The Week that Was: All of Lawfare in One Post

Last Saturday’s events in Charlottesville inspired several a lot of writing on Lawfare. Bob Bauer explained how the attack in Charlottesville shows the President’s true attitudes toward the Constitution’s mandate of equal treatment for all citizens. Bill Antholis offered a gripping local view on the events that transpired on August 12. Phil Zelikow assessed the risk of well-armed, unauthorized, private militia groups. Josh Blackman analyzed the First Amendment implications of that day’s events. And Danielle Citron and Helen Norton argued that political leaders have an obligation to challenge hate and explained the consequences of not doing so. Sarah Tate Chambers described the many sources of data on the violent crimes that white supremacists commit.

Josh Blackman shared thoughts on how the President, a “solitary executive,” has isolated himself within his own administration.

Last week’s crisis in North Korea appears to have deescalated for now, but Lawfare’s coverage and analysis has not simmered. Paul Gewirtz and Joe Onek wrote about how the U.S. can get more cooperation from China on the North Korea matter. Herb Lin highlighted the ambiguity of the President’s statement that the U.S. was “locked and loaded.” Shannon Togawa Mercer answered some frequently asked questions about Guam, the U.S. territory that Kim Jong-un threatened last week. And Jared Dummit and Eliot Kim delivered this week’s edition of Water Wars.

John Bellinger issued a call for all Americans to consider how to influence White House officials to make sound national security judgments.

Quinta Jurecic analyzed the new, strange affinity that the left has developed for the intelligence community and federal law enforcement.

Benjamin Wittes posted the Lawfare Podcast, featuring Bryan Fogel on his Netflix documentary on Russian sports doping, entitled “Icarus”:

Bobby Chesney and Steve Vladeck shared this week’s episode of the National Security Law Podcast:

Dana Stuster gathered the Middle East Ticker, on political and security developments in the Persian Gulf, Turkey, and Iraq.

Paul Rosenzweig shared two interesting cyber developments: a Ukrainian hacker who bore witness to the Russian DNC hack is cooperating with the FBI, and a newly discovered ability to transfer malware through DNA.

Matthew Kahn posted the White House’s statement announcing that Cyber Command will be elevated to a full unified combatant command. Kahn also posted the statement of Chief Prosecutor Brigadier General Mark Martins on the occasion of this week’s military commission hearings in the case of Abdul al Hadi al-Iraqi.

In the Foreign Policy Essay, Sarah Watson argued that India’s counterinsurgency campaigns are beginning to falter because they have missed critical warning signs.

Susan Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes shared their column at Foreign Policy, which argued that recent employee survey data released by the FBI shows that the White House lied about support for former Director James Comey.

Wittes explained the lawsuit he filed against the Justice Department last week.

Jane Chong posted key documents in a government effort to obtain information from a web hosting company on visitors to an anti-Trump organizing website.

Megan Stifel and Jamil Jaffer flagged a new white paper on the tradeoffs involved in the regulation of emerging technology.

On the subject of privacy, Susan Landau summarized an amicus brief she joined which argues that the government should have to get a warrant to acquire location information from cell phone providers.

And Herb Lin argued that the Australian government should tread carefully when it claims that national law supersedes the laws of mathematics when it comes to encryption and going dark.

And that was the week that was.