The Lawfare Podcast: Patreon Edition

From January 8, 2019: The Russian government's recent arrest of American Paul Whelan and its charges against him have many politicians and pundits speculating about the possibility of an intended spy swap for Maria Butina. There's a lot going on here, but there's also a lot of misunderstanding about the history of spy swaps, what they are, and what they aren't.

Earlier this week, David Priess sat down with his former CIA colleague John Sipher to talk about it all. They discussed the history of spy swaps, the current case involving Paul Whelan, and prospects for some kind of a release.

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On March 27, the Biden administration issued an Executive Order on Prohibition on Use by the United States Government of Commercial Spyware that Poses Risks to National Security. The Executive Order, as the title says, limits executive departments and agencies from using commercial spyware if they determine that its use would present a counterintelligence or security risk to the U.S., or if it poses significant risks of improper use by a foreign government or person. 

To talk about the new executive order and its impact, Eugenia Lostri, Lawfare’s Fellow in Technology Policy and Law, sat down with Winnona DeSombre Bernsen, nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council. They talked about why this executive order is a welcomed development, how spyware companies might adjust their behavior in response, and what remains to be done to limit the misuse of these technologies.

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For months, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been promising a set of legal reforms favored by partners in his far-right coalition government that many fear would spell the end of liberal democracy in the state of Israel. But this week, these efforts hit a roadblock in the form of an unprecedented degree of popular resistance—one that ultimately led Netanyahu to put his reform proposals on hold, at least for the moment.

On Wednesday, Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Natan Sachs convened a panel of experts to discuss these fast-moving developments, including his Brookings colleagues Amos Harel, a leading Israeli military and defense expert, and Shibley Telhami, the Anwar Sadat Professor of Peace and Development at the University of Maryland, and leading Israeli journalist and legal expert Ilana Dayan. To give you some additional background, Lawfare Senior Editor and Brookings Fellow Scott R. Anderson sat down with Natan separately to lay out recent developments and their significance. That conversation will come first, and the panel discussion will follow.

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States are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence systems to enhance their national security decision-making. The real risks that states will deploy unlawful or unreliable national security AI make international regulations seem appealing, but what's the right model for them?

Ashley Deeks is the Class of 1948 Professor of Scholarly Research in Law at the University of Virginia Law School. She's just published a paper for Laware's ongoing Digital Social Contract research paper series, in which she argues that, instead of looking to nuclear arms control as the model for national security AI regulation, states should look to how cyber operations are regulated. Lawfare Senior Editor Alan Rozenshtein spoke with Ashley about her research and what a successful regulatory regime for national security AI would look like.

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On the latest episode of Arbiters of Truth, Lawfare's series on the information ecosystem, Quinta Jurecic and Alan Rozenshtein spoke with Ravi Iyer, the Managing Director of the Psychology of Technology Institute at the University of Southern California's Neely Center.

Earlier in his career, Ravi held a number of positions at Meta, where he worked to make Facebook's algorithm provide actual value, not just "engagement," to users. Quinta and Alan spoke with Ravi about why he thinks that content moderation is a dead-end and why thinking about the design of technology is the way forward to make sure that technology serves us and not the other way around.

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This week on Rational Security, Alan, Quinta, and Scott waited for a big shoe to drop by talking over the week's big national security news, including:

• “What Else Can I Get Away With on Fifth Avenue...” Donald Trump is expected to become the first former president to be indicted on criminal charges this week—if, that is, local authorities are not deterred by the public protests Trump’s supporters are preparing to hold in New York City at his request. What will this move mean for the country? And how might it end? 
• “Territorial Refute.” After weeks of avoiding the issue, likely 2024 Republican presidential contender Ron Desantis adopted the position that supporting Ukraine—which he described as being involved in a “territorial dispute”—is not a vital U.S. interest, bringing him into alignment with former President Trump and signaling a strong lean towards isolationism in the 2024 Republican field. What will this mean for the likely candidates? And for U.S. support for Ukraine moving forward?
• “The ‘Blood, Treasure, and Regret’ Anniversary.” This past week marked the 20th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which set out to remove a dictator and welcome a new wave of democracy in the Middle East—but has instead resulted in an Iraq that is still recovering from years of sectarian violence and increasingly under Iran’s influence. What is the legacy of the decision to invade? And what does it mean for U.S. foreign policy moving forward?

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Last month, the Government Accountability Office released its latest report on the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, focusing on the failures of several government agencies to fully process and share information about a potential attack in the days and weeks leading up to January 6, 2021.

Lawfare Senior Editor and Brookings Senior Fellow Molly Reynolds sat down with NBC News Justice Reporter Ryan Reilly, who's reported broadly on law enforcement issues related to Jan. 6, and Lawfare Senior Editor Quinta Jurecic. They discussed what we know about how and why law enforcement struggled in the lead-up to the insurrection and the challenges for the road ahead.

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The open nature of the internet has allowed malicious actors to abuse technology. Information operations, offensive cyber, and IP theft are just some examples of this misuse. The Biden administration has pursued an industrial policy that hopes to counter the weaponization of globalized systems. This approach includes technology subsidies, export controls, and rethinking supply chains. But this approach could undermine efforts to advance global rules and values.

To discuss how the United States can push back while bolstering democracy and human rights, Eugenia Lostri, Lawfare’s Fellow in Technology Policy and Law, sat down with former Ambassador Karen Kornbluh, Managing Director of the Digital Innovation and Democracy Initiative and Senior Fellow with the German Marshall Fund. Ambassador Kornbluh is the lead author on the new GMF report “The New American Foreign Policy of Technology.” They discussed why there’s a need to rethink American foreign policy, how to center democratic values, and the crucial role of a multistakeholder approach.

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