The Cyberlaw Podcast: Skating on Stilts Without Baker

On Episode 254 of The Cyberlaw Podcast, Stewart spends a few days off the grid, and David Kris, Maury Shenk and Brian Egan extol the virtues of data privacy and the European Union in his absence.

Maury interviews James Griffiths, a journalist based in Hong Kong and the author of the new book, “The Great Firewall of China: How to Build and Control an Alternative Version of the Internet.”

In the news, David and Brian discuss last week’s revelation that the NSA is considering whether it will continue to seek renewal of the of the Section 215 “call detail record” program authority when it expires in December. We plug last week’s Lawfare Podcast in which the national security advisor to House Minority Leader McCarthy made news when he reported that the NSA hasn’t been using this program for several months. David waxes poetic on the little-known and little-used “lone wolf” authority, which is also up for renewal this year.

We explore the long lineup of politicians and government officials who are lining up with new proposals to “get tough” on large technology companies. Leading the charge is Sen. Warren, who promises to roll out a plan to break up “platform utilities”—basically, large Internet companies that run their own marketplaces—if she is elected president. Not to be outdone, the current chair of the Federal Trade Commission has urged that Congress provide new authorities for the FTC to impose civil enforcement penalties on tech (and presumably other) companies that violate their data privacy commitments. And last—but never least—the French finance minister announced that he will propose a 3 percent tax on the revenue of the 30 largest Internet businesses in France, most of which are U.S. companies.

David discusses how one technology company is using a more familiar tool—litigation—to fight back against Chinese companies for creating and then selling fake Facebook and Instagram accounts.

In the “motherhood and apple pie” category, Maury explains French President Macron’s call for the creation of a “European Agency for the Protection of Democracies” to protect elections against cyberattacks. And Brian covers a recently re-introduced bill, the Cyber Deterrence and Response Act, which would impose sanctions on “all entities and persons responsible or complicit in malicious cyber activities aimed against the United States.”