Remembering Lawfare Contributing Editor Stewart Baker
A farewell tribute to a longtime member of the Lawfare community
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Editor’s note: Last week, longtime Lawfare Contributing Editor Stewart Baker passed away. Stewart was a formidable voice in debates over national security and the law, many of which we hosted in the pages of Lawfare. We are honored to share the following remembrances from his fellow Lawfare contributing editors.
“I am an anti-authoritarian, but all of my authority figures were liberals,” Stewart Baker said to me once in explaining his exceedingly eccentric politics.
Stewart was about as close as I had to a mentor in the field of national security law. I met him when I was in my early twenties and a cub reporter for a trade newspaper called Legal Times. I had not gone to law school and never would. I knew nothing.
Stewart, by contrast, had just come off a stint as general counsel for the National Security Agency during a particularly fateful period in its history when it had to confront the proliferation of strong encryption in the unclassified sector. He was a partner at a major law firm with a thriving practice. And yet he seemed to have nothing more important to do with his time than to hang out on the phone with me, explaining how national security law worked, both in theory and in practice. He was endlessly patient. I would bring him arguments from his civil libertarian foes, and he would methodically analyze where they had merit and where they did not. He was highly opinionated yet fair-minded. He mingled conservative politics, sometimes wackily conservative, with the mind of a lawyer’s lawyer who knew his way around tech. And he loved sparring with people with whom he disagreed—and, indeed, seemed to love his opponents in a fashion that was as cheerful and friendly as it was pugilistic and pugnacious.
Yes, Stewart’s contrarianism sometimes took him to places he shouldn’t have gone—sometimes on Lawfare. And yes, he could be bullheaded. He once insisted on naming the Ukraine whistleblower in an article he wrote for Lawfare, for example, something I could not allow. In true Stewart fashion, he did not back down. So we got on the phone and laughingly negotiated a compromise, which was reflected in the text of the piece itself. Stewart used the name. I redacted the name. And I authorized Stewart to denounce my decision, which he gleefully—yet also gracefully—did:
Irony alert: You may have guessed that Lawfare won’t let me use the alleged whistleblower’s name here. I think that’s wrong. The identity isn’t classified. The law prevents government employees from identifying the person, not those outside government. And the alleged whistleblower is no more in danger than the many other government employees who testified before the House in public during impeachment proceedings. Not to use the name is security theater. That said, unlike some social media platforms, which would have simply memory-holed my post, Lawfare has allowed me to publish this, and even to include this mini-rant.
I stand by my decision. I also adored Stewart. There is nobody my younger self learned more from in this field. And there are few to whom my mature self owes more in terms of the direction my career took.
Stewart never changed in his generosity to young people. In the wake of Stewart’s death, Jack Goldsmith texted me the other day that, “Last week, I asked him to chat with a student about the NSA commercial espionage exception. He happily agreed. The student wrote back: ‘I had an extremely productive 45-minute conversation with Stewart Baker about my commercial espionage idea that has given me a lot to think about.’” I also got a message from Eve Gaumond, a young Canadian scholar who had met with him a few years back on a project she was working on: “He was uncommonly generous.”
You can find Stewart’s extensive work on Lawfare here.
Stewart Baker was a titan of national security law, both in its actual practice and in that sprawling realm of discourse and debate in which academics, practitioners, and more wrestle publicly over ideas of what is and what ought to be. I’m going to miss him so. It wasn’t just that he’d seen it all and had encyclopedic knowledge of the often-obscure origins of so many of our present issues. It was the unmistakable zest he brought to every single discussion, a twinkle in the eye hinting at the great joy he got not just from skewering hypocrisies (though I do think he particularly prized those moments, especially if the French were involved!) but also from the sheer fun of bandying ideas about. It was there in private conversation, it was there at the podium, and it was there in all those hours of the much-missed Steptoe Cyberlaw Podcast. Stewart, to me you will always be the one who “holds the record for the most times” making me smile and laugh while learning something important about national security law. Thank you.
I was deeply saddened to learn of Stewart’s death.
We were, by many measures, professional adversaries. We stood on opposite sides of most policy debates, none more consequential than his opposition to the landmark 1996 National Academies study on U.S. cryptography policy that I directed. Yet on this and other issues, it was precisely this opposition that revealed the full measure of his formidable talents.
Stewart possessed a rare gift: He often constructed arguments that led to conclusions I believed to be mistaken, yet the path he took to get there was so carefully reasoned that finding the flaw felt like searching for a hairline fracture in polished marble. Only later, upon reflection, did I realize that he had set the terms of engagement itself, framing the question in ways that made his conclusion nearly inevitable. Resolution in my favor required rejecting those terms, but I wouldn’t realize how necessary that was until he had already walked me through his reasoning.
He was equally masterful in the bureaucratic arena. Like a practitioner of some governmental martial art, he understood leverage and timing with uncanny precision. A deft procedural move here, a well‑placed comment there—minimal effort applied at exactly the right pressure points—and the machinery of policy would bend toward his preferred outcome.
What made Stewart truly remarkable, though, was that he always deployed these skills with warmth and good humor. Despite our many disagreements, I liked him and I will miss him. May his memory be a blessing to all who knew him.
Stewart Abercrombie Baker passed away just the other day. He was a mentor and a friend to many, including me. He died, I am told, while out jogging—which means he was doing one of the two things he loved best when he passed away.
The other thing he most enjoyed was talking about the law and policy of national security. In some ways he embodied exactly what Lawfare was built for—he made a life out of living in the trenches making hard national security choices.
There will, no doubt, be any number of suitable eulogies recounting his career (NSA General Counsel; first leader of the Department of Homeland Security Policy Directorate; etc.) and his policy expertise (who remembers the Clipper chip?). But what stands out most about Stewart is his absolute love of a debate.
Many will recall having spoken with him or been on panels at conferences with him or sitting across the negotiating table from him. Stewart was always ready to talk about national security law. And all who spoke with him will remember him as provocative. And, to be fair, he was known on occasion to say something outrageous just to watch people’s heads explode.
But almost all of the time his provocation was intended to expose hidden assumptions and weak legal or policy foundations. Why, he might ask, should we prohibit companies from “hacking back” in defense of their own cyber infrastructure when the government which enacted the prohibition was, itself, incapable of providing the requisite protection? Or why, he might inquire, do those defending privacy rights ignore the costs in human suffering that come with the invocation of rights?
And so, what I remember most clearly about Stewart is that he was one of the most creative, “outside of the box” thinkers in our field. No accepted truth was beyond his searching inquiry. No received wisdom was beyond empirical testing.
Stewart came to the field of national security law at the dawn of the technological revolution—before computers and the internet; before quantum computing and AI; and before public key encryption. But he rode the wave of that revolution as if he were 30 years younger than he was. So many in the field have cut their eye teeth on his cyberlaw podcast at Steptoe. So many others (including me) have been brought into the field of national security law at his invitation. And it is fair to say that many of the legal debates that still rage today (like the reauthorization of section 702) have been shaped by his past contributions.
Stewart was a wonderful mentor and a close friend. was a happy warrior whose sharp wit and piercing intellect were a joyful part of a challenging field of law and policy. I will miss him terribly.
I knew Stewart as a counselor, colleague and a decades-long friend. His creativity, judgment, and legal acumen he brought to his work helped me navigate some of the most challenging and novel matters I have faced in my career as a lawyer.
What also stands out, though, is how he approached the world, and the central role that his sense of humor and curiosity played. His interests had no boundary, and his insatiable, excited curiosity led him to become informed on an astonishing range of subjects. He once described to me attending an engineering briefing when he was General Counsel of the NSA. Outwardly, he maintained the cool, disciplined bearing of the lawyer in the room. Inwardly, he said, the cool things he was learning were making him giddy, and he wanted to shout, “You can do that?!”
A conversation with Stewart could go anywhere. One evening a few years ago, my wife and I ran into Stewart at our local In-N-Out Burger in the Bay Area. He invited us to join him and we had an eclectic discussion about his upcoming safari with his son, why cars have become so boring, and foreign state-sponsored cybersecurity threats. Stewart was a quick wit. I once pocket-dialed him from my car; he assured me that all my bad singing was protected by the attorney-client privilege.
I still have a list of projects I would like to propose to Stewart, and many more conversations I thought we would have. Stewart was so vital and active that I just assumed there would be more time with him, more chances to absorb his seemingly endless energy, watch him work, and share in his joy of life. I am deeply thankful for the time we did have together, and for all that Stewart radiated in his remarkable life. I’ll miss him, and will remember him often, fondly, and with great admiration.
Annie I. Antón and Peter Swire
We were both lucky enough to know Stewart Baker before we knew each other—and we are deeply saddened by his passing. Stewart was one of our favorite people: a mentor, a provocateur, and a friend. He brought intellectual clarity and conviction to every conversation, paired with a willingness to engage, challenge, and, of course, amuse.
His humor was unforgettable. For our wedding, he gave us “A Salt Rifle” (a gun designed to shoot pellets at squirrels) with a note that simply read “Because no home should go unprotected.” The gift hinted at what he valued: securing our homes and our nation. It also perfectly captured Stewart: principled, irreverent, and impossible to forget.
That same spirit showed up everywhere. On a trolley ride to our wedding, when asked whether he was there for the bride or the groom, he replied without hesitation: “Oh, both! In fact, I’m such good friends with both of them that I’ll be joining them on their honeymoon next week!” (He was, in fact, with us at an Intel advisory board meeting just days later.) It was classic Stewart … impromptu, witty, and delivered with impeccable timing.
Stewart brought that same sharpness to his work. He was a leader in national security, both from within and outside of government. Titles never quite captured what made him distinctive: his ability to cut through complexity with precision and wit.
Just a month ago, he joined a panel with Peter at IAPP, entitled “National Security is Screwing Up My Privacy Program.” He came prepared, as always. A cartoon of Stewart’s from 2024 highlighted the FTC’s promise to safeguard data for “all sensitive locations,” including for prisoners and drug users. Stewart’s contribution—the same data had been used “to identify members of the U.S. military, even those on secret bases.” In the cartoon, the speaker asked whether the FTC would be “treating military bases as sensitive locations.” And the FTC’s answer was “no”. Mic drop.
Stewart was clear in his political beliefs. He once came down to Georgia Tech for a debate with Peter on cybersecurity and privacy. Annie was the “moderator,” stuck in the middle between the man in her life and Stewart, the man she actually agreed with. In the aftermath, Stewart advised Annie (a Republican) to encourage Peter (a Democrat) to vote on the wrong date (after election day).
He also showed his care in quieter ways. As an avid trekker himself, he helped Annie prepare for a trek to Everest Base Camp, selecting most of her gear, and notably what we call the “Ritz-Carlton” of sleeping bags for -10° temperatures. He was thoughtful, practical, and just a little bit over the top.
We will miss him dearly: his brilliant mind, his storytelling, his humor, his mentorship—and yes, even his magnificent eyebrows.
Our country, and his friends, are better for having known him—and poorer for his loss.
Rest in peace, Stewart. Your memory is most certainly a blessing.
I will miss him and our conversations, even (make that especially) when we disagreed about something.
Stu was the kind of man who suffered fools painfully. He knew what he thought and thought hard about what he thought because he cared. He cared intensely about the truth, and what was right. That made him indomitable in a debate as well as supremely kind and generous as a mentor. He was the kind of friend who would discuss something that interested you for hours; an idea, a proposal, a policy, anything. And even when you were obviously wrong or misguided, so long as you approached the discussion with an open mind, he never treated you as a fool.
