The Rule O’ Law Roundup, May 11, 2026

This is me.

Good Evening:

I’m not really sure why this image exists. It showed up as some kind of ad on my LinkedIn feed. I wasn’t interested in whatever product it was advertising, but I was interested in the Venn diagram, as it describes me rather precisely. So yes, this is me.

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Wednesday on #DogShirtTV, the estimable Holly Berkley Fletcher and I discussed various strategic perspectives:

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Recently On Lawfare

Compiled by the estimable Marissa Wang

The Legal Limits of Urban Infrastructure Bombardment

Miro Sedlák and Milan Turaj examine the limits imposed by international humanitarian law on targeted strikes. Using the 1999 NATO air campaign over Kosovo and recent conflicts, the pair show how aggressors push the limits of legality in large-scale infrastructure attacks by considering interconnected infrastructure as a single target system, rather than individually assessing each of its components as discrete targets.

Modern international humanitarian law imposes strict conditions on such an approach, replacing system-level targeting logic with object-level legal obligations. Even where dual-use infrastructure is present—and it almost always is—the framework demands granular discrimination, individually articulated military advantage, and feasible precautions for each attack. This article clarifies those legal conditions, stress-tests them against the NATO air campaign over Kosovo in 1999, and considers implications for contemporary urban warfare.

Drone Threats Are Evolving; Data Retention Rules Are Not

Philip W. Rohlfing argues that new limits on data retention are undermining U.S. national security efforts to counter evolving drone threats. Rohlfing contends that Congress should allow for limited retention for defensive purposes so agencies can better detect and respond to the emerging drone threat without weakening privacy protections.

In response, Congress has granted the Department of Defense counter-UAS authorities, most notably in 10 U.S.C. § 130i. That provision authorizes the Defense Department, notwithstanding any other applicable criminal statutes, to detect, identify, monitor, track, and mitigate threats posed by UAS to covered facilities and assets located domestically. From the outset, these authorities were deliberately narrow and designed to operate alongside long-standing domestic surveillance and privacy protections. Over time, the practical operation of these authorities came to rely on limited retention of UAS-related data to support, among others, countermeasure evaluation and pattern recognition.

However, subsequent amendments to § 130i, most recently in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2026, have narrowed both the purposes and the duration for which the Department of Defense can retain certain lawfully acquired records of communications intercepted from UAS and data derived from them, including command-and-control links, telemetry, and associated signal characteristics. Motivated by legitimate concerns regarding privacy, oversight, and the domestic use of military capabilities, these changes replaced a broad, function-based retention framework. The result is a more restrictive, categorical regime that is poorly equipped to confront how modern UAS threats manifest domestically.

Read Testimony Heard by the Trump Grand Jury in Fulton County

Anna Bower shares 61 transcripts and excerpts of testimony heard by the Fulton County special purpose grand jury in 2022 to investigate whether President Trump and his allies had illegally interfered in the 2020 presidential election. These transcripts were obtained by Lawfare and have been hidden from public view—until now.

Today, Lawfare is publishing 61 transcripts and excerpts of testimony heard by the Fulton County special purpose grand jury. The documents, obtained by Lawfare, were part of the investigative file assembled in the sweeping racketeering case that Willis ultimately brought against Donald J. Trump and 18 co-defendants in August 2023. The case faltered in 2024 after the Georgia Court of Appeals disqualified Willis from the prosecution. A newly appointed prosecutor subsequently declined to pursue the charges.

Following dismissal of the case, the presiding judge, Scott McAfee of the Fulton County Superior Court, lifted a protective order that had prohibited lawyers involved in the case from disclosing certain materials produced during discovery.

The grand jury transcripts offer the most detailed insight yet into the evidence that Willis’s office would have presented against Trump and his co-defendants had the case reached trial. Among the documents published today are transcripts of testimony given by Lindsey Graham, the senior senator from South Carolina; Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state who refused Trump’s entreaties to “find” 11,780 votes; Brian Kemp, the Georgia governor who refused Trump’s request to convene a special legislative session to reconsider the state’s election results; and Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City who was indicted alongside Trump.

The Dangerous Failure to Hold Hamas Accountable for Using Human Shields

Orde Kittrie argues that the failure of international authorities to address Hamas’s continuous use of human shields—which constitutes a war crime under international law—weakens these institutions’ legitimacy, undermines the law of armed conflict, and creates incentives for terrorist groups and authoritarian militaries to use similar tactics in future conflicts.

During its war with Israel in Gaza, Hamas has used human shields—a war crime under international law—not only incessantly but also systematically and strategically, as a core part of its planning and goals. Hamas has committed this war crime by systematically embedding its fighters, command infrastructure, and weapons within civilian areas, including in a 300-mile military tunnel network under and into civilian buildings; by persistently firing from civilian buildings; by systematically using hospitals to conceal and support military operations; and by intentionally exposing Gaza’s civilians to danger by discouraging and preventing their evacuation from battle zones.

Despite these incessant, systematic, and strategic violations, Hamas’ commission of the war crime of using human shields has been entirely disregarded by the hundreds of pages of Gaza war resolutions, reports, and judicial opinions of the United Nations, the International Criminal Court (ICC), and the International Court of Justice (ICJ). While persistently ignoring Hamas’ prolific use of human shields, these international institutions have regularly blamed Israel for casualties foreseeably resulting from those Hamas violations.

The Incentive Architecture Export Controls Cannot Reach

Charles Sun examines how the U.S.’s strategy of restricting Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) chip exports may unintentionally strengthen China’s AI ecosystem by increasing foreign firms’ dependence on state-subsidized domestic infrastructure and incentives. Sun explains that while export controls restrict supply, they fail to address the deeper “demand-side” system of subsidies, regulation, and state alignment that drives Chinese AI development.

The U.S. debate over how to respond to China’s artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities contains a structural blind spot that neither side has engaged. The most commonly proposed response, tighter export controls, does not merely fail to disrupt the Chinese incentive system that drives AI capability acquisition. It strengthens that system, by deepening the resource dependence that motivates firms to align with the Chinese government’s priorities in the first place. The policy tool designed to constrain capability acquisition simultaneously reinforces the system that motivates it.

Law and the Iran War, After the First 60 Days

Scott R. Anderson argues that the Trump administration is pressing the War Power Resolution’s limits by claiming pauses in combat with Iran reset the law’s 60-day deadline, allowing military operations to continue without the required formal congressional authorization.

The U.S. war in Iran turned 60 days old this past week. It’s a milestone that’s more than just symbolic. Pursuant to the 1973 War Powers Resolution, federal law generally requires the president to “terminate any use of [U.S.] armed forces” within 60 days of them being “introduced… into hostilities” unless such use has been authorized by Congress. As Congress has provided no authorization for the conflict in Iran, one might expect the Trump administration to have wrapped up its operations in theater.

But the administration has done no such thing. Instead, in a letter to Congress this past Friday, May 1, President Trump argued that the administration had already complied with the War Powers Resolution’s 60-day cut-off. “There has been no exchange of fire between United States Forces and Iran since April 7, 2026,” the letter asserted, flagging the date on which Trump “ordered a 2-week ceasefire” that “has since been extended.” Hence, in the Trump administration’s view, “[t]he hostilities that began on February 28, 2026”—the day when Operation Epic Fury against Iran began—”have terminated[,]” satisfying the War Powers Resolution’s requirements.

The Politically Motivated Indictment of Southern Poverty Law Center

Christopher Hardee writes that the Department of Justice’s prosecution of the Southern Poverty Law Center for federal fraud charges is politically motivated and legally unsubstantiated. Hardee frames the investigation as part of the Trump administration’s broader effort to target left-leaning organizations while downplaying far-right extremism.

On April 21, 2026, the Justice Department announced a wire and bank fraud indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a prominent civil rights organization. In the 1980s, the SPLC helped dismantle the Ku Klux Klan through civil litigation. After that success, the SPLC aggressively tracked the KKK and other violent hate groups, informing the public of how the groups operate and serving as a trusted resource for law enforcement. When the SPLC expanded its public lists of hate groups in the 1990s to include conservative organizations that the SPLC concluded advocate intolerance, even if they do not advocate violence, some conservative groups began to criticize it. The SPLC has also listed a few groups that are not on the right but that the SPLC says advocate hate, such as the New Black Panther Party.

The Justice Department is attacking a leading adversary of violent hate groups by accusing it of secretly supporting the very groups the organization has opposed for decades. Prosecuting a group that the far right opposes by accusing the group of supporting the far right makes this one of the most cynical criminal cases ever brought by the Department of Justice. Whatever one’s view about the SPLC labeling non-violent conservative organizations as hate groups, that is not a crime.

Proceedings of the 2025 Workshop on Law-Following AI

In the latest edition of Lawfare’s Research Paper series, Cullen O’Keefe, Christoph Winter, Matthijs Maas, and Janna Tay introduce a report from the inaugural Workshop on Law-Following AI, in which scholars explored how artificial intelligence (AI) systems could be better designed to refuse illegal actions and comply with legal standards.

The inaugural Workshop on Law-Following AI (LFAI), hosted by the Institute for Law & AI at the University of Cambridge from August 6–8, 2025 with support from the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence and the UK’s Advanced Research & Innovation Agency, convened more than forty scholars from law, computer science, and related disciplines to advance the emerging research agenda around LFAI: a concept denoting agentic AI systems designed to refuse illegal orders and illegal means, the corresponding policy proposal to mandate such design in certain deployment contexts, and the interdisciplinary field of inquiry that supports both. Rather than recording consensus, these proceedings synthesize key themes from the workshop’s presentations and discussions, including the promises and limits of liability (particularly for governmental AI agents), the state and nuances of automated legal reasoning and evaluation, risks posed by automated compliance and “perfect enforcement,” the appropriate standard of care for AI agents, and the interplay between AI agents and their principals, including fiduciary framings. The report is intended to extend the workshop’s conversations to a broader audience and catalyze further scholarship on LFAI’s design, evaluation, and governance. A full list of report authors can be found at the end of this document.

Mythos Fallout, U.S. Government Weighs AI Model Regulation

In the latest edition of the Seriously Risky Business cybersecurity newsletter, Tom Uren unpacks the Trump administration’s proposal to apply stricter oversight to American AI models, Australia’s newly launched cyber incident review board, and more.

The Trump administration is considering applying stricter oversight to American artificial intelligence (AI) models due to their cybersecurity impact. However, before pulling the trigger on strict and inflexible regulation, we believe the government should spend a little time watching and learning.

This apparent shift from the administration’s light touch AI regulation has reportedly been driven by concern about the hacking capabilities of frontier models.

Documents

Peter Beck shares the Trump administration’s 2026 Counterterrorism Strategy memo, which lays out the administration’s plan to monitor and counter what the White House identified as the three major types of terror groups: narcoterrorists and transnational gangs, Islamist terrorist organizations, and violent left-wing extremists.

Podcasts

Lawfare Daily: Patrick Radden Keefe on ‘London Falling’: Peter Beck sits down with Patrick Radden Keefe to discuss Radden Keefe’s new book, “London Falling,” which centers on his investigation of a London teenager’s fatal plunge into the Thames.

Lawfare Daily: An Insider’s Account of the Trump Administration’s Dismantling of USAID: Nicholas Enrich joins Anna Hickey to discuss Enrich’s new book, “Into the Wood Chipper: A Whistleblower’s Account of How the Trump Administration Shredded USAID,” which shares an internal perspective of the agency’s dismantling during the early months of President Trump’s second term.

Rational Security: The “I’ve Never Done THAT Before!” Edition: Scott R. Anderson sits down with Tyler McBrien, Roger Parloff, and Molly Roberts to discuss the Trump administration’s second indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, the 60-day mark of the ongoing Iran War, the administration’s national security justifications for the White House ballroom construction project, and more.

Lawfare Daily: The Supreme Court’s Long Shadow with Steve Vladeck and Kate Klonick: Kate Klonick sits down with Steve Vladeck to discuss the impact of the New York Times’s “shadow papers” story, the omnipresent Supreme Court shadow docket, and the differences between “the courts” and “the Court” in the Trump administration.

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Today’s #BeastOfTheDay is the giant Steller sea lion, seen here being large:

AP News reports:

An intrepid sea lion nicknamed Chonkers is waddling his way into the hearts of tourists and locals who have flocked to San Francisco’s Pier 39 for a glimpse of the massive pinniped.

On Thursday morning, visitors snapped photos as the Steller sea lion flopped on the pier, surrounded by dozens of much smaller California sea lions that call the docks home…

Chonkers has been spotted at the docks early in the morning but is harder to pin down during the rest of the day, Gill said. She said it is endearing to watch him try to snuggle with the regular sea lions for warmth and it will be interesting to see if other Steller sea lions follow suit.

“He’s trying to fit in, but he sticks out like a sore thumb,” she said.

In honor of today’s Beast, don’t be afraid to take up space.

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The Rule O’ Law Roundup, May 11, 2026

• Danco Laboratories, LLC v. Louisiana, No. 25A1207 (and GenBioPro, Inc. v. Louisiana, No. 25A1208) (Supreme Court)

The mifepristone litigation flagged last week as moving toward an emergency stay application has now generated one.

Recall that on Friday, May 1, a unanimous Fifth Circuit panel granted Louisiana a nationwide § 705 stay of the Food and Drug Administration’s 2023 amendment to the Mifepristone Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies, reinstating the in-person dispensing requirement and reinstituting, in effect, the pre-2023 distribution regime. Within hours, Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro filed separate emergency stay applications at the Supreme Court directed to Justice Alito as circuit justice for the Fifth Circuit.