Steptoe Cyberlaw Podcast, Episode #99: An Interview with Amit Ashkenazi

Our guest is Amit Ashkenazi, whom I interviewed while in Israel. Amit is Legal Advisor of The Israel National Cyber Bureau and a former general counsel to Israel’s data protection agency. Israel is drafting its own cybersecurity act, and we discuss what if anything that country can learn from the US debate – and what the US can learn from Israel’s cybersecurity experience. 

We explore the challenges Israel will face in trying to start a new cybersecurity agency, how Israel strikes the balance between security and privacy, the risks of using contractors to staff a new agency, the danger of stating agency authorities with too much specificity, and why the agency is likely to look more like DHS than the FBI.

In the news roundup, I discuss the dynamics of the Safe Harbor talks with Maury Shenk, boldly predicting that the EU will cave on the remaining issues once it’s convinced the US means business.

Jason Weinstein and I talk about the Judicial Redress Act and the gratifying Senate Judiciary Committee amendment – an amendment that the EU must have seen as a bad sign for the future if the Safe Harbor talks fail. The Act is intended to facilitate the Justice Department’s “umbrella” agreement over data protection and law enforcement. We conclude that it is a largely one-sided set of concessions by the United States in return for an illusory “data peace in our time.” We nonetheless find a fine reason for the Obama administration to have accepted all these limits.

Alan Cohn and I check in on the status of DHS’s Einstein cyberdefense program and the reasons why GAO has criticized its progress. And we close with a bit of “dog bites man” crypto news.

As always, the Cyberlaw Podcast welcomes feedback.  Send e-mail to CyberlawPodcast@steptoe.com or leave a message at +1 202 862 5785.

Download the ninety-ninth episode (mp3).

Subscribe to the Cyberlaw Podcast here. We are also now on iTunes and Pocket Casts!

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