Good Afternoon:
First off, an update on the #GreekChorusFoundation fundraising. I have added new numbers to the Foundation’s website and they are impressive:
Fundraising for year one of #OperationTaya—our effort to pay for graduate school for a Ukrainian Ministry of Defense staffer—is now complete. We have funded Taya’s first year of tuition and living expenses.
Fundraising for the first phase of #OperationSlava—which supports the family of slain Ukrainian soldier Slava Kurbanov—is also complete. This will pay the family a much-needed stipend for five months.
#OperationBattery, our flagship project—which provides batteries, generators, and other warmth and electricity hardware for individuals facing a cold winter under Russian bombardment—has so far raised $53,462. Our first battery of the season was delivered last night to Slava’s family. More news on #ProjectBattery activity is imminent.
In total, so far, the foundation has raised $98,627 in 401 contributions. Thanks to everyone who has contributed.
Monday on #DogShirtTV, the estimable Holly Berkley Fletcher and I discussed llamas, arches, and the Justice Department, among other issues:
Tuesday on #DogShirtTV, the estimable Holly Berkley Fletcher and Anna Bower came on to talk impeaching Hegseth and impounding USAID funds, among other issues:
Wednesday on #DogShirtTV, I came to you live from…somewhere and the estimable Holly Berkley Fletcher covered for my internet lapses:
Yesterday on #DogShirtTV, as a consequence of my presence in an undisclosed location, the TV element of Dog Shirt TV didn’t quite work, and we ended up doing an audio only show with the estimable Mike Feinberg about Jensen Huang and Chinese intelligence:
And today on #DogShirtTV, the estimable Holly Berkley Fletcher revealed her latest music video and we discussed what it actually means to be a member of the coalition of all democratic forces:
Recently On Lawfare
Compiled by the estimable Athena Smith
After Good Faith: Intelligence Oversight in the New Congress
Julia Curlee argues that the war in Iran was a policy failure—not an intelligence failure—and that voters held the White House accountable for it, giving Democrats control of both chambers of Congress in the midterms. Curlee maintains that the Iran war followed a year in which the White House dismantled the institutions that should have warned President Trump against it. She contends that the new Congress should investigate this damage and enact statutory reforms to protect intelligence analysis and personnel and keep the intelligence committees informed.
Congress has long deferred to the executive on foreign policy. That deference rests on an assumption of good faith, and it cannot extend to a president who ignores and stifles the institutions Congress authorizes and funds. Nor will that deference likely survive an administration that has conducted operations of questionable legality while claiming sweeping executive authority to withhold the information oversight requires. The new majorities cannot guarantee this never happens again, but they have the tools, and a mandate, to make it far less likely.
Back to the Future: The U.S. Court for Berlin’s Lessons for the ATRC
Aaron S.J. Zelinsky draws on the history of the U.S. Court for Berlin to apply lessons to the newly-revived Alien Terrorist Removal Court. Zelinsky outlines the history of the U.S. Court for Berlin, an Article II court established to exercise jurisdiction over West Berlin but which convened only once for a plane hijacking case, United States v. Tiede. Zelinsky examines what Tiede can reveal about the independence of Article III judges and argues that a court without precedent faces novel problems at every step.
A closer look at that forgotten court illuminates the potential future risks the United States faces using the ATRC, and underscores a phenomenon made clear in the Guantanamo proceedings as well: Orderly judicial proceedings rest on generations of precedent and practice, and standing up a new court—especially one involving sensitive national security issues—often is much more complicated than it appears at first glance.
Addressing Iran’s Plutonium Pathway
Bailey Schiff argues that a future nuclear deal with Iran should close off the country’s plutonium pathway, which runs through the spent fuel at the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant. Schiff explains that Iran’s development of a plutonium weapon could be slow now but has the potential to accelerate, especially with the help of Russia, although it remains to be seen if Iran has the necessary reprocessing capability, specialized equipment, or expertise to build it. Schiff holds that Washington should constrain this pathway by seeking a deal to suspend Iran’s plutonium reprocessing activities.
Today, Tehran’s path to a plutonium weapon would be slow and detectable, limited by the difficulty of scaling up reprocessing, acquiring controlled equipment under sanctions, and rebuilding lost weapons expertise. But with enough time and will, Iran could erode these barriers, and if its relationship with Russia deepens, Moscow could ease that effort rather than obstruct it. Once negotiations resume, Washington should constrain the plutonium route by committing Iran to ship out spent fuel and accept a verifiable ban on reprocessing.
AI Can (Mostly) Solve Cyber Regulatory Harmonization and Efficiency
Jay Healey and Benjamin Pearl argue that often-burdensome cyber regulations should instead seek to create regulatory harmony, allocating resources toward safety rather than compliance. Healey and Pearl contend that unwieldy regulations generate a “harmonization tax”—the cost of addressing compliance tasks—which overwhelms companies but generates little pay off in security. The authors analyze the benefits of using artificial intelligence (AI) systems to streamline regulations.
Regulators and the White House should avoid the bureaucratic stress and political capital needed to eliminate duplicative and burdensome regulations, since AI can meaningfully share the cognitive and box-checking workload demanded by regulators. Instead, they must ensure that regulations do not conflict with one another, a problem no amount of AI can resolve; that regulations meaningfully enhance security; and that future regulations are as AI-friendly as possible, encouraging its use to streamline compliance.
Courts Are Striking Down Warrantless Flock Camera Use
Matthew Tokson outline how automated license plate readers (ALPRs) likely violate the Fourth Amendment in the absence of a warrant. Although up until recently courts held that ALPR systems were legal, Tokson detail how the Supreme Court’s ruling in Chatrie v. United States—which held that a warrant is required to obtain data from Google Maps—has guided lower courts in echoing these concerns with ALPRs, which can expose extensive location data.
Yet recent changes in the use of ALPRs and modern Fourth Amendment doctrine suggest ALPRs might be unconstitutional after all. Earlier this month, a federal court in the Northern District of Oklahoma declared for the first time that warrantless ALPR use violates the Fourth Amendment. More such holdings may follow, because modern ALPR systems have the potential to pervasively track people’s movements and facilitate police abuse in ways the Supreme Court has already declared unconstitutional.
Why Report Cyber Incidents Anyway?
Jason Healey argues that cyber reporting regulations should spell out the specific policy purposes each incident report serves to promote regulatory harmony. Healey outlines a decision-support framework which sorts reporting purposes into three categories: government knowledge of incidents, government knowledge of vulnerabilities and threats, and key stakeholder knowledge of incidents. Healey concludes that this structure can reduce inconsistent reporting regulations by determining which particular issue regulation seeks to address.
Regulators should have such a decision support tool in front of them, so that they can consider a wide range of information needs and select which their regulation is trying to solve. Much of the information that regulators say they need is often available from other sources than mandatory reporting. Would-be regulators should then look to see if the requirement can be met through nonregulatory measures—such as just taking out a credit card to buy it. Only then should they decide on regulations, assign an appropriate timeline, and fine-tune information fields.
China Views U.S. Foreign Aid Retrenchment as a ‘Historic Opportunity’
Viola Rothschild details how China, following the dissolution of the U.S. Agency for International Development, sees foreign aid retrenchment as a historic opportunity to cautiously move forward and reap the rewards of U.S. withdrawal. Rothschild notes that Chinese analysts remain wary of rushing through this window of opportunity and explains turbulence in the foreign aid sector as a microcosm of shifts in international power.
Yet even as they identify a window of opportunity, Chinese analysts are wary of rushing through it. Scholars largely agree that the international foreign aid regime is entering a “painful period of restructuring” and assess that Beijing should not plow headlong into the vacuum Washington has left behind. The prescription that emerges is a familiar one in a system that heavily favors stability: Brace for short-term turbulence, double down on perceived strengths, and proceed with caution.
Podcasts
On Tuesday’s Lawfare Daily, Kevin Frazier sits down with Roberto Tallarita to discuss Anthropic’s recently filed s-1, the company’s experiment in corporate governance, and how to maintain a commitment to safety precautions even when that is in tension with profit.
On Thursday’s Lawfare Daily, Justin Sherman sits down with Oscar Jonsson to discuss the origins and evolution of the Russian General Staff, its role in the early Putin system amid reforms and power consolidation, the General Staff’s role—or lack thereof—in Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014, and the future of Russian military thought and planning.
Today’s #BeastOfTheDay is the lion cub, seen here bouncing:
In honor of today’s Beast, do some deep breathing exercises.