The apparent terror attack at Naval Air Station Pensacola spurs a debate among our panelists about whether the FISA Section 215 metadata program deserves to be killed, as Congress has increasingly signaled it intends to do. If the Pensacola attack involved multiple parties acting across US borders, still a live possibility as we talked,… Continue Reading
Tag Archives: Section 230
Episode 287: Plumbing the depths of artificial stupidity
Posted in International, RussiaThe Foreign Agent Registration Act is having a moment – in fact its best year since 1939, as the Justice Department charges three people with spying on Twitter users for Saudi Arabia. Since they were clearly acting like spies but not stealing government secrets or company intellectual property, FARA seems to be the only… Continue Reading
Episode 283: Is intelligence “reform” a self-licking ice cream cone and compliance trap?
Posted in Cybersecurity and Cyberwar, International, Privacy Regulation, Security Programs & PoliciesOur interview is with Alex Joel, former Chief of the Office of Civil Liberties, Privacy, and Transparency at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Alex is now at the American University law school’s Tech, Law, and Security Program. We share stories about the difficulties of government startups and how the ODNI carved… Continue Reading
Episode 282: Has China opened a quantum hype lead over the US?
Posted in China, InternationalOur interview is with Sultan Meghji, CEO of Neocova. We cover the large Chinese investment in quantum technology and what it means for the United States. It’s possible that Chinese physicists are even better than American physicists at extracting funding from their government. Indeed, it looks as though some quantum tech, such as the… Continue Reading
Episode 273: What it’s like to live through a big data breach
Posted in China, Data Breach, European Union, InternationalToday, I interview Frank Blake, who as CEO brought Home Depot through a massive data breach. Frank’s a former co-clerk of mine, a former Deputy Secretary of Energy, and the current host of Crazy Good Turns, a podcast about people who have found remarkable, even crazy, ways to help others. In addition to his… Continue Reading
Episode 258: The death of Section 230
Posted in CFIUS, China, International, RussiaOur News Roundup leads with the long, slow death of Section 230 immunity. Nick Weaver explains why he thinks social media’s pursuit of engagement has led to a poisonous online environment, and Matthew Heiman replays the astonishing international consensus that Silicon Valley deserves the blame – and the regulation – for all that ails… Continue Reading
Episode 241: “You’ll never know how evil a technology can be until the engineers deploying it fear for their jobs”
Posted in International, Security Programs & PoliciesI propose this episode’s title as Baker’s Law of Evil Technology, something that explains Twitter’s dysfunctional woke-ness, Yahoo’s crappy security, and Uber’s deadly autonomous vehicles. Companies with lots of revenue can afford to offer a lot of stuff they don’t much care about, including protection of minority voices, security, and, um, not killing people…. Continue Reading
Steptoe Cyberlaw Podcast – Interview with Paul Rosenzweig
Posted in China, Cybersecurity and Cyberwar, Data Breach, International, Privacy Regulation, Security Programs & PoliciesEpisode 60 of the Cyberlaw Podcast features Paul Rosenzweig, founder of Red Branch Consulting PLLC and Senior Advisor to The Chertoff Group. Most importantly he was a superb Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy in the Department of Homeland Security when I was Assistant Secretary. Paul discourses on the latest developments in ICANN, almost persuading me… Continue Reading