The Cyberlaw Podcast: Interview with Gen. Michael Hayden

Our interview is with Gen. Michael Hayden, author of “The Assault on Intelligence: American National Security in an Age of Lies.” Gen. Hayden is a former head of the CIA and NSA, and a harsh critic of the Trump Administration. We don’t agree on some of his criticisms, but we have a productive talk about how intelligence should function in a time of polarization and foreign intervention in our national debates.

In the news, David Kris reports that ZTE has gotten a limited life-support order from the Commerce Department. Meanwhile, Nate Jones tells us that China Mobile’s application to provide telecom service to Americans is also likely to bite the dust—after nearly seven years of dithering. On Facebook, Tony Rutkowski suggests we call this the revenge of the “neocoms.” So we do.

Remarkably, the European Parliament fails to live down to my expectations, showing second thoughts about self-destructive copyright maximalism. Nick Weaver thinks this outbreak of common sense may only be a temporary respite.

Paul Rosenzweig confesses to unaccustomed envy of EU security hardheadedness. Turns out that Europe has been rifling through immigrants’ digital data in a fashion the Trump administration probably wouldn’t dare to try. More predictably, the Israelis are digging deep into social media to combat the stabbing attacks that afflicted the country until recently.

The DNC is trying to improve security, and it has trained 80 percent of its staff not to click on bad links. But as Nick Weaver and Paul Rosenzweig point out, that’s not good enough—even though there are few institutions that can get much above the DNC’s 80 percent. The answer? Nick says it’s two-factor authentication. We join forces to nudge Firefox toward offering the same level of support for two-factor as Google Chrome.

The feds are getting wise to the Dark Web, Nick tells us. They’re focusing on compromising the money launderers—and then their customers. This looks like a strategy that could work for the long haul.

Finally, David Kris revisits NSA’s still-troubled metadata program, asking whether “the juice is worth the squeeze.”

We’re going to keep tweeting and posting some of the week’s stories that look like candidates for the News Roundup. Please reply to or retweet those you think we should cover. Relevant feeds: @stewartbaker on Twitter, Stewart Baker on LinkedIn, and stewart.a.baker on Facebook.

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As always, The Cyberlaw Podcast is open to feedback. Send your questions, comments, and suggestions for topics or interviewees to CyberlawPodcast@steptoe.com or leave a message at +1 202 862 5785. Remember: If your suggested interviewee appears on the show, we will send you a highly coveted Cyberlaw Podcast mug!

The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not reflect the opinions of the firm.