Steptoe Cyberlaw Podcast: In Which Ben Wittes Gets to the Right of Stewart Baker, to the Likely Eventual Embarrassment of Them Both
In the news roundup, Benjamin Wittes makes a cameo appearance, defending Jim Comey (but not the FBI) from my suggestion that leaking has a long and unattractive history at the FBI. Brian Egan takes us deep on federal records law.
Next, Ben actually finds himself to my right as we try to negotiate a quick resolution to the growing impasse over section 702.
I will never live it down. Nor will Ben.
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In the news roundup, Benjamin Wittes makes a cameo appearance, defending Jim Comey (but not the FBI) from my suggestion that leaking has a long and unattractive history at the FBI. Brian Egan takes us deep on federal records law.
Next, Ben actually finds himself to my right as we try to negotiate a quick resolution to the growing impasse over section 702.
I will never live it down. Nor will Ben.
Maury Shenk explains what the UK election means for tech. Who knew? The Unionists actually have a tech platform.
Maury and Brian muse on what the Qatar crisis tells us about cyberattacks – they may turn out to be much more effective as short-term one-offs than as sustained campaigns.
China has found a way to use its new cybersecurity law — to investigate Apple, naturally. A better target would be the Chinese company Rafotech, which has installed something that looks a lot like spyware on 250 million machines. I’ll be at the Irish government’s Data Protection Summit later this week, and I’ll be asking why the EU is wasting its human rights capital on fights with the US instead of China.
Finally, we cover Ukraine’s unusual new sanctions aimed at Russian social media companies, which are also Ukraine’s main social media companies? No doubt there are censorship issues lurking in that program, but I can’t help wondering why human rights groups are riding the first amendment to the rescue of companies that dance to Vladimir Putin’s tune.
To close the episode, I interview Ben Buchanan, Fellow of the Cyber Security Project at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. I challenge the thesis of his book, The Cyber Security Dilemma: Hacking, Trust and Fear, and he holds up under the challenge pretty well.
As always, the Cyberlaw Podcast welcomes feedback. Send an email to CyberlawPodcast@steptoe.com or leave a message at +1 202 862 5785.
Download the 169th Episode (mp3).
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The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not reflect the opinions of the firm.
