Steptoe Cyberlaw Podcast: Governments to Internet: STFU

Everybody’s a critic, and everybody’s a censor, at least if you judge by today’s episode: Maury Shenk tells us the European Court of Justice will soon rule on its authority to censor what Americans read. Markham Erickson discusses the Ninth Circuit decision upholding national security letter gag orders. And Maury says that China is getting impressively good at deleting images it doesn’t like from citizens’ phones in real time.

In other news, Congressional sanctions on Russia look like a done deal; Anthony Rapa explains (contra the NYT) that the sanctions weren’t watered down in the House – and the fuss they’re likely to cause among our European trading partners.

Speaking of sanctions, how long before Putin decides to sanction the extended Trump family by going after their property, either with legal decrees or illegal hacks? The Trump hotels are already prime targets for credit card hacks; adding doxing and bricking to the mix wouldn’t be hard.

In fact, that’s a lesson Hollywood seems to have absorbed. To keep from getting hacked a la Sony, it looks as though other studios are airbrushing Vladimir Putin from their upcoming films.

Meanwhile, Reuters and others report that Silicon Valley’s Big Tech seems to be AWOL in the fight over section 702 renewal. Not necessarily out of patriotism but possibly also because the EU has tried to tie the fate of 702 with the Privacy Shield, which is the agreement that allows for free data flows between the regions.

As antidote, Stephanie Roy describes one profile in corporate courage – Microsoft’s lawsuit against Russia’s GRU (though they don’t of course name the intelligence agency). Microsoft is using trademark rights to take back some of the GRU’s command and control infrastructure. It may not change the world, but it’s the best use of trademark enforcement in years.

Finally, our guest for the episode is Dave Aitel, Founder and CEO of Immunity, Inc. Dave combines deep cyber security expertise with a willingness to weigh in on policy issues. A VEP expert (and contrarian), Dave thinks the recent Belfer Center paper on the topic is embarrassingly wrong and will have to be withdrawn. We cover other issues as well, from when a cyberweapon should be condemned as an indiscriminate violation of international humanitarian law to Kaspersky’s defenestration and the wisdom and proper regulation of private sector hacking back. It’s a great tour of current issues in cybersecurity.

As always the Cyberlaw Podcast is open to feedback. Send your questions, suggestions for interview candidates or topics to CyberlawPodcast@steptoe.com or leave a message at +1 202 862 5785.

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