DiResta, Lawfare Contributing Editor; and Jess Miers, visiting assistant professor of Law at the University of Akron School of Law, discuss the distinct risks that generative AI systems pose to children, particularly in relation to mental health.

They explore the balance between the benefits and harms of AI, emphasizing the importance of media literacy and parental guidance. They also examine recent developments in AI safety measures and ongoing legal implications, highlighting the evolving landscape of AI regulation and liability.

Find Scaling Laws on the Lawfare website, and subscribe to never miss an episode.

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Loren Voss, Public Service Fellow at Lawfare, sits down with Dan Byman, Lawfare Foreign Policy Editor and the Director of the Warfare, Irregular Threats, and Terrorism Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies; Ryan Berg, Director of the Americas Program and Head of the Future of Venezuela Initiative also at CSIS; and Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson. They talk about the new United States approach to drug smuggling, the lethal strikes against drug smuggling boats, and the ongoing counterdrug efforts in Mexico.

Anderson applies international law to the facts as known on the military strikes on drug smuggling boats, highlighting the difficulties of treating drug smuggling as a “use of force” and a transnational criminal organization as a non-state armed group. Byman and Berg discuss the importance of the host government in dealing with terrorist or criminal threats, but are skeptical that the counterterrorism framing will be effective without also addressing the demand for drugs within the United States. The group ends with a discussion on how current strategies and legal analysis could be applied to other geographies or criminal groups. 

Mentioned in this episode:

• “Deploying U.S. Vessels to the Caribbean Is a Show of Force,” by Ryan Berg and Eric Farnsworth

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In this episode, Lawfare’s Ukraine Fellow Anastasiia Lapatina sits down with Minna Ålander, an associate fellow at Chatham House Europe Program, and Mykhailo Soldatenko, a scholar of international law and a doctoral candidate at Harvard Law School, to discuss Russia’s recent air incursions into Poland and Estonia, and whether NATO’s response to it has been proportional.

For more, read a report about Russian hybrid warfare co-authored by Minna Ålander.

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In a live conversation on YouTube, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Anna Bower, Eric Columbus, and Roger Parloff to discuss Kash Patel’s testimony in front of Congress, a preliminary injunction preventing the Trump administration from deporting some Guatemalan children, updates in Fed. Governor Lisa Cook’s challenge to President Trump’s attempt to remove her, and so much more.

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From September 18, 2024: Jane Bambauer, Professor at Levin College of Law; Ramya Krishnan, Senior Staff Attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute and a lecturer in law at Columbia Law School; Alan Rozenshtein, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, join Kevin Frazier, Assistant Professor at St. Thomas University College of Law and a Tarbell Fellow at Lawfare, to break down the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals’ hearing in TikTok v. Garland, in which a panel of judges assessed the constitutionality of the TikTok bill.

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